What do you want from Instant Articles, AMP, Apple News, Snapchat Discover... the seemingly endless list of distributed content opportunities analysed in a new INMA report?

The most-discussed topic in the news media industry is the subject of an 86-page report which dives into the top platforms of the day, industry case studies, and "what all involved have to gain and lose".

'Evaluating distributed content in the news media ecosystem' has been written by Harvard University Nieman Fellow and Polish media executive Grzegorz Piechota. It profiles platforms sweeping the industry including Facebook Instant Articles, Google Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), Apple News, Snapchat Discover, Twitter Moments and Axel Springer's Upday.

Piechota urges publishers to ask what their end games are with partnerships as well as their platform strategies - and further layer on top of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The report includes several matrixes that allow publishers to make these evaluations.

Several media companies' distributed content strategies are profiled, but none as committed as BuzzFeed, which the author holds out as an extreme example from which media companies can benchmark with its 30 platforms for content. Brief profiles of what the Washington Post, Libération, Agora, and Russmedia fill out a distributed content picture.

In the end, Piechota is clear about the "frenemies" facing news publishers. He holds out as the best risk/reward ratio as Google's AMP as an open industry standard. Axel Springer's Upday and Apple News are aggregator apps that are low risk yet also low reward. And he is intrigued by platforms' host initiatives like Facebook Instant Articles, Snapchat Discover, and Twitter Moments for their high rewards -- yet cautious about high-risk investments.

The new INMA report is available for free to INMA members and available to non-members for US$695 (including a year of association membership and other benefits).

A 2016 Nieman Fellow, Piechota explores the transformation of the media business and the future of work in creative industries while working on a vision of the future news ecosystem. He is a former news editor of Poland's Gazeta Wyborcza and a member of the INMA Board of Directors.

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