Tag Archives: Ilicco Elia

#mobilemedia11: FT web-based iPad and iPhone app a ‘wake-up call’ to publishers

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The release of the Financial Times’ web-based HTML5  app has provided “a big wake up call” to publishers , said Andrew Grill, keynote speaker at the today’s Mobile Media Strategies day.

Earlier this month the FT released an HTML5-based iPad and iPhone app which circumvents the 30 per cent charges levied on app sales by Apple by allowing users to update content through the FT website and thus allowing the newspaper to take the full revenue.

The Economist is “watching closely” and Tom Standage, digital editor of the title, signalled it may follow suit.

“HTML5 will be the answer to all of our problems; even if it’s not yet,” predicted Ilicco Elia, a mobile product expert, who until yesterday worked for Reuters and is yet to announce where he will be working next.

Elia warned that “you can’t do everything in HTML5” and said it was a sensible option for the FT to launch in HTML5 compared with an unknown title. “It’s okay of you’re the FT because people know the brand in will go in search of it,” he explained.

Many publishers are now looking at the HTML5 hybrid: not a pure app, not a pure browser experience, said John Barnes, managing director digital strategy and development at Incisive Media, which works with B2B publishers. He explained the dilemma between developing apps when working with very different titles.

Barnes gave the example of two titles he works with: Legal Week, where 10.5 per cent of web visits are mobile, most of them accessing the site via a BlackBerry device. He urged the audience to compare this with Photography magazine which is mostly read on the iPad and iPhone.

During a session on how to make money with mobile media, Paul Lynette, head of mobile advertising at EMEA, Microsoft Advertising, showed the potential for in app ads using HTML5.

Thinking of developing an app, an mobile site or a HTML5 hybrid?

Considering the advantages of mobile editions (m.editions) versus apps versus the HTML5 hybrid, Barnes said the advantage of m.editions is they are browser-based and, therefore, provide full integration with a CMS, have the same domain name, integration with analytics and web trends.

And for news sites without an m.edition Elia gave a word of warning to the delegates of the event: “You should not be here if you don’t have an m.edition, you should be in the office coding.”

He warned there is “not a lot of margin in mobile” but it should be central to any online strategy.

Elia warned of the importance of listening to your audience. “You don’t have to be first when it comes to apps,” he said and suggesting it was better to spend more time developing a better app.

Barnes had a different suggestion to those thinking of creating an app: “Write the press release on the launch of an app before you build it. You’ll often realise it’s a crapp (crap app),” he said.

Journalism’s future at the Frontline: ‘The snails attacked us!’

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“Aagh, it’s the attack of the snails!” is how Kevin Anderson, digital research editor at the Guardian described the news industry’s reaction to revenue destroying online technology – just what were publishers doing in the mid-90s when the web was first growing, he asked.

Anderson, who describes himself as a digital native since the web’s earliest days, joined a panel of fellow digital enthusiasts at the Frontline Club last night to discuss the dreaded ‘future of journalism’ question: RBI’s head of editorial development, Karl Schneider; Peter Kirwan, media columnist; and Ilicco Elia, head of mobile at Reuters Consumer Media.

Kirwan commented how few of the audience actually paid for news. Anderson also played the sceptical card, pointing out how the Guardian was looking to Guardian Professional and events for alternative funding streams.

Anderson also flagged up the potential for social enterprise type start-ups and collaborative working groups, such as ‘newsroom’ cafes in the Czech Republic.

Karl Schneider – who talked about the value of journalism in providing specific business services – said that 60 per cent of RBI’s revenue comes from online. The industry was “too negative” about the scope for digital advertising, he added.

But the most practical tips of the night came from Ilicco Elia, in our breakout groups: if you’ve got a website, build a mobile site. Don’t make it complicated, make it as simple as possible. (If you want pointers,  he’ll no doubt be happy to help point you in the right direction: he’s @ilicco on Twitter.)

The crowd was as good value as the panel, with many of Journalism.co.uk’s favourite media bloggers: organiser Patrick Smith; Adam Tinworth from RBI; Kate Day, head of communities at the Telegraph; Martin Stabe, online editor at Retail Week;  and Jon Slattery… of the Jon Slattery Blog.

Excitingly we also had chance to spot the newbie Guardian beat bloggers (who later headed off for dinner with Guardian Local mentor/boss Sarah Hartley and new  colleague Kevin Anderson): Hannah Waldram (Cardiff); John Baron (Leeds) and Tom Allan (Edinburgh).

Those interested in continuing the discussion should check out the UK Future of News Group – and its regional nests, springing up over the UK (Brighton, South Wales and West Midlands, so far).

