Peter Houston

There has been a lot written about the recent resurgence of newsletters and the value they can deliver in increased engagement, reader loyalty and even monetization. But reports of increasing popularity don’t help publishers get to grips with the…

Both ecommerce and the associated media offerings around the retail sector have grown exponentially over the last two years. Now consulting firm McKinsey has said that the sector should be viewed as one, bringing brand advertisers, retailers and…

Iconic magazine brand Time is the latest in a line of publishing companies that are hoping to win over clients with their unique expertise. The business is looking to generate consulting revenue from companies that need help moving beyond carbon…

TikTok’s internal search is never going to replace Google as the most effective way to find important information on the open web. But for niche influencer verticals like food, travel and gardening, where video content plays well, the social video…

YouTube is the second most popular social network in the world. With almost 2.5 billion monthly active users, only Facebook has greater reach. And yet many publishers approach the video platform as an afterthought, giving it far less attention than…

Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu said a leader is best when people barely know they exist. That sentiment contrasts starkly with the attitude of some publishing leaders, accused of creating ‘toxic’ work environments in some media organizations. So what…

How long, or short, should an article be? Purists would say it should be as long as it needs to be to tell the story properly. But the publishing reality is that resources are tight, formats are fixed and as wonderful as your prose might be, readers…

With international inflation rates reaching levels not seen since the 1980s, print production and distribution costs are pushing losses up for some legacy publishers. Digital transition is seen as a clear hope for beleaguered publishers; refocusing…

The ‘build or buy’ conversation has been going on for as long as technology has been a vital component of business success. In the past, companies had little choice but to develop their own software because what they needed wasn’t available off the…

Apple is best known as a hardware brand – from iPhones to iPads the company has done an incredible job at turning customers into fans and keeping them engaged with the upgrade cycle. But facing the threat of a device-sales slowdown, Apple plans to…

Google’s latest algorithm change is designed to ease the frustration web users feel when, instead of finding useful answers to their search queries, they are faced with clickbait. With the helpful content update, the search giant is using machine…

A recent article in the Guardian said the $850 billion global advertising market could be facing a “car crash” year in 2023. With inflation-hit consumers cutting household spending, brands are expected to rein in their marketing budgets. But rather…

Restricting access to content has become a cornerstone strategy for publishers trying to diversify their earnings mix and add reader revenue to their bottom line. However, as consumers consider their subscription spending more carefully in the face…

Although Disney and Netflix have almost exactly the same number of subscribers, for Netflix subscriber growth has stalled while Disney’s subscriber numbers are still on the up. That said, growth at Disney’s is slowing and both streaming giants are…

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic mobile app usage skyrocketed, with online shopping, entertainment, business and education services seeing rapid user growth. Download numbers are not rising as fast as they were, but they are still ahead of…

The increase of adblocking on the desktop began to slow in 2016, reaching its peak in 2018, before beginning to fall through 2020. However, over the last two years adblocking has started to rise again, with 290 million web users actively blocking ads…

There were rumors at the Cannes Lions Festival this year that maybe the third-party cookie phase out wouldn’t be happening this year after all. It turned out that the whispers were exactly right – Google has delayed the death of third-party cookies…

The new Advertising Performance Benchmark report from Sovrn, a Colorado-based ad-tech firm, delivers a ‘snapshot’ of advertising performance through the last quarter of 2021 and into the first half of 2022. The report highlights a return to…

Personalization has been a buzzword in publishing for several years, but there isn’t one, correct way for publishers to personalize their digital products for users. Writing on the Product Initiative blog for INMA (The International News Media…

Deciding which year was the year of mobile is a tricky task; commentators have claimed pretty much every year between 2007 and 2017 as the definitive date mobile technology established its dominance. The reality is that mobile tech is constantly…