Media Insider: Al Jazeera’s Lessons From Snapchat, Bing Launches PubHub, and No Text for Future Facebook?
Welcome to Media Insider, PR Newswire’s round up of journalism, blogging and freelancing stories from the week.
Bing News Launches PubHub (Search Engine Land)
Bing has launched a new portal named Bing News PubHub, where “publishers can submit their news sites to Bing for consideration of inclusion in Bing News,” reports Search Engine Land. Bing will judge sites based on newsworthiness, originality, authority, and readability.
What Al Jazeera Has Learned Posting Snapchat Stories From 30 Countries (Digiday)
Al Jazeera English has been going all in on Snapchat, publishing from 30 countries over the last six months, Digiday reports. It continues: “The organization has been able to draw on its network of 80 global bureaus so now dozens of correspondents within the publisher’s TV teams are recording content for Snapchat.” Among the lessons it’s learned: Video views don’t translate to account growth, and more publishers are making it outside of Snapchat Discover.
The Newspaper Association of America is Shutting Down Its National Ad Sales Affiliate (Poynter)
The Newspaper Association of America is closing its national ad sales firm — Newspaper National Network — at the end of June, Poynter says. NAA Chief Financial Officer Robert Walden said in a recent memo that NNN is on course to lose $1 million-plus in the first half of 2016. National advertising has been a sore spot for regional newspapers for at least three years, Poynter says.
Twitter Invests in SoundCloud (SocialTimes)
Twitter reportedly invested some $70 million in music-streaming service SoundCloud. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey confirmed to Peter Kafka and Kara Swisher of Re/code that Twitter now owns part of SoundCloud, but he didn’t go into specifics, SocialTimes reports. Sources told Kafka and Swisher Twitter invested about $70 million as part of a financing round that should total approximately $100 million, which would put SoundCloud’s value at some $700 million, says SocialTimes.
Executive Says Facebook Will Be All Video, No Text in Five Years (Mashable)
A Facebook executive has predicted the platform will be all video in five years. Nicola Mendelsohn, Facebook’s vice president of European, Middle Eastern and African ops, said recently that in five years Facebook will be probably all video, Mashable says. While it sounds far-fetched, consider Facebook is decreasing emphasis on text and diving into video with recent updates and features.
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Christine Cube is a senior audience relations manager with PR Newswire and freelance writer. Follow @cpcube or check out her latest on Beyond Bylines on PR Newswire for Journalists.