During the first weekend of May, more than half of visits to Forbes came through mobile, Lewis DVorkin wrote Monday for Forbes. What does that mean? If done right, it’s a place where journalism could actually make some money.
In some ways, Facebook and Twitter paved the way. Together, they buried the adage that ad agencies recited like lemmings: readers don’t scroll. Facebook now makes tons of money from smartphone scrolling. The trick for news outlets is how to construct a mobile flow with content modules. They must appeal to visitors, but also support video, sponsorships, interstitials, galleries and more. It’s not easy. It takes the right publishing tools, collaboration with the sales and marketing teams (perish the thought), and integration with an ad server. Maybe most challenging: getting editors to think like marketers of content, not simply creators.
