Number of investments in startups in Israel rises very quickly. The country becomes a strong startup hub. Just like all over the world, the move to digital media with strong technology focus can be also seen in Israel.

Key trends:

• publishers are becoming brands
• video, video, video
• search for new monetization methods: e-commerce, new forms of advertising, better targeting
• personalization
• growing value of the creative

Video is the new wave: low cost to produce, rising generation is much happier to consume video than text.

Tablets are also a great area of interests due to their beautiful UI and algorithmic content aggregation, what is nothing else but social, personal, and collaborative filtering.

ialbums is an example of an Israeli application for tablets. It works in a similar way to Flipboard, but it aggregates content from different music albums: pictures, lyrics etc. It aggregates the content from the publishers to the final user. iAlbums is a cool app showing useful and nerdy facts about the artists and music users listen to.

Content discovery and recommendations from Israel:

• also algorithmics but focused on site
• news videos movies
• new type of revenue stream
• publishers are advertisers and advertisers are publishers
• improves metrics.

Example – Outbrain application, very strong in US.  It is helping readers discover interesting content.

Smart TV is the next big trend in Israel. They are waiting for Apple TV, although the iPad already paved the way. Unlike iPad, the big CE players have a lot to lose (and they are not great at SW). The TV is going to be something like a big iPad on users’ wall.

Appside is a good example of a TV app. It works like an appstore, but consists of videos and TV content. At the moment it has mainly games now but sports and other publisher content will follow.

Video and video advertising are the final big trends. Everything in Israeli digital media is moving to video. Automatic video creation / edition makes it possible. There are new types of video ads: overlay, personalization, in-scene. Simultaneously aggregation of all trends is noticeable: iPad, smart TV, recommendations.

Example of an application: eyeview

In today’s fluid business landscape, magazine media companies are confronted by complex decisions about where to invest in order to develop their brands and audiences. Consumers have more choice of both content and platform and are consequently more fickle. Advertisers have more alternatives too, including becoming media brands in their own right. How should a media owner respond? Mark Wood, the CEO of magazine media company Future CEO shares the strategies and approaches of his company.

What Future is doing to become a digital business?. So far they own:

• 80+ magazines
• 70+ iPad editions
• 50+ websites

Future is evolving to digital business.
The revenues from digital are up: 41% growth last quarter what sums up for 17% of total revenues. They have 34 millions unique users per month.

• 55 titles on Apple Newsstand on 12 october 2011, 70+ today,’
• 11 million downloads of Future container apps
• 5 million opt-in to receive their marketing

The challenges all publishers are facing today are:

• print markets decline
• advertising migrates
• how to transition a print business to digital business before print declins blow up the traditional media companies

The strategy for Future is finding a value of niche audiences in a digital world. It is all about building business around high value audiences and engaging passionate audiences. It is always worth to bear in mind that niches are resilient, attractive to advertisers, and global.

Future wants to build a borderless business. Its strategy is:

• produce great content produceds by experts
• gather engaged audiences who are passionate and loyal
• find potential of new audiences worldwide
• show world class digital skills in development, SEO, and publishing

Going global, and engaging new audiences means growing new revenues. Future tries to customize their products first for American market and then go on and see how customization for other markets work.

Revenue model has changed. Before, the brand was built on print newsstand, print advertising, print subscription (traditional). New revenue model adds many new features, such as: licensing and syndication, online advertising, mobile advertising, e-commerce, apps, digital edition sales, paywall content, data revenue, events, affiliate partnerships and video advertising.

There are 2 tracks nowadays to digital future: online and mobile (tablet / smartphones). People expect smartphone websites to be free. On tablets people pay for news, and this is what’s changing the digital world.

Tablet revolution is here:

• iPad and other tablets people are willing to pay for content
• iPads have reinvented the magazines
• 12 October 2011 (rise of Apple’s Newsstand) was the Revolution Day for publishing industry because of multiplying hundred times the volume of sales for magazine publishers

Future believes in its development on Apple’s iPad:

• 70+ Future titles
• over half million sales since launch
• 40% sign up for subscription

T3 is UK’s best selling iPad magazine. Total app downloads reached 300 thousands. Here’s how the application looks like:

T3’s record circulation is 70,5 thousands

The iPad edition is very effective:

• over 4000 users clicked the link for more
• 11800 unique users viewed the cover wrap video

What Future has learnt so far:

• some surprising success stories
• titles need to mean something to target audiences
• 80 percent of sales outside the home market
• biggest markets: US, UK, Germany, France, Australia, China, Korea
• integrated workflow is vital

Future is doing this all without any addtional staff. This is a breakthrough for the publisher. And they are still launching magazines. New ways of launching – prelaunch with blogs, websites, facebook and twitter to build the market before the launch. Every new magazine is a digital brand through websites, tablets, mobile, facebook and twitter.

