Guy Tasaka makes a very sturdy case for mobile apps for local news publishers. He highlights stats on how much more engagement apps users. App users consumer more than 6x more sessions per month than desktop or mobile web users, and more than, he breaks out the incredible amount of adviews -151 - that mobile app users consume than desktop - 10 - or mobile web -7. And push notifications are such an important tool for publishers to engage users. Tasaka is right to highlight that publishers have aggregators to content with, but apps are an important tool in the publishing stack for local news organisations.

Native mobile apps put news publishers in control of content and their futures - Editor and Publisher

Mobile apps are now used more than mobile web browsers. eMarketer estimated that in 2022, the average American spent over four hours a day on mobile devices, and over 90% of that time spent was using a mobile app. This ubiquity of mobile apps in everyday digital habits presents both risks and opportunities for news publishers.

www.editorandpublisher.com/stories/getting-mobile,246794

Print represents 25% of The Guardian’s revenue, and their publishing director Mylene Sylvestre attributes the resilience of their print business on distinctive content and a global footprint. It underscores how much British publishers are looking to a global market for growth. And both in their digital and print operations, they are looking to leverage data. I also think it’s interesting how they are looking to convert print readers in the UK to subscribers. That is different than the traditional newsstand sales in the UK, but it provides a more stable basis for their business.

How The Guardian continues to drive print revenues through subscriptions - WAN-IFRA

2023-11-24. The Guardian has maintained its subscription growth in print while also growing its digital revenues and audience, which now has 81 million unique monthly visitors globally. Guardian’s publishing director Mylene Sylvestre explains how they have achieved this.

wan-ifra.org/2023/11/how-the-guardian-continues-to-drive-print-revenues-through-subscriptions

And licencing deals like this one for the Guardian are a new source of revenue for major newspapers and other publishers.

Guardian strikes TV and film deal with company behind The Crown

Collaboration will give Sony Pictures Entertainment exclusive first-look rights to Guardian’s global journalism

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/nov/29/guardian-strikes-tv-and-film-deal-with-company-behind-the-crown

I had to double-check the date on this story. Is is 2023 or 2017? No, it is definitely this year. Subscriptions for groups have been around for a while, but this is a good case study of how they could work for local publishers. Subscribers get access to special content including dedicated discussion groups, exclusive content, polls and a special badge on their profile. It is an interesting play for a local publisher. Could this scale for larger publishers?

Facebook subscriptions: Could Meta still be a friend for publishers?

Small local newsbrand Pulman's Weekly News has got more than 500 Facebook subscriptions in under one month.

pressgazette.co.uk/social_media/facebook-subscriptions-news-publishers

For all of the smart uses of AI, there are some very public and very stupid uses of it that will damage a lot of businesses and the use cases for AI. Following Sports Illustrated being caught using AI to generate content. Publishers under pressure will be using generative AI. Will it be enough for readers to alert them that the piece was written by AI? Or will it further erode trust?

The tsunami of crap has arrived

Bring in the bots

open.substack.com/pub/therebooting/p/the-tsunami-of-crap-has-arrived?r=1u7ee&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

And here is an article about the Sports Illustrated AI controversy. So sad.

Sports Illustrated accused of publishing AI-written articles

The Sports Illustrated union said staff were "horrified" and demanded "basic journalistic standards".

www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67560354

It is positive to see the industry being proactive with policies and processes to govern the use of AI in journalism. In another excellent piece from The Fix they dig into the new Reporters without Borders guidelines. One criticism of the guidelines is that they were not written by a broad group of stakeholders. They were written with journalism unions and researchers only, The Fix says. I also find it interesting that WAN-IFRA has decided not to promote the charter due to unrealistic expectations. It’s a valuable piece.

Review of RSF’s new guidelines on using AI in journalism: what they achieve and where they fall short - The Fix

A critical look into the Paris Charter on AI and Journalism developed by Reporters Without Borders and 16 partners

thefix.media/2023/11/24/review-of-rsfs-new-guidelines-on-using-ai-in-journalism-what-they-achieve-and-where-they-fall-shor

A thoughtful piece from The Conversation on what news organisations are doing as their content fades, or in the case of Canada has completely disappeared on Facebook, on social media platforms.

