Yesterday’s news that Yahoo poached famed New York Times tech columnist David Pogue had several analysts and PR people thinking what his new role will most likely entail.
Yahoo claims the move is to ‘publish columns, blog posts and video stories that demystify the gadgets, apps and technology that powers our users’ daily lives,’ according to Marissa Mayer. But in order for the relationship to sustain itself, Pogue is most likely going to need to work on building Yahoo’s native advertising products for large tech advertisers.
Fellow tech industry analysts/reporters Rebecca Lieb of Altimeter Group and Tim Peterson of Advertising Age weighed in on this for a Marketplace story.
‘Banner blindness’ is what Lieb calls the new trend in consumer apathy to the traditional digital ad format, clearly paving the way for the need for branded, native content experiences.
This isn’t the first time a high-profile journalist from the New York Times was lured away by a social/digital media company. Saul Hansell, a reporter with the Times during the late 1990s dot-com heyday (disclaimer: I knowingly pitched Hansell when I worked in PR at the time) was lured away by AOL to run the now-defunct content farm Seed.com. Hansell then moved on to Betaworks (the holding company for a portfolio of tech companies, including Bitly, one of my faves), and then on to his own venture.
Indeed, good tech coverage is one thing, and producing compelling content on behalf of advertisers is something else.
We’re all trying to figure out the winning combination. Let’s chat.
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