Email is mobile (Or how to spend 10 hours and save 30 minutes)

Actually, the headline is 50/50 clickbait. But this is about email and mobile and a bit about time-savings.

I try to send a weekly collection of mobile and product-related links out to an internal list of about 100 people at work. Collecting and formatting those is always a hassle so I gave up and spent a few hours actually writing some code to handle the bulk of the work.

It is 50 lines of Python relying on Feedparser to pull stories from my Instapaper unread list and Newspaper to do some basic processing and generate a useful-enough summary. The headline, summary and link are then formatted as RTF to make it easy to copy-paste into a Google Groups message. The code resides on my Mac and is triggered by an Automator script for convenience. You can find the Python script on GitHub if you are interested. “It works” is all I will say about my proficiency. The biggest learning curve was figuring out character encoding and what Python does and RTF expects. The script should work for any standard RSS feed but I have not tested it elsewhere.

Bottom line, the project took me about 10 hours, and it will probably save me 30 minutes a week. So I should be seeing a positive ROI by August.

For interest, this week’s newsletter below:

New feature aims to get distracted or inactive users to engage further with Washington Post content
Our consumers want Washington Post content, and our advertisers want to be associated with Washington Post content. When a mobile user rapidly swipes past content or stops interacting, The Washington Post will deliver a “Re-Engage” unit that recommends content. Today The Washington Post RED team launched a new product that delivers a tailored experience to users when they are inattentive or inactive on mobile web. “Re-Engage” is a new feature that provides personalized content recommendations and appears when mobile users show signs of distraction or stop engaging with Post content when on article pages. This is the third official product released by RED, the ad research experimentation and development group, at The Washington Post.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/pr/wp/2016/02/11/new-feature-aims-to-get-distracted-or-inactive-users-to-engage-further-with-washington-post-content/

Why micropayments aren’t the ad blocking antidote
The problems with micropayments are still there, even with ad blocking: Micropayments are a total hassle for people. Now, with the continued rise of ad blocking, new hope again is pinned on pay-per-article schemes for ad-blocking readers. But despite this flurry of interest, a large contingent of U. K.  publishers are skeptical of micropayments as a savior for ad blocking. Several publishers dismissed micropayments as a way to stunt the growth of ad blocking. “The fact is, consumers dislike micropayments,” said Tom Standage, deputy editor of The Economist, referring to Clay Shirky’s essay in 2000 on the subject.
http://digiday.com/publishers/micropayments-ad-blocking/

The psychology of simple
We love simple things because they’re easy on our brain — it doesn’t have to work as hard to understand them. We may ‘know it when we see it’, but there’s more behind what makes a product, book, or website feel simple and easy than just a gut reaction. Simple things have a low psychological barrier of entry. Every ‘type’ of site, from an online magazine to a fashion blog, has these prototypical elements. Steal from the pastAs it’s hopefully clear by now, prototypical elements are the basis of simplicity.
https://medium.com/swlh/the-psychology-of-simple-fd5d25a3ca#.ocx1gmgq1

With Accelerated Mobile Pages Coming This Month, Google Aims to Reinvent the Mobile Web
It is finally ready to go wide with its Accelerated Mobile Page initiative, allowing any participating publisher to deliver content at lightning-quick speed through the mobile web. Credit: GoogleIt’s a challenging time for the mobile web. “Publishers’ new landscapeTo overhaul the mobile web in such a short time, Google needed to get top tier publishers and ad tech vendors on board. And it works for the web, where Google wants consumers to stay, instead of rivals’ apps. Readers who prefer light-hearted content can visit Hearst through Snapchat Discover while those who are seeking more traditional news information might use their mobile web browser, for example.
http://adage.com/article/digital/google-amp-launch-looms-search-engine-scores-follow/302599/

Wired Is Launching an Ad-Free Website to Appease Ad Blockers
More than 1 in 5 people who visit Wired Magazine’s website use ad-blocking software. The portion of his readership that uses ad blockers are likely to be receptive to a discussion about their responsibility to support the businesses they rely on for information online, McClusky said. Wired plans to charge $3. 99 for four weeks of ad-free access to its website. So far, though, the fear of alienating readers has outweighed the fear of losing revenue to ad blockers. Over the past 23 years, we’ve pushed the boundaries of media, from our print magazine to launching the first publishing website.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-08/wired-is-launching-an-ad-free-website-to-appease-ad-blockers

