Forbes gets half of its readers from mobile

Lewis Dvorkin, the chief product officer at Forbes, writes about how now more than half of the business magazine’s readers come from mobile.

Dvorkin writes, “I got one of those digital wake-up calls last week when my obsession with data turned to mobile traffic. In April, we had the same number of readers visit our home page via smartphone as we did the desktop. The same was pretty much true for our popular Billionaires List. We also delivered streams of headlines for mobile readers partly determined by their consumption patterns. Briefly, we even crossed the newest digital divide. During the first weekend of May, 51% of  visits were mobile — 39% smartphone, 11.5% tablet. What’s it all mean?  Monetizing the flow of content in a stream-based world is as critical as profiting from the article page itself.

“I’ve actually been focused on the flow for some time. It started at True/Slant, the startup I founded. Then, at FORBES, I’ve watched as news enthusiasts move across our magazine, its app and Forbes.com via desktop, tablet and now smartphones (cell phone usage was only 5% of our traffic four years ago). New insights came 10 months ago when we launched streams on Forbes.com, first on desktop, then on smartphones. Now, I see the content flow — mainly on phones — as a new opportunity to serve both consumers and marketers. If done right, editorial, native ads, marketing messages (text and video) and promotional elements can live together, even serve one other, all within the flow.”

Read more here.