Tag Archives: Forbes
What mobile means for business journalism
by Chris Roush
Lewis Dvorkin, the chief product officer at Forbes, writes about how delivering business news content in a variety of ways can help publications.
Dvorkin writes, “Journalism in the digital era requires disruptive business models. Dispensing with satellite transmission and truck delivery in favor of wi-fi on planes may be part of it. So is finding a scalable model for publishing quality content that satisfies the voracious appetite of digital news consumers. Then you have to match the cost of producing it with what marketers are willing to pay. Most traditional media companies still struggle with century-old, bureaucratic editorial processes better suited for older technology. Many romantically cling to high-cost newsrooms built for a different economic and advertising climates.
“FORBES has spent two years reinventing timeworn news systems for today’s technology. We’ve had solid success. That doesn’t prevent many fitful nights, largely because I know we must think even harder to keep up with the speed at which consumers are shifting to mobile. And if we need to do that, so do marketers and their ad agencies. Here’s a look at the state of play:
“The Growing Mobile Audience: In the good-problem-to-have department, our mobile audience is racing ahead — onsite and offsite. On Forbes.com, 25% of our 33 million monthly users (Omniture) access the site with smartphones and tablets. In August, mobile visits were up 200% from a year earlier. Perhaps most telling, Facebook visits from consumers using its mobile app soared 1,000% in the same period. Offsite, we attracted an audience on Flipboard last month that was up 400% from a year ago, rivaling our FORBES magazine subscription base. Driven by Android adoption, our flips were up 38% from the prior month, at 22 per reader.”
Read more here.
How Forbes writers follow the money
by KBlessing
Business journalists need to write strong beginnings to their stories to attract readers, said Forbes Media LLC vice president and investing editor Matthew Schifrin in conference call to review the essentials of business reporting for its contributors.
During the call, Schifrin, a Forbes veteran of 29 years, outlined the way Forbes online contributors should craft a great business story, and cover business in a way that is attractive for the online audience.
“It’s important that within the first four graphs, the reporter makes it clear why the reader should care about your post,” Schifrin said during the conference call from New York.
“Oftentimes, inexperienced journalists wait until the end of the story to give the conclusion. No one has time for that.”
In a world increasingly dominated by Twitter and social media, a reporter needs to focus on the headline and question whether it would make a reader click on the story. A post will often be grouped with five or ten other stories with a similar topic in Google or Yahoo News, and the headline is the one chance that a reporter has to lure potential readers to click on the link, Schifrin said.
Inside the Story
Inside of this link, Forbes works to provide fresh angles and ideas in its stories, and seeks to stand out from the redundancy on the web. Schifrin urged the Forbes contributors, who are often experts on their beats, not only to add value to the topic but also to provide new insights rather than merely “piling on” to the abundance of articles online.
Schifrin discussed the “Peter Lynch” approach to story ideas. Lynch is a money manager who says his strategy is to buy what you know. And as a reporter, writing about the familiar will often make a good post, Schifrin said.
Another way to find story ideas is to read obscure trade publications and niche websites. Another way that Schifrin encouraged is simply networking by picking up the phone or emailing sources and colleagues to pick their brains for potential story ideas.
“Forbes love taking a contrarian approach to topics,” Schifrin said. “If everyone is saying Apple is overvalued, well, maybe there is a side that believes it is actually a cheap stock at this point. But only write this view if it makes sense, not just for the sake of doing so.”
Other ways to form a business story that is attractive to readers, Schifrin said, is to tell the untold story or to add color to the story by focusing on the “head knocker,” such as a lead money manager or the chief executive officer. For contributing bloggers, Schifrin said, it is also encouraged to take a point of view, while being as fair and accurate as possible.
Crucial to Business Stories
A business story needs to display an understanding of how money is flowing within a company. The article should follow the money.
“I used to tell young journalists not to hand me a story unless they understood how the protagonist or antagonist made money and what the implications of this were,” Schifrin said.
