Friday, February 19, 2016

Exhibitor News: Alma Media Corporation is live on Newscycle Advertising

NEWSCYCLE Solutions announces Alma Media Corporation is live on Newscycle's advertising management system for 171 of the group's online and print products.

Alma Media is a multimedia news company serving audiences in Finland, the Nordic countries, the Baltics and Central Europe. The Newsycle Advertising go-live includes 147 users across 35 Alma Media properties in 18 geographical ad production locations. LEARN MORE


Exhibitor News: iMoneza Introduces $1 Digital Wallet Funding

Lowest micropayment in the pay wall industry introduced at Mega-Conference

iMoneza, a paywall solution that integrates with publishers' current model to offer new, flexible revenue streams via micropayments and subscription models, introduces digital wallet funding starting at just $1.  This is the lowest micropayment in the paywall industry.
The approach was developed to better address the user experience and increase revenue opportunities for publishers.
"Paywall technology has been around since the late 1990s, yet it has not delivered revenue the way most publishers had hoped," said Mike Gehl, president and founder of iMoneza. "We believe that to ensure success, a stronger emphasis must be placed on the user experience. For example, offering individual articles alongside digital subscriptions and allowing users more flexible digital wallet funding options."
iMoneza is currently building a network of publishers nationwide. Registered users are able to access their digital wallet across all iMoneza partner sites. This one-account/one-click approach was introduced to provide a frictionless user experience.
In addition to this new digital wallet funding, iMoneza has a strong focus on the following pay wall features:
  • Managing print and digital subscriptions.
  • Flexible content pricing via micropayments.
  • Print-to-digital subscription linking to bring offline users online.
IMoneza will exhibiting at the Mega-Conference in Booth 214.

Sponsor News: SLP Strategic Alliance Welcomes Two Newspaper Revenue Generators


WAKE FOREST, North Carolina — Because newspapers not only need to save on improved processes but also profit from improved products, Southern Lithoplate (SLP) announced today that it is expanding the SLP Strategic Alliance platform to address the specific revenue needs and opportunities of newspaper companies. The two newest Alliance members are revenue enhancement specialists Creative Circle Media Solutions in East Providence, Rhode Island, and MWStange, LLC in Dayton, Ohio.

“As budget pressures continue to be a paramount concern, more and more newspapers seek to strengthen their revenue streams, rather than focus exclusively on slashing operational expenses,” said Steve Mattingly, senior vice president for SLP. “We continually look for strategic partners who bring value to our customers and align with our company goals and objectives. Working with these industry leaders gives our customers access to credible, experienced third parties who can identify areas that are not being viewed or targeted as potential revenue sources.”

Creative Circle is a consulting, training, design and software firm with a 30-year track record of helping media companies realize their revenue goals. A consistent innovator, the company has redesigned more than 550 print newspapers and magazines around the country and designed and built about 250 media-related websites. In addition, it has trained thousands of journalists, publishers and advertising staffers in 23 countries on a wide range of topics. Creative Circle’s full line of web software includes a user-oriented dynamic CMS, citizen journalism, classified advertising, hyperlocal, native news and reverse publishing solutions. 

“We have been saying ‘Print is not dead’ throughout the past 15 years, and folks are now beginning to listen,” said Bill Ostendorf, president of Creative Circle. “We encourage our clients to do more print, especially glossy local magazines or niche products for business, parenting or events. We have been able to grow print circulation of the newspapers we have redesigned recently by completely redirecting newsrooms to be more user-centric. It is all about story selection, writing style, headline writing and visuals, more than design changes themselves.”

MWStange, founded in 2013 by veteran newspaper advertising director Mark Stange, specializes in newspaper management, advertising sales and sales operations, and new business development. Stange spent 20 of his 35 years in newspaper advertising with Cox Enterprises, Inc., the last five in corporate executive roles. He is a seasoned leader with innovative ideas and the ability to communicate those ideas in an effective and approachable manner.

I am pleased to join forces with SLP to find unutilized sources of newspaper revenue,” Stange said. “Problems are not new to this industry, but the times raise the need to look at problems differently and come up with new solutions. This partnership will have far-reaching benefits and reach more newspaper companies with our strategic services for enhancing revenues.”

The SLP Strategic Alliance began offering programs to boost newspapers’ revenues in 2009 with the inclusion of Virtanza™ Sales Education and Job Placement (formerly HDS Premier Consulting) in Laguna Niguel, California. Virtanza provides management training, skills development, pricing and market assessment. The aim is teaching teams to sell campaigns tailored to local businesses.

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Post-Conference Event by Guarantee Digital in Austin: Digital Agency Best Practices

Wednesday, Feb. 24
11:30 a.m. - Noon
Room 301

Review team structure, compensation and best practice launch strategies. This 30-minute session is Part 3 of a three-part webinar series offered by Guarantee Digital.

This final session is being held LIVE at the Mega-Conference. There is no cost to attend.

For additional information, Guarantee Digital is offering access to recordings of two recent webinars with more information on this topic:

  • Digital Agency Overview: High-level overview of the revenue opportunity in every market and how some newspapers are taking best advantage.
  • Best-Selling Programs: Look at agency best practices and programs that are generating the most interest from merchants and $$ for media.
View these webinars at: http://guaranteedigital.com/news

Exhibitor News: Native meets classified with a revolutionary update of QuickAds


You can go native – times four – and you can resurrect classifieds. That's because when classifieds meet native in QuickAds from Creative Circle Media Solutions, the result is revolutionary.

"This is how we can recoup classifieds," said Creative Circle founder and president Bill Ostendorf. "And we should."
Ostendorf will unveil a slate of leading-edge solutions at next week's Mega-Conference in Austin, including:
  • mediasiteQ – a new release of mediasiteQ, a dynamic, easy-to-run website CMS platform.
  • NativeNewsQ – an expanded NativeNewsQ, which offers four ways to do native advertising.
  • PaywallQ – lower pricing on paywallQ
  • QuickAds – an upgrade to Creative Circle's award-winning web ad platform.
Learn More

Monday, February 15, 2016

Exhibitor News: A message from David Arkin, Senior Vice President of Content & Product Development, GateHouse Media



We're thrilled you're coming to Austin and this year's Mega-Conference. This is a city known for its great food and live music, and its rapidly-growing technology and creative community.

Austin is also home to GateHouse Media's Center for News & Design, a creative hub serving all GateHouse newspapers and websites, and now rapidly expanding and offering its large variety of services to other newspapers and commercial customers.

Stop by booth 706 when you get a chance. We'd love to talk more about the Center for News & Design and show you some of the great work underway there - now appearing in more than 100 non-GateHouse newspapers.

Before Mega-Conference, visit us at www.centerfornewsanddesign.com

See you soon!

Tuesday, February 9, 2016

News from Integration X


The Washington Post has upgraded its ADPOINT solution to version 6.6 to obtain additional savings in the ad ops department. New material requests and the HTML based customer portal are some of the new features that are available to The Washington Post for providing more self-service to their customers.

De Persgroep Nederland has moved its ADPOINT system from the Netherlands to its central Data Center in Belgium. In addition, ADPOINT is now used by all De Persgroep newspaper titles in the Netherlands.
Erdee Media Groep in the Netherlands will be debuting ADPOINT and PLANPOINT later this spring, becoming our first customer to use both solutions.

During the Mega-Conference, visit Integration X at Booth 305.