The New York Times leading the way to non-interruptive mobile Ads

The publisher rolled out a new ad format called Mobile Moments. The ads are customized to the seven moments in a given day that are most important to readers. Those moments include the beginning of the morning, lunchtime and the end of the day.

The ads take up the entire width of the screen and up to 75% of the screen vertically. However, by taking up three-quarters of the screen, the ads follow the Times' plan to reduce the number of ads it runs to make sure those that do appear have a chance to be seen.

These kind of initiatives are important in a context where consumers are being bombarded with ads and pushed to use ads blocking software.

http://adage.com/lookbook/article/branded-content/ads-timed-attention-native-content-stand/301101/

The New York Times Gets Instagram!

In the face of hyper-digitialization, one could say that the newspapers struggled the most to find ways to survive. It was no exception for the worldly renowned company like the New York Times in its 160-year history. Last year was especially difficult with the executive editor Jill Abramson suddenly fired and leak of an internal report how the paper has been struggling to keep up with digital trends.

Well, it seems like this year has brought a fresh scene of change for the beloved newspaper company. Earlier this week, the Times got -- drumroll please -- Instagram! 

Already with 27.9k followers in four days, they have been posting photographs and snippets from their articles on the theme of "Beginnings" as exemplified by their first post on Insta:

On the company's new presence in social media, the new executive editor, Alexandra MacCallum said, "It's raising our profile with a different set of people than we're used to reaching, and I think that's a really important thing for the Times going forward." (source: Mashable article) 

So what does this mean for the Times and social media in the long run? People have increasingly been using social media as a source of their news feed (literally), and does the Times' Instagram acknowledge that? Is it simply a way to reach out to and engage more variety of audience for them? Or, is this a new way for the people get the real news fed into their minds while spending infinite hours on Instagram? How will the stories be curated anyways?

So many questions aside, many are responding with warm welcoming into their Insta world, instead of raising their eyebrows. I have a gut feeling that we could be witnessing a milestone moment in the history of news and journalism.