The news is fading from sight on big social media platforms – where does that leave journalism?

Social media platforms are abandoning news – which is bad news for traditional media organisations that have come to rely on them for consumers.

theconversation.com/the-news-is-fading-from-sight-on-big-social-media-platforms-where-does-that-leave-journalism-218522

Just a few weeks before the Online News Act is set to go into effect in Canada, Google has struck a deal with Google. I am sure that news companies are hoping that a similar deal can now be struck with Facebook and that their visibility online will be restored.

Social Media this week: Musk drops the F-bomb on advertisers and disinformation networks build ahead of the US elections

Ahead of the US elections, Russian and Chinese misinformation networks are growing their audiences, Meta has warned. It is a worrying that after all that has happened over the last eight years that the US does not seem prepared to tackle this issue. But efforts to deal with them seem to have been hampered by partisanship.

And, of course, Elon Musk looks to be preparing for a messy divorce with advertisers. This comes as those in the ad industry are calling on CEO Linda Yaccarino to resign to preserve her standing and reputation in the industry.

Russian and Chinese interference networks are ‘building audiences’ ahead of 2024, warns Meta

Influence operations from Russia and China are ramping up on social media in the run-up to several key elections that will take place in 2024, Meta said in a new report.

therecord.media/russia-china-interference-networks-building-audiences-elections

5 Considerations for the Future of X Following Elon’s Anti-Advertiser Comments This Week

Elon has made his stance on advertisers clear - but will that lead to the end of the platform as we know it?

www.socialmediatoday.com/news/5-considerations-for-the-future-of-x-following-elons-anti-advertiser-comme/701372

Musk Tells Advertisers to ‘Go F--- Yourself’ if They Don’t Agree With His Comments

Elon Musk is not backing down, despite ongoing advertiser backlash over his divisive comments.

www.socialmediatoday.com/news/musk-tells-advertisers-to-go-f-yourself-if-they-dont-agree-with-his-c/701088

The first two items today are very closely related, and the common thread is this: Publishers are seeking additional revenue streams than advertising. The softness in ad revenue is driving layoffs at digital and traditional publishers - particularly with digital publishers such as BuzzFeed, G/O Media and Vice. But it has also hit publishers like the Washington Post, which has seen issues with its subscription and ad revenue.

Digiday is reporting that companies are leaning into events and not just traditional conferences but experiences as well. Broadly, publishers are trying to find ways to increase ARPU so that they can reach sustainability from a smaller but more engaged audience. We are seeing this at all scales of media, from small local newsletter-led players to larger publishers.

Publishers double down on events heading into 2024

Several digital publishers are doubling down on the business they still carry some authority over: events.

digiday.com/media/publishers-double-down-on-events-heading-into-2024

Media companies announce more layoffs to cut costs, blaming a relentlessly challenging ad market 

The seemingly endless cycle of media industry layoffs over the past year hit a crescendo last week, with cuts hitting G/O Media, Vice Media and Vox Media, as execs sought to cut costs before the end of the year.

digiday.com/media/media-companies-announce-more-layoffs-to-cut-costs-blaming-a-relentlessly-challenging-ad-market

Many publishers and publishing startups have leaned into reader revenue. It has given major publishers like the New York Times a solid foundation to build their business on, buoyed publishers like The Guardian and given startups like Defector Media the basis for a sustainable business.

“Good blogs are good for business,” and other lessons from Defector’s third year

Defector Media published its third admirably transparent annual report on Tuesday, and said it'll keep doing so "until the structures and dynamics of a business like ours (i.e., a subscription-first, worker-owned and -operated media company) feel so conventional as to be boring to our subscrib…

www.niemanlab.org/2023/11/good-blogs-are-good-for-business-and-other-lessons-from-defectors-third-year

FT Strategies direct Lisa MacLeod has some straight talk and a strong call to action in this piece.

