NewsBeat

10 NewsBeat July 2017 CNN, Hearst: Mobile is media's way forward M obile is a big deal, two experts told the audience at INMA's 2017 World Congress. "I'm going to tell you why mobile is a big deal, because certainly no one has told you that before," joked David Ho, vice president and executive editor of digital audience and news innovation at Hearst Newspapers. Even though the word "mobile" is not in his title, Ho still considers himself a mobile editor: "I have spent years trying to convince people that mobile is a big deal." To emphasise the ubiquity of mobile devices, Ho asked the crowd how many mobile devices (devices with a SIM card) are in service around the world right now. Guesses ranged from 1 million to 2 trillion, but while the answer is somewhere in the middle, it is no small figure: 8 billion. "That means that right now there are more mobile devices on Earth than people," Ho said. In this era, everyone knows mobile is important, Ho said, but they do not fundamentally understand why. Ho then asked everyone to unlock their phones and hand it to the person next to them. With the audience still holding some else's phone, Ho asked them if they felt uncomfortable. They did. "Good. Now hold on to that feeling because that feeling is why mobile is important," he said. When companies send news to mobile, he added, they send news directly into people's lives in a very personal way. Ho gave three levels of tips news media companies can take to move toward a better mobile culture. Level 1: • "Mobile friendly webpages are a necessity." Ho said if any organizations have a Web site that looks like a desktop Web site on a phone, they have a big problem: "If this is you I encourage you to go home and fix that right now." • You should have a news app, too. "I think apps are really really important," Ho said. "They are critical for notifications and notifications are in turn critical for the future of news." The big challenge with news apps is not cost, he added. It's discovery. • The one-platform world is dead. "I'm sure everyone has someone in their organization that does not get it," Ho said. • News is an experience & the device is part of the story. Ho told the audience that news is in a battle for time. It is news vs. Netflix, and news vs. Pokémon Go. "We're already kind of on the losing side here," he said. Level 2: • If a graphic doesn't work on a phone, it doesn't work. The energy put into making mobile work everywhere is wasted if graphics are bad. • Mobile is social. Social is mobile. "Facebook is a mobile company," Ho said. "Let's be honest. The vast majority of facebook usage happens on phones." News media companies must remember that anything that they do on social must be considered from the user's point-of-view. • You need the right mobile team. Ho struggled to hire mobile editors when he first began working in mobile because they were not any. "You still need experts," he said. "You need people who understand the audience, who understand the technology." Level 3: • The real mobile first: plan, think, see mobile at the start of every effort. When mobile becomes an afterthought, bad things happen, Ho said: "But the real mobile-first is about embracing mobile across you organisations in every aspect you can imagine." • In the age of mobile, we're all wire services. Digital is a dirty word for some people, Ho said. But they understand what is important about being a wire service. "A lot of orgs have thought adapting to that idea and that comes up a lot in the digital transition people are trying to make," he said. • Beyond the screen is "Dimensional Storytelling." "The news that we create for the most part is confined to flat, two-dimensional surfaces," Ho said. "Pieces of paper or a screen of some kind." To expand the idea of what a phone is capable of, Ho suggested the audience check out a mobile game called "Black Box." David Ho, vice president and executive editor digital audience and news innovation at Hearst Newspapers, speaks on the priority of mobile.

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