Everyone in the news business feels a sense of urgency these days, as well they should.
But there's urgency, and then there's panic. The Times' innovation report, which made a splash when it was leaked during the controversy surrounding Jill Abramson ouster, at times overstates the precariousness of the Times' digital position and smacks of the latter.
The report's dire tone, suggesting that the Times is losing out to more nimble upstarts, led some, like Frédéric Filloux, to suggest the paper needs to blow up its business model and go digital-only right away. That's not going to happen, nor could it-yet.

The consolidation boom in the media business may soon extend, albeit on a vastly smaller scale, to newspapers, especially the smaller ones. And no, that's not an applause line.
Several key financial players and newspaper operators have publicly expressed interest in buying, and are doing so privately as well.
"Everybody's talking to everybody," says one top executive of a major newspaper company.

The all-you-can-eat approach to digital media is going away in favor of à la carte.
"You're going to get people who want to buy small bits and bites and others who want the bundle," Clark said. "If you can get people to come in, especially at a lower price point, and get them to get a feel for the brand, over time, one would hope we could trade them up. Every one of these apps broadens the market."

A recent media and ad engagement study demonstrates the power of newspaper media. Print editions are the most engaging medium and have the highest advertising engagement, and newspaper Web sites easily outscore the Internet on both media and ad engagement. Currently all media wrestle with what is the right metric to measure - readership, clicks, time spent, etc. In the online and social media circle, engagement is the latest trend.

After 17 years of success online, leading independent music publication Pitchfork just put out its inaugural print edition. In the introductory letter, The Pitchfork Review sets forth the desire to stand the test of time and proposes that readers can one day pass the issue on to their children "as a time capsule of sorts."
"Since so much of enjoying music has to do with real, physical interactions-from going to shows to playing records-why not read about music culture in the same way?" The Pitchfork Review wonders. It's not a new concept, but the question is one that many online publishers and brands are asking today: Why not provide a more lasting, focused experience for readers who are weary from the online deluge? 

Mobile advertising in the US will total $17.73 billion in 2014, with mobile search spending accounting for more than half of that total, or $9.02 billion, according to new figures from eMarketer. By 2018, we estimate, mobile search spending will reach $28.41 billion, or 85.9% of the US digital search advertising market.
"App-based searching is a new phenomenon that pales in comparison with the longstanding practice of querying a search engine, and the degree to which mobile users rely on both methods for finding information is unclear," Boyle added.

We've created a slideshow highlighting the retail categories where e-commerce is having the most impact, and where there is still opportunity for disruption. The shift away from physical retail toward digital retail is happening faster than many observers expected.

Before Selling Ads to SMBs, Facebook Needs to Teach Them About Branding  

Facebook is on a mission to get America's 25 million small businesses -- from plumbers to pizza parlors to boutiques -- to actively invest in Facebook ads. Modeling its efforts on how it's already courting big brands -- the Cokes, GEs, and Toyotas of the world -- Facebook aims to teach small businesses how to promote their products and services on its platform.
However, this plan could backfire if Facebook doesn't do one thing first: Teach small businesses how to define and develop their brand.

Gannett Co Inc., one of the newspaper owners of Cars.com, is exploring a bid for all of the auto sales website and has discussed teaming up with private equity firms in a deal that could reach $3 billion, people familiar with the matter said. 

"We've entered a post Patch-era, in which we have some very good and some very bad ideas executed poorly," said Ken Doctor, the author of Nieman Lab's Newsonomics column, during a panel with Larry Kramer Friday president and publisher of Gannett-owned USA Today. (Patch, in fact, still exists, albeit in reduced form, having been sold to Hale Global in January.)  "When I look at the landscape, there's a tremendous investment in national, but at the same there [has been] a disinvestment by the old newspaper companies in local, and by others like private equity investment. They're tired of local. If you're in [local media] for the money, get out."