Media Insider: Publishers Test Branded Content on Snapchat, NYT Steps Up War on Ad Blockers, and Twitter vs. Snapchat: Which Has The Better Future?

Welcome to Media Insider, PR Newswire’s round up of journalism, blogging and freelancing stories from the week.

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Twitter vs. Snapchat: Which Has The Better Future? (SocialTimes)

Metrics like daily active users (DAUs) indicate success in social media. This especially is true if users actively post, engage, share, and generally spend time with your site. According to sources cited by Bloomberg, Snapchat’s active daily audience has grown to 150 million, SocialTimes reports. Comparatively, Twitter maintains at an estimated 140 million DAUs, based on an average of analyst estimates collected by Bloomberg, SocialTimes says.

Publishers Test Snapchat’s Tolerance for Branded Content (Digiday)

Snapchat is still a lawless zone when it comes to branded content, and publishers are trying to figure out the rules as they go, Digiday says. Even on Discover, the official publishing hub for select media partners, there is some confusion about what will make it past Snapchat’s censors, who look out for overly promotional content, Digiday reports.

The New York Times is Preparing to Step Up Its War on Ad Blockers (Fortune)

Fortune reports that like most online publishers, the New York Times is fighting an ongoing guerrilla war against ad blocking, a phenomenon that a recent study said could lead to more than $35 billion in losses for media companies by 2020. NYT chief executive Mark Thompson now says he’s even considering banning users with ad blockers completely.

BuzzFeed to Fleet Street – “We’re Figuring Out The Future of Journalism” (The Drum)

Plenty of older news organizations would love to see the rapidly-expanding BuzzFeed stumble, The Drum says. But the news agency takes its news coverage very seriously. “I love the investment and commitment to investigative journalism, to international journalism and doing stories that matter,” says BuzzFeed UK editor-in-chief Janine Gibson.

5 Things Publishers Can Learn From How Jeff Bezos is Running The Washington Post (Nieman Lab)

Nearly three years in, there’s no question that he has infused the organization with a significant jolt of journalistic and technological energy, Nieman Lab says. It continues: “The Post is bigger, better and reaching more people than was the case before he bought the paper from the Graham family. Less clear is whether that is solely a function of Bezos’s enormous financial resources or — even more important — if his ownership offers any lessons for the newspaper business in general, which continues to lose readers and advertising revenue at an alarming rate.”

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Christine Cube is a senior audience relations manager with PR Newswire and freelance writer. Follow @cpcube or check out her latest on Beyond Bylines on PR Newswire for Journalists.