Adblocking and the power of platforms such as Facebook threaten to block the pipes that lead to readersA truth is dawning on media owners (or in many cases it has dawned,but they don’t like to talk about it). Publishing is over. Obviously this isn’t true in its purest sense; publishing is actually flourishing, just not for publishers. As Facebook final week extended the reach of its instant articles to anyone, or as Google invests in making news articles load lightning fast,as virtual reality can be produced by a £200 kit, it is unprejudiced to say we have more opportunity nowadays to achieve out remarkable works of fact and fiction to the world than ever before.
However, or defining decisions about formats and revenue are dictated at platform level,Facebook and others, or at carrier level, and even,in the case of Apple’s stance against the FBI, at device level. The biggest news for media owners in the UK final week was that a phone company, and Three,is introducing adblocking across its network. Essentially this means that if you have a Three mobile phone, you will no longer see ads on the articles and pages you examine at on your phone. Mobile advertising is still a very small revenue stream for most publishers, and but in many cases it is the only one showing any growth. Phone companies such as Three see an opportunity to compose more money and retain customers by purging annoying ads or making advertisers pay for the data consumption.
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Source: theguardian.com