Layoffs Hit Washington Post Mobile Team

imac.usr writes "The Huffington Post is reporting that The Washington Post has gone through yet another round of layoffs, but this time instead of cutting editorial positions, they're apparently cutting IT positions, specifically in the mobile applications department. According to Washington, DC media blog FishbowlDC, 54 people, including the General Manager of Mobile and Director of Mobile Products, were given the axe on Valentine's Day. A particularly damning quote from the FishbowlDC article: '"[CIO and VP Shaliesh] Prakash thinks these are 'inefficiencies' – that is the exact word he uses for human beings who are not useful according to him," said a source who spoke only on condition of anonymity. "Get rid of experienced people to save money, under the garb of streamlining is the new trend inside the Post."' Given that mobile products seem somewhat more likely to succeed than printed newspapers, this seems a strange decision at best."

Re:maybe they read xkcd

[pepty]

Spot on (including the mouseover text), but I doubt news organizations would push their apps so hard unless their monetization of mobile visits required the apps Ads in the sidebar are too small when you load the paper with a normal webbrower; if you zoom in to read the article the ads will get pushed off the screen. No clicks, no revenue for the paper. Using the app means the right ads get sent to your platform and stay where you can see them, whether you like it or not. Hopefully they'll figure out that bad solutions to the problem of getting people to view ads just inspire draconian solutions on our end, like flashing ads spread all over the page inspired adblock and flashblock.

WaPo Employee here

[Anonymous Coward]

A few facts to clarify things here.

The Post isn't getting rid of their entire mobile division. Basically, there was a product management team that collaborated with the news room and developers to build these products.

It seems that once the core products were built, it was decided that the news room would just take over maintenance of these products and the people who created them were thanked with a pink slip in order to cut costs.

Washington Post is a print-first company with absolutely no true desire to go mobile. It threatens their core (and dying) business model: maintaining circulation of a newspaper with overpriced ads.