Keeping alive our tradition at the beginning of each year, we would like to share our thoughts about the New Year. We hope these words will come as an inspiration for you. We wish you a prosperous and innovative 2016.
The experience of instant data
In 2016 Mobile and WebApp solutions will become even more important than before. With 4G coverage in Europe over 90%, the always-connected individual is a reality. Providing a good newspaper experience on mobile devices, and instant data access to enriched online content like videos will be a must for 2016.
Andries Rombouts – Head of Technology
The encapsulated user
‘Your trip to home will take 15 minutes. Traffic is normal.’ Have you been surprised by this type of alert of Google Maps? Did you give Google permission to track your transportation behavior? Expect a lot more of this to happen in 2016. Artificial intelligence will be gradually integrated in your key apps. Siri will suggest you which news to read. The Google Chatbot will discuss with you about the meaning of life.Mark Zuckerberg is going to build a simple AI to run his home and help him with his work during his paternity leave. The big tech giants want to encapsulate their users with AI. It will be a huge challenge for any other provider to break through this virtual layer and have direct access to the human beings.
Danny Lein – Founder & CEO
More = Better
I believe 2016 should be the year of offering more. In a digital world where you can find the same information everywhere in all shapes and colors, paying for a newspaper subscription is not a natural choice anymore. Therefore, publishers should think about offering more to their subscribers.
Publishers should consider extending their offers with extra digital editions. Thematic, evening or weekend editions alongside the daily publication are a great added value to the subscriptions and should become a standard. Especially in Europe with the UEFA European Championship taking place (which Belgium is going to win obviously) here lies a big opportunity.
Ruben Gees – Team Leader, Sales & Marketing
The year of the push
Some say that 2015 was the year of push notifications, due to the big changes inside the New York Times. Nevertheless, I believe that this was just the start.
We learned how important and valuable pushes are, and 2016 it is the perfect time to master them. Pushes should not be sent at predefined times. They should be customized to the readers interest and sent only when a user is looking at its device. In 2016 I expect to see publishers that understand this process and maximize the engagement with their readers.
Jeroen Geerts – Team Leader, Service Delivery
The era of individualization
We are witnessing times where any resources and capabilities that we own make us stronger than ever. We can see big, long-established industries getting disrupted by individuals who are now able to market their owned commodities and knowledge on the internet. Tourism industry shifts from corporate resource ownership to individual resource ownership via Airbnb; Taxi industry or Training industry shifts as well via Uber and SkillShare; and you can find many more examples out there, in the sharing economy!
The ability of individuals to curate information and produce quality content is an extremely valuable owned resource as well. This places media industry in the line for innovation and individualization! Looking forward to see it happening!
Dana Nastase – Project Manager, Service Delivery