Why newsroom transformation is key to subscription growth

Quality journalism and reader revenue go hand-in-hand, says Lisa MacLeod, director of FT Strategies

www.journalism.co.uk/news/why-newsroom-transformation-is-key-to-subscription-growth/s2/a1088212

We’re in a pivotal moment in digital media, and you only have to look at the decline of Tumblr. Automattic, the parent company of WordPress, bought Tumblr from Verizon for $3m in 2019, which was pennies compared to the $1bn that Yahoo paid for the quirky blogging site. Keeping to the theme of the decline in ads, Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg said that most of the ads on the site are programmatic. And sadly, only 0.2% of Tumblr users were subscribers. If they could get that up even to 10% the site would be fine. Increasing subscriptions seems like the most promising opportunity for Tumblr.

Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg details Tumblr's future after re-org | TechCrunch

This week, WordPress.com owner Matt Mullenweg confirmed his company would be shifting the majority of Tumblr's workforce to other areas at parent company

techcrunch.com/2023/11/10/automattic-ceo-matt-mullenweg-details-tumblrs-future-after-re-org

An important effort with core principles that should share wide backing:

• Ethics must govern technological choices within the media;

• Human agency must remain central in editorial decisions;

• The media must help society to distinguish between authentic and synthetic content with confidence;

• The media must participate in global AI governance and defend the viability of journalism when negotiating with tech companies.

RSF and 16 partners unveil Paris Charter on AI and Journalism

The first of its kind, the Paris Charter on AI and Journalism defines ethics and principles that journalists, newsrooms and media outlets around the world will be able to appropriate and apply in their work with artificial intelligence. It was created by a commission initiated by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and chaired by journalist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa. 

rsf.org/en/rsf-and-16-partners-unveil-paris-charter-ai-and-journalism

Greg Piechota challenges some long-held beliefs about the economics of digital distribution in a call for publishers to invest more in it. As he says, the cost of digital distribution is lower than print, but it’s not zero. Publisher’s reliance on organic - read free - distribution via search and social meant distorted (my words, not Greg’s) publishers’ expectations of what it cost to reach digital audiences. And I would add that it distorted the true value of these rented audiences. The value of audiences who have a direct relationship with a publisher is higher than those rented audiences. But Greg is making a broader point than simply converting unknown, loosely connected audiences to known contacts. He is also saying that publishers need to invest in their products, and they need to invest in distribution. After all, as he points out, Google paid as much as $10bn a year to be the default search engine on Apple’s devices. The bottom line is that free traffic is gone - if it ever existed - and publishers will need to invest in distribution if they want to survive.

Traffic panic should lead news publishers to revamp online distribution

It’s time for news media companies — which spend two to eight times less on digital vs. print delivery — to rethink their distribution models.

www.inma.org/blogs/reader-revenue/post.cfm/traffic-panic-should-lead-news-publishers-to-revamp-online-distribution

I attended the Audiencers Festival in London a few weeks back, and a session on newsletters drove the point home once again on how valuable they are in engaging audiences, which leads to conversion and retention. The Telegraph has found “if a reader subscribes to their premium product after clicking on a newsletter, they’re 50% more likely to still be a subscriber after 12 months”, Maire Bonheim, Head of Newsletters at The Telegraph, said. It’s great to see data that proves the importance of newsletters to retention.

Questions have always swirled around newsletters with a view that younger audiences don’t read email, and this was raised at the Audiencers Festival. The durability of email newsletters has surprised me, and if anything, newsletters have come into their own as standalone products as well as parts of a modern media product portfolio.

As far as a standalone product, newsletters have proven themselves as the minimum viable local news product. Instead of a network of local news sites, we are seeing more networks of local newsletters. Michael MacLeod, Founder of The Edinburgh Guardian, talked about his experience launching the newsletter, which aggregates local news in Edinburgh. And retention was a major theme again. Only 5% who have subscribed have unsubscribed.

How to make newsletters valuable in a reader revenue model - The Telegraph & The Edinburgh Guardian | The Audiencers

Peter Houston interviews Maire, Head of Newsletters at The Telegraph & Michael, founder of The Edinburgh Guardian at The Audiencers' Festival 2023

theaudiencers.com/operations/how-to-make-newsletters-valuable-in-a-reader-revenue-model-the-telegraph-the-edinburgh-guardian

They have found a tremendous amount of engagement - not just views but also messages. Moreover, most of the users are local to the publication so not just audiences from elsewhere but actually in the US state that they cover.