How we used design research to launch The New York Times en Español
We also followed our field research with ongoing, iterative quantitative research. We collaborated with a stellar Mexico-based research team to help us with session moderation, simultaneous interview translation, and cultural translation. A year ago I led a design research field project to explore how The Times could best share its journalism with the Spanish-speaking world. How we used design research to launch The New York Times en EspañolI’m on a plane to Mexico City, a place that I got to know last year, and a place that I now love. What we learned from that in-depth research — as well as from subsequent exploration — led directly to today’s launch of The New York Times en Español.
https://medium.com/@j/how-we-used-design-research-to-launch-the-new-york-times-en-espa%C3%B1ol-ae23c5c3001a

Washington Post’s ‘Bandito’ Tool Optimizes Content For Clicks
The Washington Post’s newsroom Photo: Getty ImagesThe Washington Post is experimenting with technology to automatically optimize articles on its website for maximum readership. Clickbait works for a while, but not long-term,” said Sam Han, engineering director of data science at the Washington Post. “We have terrifically reported stories and I just want to best explain to readers why they should be interested,” said Eric Rich, editor of The Washington Post’s Universal News Desk. A new internally-developed tool, dubbed “Bandito,” allows editors to enter different article versions with varying headlines, images and teaser text into its content management system. This allows editors to essentially “set and forget” the tool, the company said, which makes the process more efficient.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/washington-posts-bandit-tool-optimizes-content-for-clicks-1454960088

Newsonomics: The New York Times restarts its new-product model, in Spanish
The New York Times en Español launches with four initial, three-month sponsors, a good representation. That’s out of about 500 million Spanish speakers worldwide, primarily in Latin America and Spain. Of that number, perhaps NYT en Español will contribute somewhere in the five figures — at some point. “If you look at Latin America, you certainly have a pool of potential advertisers of those that are pan-Latin,” says Dunbar-Johnson. 1 spot on Forbes’ wealth list, owns América Móvil, the largest mobile carrier in Latin America.
http://www.niemanlab.org/2016/02/newsonomics-the-new-york-times-restarts-its-new-product-model-in-spanish/

Forbes guarantees its native ads will work
Forbes is applying the same money-back promise it once made for display ads to its native ad product, BrandVoice. Other publishers charge for native based on views (and at least one, the Daily Mail, guarantees views), and there have been performance guarantees on print ads, but Forbes believes its promise is a first for native. The native ad market is getting more crowded, and advertisers are starting to demand to know that their ads actually work. It introduced its original display ad guarantee in 2002 to address doubts about the effectiveness of display ads. Advertisers have to spend $250,000 in native plus display over 60 days (up from the minimum BrandVoice package of $150,000).
http://digiday.com/publishers/inside-forbess-new-money-back-guarantee-native-ads-will-work/

Amid big changes in Philly media, startup Billy Penn sticks to its vision
This month, Billy Penn becomes the first digital news startup to partner with PolitiFact, bringing the “Truth-O-Meter” to Pennsylvania politics. Philadelphia skyline (AP photo)In the 16 months since the news startup Billy Penn launched, the media landscape in Philadelphia, the site’s home city, has changed dramatically. Now well into its second year, Billy Penn can point to growth on a number of fronts. That sense of discipline comes with tradeoffs, among them that Billy Penn’s style isn’t for everyone—including, to be honest, me. For all the growth and focus, Billy Penn’s first year also saw its share of adjustments and lessons learned.
http://www.cjr.org/united_states_project/billy_penn.php

Facebook’s iOS Glitch Caused ComScore to Overestimate Time Spent
Based on ComScore’s measurements comparing time spent in the month before the fix and the month after it, the glitch in Facebook’s iOS apps appears to have inflated the total amount of time people in the U. S.  spent using Facebook’s mobile apps by double-digit percentages. For Facebook’s iPad app, total time spent was 39% lower, as was the average amount of time spent per person. And the average amount of time spent by each person who used Facebook’s mobile apps was 24% lower in November than in September. Even though individual users in the U. S.  spent on average 41% less time using Facebook’s iPhone app in November 2015 than they did in September 2015, the average person still spent 636. 2 minutes using Facebook’s iPhone app in November. When looking at time spent on Facebook across its desktop and mobile sites and mobile apps, the total amount of time spent on Facebook was 19% lower in November compared to September, according to ComScore.
http://adage.com/article/digital/facebook-s-ios-bug-led-comscore-overestimate-time-spent/302522/