The average American spends 66 hours a month online. While publishers can't make readers spend all of that time on their webpages, they can make sure readers are engaged with the brand, even if they are spending time on another domain.

However, it will require a few helpful tools:

Most media companies are running on skeleton editorial crews, but must feed a constant 24/7 demand for new content online. If your editorial team can't consistently produce enough content to satisfy reader demand, those readers may drift away.  Many media companies succeed in spite of stretched editorial staff by blending professional editorial content with user-generated content (UGC) and advertiser-generated content (AGC).

The Atlantic is looking to a new commenting system to help increase reader engagement on its newly redesigned website.

The Atlantic, a 150-plus-year-old magazine that publishes in print 10 times a year, covers culture, business and politics. The website redesign, launched earlier this week, is designed to better integrate magazine content, blogs, videos and other Web content around seven topic areas.

About a year ago, many brands at Reed Business Information drank the Twitter Kool-Aid. I recently analyzed how things were going, and learned quite a bit about the benefits and challenges of Twitter within business media. Today, I want to share some metrics of our use of Twitter and explore what it means for B2B media brands.

I looked at the use of Twitter across 35 RBI brands and close to 60 employees. Here is some data:

Facebook fan pages, Twitter accounts, LinkedIn – the social media world is fraught with user names, passwords and cryptic symbols. Media companies have accepted that they have to get on the bus, but they'd like to limit the number of transfers (a.k.a. log-ins) that they have to make. 

Angel investor and serial entrepreneur David S. Rose asked the startups of the Incubator at Rose Tech Ventures, "Who owns a customer in today's world of Twitter, iTunes, Facebook and Google?" The debate that followed focused on the rise of APIs and marketplaces and their impact on business transactions. The conclusion? We are heading towards a world where no one owns a customer.

Many publishers are stuck in a cycle of playing technology catch-up. They are trying to figure out how to monetize Web phenomena like Twitter and Facebook long after the need to do so has already become apparent.  Want to break that cycle? It’s simple: Make sure your mobile content is up and rolling.