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Oct. 30, 2013, 11:58 a.m.
LINK: espnmediazone.com  ➚   |   Posted by: Joshua Benton   |   October 30, 2013

This is a couple days old, but worth noting nonetheless: In September, ESPN saw more unique visitors on mobile devices (47.4 million) than on the desktop version of ESPN.com (46.1 million). Time spent was almost even (44 percent mobile). Also, 36 percent of ESPN’s unique users accessed its digital content only on mobile devices.

(Interestingly, though, video still skewed desktop: 77 percent of clip views were on traditional computers, 16 percent on smartphones and tablets, and 6 percent on connected TVs.)

The push towards mostly mobile continues apace. We’ve gone from news sites having mostly mobile moments (like election night) to mostly mobile days or weekends (as The Guardian and BBC News have recently reported) to now mostly mobile months — which really just mean mostly mobile, period. ESPN is made for mobile in a lot of ways — real time sports updates are useful wherever you are, and attention paid to sports is probably less workday-hours-focused than much other online news — but this same trend will hit your news org sooner or later.

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The media becomes an activist for democracy
“We cannot be neutral about this, by definition. A free press that doesn’t agitate for democracy is an oxymoron.”
Embracing influencers as allies
“News organizations will increasingly rely on digital creators not just as amplifiers but as integral partners in storytelling.”
Action over analysis
“We’ve overindexed on problem articulation, to the point of problem admiring. The risk is that we are analyzing ourselves into inaction and irrelevance.”