While much of the focus at the Mobile World Conference last week was on new devices, a group of media executives expressed optimism about the continuing user shift to mobile news.

Marty Swant of Adweek reported that executives from television, online and magazine news organizations discussed new opportunities for content and engagement even as they acknowledged that monetizing mobile news continues as a major challenge.   

Arlie Sisson, Conde Nast’s vice president of product and design, said that 2016 is “the most exciting year to be in content,” according to Adweek, “as legacy publications continue to test their tech talent through branded and editorial innovations.”

The executives at the Mobile World Conference in Barcelona summed up how mobile is changing the news media:

• New partnerships are possible, allowing legacy publications to collaborate with new media properties and tech companies in ways that didn’t exist a few years ago, according to Sisson.
• Accepting the democratization of media can help news organizations cover practically everything.
• Advertising is slow in catching up to the mobile news. As a result, news organizations can’t shift entirely to mobile because a new revenue model is not in place, according to Jimmy Mayman, executive vice president and president of content and consumer brands at AOL. 
• Mobile news is a one-to-one experience of fast feeds and working videos. These can pose challenges to the backside and cost of delivering the news, according to Elisabetta Romano, head of TV and media at Ericsson.
• As more videos go vertical, many are going virtual. Experiments in virtual reality storytelling are rising and offer interesting immersive user experiences, said Andrew Hawken, head of digital media at Sky News.