Understanding the math of a story provides journalists a leg up from the many reporters who are apprehensive about numbers.
“Nothing detracts from credibility more than misspelled words or fudgy numbers,” Schifrin said. “You shouldn’t estimate revenue around $100 million if it is $126 million. It is more credible to have the exact number and date of when it was from.”
Sourcing
Schifrin reminded the contributors about the importance remaining credible by quoting sources in stories, and linking to company documents and websites that provide information cited in the story.
Schifrin warned of sources who may have a vengeance against a particular person or company, and told reporters to be cognizant of conflicts of interest.
“Good Forbes stories contain quotes or comments from the company, especially if it is a negative story,” Schifrin said. “You should always call to seek comment, and this isn’t done enough.”
For all stories, great reporting trumps great writing, Schifrin said.
“It is much more important that you are a great reporter and get the facts over being a great writer,” Schifrin said. “Especially on the web, readers want accurate information in short form. Don’t get lost in trying to make a post really colorful. Some of the most amazing reporters could dig out all kinds of facts, but couldn’t really write.”
How technology is changing business journalism
by Liz Hester
The Society of American Business Editors and Writers fall conference began in New York on Thursday with two lively panel discussions — but only after everyone had a couple of drinks at the opening reception sponsored by the Dedman School of Law at Southern Methodist University.
The first panel, “How Social is Changing the Media,” featured Martin Wolk, executive business editor, NBC News Digital; Lewis Dvorkin, chief product officer, Forbes Media; and Emily Friedlander Peck, managing editor, business, The Huffington Post.
Wolk kicked off the discussion by outlining NBC’s evolving strategy. One interesting tidbit: It gets about half its traffic on breaking news from mobile devices. NBC is active already on Facebook and Twitter, and is looking at Pinterest and Instagram as other places to increase its presence.
DVorkin, who is credited with reinventing Forbes digital which now relies heavily contributor content, said it is looking to reinvent the newsroom processes and build a sustainable model for journalism. His sites are “banking on the individual as a brand” as well as for each person to be accountable and accurate.
Forbes contributors can see how many people are reading and commenting on their posts every 15 minutes. They also have tools to integrate with social media. The idea is to create a new model that’s profitable and lucrative for the writers involved.
The Huffington Post web site also has constant feedback, enabling editors to shift resources according to reader response, Friedlander Peck said. She admitted that many people in the newsroom were “obsessed” with the data, but the site also pushed stories it thinks are important. It’s this balance of giving the audience what they want and also pushing stories that should be told that makes the site successful.
Friedlander Peck gave the example of David Wood’s stories on soldiers returning from war weren’t the most read, she said, but he ended up winning a Pulitzer since The Huffington Post continued to run and promote them.
Forbes has built a new concept in newsroom that includes data analysis and audience development, Dvorkin said. Top editors meet weekly to go over what readers are responding to and push stories through social media. A representative from the ad sales team is in the newsroom to help fulfill campaigns for spiking news.
“We want to produce relevant content. We only know it’s relevant if we look at the numbers and see where it’s going,” Dvorkin said. “Our expertise is content. What we’re trying to do is be good technology integrators.”
Forbes contributors are contractually required to respond to reader comments, helping drive the conversations. And they view all content the same – journalists, marketers, contributors – and it dynamically flows through the site. They’re also paid for building a loyal audience, so a contributor is paid more for return clicks.
At the Huffington Post, Peck said that contributor content looks different than staff content, but that it may be hard for readers to tell the difference. Staff reporters are more closely edited, while bloggers don’t receive the same level of editing.
For some in traditional newsrooms, the notion of having ad salespeople and markets contributing to a site may be controversial. But audience driven content is helping both sites sell ads and increase readership.
How Forbes became so digital
by Chris Roush
Adweek’s Charlie Warzel interviewed Forbes CEO Mike Perlis about the dramatic changes at the business magazine, including its focus on digital news and commentary.