How a local nonprofit news organization found its readers on TikTok - Storybench

You don’t often run across local news on TikTok, and it’s not because the idea hasn’t hit newsrooms yet. TikTok only recently became a vessel for news outlets to directly disseminate content. The trend started when The Washington Post launched a TikTok account in 2019, eventually becoming a trailblazer in the industry for how to

www.storybench.org/how-a-local-nonprofit-news-organization-found-its-readers-on-tiktok/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-a-local-nonprofit-news-organization-found-its-readers-on-tiktok

This was big news in the UK Wednesday with the largest local news publisher - Reach - cutting 10% of their workforce. Their social-reliant traffic acquisition model has led to major issues with their digital traffic, leading to a 16% decline in their digital revenue. Having worked as a consultant with Reach for almost three years 2016 to 2018, this news is heart-breaking and hit a number of people I know.

Reach restructure: 450 jobs to go, websites to close, print and online teams to combine

Reach redundancies: The UK's largest commercial news publisher has announced plans to cut more than one in ten staff.

pressgazette.co.uk/news/reach-450-redundancies

The media industry continues to reduce its reliance on advertising, and Footballco, a footie-focused media business, is looking to grow its affiliate revenue this year. The only question that I have about putting their eggs in this basket is the impact that changes in search referrals might have to affiliate sales.

Footballco says it will grow affiliate revenues by 300% in 2023 in drive away from advertising

Footballco is driving 50 million page views per month through affiliate content, especially on Goal.

pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/digital-journalism/footballco-says-it-will-grow-affiliate-revenues-by-300-in-2023-in-drive-away-from-advertising

I have taken to saying that I rotate days using one of the new social media platforms. Hey, it is Tuesday, it must be Bluesky Day. I am happy to hear that I am not alone in feeling a little adrift when it comes to social media platforms. I am in four or five Slacks. I am on Bluesky, Threads and Mastodon, although I haven’t logged into the latter anytime recently more because I struggle to. And I’m still on X, Facebook, Instagram and Flickr. Ugh, too much. Too much.

First-Gen Social Media Users Have Nowhere to Go

The collective erosion of X, Instagram, and Facebook marks a turning point for millennials, who are outgrowing a constant need to be plugged in.

www.wired.com/story/first-gen-social-media-users-have-nowhere-to-go

I post this only because it shows how the New York Times is progressing in its work on bundles. They hit 10m subscriptions a year ago, but this is 10m subscribers. 

The New York Times hits 10 million subscribers by using non-news products as an on-ramp

The New York Times announced Wednesday that it has hit a big round number: 10 million subscribers. Feeling a little deja vu? That may be because the Times already hit the 10 million mark more than a year ago. But that was 10 million total subscriptions; this is 10 million total subscribers. (If …

www.niemanlab.org/2023/11/the-new-york-times-hits-10-million-subscribers-by-using-non-news-products-as-an-on-ramp

The death of a pioneer Philip Meyer might be called the Father of Data Journalism, but I think he would want to be remembered as the Father of Precision Journalism. He brought rigour and social science to his journalism and championed that application. For me, it was this data-driven interrogation of a story that was and still is revolutionary. This contribution cannot be underestimated.

Philip Meyer, Reporter Who Pioneered Data-Driven Journalism, Dies at 93

First as a correspondent and later as a professor, he pushed his industry to adopt more rigorous, quantitative methods.

www.nytimes.com/2023/11/08/business/media/philip-meyer-dead.html

I am adding this as someone who developed an incredible appreciation for management during my master’s degree. This is one to read and reflect on. Every manager faces fear, but then there is a question of what a manager does with that. This research indicates that some managers are not managing their own emotions. Not only are their employees paying for it, but their businesses are as well.

