ARIANNA HUFFINGTON LEAVES HUFF PO
A chain of acquisitions that started with Huffington Post being bought by AOL, then AOL being bought by Verizon made this a likely scenario, but now it’s official: Arianna Huffington is leaving the site she founded in 2005 to concentrate on her health and wellness startup Thrive. We’ll have to see what this means for Huffington Post. While the site has moved beyond relying on the celebrity connections that Huffington brought to the table, it has also lost some of the relevance it once had.
iOS 10 UPDATE LIMITS USER TRACKING
For the 14% of iPhone users who have turned on the “Limit Ad Tracking” feature on their mobile phones, the coming iOS 10 update will limit far more of their information. This won’t stop those 14% of iPhone users from seeing ads; they’ll see just as many. But it will mean that the ads they see will be less suited to their own needs, habits, and desires.
FATHERLY REACHES MILLENNIAL DADS
If you’re looking to reach millennial dads, Fatherly.com is a site to watch. They’ve been growing their audience through a strong Facebook presence but are smartly moving beyond that to build a direct connection with their audience through email. Click here for the Digiday article on Fatherly’s viral video strategy.
WATTPAD INTRODUCES NEW AD TOOLS
The popular user-generated writing site Wattpad is introducing a new ad product that puts ads between the chapters of select writers on the site, and sends some of the revenue toward the writers. This experiment looks like a win-win: writers will have a stake in building their audiences and book advertisers will have a clutter-free, reader-friendly environment in which to advertise. We look forward to watching this develop.
New York Public Library photo (c) 2016 Martha Otis