Here is an excerpt:
Adweek: Critics of AdVoice will say that having 1,000 contributors to the site is can lead to sloppy journalism and create that “if you’ve got something to say, say it on the Huffington Post’ kind of eye-rolling. What does Forbes do to keep thought leadership while democratizing the platform?
In a world where content can be commoditized we create filters around our brand. We love the fact that we produce a successful magazine. Our 1,000 contributors are all hired, are vetted, are all on a compensation plan and all curated which is very different from ‘if you’ve got something to say, say it on the Huffington Post.’ Our model is, if you’ve got passion and expertise then apply for a position. We’ve really created more relevant content than we ever could have by carefully hiring people with more narrow and specific passions.
That’s a lot of content, though. How does Forbes keep track of it all?
I’m not suggesting we edit them like we edit a full-time staffer, but the most important decisions we make is at the point of our contributor hires. We can take things down as quickly as we get them started and we do when we need to. We’ve enhanced our full-time and freelance staff too, and a number of those people pay full time attention to the contributor space editing on a vertical-by-vertical level. We think the vibrancy of the platform is worth the extra time and energy. It’s not an easy thing to do and it’s all about this platform. Our content carries the Forbes name and our whole mantra is to put authoritative journalism at the center of the social media experience.
Read more here.
Forbes head: We are not a content farm
by Chris Roush
Rob O’Regan of emediavitals.com interviewed Forbes chief product officer Lewis Dvorkin about the business magazine’s online strategy.
Here is an excerpt:
On my recent characterization of Forbes as a content farm:
“We’re all about topic experts who are building their own individual brands around their expertise, their name and their knowledge. Within their expertise, they write what they want, when they want, and how they want. They are not assigned stories. We often make suggestions, but 90% of what they do is bringing their knowledge and expertise to a topic when they choose to do so.
“We vet these contributors very carefully – very much like [when] we hire a reporter. We check out their credentials, their work, we talk to people who know them. You can’t just be a Forbes contributor because you want to be. You have to be selected.
“Periodically, we’ll cull the 5% of contributors who [are underperforming] for one reason or another – quality, performance, frequency, consistency. We’ll end our relationship with them as contractually we are able to do.
“All of that is vastly different from what I understand a content farm to be, which is very SEO-driven, assignment-driven, post-driven, vs. building an audience around your brand.”
Read more here.
Forbes.com and its ad strategy
by Chris Roush
David Kaplan of AdExchanger.com interviewed Mark Howard, senior vice president of digital ad sales at Forbes, about how its revamped website is working in terms of selling ads.
Here is an excerpt:
As a company where the core product is still print, how does the online ad sales strategy reflect the needs of the established organization? Does Forbes have a single sales team or do you keep the two sides aware of each other, but otherwise separate and distinct?
Forbes has a team of integrated sales managers that are out in the marketplace that represent both platforms for us. We also have a team of digital sales managers that focus specifically on the digital.
What’s the approach to real-time bidding and programmatic buying? Does Forbes have a private exchange? And if so, do you primarily rely on those methods to fill remnant inventory?
We don’t view any of our inventory as being “remnant.” It is all about the same value, but we think about our business as having a two different channels, a direct channel and an indirect exchange channel.
We’ve invested heavily in beefing up our operations on the indirect side and have partnered very closely with Google and their DoubleClick Ad Exchange operation to create a much more robust offering and really taken an abundance mentality towards our indirect sales, meaning that we have opened up the marketplace, so that anybody can come in and bid on our inventory. It truly does create an open market and has proven to be very successful for us.
Read more here.
Forbes giving advertisers an editorial voice
by Chris Roush
Rob O’Regan, the editor of emediavitals.com, writes about how Forbes magazine is allowing advertisers to publish content on its website.
