The New York Times Shuts Down NYT Now App; Cambridge Analytica Didn't Meet Expectations

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Sign Of The Times

The New York Times has shut down its NYT Now app, a curated mobile experience that was geared to young people. NYT Now debuted two years ago with a $1-$2 weekly subscription, then became a free service for its second (and final) year. Times execs see the product as an overall success, however, saying it allowed the publication to fine-tune new mobile and audience engagement strategies. “We’re much more comfortable with experimenting in the core [app] itself,” said NYT Now editor Cliff Levy. “That is a very big cultural change, not in the newsroom of the Times but I think you can argue across the entire organization.” More.

Electioneering

Cambridge Analytica, the buzzy political data startup leveraged by Ted Cruz’s primary campaign, “wasn’t all it was cracked up to be,” Kate Kaye reports for Ad Age. “While the data scientists the company installed with the campaign were top notch, the company hadn’t come through on key technology and media-related services.” As a result, gripes one source, “You find out your $16,000 monthly fee is being used to pay them to develop it.” Now the company is developing a commercial marketing business, a tricky transition from the insular political advertising game. More.

Better Together

Set-top box data and smart TV data would be a powerful combined asset – if that combination existed. The Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM) hopes to make it so, putting out an RFP seeking proposals on infrastructure to combine these two types of data. Read it. CIMM CEO Jane Clarke noted that while measurement vendors have access to set-top box data, it is often unavailable at the household level, only represents about 40% of US viewers and has dark spots in major markets like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. Smart TVs can fill a lot of those gaps. By combining the data sets Clark hopes to “more accurately model a nationally representative footprint.” Related in AdExchanger: How Set-Top Box Data Is Changing TV Buying.

Home Turf

Facebook seems to have the upper hand against Adblock Plus (ABP) and its coder community, reports Lara O’Reilly at Business Insider. Facebook first-party serves its ads, so it can make paid media near impossible to find. ABP acknowledged in a blog post that it’s behind on this one, but warns, “Facebook may have started this game of ping pong, but out on the open internet the user always wins.” Can the open internet bang down the garden walls, though?

But Wait, There’s More!