Fairfax in push to persuade readers to share data in exchange for better user experience
Fairfax will next month begin a major drive to persuade its online readers to share more information about themselves in exchange for a better online experience.
In a move that signals that data acquisition rather than paid content will be the main plank of Fairfax’s digital strategy, readers will be able to control such features as autoplay video and autorefreshed pages – so long as they are logged in.
Fairfax is pursuing the strategy because it will enable advertising to be more tightly targeted, which in turn generates a far higher advertising yield.
Jane Huxley, CEO and publisher of digital for Fairfax Media’s metro division told Mumbrella in an exclusive briefing that she aims for more than half of Farfax’s online readers to be logged in.
I certainly find the current autoplay videos very disempopwering.
But in serious, non-typo-pedantry, if Fairfax wants people to log in, a good first step would be to put an obvious login box in a consistent place across all its sites — I would suggest the right sidebar, close to the top of the page.
Currently, when I go to SMH.com.au and give it a quick glance over, I can’t see a login link anywhere.
The other thing I’d like as a user is the ability to customise the order of content. I’m really interested in SMH’s technology news. I’d like to move it up to be underneath the top headlines. Given the technology news are often the highest traffic items on SMH I can’t understand why they put it right down the bottom of the page (though perhaps it’s like how supermarkets put the milk and bread at opposite ends of the store… to get you to look over all the other stuff before you get there.)
And I’d like to disable sport altogether because I couldn’t give a toss about it.
Before all the nay sayers, say nay – lets all remember that this has been done quite effectively in the App-Store. Don’t want ads on Apps? Pay a small fee, or perform a specific action to make your experience better.
Users have been customising their logged in experiences for years. The main challenges for the business will be balancing the customer experience while battling feature-creep and ad-creep. i.e. ‘Well, we only invented this advertising spot yesterday so you couldn’t have opted-out’ – or not being able to opt-out to some advertising types in general.
Good way to go – (and perhaps they’ve also realised that people aren’t going to pay for restaurant reviews, the Travel, Drive and Domain sections)
What geniuses!
In other words, “we’ll constantly give you the shits unless you let us pry into your reading habits and sell your private information to others without your informed consent.”
Do they really think we are that stupid? Fairfax – come back to planet earth.
NEWSFLASH: Offline Publisher Gets Digital Strategy Right!
Rather than turning away the 95% who wouldn’t pay behind a paywall, get their data. Get them signed up to newsletters. Does logging in via Facebook achieve the same thing?
Next step? Payment in points to read certain premium articles. You earn points by doing on-site actions, filling out a survey, a single question when you login (itself basically a micropayment), clicking on certain ads etc, every time you share a link to a Fairfax site and your friends click on your links. Build up reward points every day you login, every time you open your emails from them.
Use reward points around all Fairfax properties (Including Drive, Stayz, RSVP etc) and save them up to buy (or get a discount) from their daily deals partner.
The free SMH iPad app is very good. I like it a lot, thanks Telstra and Amex. Just a shame that the landing page from the Telstra ads is not iPad optimised nor takes you to a particularly informative page, but the creative is nice. Amex ones are a bit useless with their usual compartmentalisation of products “Hey! Get a Gold card! Don’t worry that we’ve got 10 similar cards that might be best for you! The only option you have now you’re on the site is gold!”
Last year I received spam to the _unique_ email address I used exclusively for Fairfax websites (notably SMH). The incident appeared to be a breach of their subscriber database.
I emailed them asking for an explanation as to how this occurred and what steps they taking to secure my personal information. No response was received.
I decided there and then that I would no longer sign in to their sites. Today’s announcement doesn’t change my decision.
As for switching off the annoying autoplay, that is automatically off by default in the latest Internet Explorer (version 9). All add-ins such as Flash are disabled by default. I enable on a per page basis (if the story seems interesting enough).
Short story: no, I won’t be sharing any further data with you.
” Huxley said: “I rarely see advantage in going first because it’s very disempopwering for the audience.”” What on earth does that mean! It is nothing more than classic sophistry…People will always get away with spouting nonsense because very rarely do people turn round and say ‘ Ugh? What are you talking about?’ BS baffles brains…
So have we decided to admit that users hate videos autoplaying?
It’s been less than a year since users ‘overwhelmingly’ preferred it:
https://mumbrella.com.au/fairfax-video-pippa-leary-autorefresh-35878
this is seriously flawed – the issue with auto play primarily in this context is that it sells advertisers a bullshit product – an uninitiated stream which irritates the user.
FXJ response – keep auto playing unless they sign in. Hard to fathom – the logic there is ‘we can get higher extraction with user data so we will make more money. But for everyone else, we will serve untargeted uninitiated autoplay videos to people who don’t watch them nor want them.”
Market must be tough if they are afraid to make a stance on this. Lucky the agencies are so busy trying to be publishers themselves and make money from their clients on the side with their DSPs and other acronyms that they don’t really seem to care where the ad money is spent nowadays, as long as they have a forced cheap in with the key inventory suppliers via their backdoor DSP.
Old school publishers are licking their wounds. It is going to get worse for them. Anyone can publish these days. Anyone can broadcast and the start up costs are pennies.
I don’t want to log in to read the news. Before the internet popped up I never logged in for news. I might have bought a paper. I did watch the tv news and listen to the radio. I still listen to the ABC.
I agree with the autoplay bit. What on earth is that all about? If I want a video then give me the choice to see videos. If I click on a story under news, on a news website, I want an article.
Before a publisher drives hard to get people to login, give them a nice clear experience first. Tsk, tsk…
p.s. Fairfax are not focussing on the right area. Due to their size, might and interests, profit is their no 1 goal. This is going to trip them up.
There audience should be no 1. Treat them well and the traffic shall cometh and then the dollars…
Ole the times, they are a changin…
@wow factor
Missed out on a volume deal for next year have we? Cry me a river… The world ‘s changing
I can’t be a4sed with so many passwords. I’ll just read The Guardian. I will get my local stuff from abs and the abc… Fairfax and news online are not really getting it are they…
http://www.abc.net.au/news
Actual news when you want it
Here we go
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/
I was just clicking into an article on SMH to read about the transport issues this afternoon in Sydney. (Friday arvo.)
A movie trailer pops up and takes over the entire screen. I get some options “enter site” “watch trailer” I am lost (enter what site SMH, which I am already on..? Or do they mean the film companies site..?) I want to read the article..??!!!
Anyhow I went to ABC and had a play on Twitter too and got a nice rounded update on what is occurring.
Fairfax: Goodbye!