It’s a culture change – business has to change, and everyone is behind that change. This is not a a magazine business used to look like – this is how magazine business has to look like in order to survive.

The conference taking place on November 13th and 14th in Oxford is going to focus on finding an answer to the two most important questions for newsmedia publishers nowadays: How to Re-invent Newspapers and Magazines in the Digital Age? Where’s the Money & How Do We Get There?

Below please find the programme of the event and make sure you check THIS SITE for details

PROGRAMME

November 13th (Sunday)
7.15 pm Wadham College
Traditional Oxford Welcome
College Dinner & Discussion

November 14th (Monday)
St Anne’s College
WELCOME: Provocative speech form David Levy

08.30 am Coffee

MORNING HOW TO REINVENT OUR TITLES

First Session Juan Antonio Giner & Spiros Polikandriotis
DIGITAL FIRST DOES NOT MEAN DIGITAL ONLY. (Juan Antonio Giner)
DESIGN IS CONTENT! How to reinvent newspapers and magazines for the digital age through content-driven redesign. Ten dos and don’ts. (Spiros Polikandriotis)

Second Session Chiqui Esteban & Deborah Withey
THE NEW DIGITAL NARRATIVES. The new storytelling techniques and genres that print newsrooms should master to engage with new audiences.
Q&A (Deborah Withey)

Third Session Javier M. Zarracina, Pedro Monteiro & Deborah Withey
THE RISE OF THE APPS. How to desing for the eyes and the fingers.
Q&A (Deborah Withey)

13.00-14.00 Lunch

AFTERNOON WHERE’S THE MONEY?

Fourth Session Carlo Campos
THE NEW REVENUE MODELS FOR NEWSPAPERS IN PRINT AND BEYOND PRINT.

Fifth Session Nic Newman
HOW TO MONETIZE SOCIAL MEDIA AND ENGAGEMENT.

Sixth Session John Wilpers
HOW MAGAZINE PUBLISHERS ARE PROFITING IN A DIGITAL AGE.
INNOVATIONS IN MAGAZINES.

Tea Time HOW DO WE GET THERE?

Seventh Session Nat Low
THE PRINCIPLES AND MODELS OF INTEGRATION.

Final Session Juan Señor
THE NEW WORKFLOWS AND NEWSROOMS OF THE DIGITAL AGE.
Closing and takeaways.

The old business model is dead, publishers have to embrace the new opportunities. Publishers have to embrace the journalism to make sure the business survives. They have to embrace the technology to keep going – said Chris Ahearn during the last Thursday’s session at the World Editors Forum.

Chris Ahearn does not believe in the rumours of the doom of press. He introduced himself as the recovering paperboy. He understands the media business and agrees that publishers should drive demand and re-engineer costs. The key words are the subscribers.

Publishers have to give more utility, and more uniqueness in order to go on. They ought to ask themselves a question, whom are they serving. Whatever the platform is (print, mobile, tablet), there is the branded relation with the users – so think content first. And always think about the reader.

It is true that iPad is a game changer. 200 apps are downloaded from AppStore every second. We have never seen technology being adopted so fast on the consumption level. But iPad is not everything. It is still just another platform.

According to Chris Ahearn, 2010 is not yet the breakthrough year. It’s not the iPad or any other tablet, but the entire ecosystem that is changing: it is the entire 3G technology, smartphones, and tablets that scatch the future before the news publishing industry. The list of devices is long, and not each one will survive, nor they should.

New is not necessarily the end of the old. iPad nor web are not something that will kill printed newspapers. He doesn’t believe that people pay for content – they pay for experience. This is why iPad might be a game changer in the discussion about paywalls. Users will pay for experience and uniqueness. Applications are going to be crucial in the transition of the media world as apps are changing the way information is consumed.

But he desn’t believe in Chris Anderson’s words that web is dead, he thinks that Wired’s editor in chief is dead wrong.

What he thinks publishers should do:

• differentiate,
• package,
• invest in differentiation and brand.

Loyalty, convenience, access and discovery are the advantages of an app world. Journalism needs to fundamentally change – we need a new content platform for the professional news industry. It is not said yet, that iPad will be that platform.

The mixture of stories, technology and emotions in media means money – revenue that media companies are so desperately seeking online nowadays.

Even though the iPad has not yet officialy launched in Denmark, Annemarie Kirk says, her company is already ready and well prepared for it. Berlingske Media already built an application for iPad, and did it with a shoestring budget and a very small team of people. The recipe is to find talented and goal oriented people in the newsroom, people who have a fresh view on global trends, and get them to work. Existing skills should not be forgotten – the iPad application was designed by a graphic with a long time work experience. The iPad will consist of a mixture of online and offline content, and will be exported to the app through the semi-automated process. The app is now awaiting approval from the App Store.