O’Regan writes, “Forbes has adopted the latter strategy with its 2-year-old AdVoice program. AdVoice allows marketers to publish blog posts directly to Forbes.com, where they compete for eyeballs with all other staff-written and third-party content. To date, 13 brands have participated in AdVoice (all as part of a larger media buy). Four more will launch within the next six weeks, and Forbes expects to have more than two dozen partners by year-end. Forbes plans to extend the program to video content in the fourth quarter.
“More than 10% of Forbes digital revenue comes from partners using the AdVoice platform, and Forbes expects that share to rise to 15% by the end of the year. (Overall, Forbes digital revenues have increased 28% through the first seven months of the year.)
“AdVoice is a way for Forbes to extend its evolving publishing model to advertising partners, who use the same platform and tools as Forbes’ editorial staff and other third-party contributors to publish their posts, said Lewis D’Vorkin, Forbes Media’s chief product officer.
“‘Just as we’ve built up a new editorial newsroom, we are building a mirror ‘brand newsroom,’ with the same discipline and the same skill sets,’ D’Vorkin said in a phone interview. ‘The difference is that personnel from the sales side – not the product or editorial side – are working with our AdVoice partners to educate them and advise them on how to publish.’”
Read more here.
Forbes CEO talks about its growth
by Chris Roush
Mike Perlis, chief executive officer of Forbes Media, talks with Bloomberg’s Adam Johnson about the global Forbes media web. They speak on Bloomberg Television’s “Street Smart.”
Forbes.com traffic hits record high in August
by Chris Roush
Lewis Dvorkin, the chief product officer at Forbes, writes Tuesday about the growth being experienced at the business magazine’s website.
Dvorkin writes, “Second, we bet that today’s news consumers viewed content as content — that journalists, the audience and marketers could all publish in the same environment with transparency and proper labeling. Those core principles are now the foundation for Forbes.com, which is as much a brand-building platform as it is a website.
“It’s working for our content creators, news consumers and the business.
“In FORBES’s new newsroom, we edit talent, then give talent the freedom to produce, program, market and promote their own content and pages. FORBES is the umbrella brand, and the clarity of our 95-year-old editorial mission holds the individual brands together. We now have 1,000 topic experts using our customized tools to post 400 times a day. They write the stories and the headlines, pick the relevant photos and videos for their posts, insert related links of their choosing (either theirs or those of other contributors, like I did above) and moderate their communities. Staff producers, an audience development team, data analysts and our technical team provide the support they need.
“FORBES.com has grown dramatically in the process. By February 2012, we had doubled our traffic from the year earlier (as measured by Omniture). This past July, monthly unique visitors to our site were up 70% from the year before. And last month, we hit record traffic of 33 million unique users. In the first six months of 2012, digital revenues were up 26%. FORBES magazine benefited, too, as we extended our brand across the social Web and to a generation more in sync with entrepreneurial capitalism than ever.”
Read more here.
Nine lessons from the Forbes.com remake
by Chris Roush
Dorian Benkoil of PBS’ MediaShift has nine lessons that have been learned from the overhaul of Forbes.com.
Here is one of them:
4. Give contributors ownership. Really
Long gone are the days of the traditional editorial flow in which a reporter files copy which is handed off to a series of editors, layout artists and fact-checkers.
Forbes’ content management system lets the same person produce and publish a story, then go in later to update or correct it. “The audience doesn’t want to be protected, they can protect themselves,” D’Vorkin told a media management seminar in New York in June.
While that can be risky, and Forbes has been called out on occasion for mistakes, D’Vorkin believes in letting contributors also be responsible for managing their communities and curating discussions their pieces generate in social media and elsewhere.
D’Vorkin also breaks ranks with most traditional publishers by letting contributors use their content elsewhere after it’s been published on Forbes’ website.
“I don’t believe in exclusivity. Ubiquity is the new exclusivity,” he told me at the seminar. Writers “can do whatever they want with it,” after they’ve published a piece on Forbes. “We win the game with SEO, anyway,” he said.
Read more here.
