Media

Reading List: Ziff Davis Thinks Print is Dead

October 27, 2011  •  3 min read | By Digiday Editors

Each day we provide a roundup of five stories from around the Web that our editors read and found noteworthy. Follow us on Twitter for updates throughout the day @digiday.

RIP Print: Ziff Davis Enterprise is making a bold move: it’s scrapping all of its print publications next year. The publisher of eWeek, Baseline and CIO Insight will instead focus on websites and apps. This is probably a smart move, although it’s a tremendous leap of faith that its titles will be able to attract comparable ad rates as digital-only publications. Right or wrong, print still gets a premium that online rarely does. Folio — Brian Morrissey @bmorrissey 
Zynga Restablizes: So Zynga is ok, for now. After a year or two of unabashed praise and admiration for its massive growth and ingenious business model (getting people to buy fake stuff), Zynga had taken some hits lately as it heads for what should be a massive IPO. There was talk of accounting problems and even more troubling, some of its top games seemed to have peaked. Plus, Suddenly an old school franchise like The Simms was beating Zynga at its own social game. But now, according to new numbers from AppData, Zynga’s title are again showing growth. Turns out that Facebook recently tweaked the way it counts active users, which impacted AppData’s Zynga numbers — which are now more stable. Seems like an awfully quick turnaround. Almost reminds you of when Web publishers complain about their ComScore or Nielsen numbers, and then they suddenly go back up. Business Insider — Mike Shields @digitalshields

Where MySpace Got it Wrong, Again: A year after News Corp’s failed attempt to relaunch MySpace — and three months after its subsequent sale to Specific Media — the unit’s ex-CEO Mike Jones has revealed his views on where the last-ditch effort went wrong for the once-dominant social network. The biggest mistake, Jones says, was retaining the MySpace brand. Despite the fact the product had changed, consumers’ views of it hadn’t, which ultimately killed its hopes of a turnaround. That, and a lack of focus on utility in favor of entertainment. CNN Money — Jack Marshall @JackMarshall

Networks Take to Twittering: Although cable channels have been leveraging viewers’ second screen involvement for some time, broadcast nets have been slower to embrace the new channels. Fox is looking to change that. Not only has the X Factor’s Simon Cowell, one of the program’s judges/producers, said that he reads and makes makes changes to the program based on fans’ tweets, but next week, when the program goes live, viewers will be able to tweet their votes. NYTimes — Anne Sherber @annesherber

A Pocketful of Data: Square is expanding its offerings in mobile payments in order to fend off the ever-intensifying challenge from the Google Wallet. Google Wallet has a rapidly expanding roster of retailers and mobile payment options, but its hindered by the fact that it’s only available on Android. Who will win this catfight? Google has data from search, and lots of it. Even if it can’t find a way to wrangle social search and data from its fledgling Google Plus effort and turn it into a mobile ecommerce empire,  Google is still in the lead in connecting to consumers in real-time. Google’s dominance in search – and its potential to sign up the bulk of major retailers and brands to the Google Wallet because of that dominance – means that Square will have to find a way to match Google’s massive data capabilities in order to not get left behind. Mobiledia n– Carla Rover @carlarover

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