What mobile means for business journalism

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.