A third of managers harbor unconscious fear, leading to a $36 billion productivity loss

Fear-based leaders lose an estimated 10 hours a week in productivity for their companies, adding up to about $29,000 a year per leader or $36 billion annually.

digiday.com/media/a-third-of-managers-harbor-unconscious-fear-leading-to-36-billion-productivity-loss

Conversion techniques are constantly being refined and getting more sophisticated, and data is at its core. In this example, newspaper publisher Advance Local is using data to understand the propensity to subscribe, or readiness as they define it. It makes a lot of logical sense that a loosely engaged user isn’t the likeliest to buy a subscription. Advance Local is using this data to refine its conversion strategy and its trial offerings. Most publishers are using a registration step, but Advance Local is instead using trial subs for the first step on its subscription journey. The case study also brings us back to one of the common themes of this newsletter, engagement. For those with infrequent engagement, they have been testing a day pass offering.

Advance Local finds a way to reach prospects on their terms

Advance Local implemented an audience segmentation model that buckets prospects according to their readiness. This provides the first of many steps to align offers to where a prospect is in their subscription journey.

www.inma.org/blogs/ideas/post.cfm/advance-local-finds-a-way-to-reach-prospects-on-their-terms

Nieman Lab offers up a good overview of how news outlets from around the world are using WhatsApp Channels feature - the US, UK, Argentina and India. They are seeing fast growth, solid engagement and even referrals back to their websites.

How 13 news publishers are using WhatsApp Channels

We talked to the Financial Times, La Nación, The New York Times, Vox, Chilango, the Times of India, and others about their early experiments sharing news on the world's favorite messaging app.

www.niemanlab.org/2023/11/how-13-news-publishers-are-using-whatsapp-channels

Coverage has focused on how traffic from social media, especially Facebook, to news sites has collapsed. Charlie Warzel has a different explanation.

He sees news fatigue as something that was created not just by events but also the toxicity of news consumption through social media.

The Great Social Media–News Collapse

Big Tech’s relationship with journalism is much more complicated than it appears.

www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/11/social-media-news-readership-decline/675890

The Press Gazette in the UK reviews traffic trends amongst local newspaper sites in the country. What is interesting is how Reach’s largest sites grew but many of their other sites saw traffic declines.

Regional digital top 50: Half of UK's biggest local news websites grew audience in September

Press Gazette ranking of the 50 biggest local news websites in the UK in September 2023 using Ipsos iris data.

pressgazette.co.uk/media-audience-and-business-data/media_metrics/regional-top-50-biggest-local-news-websites-uk

Press Foward is the foundation funded project that hopes to stem the collapse of local journalism in the United States, and they are not wasting time. This is an example of the type of projects that they are funding, local journalism projects in Chicago.

Hunterbrook, a hedge fund, is going to pay for journalism that helps it identify investing opportunities. Well, at least it is more productive than some of the investments that other funds are making in buying up journalism outlets.

Publishers are challenging the idea that scrapping content without permission for the purpose of LLM training is fair use, and the News/Media Alliance has called for an end to unauthorised use of publishers’ content. While I see a lot of potential for AI, I think there has to be a clear value exchange for content creators.

AI companies have all kinds of arguments against paying for copyrighted content

Most argue training with copyrighted data is fair use.

www.theverge.com/2023/11/4/23946353/generative-ai-copyright-training-data-openai-microsoft-google-meta-stabilityai

Pervasive Unauthorized Use of Publisher Content Powers Generative AI - a News/Media Alliance Study - WAN-IFRA

White Paper: The News/Media Alliance recognizes the exciting potential of GenAI models and applications to improve aspects of our lives and supports the principled development of these systems. But this development must not come at the expense of publishers and journalists

wan-ifra.org/2023/11/pervasive-unauthorized-use-of-publisher-content-powers-generative-ai-a-news-media-alliance-study

Community is a resurgence in terms of media. Whether it’s membership schemes or other strategies that include experiences, media outlets including Hearst and DC Thomson are both announcing their pivot to community. From a business standpoint, it makes a lot of sense because the community plays often include premium tiers that allow publishers to increase ARPU. That is definitely the case with Elle UK in which their membership scheme is £110 more than the basic subscription.

