Digital Media Asia adds ad blockers, Google's AMP to programme

The event, organised by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA), offers a one-stop platform for reinventing the digital news media business. Since its launch in 2009, DMA has become Asia's largest digital event dedicated to the news publishing industry. It features three days of conference and masterclasses, the presentation of the Asian Digital Media Awards and a tech & services Expo. It will also host an exclusive workshop organised by the Guardian News & Media's Publisher network.

The sessions are designed to strengthen news media companies' digital transformation strategies and tackle the key questions for the industry.

Ad blockers

The growing use of ad blocking software by internet users around the world is severely jeopardising the still fragile digital advertising ecosystem. At the same time, this challenge also offers a unique opportunity to redefine how advertising works online. DMA will show how publishers, not platforms, must take the lead.

Ben Shaw, Director of WAN-IFRA's Global Advisory, will examine how leading media organisations are reacting to the growing challenge of ad blockers. He will moderate a panel session with key news publishers, such as The Economist, and digital pure-players.

Google AMP

Jeremy Butteriss, MD of Partner Business Solutions APAC at Google, will present his company's new initiative for publishers called Accelerated Mobile Pages. Taking on Facebook Instant Articles and Apple News, this new open source standard aims to allow webpages with rich content like video, animations and graphics to load instantaneously and work alongside smart ads. A core goal of the project, claims Google, is to support publishers' subscriptions and paywalls.

DMA's focus presentations and breakout sessions will also address other key digital issues such as:

Content innovation: Virtual Reality and 360º videos & animations; Partnering with Facebook Instant Articles; Programmatic advertising strategies; Social and mobile video, from Periscope to Instagram; Re-engineering the newsroom for multimedia; Data strategy & Audience Intelligence; Media for Millennials.

The conference full speakers' list and detailed programme can be found at: http://dma.wan-ifra.org/.

Masterclasses

On November 17, DMA will offer in-depth sessions on mobile video and online classifieds leaded by recognised international experts with a notorious understanding of the Asian markets' specificity and challenges.

DMA will also host a half-day workshop, organised by The Guardian News & Media Publisher Network, which will offer unique insights on how The Guardian is tackling partnerships with digital pure-players and technology suppliers, such as Facebook, Google, Samsung or Apple.