Promising trends and biggest challenges.

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Anfuso: What are the most promising trends you see taking place now?

Yates: There are five that I can think of:

• The web as a public collaborative tool. Let's face it: Some issues or questions are bigger than any one of us. I think there is huge potential behind the wisdom of the collective mind. 
• Aggregating large volumes of content and figuring out ingenious and effective ways to present that information. The internet has done a great job of surfacing vast libraries of articles and videos and general information, but we are just beginning to figure out the best way to digest and sift through it all
• Mobile platforms that allow each of us to take the power of the internet anywhere and everywhere. For small business owners, this is transformative and liberating.
• Having the web serve as the backbone of essential business tools as well as consumer products.
• Search as the great equalizer. Its effect is pervasive. I think I read that 80 percent of web sessions involve a visit to a search engine. For small businesses, getting smart about how to use search has the potential to level the playing field and allow them to effectively compete with the dominant brands in their field.

Anfuso: What are online publishers' biggest challenges? How are they being resolved?

Yates: One of the biggest challenges is keeping up with the rapid evolution of the web, and correctly evaluating when and where to invest in emerging trends. It's important to stay close to your audience. It's an old adage, but you can't be all things to all people. The most successful publishers (and web publishers) are those who understand their audience and seek first to meet their needs.

If online publishers have a corresponding offline publishing business, their challenge will be to integrate their operations, and in many cases, to let the online business lead the charge.

All publishers, whether offline or online, are faced with the monumental task of bringing some structure to their unstructured data: mining and categorizing their content so users can find it via search or browsing.

Anfuso: What are the most important lessons you've learned from each endeavor that you now put into practice?

Yates: There's one universal lesson I learned early and keep re-learning from every endeavor: Surround yourself with the best talent and grant that talent freedom to operate.

Another thing I've learned to embrace through web publishing is what we call "metrics-driven innovation." Publishers can know a lot more about how their users interact with a website than they can know about a magazine, or a newspaper. We voraciously measure site performance data such as clickthrough rates and session lengths and revenue yield per page view. Because of our flexible publishing platform, we can and do use that data to adjust design elements in order to continuously improve the overall user experience.

Anfuso: What still keeps you awake at night?

Yates: I am fortunate to be CEO of a thriving company in a growing market with long-term economic trends working in our favor. I sleep pretty well most nights.

Dawn Anfuso is senior editor, iMedia Connection. Read full bio.