Fathm brings Direct Publishing to newsrooms

Fathm is today announcing the launch of a pilot programme for an entirely new and innovative way of delivering editorial content via rich instant messaging. This new approach is what we are calling Direct Publishing. Working in partnership with the Google News Initiative, the pilot will run with three leading newsrooms across Sub-Saharan Africa. We are working with Premium Times in Nigeria, The Standard in Kenya, and Daily Maverick in South Africa.

This first-of-its-kind pilot will enable news organisations to tap into the opportunities offered by new messaging technologies such as Rich Communication Services (RCS) and Google Business Messages (GBM). The goal is to reimagine editorial products and storytelling that is engaging, rich, and conversational, using a technology that is widely available and used by billions of people around the world every day: instant messaging.  

Instant messaging apps have become increasingly popular across the world and present a major and largely untapped growth market for the media industry as an innovative channel for news. RCS and GBM in particular offer opportunities for audiences and consumers to receive news content directly from publishers at their convenience, while publishers access real-time data and performance metrics. This pilot will explore the ways that messaging can revolutionise content delivery and audience engagement and create new monetisation strategies.

We are excited to partner with Google and Cisco to launch this first phase of the pilot for Direct Publishing, starting with Africa.

If you would like to learn more about Direct Publishing, contact us.