But I understand the repacking of media as a community play. I think that a sense of belonging is one of the things in short supply following the pandemic. People are hungry for social experiences and a sense of connection.

Elle UK's move from subscriptions to membership shares access to editors' 'daily joys'

Kenya Hunt, the editor of Elle UK, talks to Press Gazette about the future of magazines and the launch of a membership scheme.

pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/magazines/kenya-hunt-elle-uk

One of the major themes in media over the past year has been the collapse in traffic from social media to publishers’ properties. The Verge conducted a rather radical redesign in part to lure more audiences directly to their site as traffic from Twitter dried up. The Verge has seen readership increase by 15% in part because of a dramatic, 62% rise in its loyal readership. This article is thing on details, but the tech publisher has been to convert casual readers into more loyal audience members.

The Verge’s Dramatic Redesign Boosts Loyalty as Readership Dwindles

The publisher, like much of the industry, has seen traffic steadily decline.

www.adweek.com/media/the-verge-redesign-loyalty-readership-dwindles/#

Product management is first and foremost a coordinating function. Product managers work across organisations to bring stakeholders into alignment from editorial, commercial and technical teams. Communication is key, and as I found in my master’s degree, product managers are able to translate across these teams.

Internal communication sustains engagement throughout product cycles at Mediahuis Belgium

Internal communication can be the driving factor in keeping the organisation motivated regarding product and technical development.

www.inma.org/blogs/Product-and-Tech/post.cfm/internal-communication-sustains-engagement-throughout-product-cycles-at-mediahuis-belgium

First, major foundations in the US announced a huge half billion dollar fund to try to address the crisis in local journalism there. They always said that this was a down payment that they hoped would act like seed money for more investment. And now, they have made that goal explicit.

Press Forward announces goal to ‘raise the next $500 million at the local level’ - Poynter

So far, local chapters have been announced in Alaska, Illinois, Minnesota, Kansas and Philadelphia

www.poynter.org/business-work/2023/press-forward-local-chapters

Creators on social media are finding success in providing news on social media. Their followers find their recommendations more relevant than traditional media.

Apart from triple digital growth from Ilife Media’s Kent Online, Reach’s network of ‘live’ regional news website dominated the top 10. Reach’s large sites such as the Manchester Evening News, Birmingham Live and the Liverpool Echo stood at the top of the list. However, not all of the news was good for Reach. If its 31 titles, all but seven lost audience.

Regional digital top 50: Half of UK's biggest local news websites grew audience in September

Press Gazette ranking of the 50 biggest local news websites in the UK in September 2023 using Ipsos iris data.

pressgazette.co.uk/media-audience-and-business-data/media_metrics/regional-top-50-biggest-local-news-websites-uk

By distributing new shows through existing feeds, it helps leverage existing show followings to give new offerings a boost.

How podcast networks use existing feeds to improve engagement and discoverability for new shows

One tactic that is helping podcast networks find an audience for new shows is distributing them through existing feeds for large podcast franchises.

digiday.com/media/how-podcast-networks-are-using-existing-feeds-to-improve-engagement-and-discoverability-for-new-shows

Maybe this is my adverse reaction to Natty Geo laying off all of its writers, but this feels like a strategy from the Platform Era. Followers and social media impressions are one thing, but as we have seen, that doesn’t necessarily translate into revenue and sustainable media businesses.

How National Geographic is using its contributor network to refresh its social media channels

To stay on top of the changes to social media, National Geographic is getting more raw and real with its photojournalists.

digiday.com/media/how-national-geographic-is-tapping-its-contributor-network-to-refresh-it-social-media-changes

There are playbooks and then there recipes for success. This is one of the most detailed articles that I have seen in terms of how a publisher has developed their analytics. Der Spiegel walks you through how they evolved the RFV - recency, frequency, volume - metric that was developed at the Financial Times. They also added regularity, and for good reason. The Spiegel Research Center at Northwestern University has shown how regularity is more highly correlated to conversion and retention than dwell time and the volume of content that a user consumes. It is why I stress loyalty and habit that drives known users as keys to building a sustainable media business.