Infuze: Training freelancers in cross-platform journalism

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On Friday I was lucky enough to sneak inside the University of Central Lancashire’s (UCLAN) Sandbox – a space dedicated to ‘digital media R&D’.

I was there as part of the final day of Infuze – a joint training scheme from UCLAN and the BBC to retrain freelancers in multimedia journalism.

It was the first time the six-week course had been run (Journalism.co.uk reported on its launch back in January) and while course leader Paul Egglestone said there were some improvements to be made, he was pleased how far all participants had come in a short time.

Presentations from Ilicco Elia, head of mobile for Reuters, and videojournalist David Dunkley Gyimah gave all of us some food for thought, but mainly it was a great opportunity to chat with a group of freelancers facing the challenges of cross-platform journalism head on and hear about their experiences.

Only fair then to give them (and some of their newly founded websites ) a shout out (in no particular order):

Nazia Mogra – freelance broadcast journalist, now looking at the possibilities of newspaper video too.

Sean Smith – former print freelancer who turned his hand to broadcast journalism during the course. Smith said he’d learned that the ‘new skill is adopting a mindset of not being intimidated by tech that’s meant to be intuitive’.

Rumeana Jahangir – who is looking to develop a specialism on grassroots, community news and investigative work.

Emma Blackburn – freelancer broadcast journalist turned videojournalist during her course placement at Times Online.

Erisa Lluca – who having now set up her own website is determined to keep it going beyond Infuze.

Christina McDermott – or @misscay as shes known to her followers on Twitter, who discussed how she’s using social media as a freelancer (more from Christina on this later).

WAN Amsterdam (audio): Mobile is not emerging: it’s here and we know how to monetise it, say speakers at Digital Revenue Goldmine

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A range of mobile experts at the WAN World Digital Publishing Conference gave a more optimistic picture than at the AOP summit earlier this month, where speakers, including ITV’s head of mobile, said that we are still waiting for the year of mobile.

But in Amsterdam, just a few weeks later, that sentiment was turned on its head. That next year will be the year of mobile is what people have said each year for five years, said Ilicco Elia, head of mobile for Reuters. No, ‘it’s here’, he told the assembled range of newspaper experts at the World Digital Publishing Conference 2008.

Where as Elia once was employed in ’emerging media’ for Reuters, he now very much part of the mainstream product: “mobile has since emerged,” he said.

Elia certainly objected to one of Martha Stone’s slides during her presentation on online media, which said ‘mobile advertising to become a real business in a few years’. ‘My boss will shoot me, if he sees that’ he said. Elia’s been telling him that is already the case for a while; it is a real business.

While Elia stressed that he did not think “you should be going into mobile to make a lot of money immediately.” He said, “you can make more and more money slowly, slowly. Integrate into the rest of your products and it will come.”

His presentation touched on examples where Reuters have successfully monetized mobile: in the IBM ‘Stop Talking, Start Doing’ campaign (a slogan that should be applied to mobile, Elia said); by using Nokia phone cameras on for fast and effective reporting, and for widgets on iGoogle.

To think about search engine optimisation (SEO) is “a complete and utter given,” he said.
“You have to do it – SEO and SE marketing – and it is a cheap way to send people to your site,” he said.

The other mobile speakers sharing the stage, Jorma Härknönen, the senior vice president at MTV Media in Finland, responsible for internet and consumer businesses said were of similar opinion and Fredrik Oscarson, the founder and VP new business director for Mobiento, a Sweden based mobile marketing agency, were of similar opinion.

“Give it five years time, and I think people will choose to surf news on the mobile, because the mobile will have functionality [e.g GPS] that the internet doesn’t,” Fredrik Oscarson told Journalism.co.uk.

A short interview with Oscarson can be listened to here. He talks about mobile content for newspapers and different ways of advertising on mobile.

[audio:http://www.journalism.co.uk/sounds/Oscarson.MP3]

Little will be keynote speaker at the World Digital Publishing Conference

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And while we’re on the theme of digital conferences in Amsterdam, news comes that the Guardian News & Media’s special adviser, Caroline Little, will be the keynote speaker at the annual World Digital Publishing Conference & Expo, to be held October 15-16.

Little was previously behind the Washington Post and Newsweek Interactive’s growth online, as their chief executive officer and publisher. She now advises the Guardian as it expands its online presence in the US.

Other speakers at the conference will include Ilicco Elia, head of mobile Europe for Thomson Reuters, Gary Clarke, director of business development for Amazon Kindle, and Frédéric Sitterlé, new media director for Le Figaro in France.

Organisers say that there are still places available at the conference.