The State of Digital Publishing: Digital Natives Still Struggling

Digital publishing is booming for both digital natives and digital retreads (as Don calls legacy publishers). But there’s still work to do, and thank goodness for that because Mequoda still has much to teach!

While the retreads struggle with digital, the digital natives struggle with sustainable business models. As Ricardo Bilton from Digiday puts it, “What the digital natives like BuzzFeed and Mashable haven’t quite worked out yet is how to convert all that growth into sustainable long-term businesses: Digital publishers may have added roughly 5,000 full-time editorial jobs last year, but those additions hardly make up for the 45,000 total jobs lost by the newspaper and magazine industries.”

In terms of revenue, the majority relies on advertising, much like legacy publishers. “Advertising remains central to the business model, though publishers are experimenting with other revenue streams like events and subscriptions,” says Bilton.

pew-journalism-revenue

 

See more charts and digital publishing trends in the full article on Digiday.

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