But Der Spiegel adds another important element - empirical cumulative distribution function. “ECDF transforms numerical data, indicating the proportion of values that are less than or equal to a specific value.” It is some powerful data science that they are deploying, and they connect these audience metrics with their business metrics.

How we measure audience engagement at DER SPIEGEL | The Audiencers

By focusing on delivering a meaningful and relevant experience to our readers, DER SPIEGEL has built a loyal and engaged community of subscribers who

theaudiencers.com/operations/how-we-measure-audience-engagement-at-der-spiegel

And in our second case study, WAN-IFRA looks at how The Conversation is building engagement and donations to add to the university funding that they receive. Analytics is helping them develop new content products such as their Quarter Life series, content that is focused on young professionals. The success of the the series has led them to other audience engagement efforts including quizzes and newsletters. And the next step in their development is in-person events.

How The Conversation is boosting engagement with an aim of driving donations - WAN-IFRA

2023-10-20. "Our content is why people come to us. Anything we can do to make more valuable content will lead to more engagement and retention, and for us, donations as well," says Khalil Cassimally, Head of Audience Insights for The Conversation.

wan-ifra.org/2023/10/how-the-conversation-is-boosting-engagement-with-an-aim-of-driving-donations

These engagement efforts to build direct relationships with audiences are key as traffic drivers like search and social decline. That has been one of the major themes this year, but now, Digiday has evidence that traffic from news aggregators is also on the decline. That decline in traffic and the emphasis on first-party data has media leaders reassessing their relationship with aggregators.

As news aggregator referral traffic slips, publishers turn their attention inward

Traffic sent from news aggregators to publishers’ sites is stalling, according to four publishing execs and data from analytics firm Chartbeat, leading some publishers to reevaluate their content distribution and revenue share deals.

digiday.com/media/as-news-aggregator-referral-traffic-slips-publishers-turn-their-attention-inward/?utm_campaign=digidaydis&utm_medium=rss&utm_source=general-rss

From INMA, we have an overview of two mindsets that determine whether a company develops the agility to embrace innovation. The second mindset is often referred to as “fail fast” in Silicon Valley culture. I prefer to frame it as “learn quickly”. Or as the piece says: “Encourage a culture where failure is not a dirty word but an opportunity for learning and growth.”

Two failure mindsets offer differing outcomes for media innovation

Media companies often fail to implement bold ideas quickly, but fostering a “type 2” failure mindset, incorporating gut instincts into decision-making, and creating an innovation buffer can help curb that tendency.

www.inma.org/blogs/Product-and-Tech/post.cfm/two-failure-mindsets-offer-differing-outcomes-for-media-innovation

Speculation grows as to who might acquire The Telegraph and Spectator in the UK. Germany’s Axel Springer has become a major global media player, but it has cast doubt about whether they will pursue a bid for the British newspaper. They want to focus on a digital-only strategy.

Axel Springer’s Telegraph bid in doubt over ‘digital-only’ future

Head of German-based group tells Politico podcast its strategy is to grow its digital media

www.theguardian.com/media/2023/oct/29/axel-springer-telegraph-bid-doubt-digital-only-future

Meta’s Twitter-competitor, Thread, enjoyed a huge burst of growth when it launched because of its integration with Instagram, but then use tailed off. As they develop the product, use seems to have rebounded, and now they are talking about launching an API. The head of Instagram says that they will develop it even if it means more publisher content as opposed to creator content. I guess that shows where their priorities are.

Instagram head says Threads API is in the works | TechCrunch

Instagram head Adam Mosseri said today that a Threads API is in the works, paving a way possible for third-party experinces.

techcrunch.com/2023/10/27/instagram-head-says-threads-api-is-in-the-works

Thus far, there have been limited use of AI to generate deepfakes during the Israel-Hamas War, but what little has been created has only created more mistrust of traditional media. How depressing.

A.I. Muddies Israel-Hamas War in Unexpected Way

Fakes related to the conflict have been limited and largely unconvincing, but their presence has people doubting real evidence.

www.nytimes.com/2023/10/28/business/media/ai-muddies-israel-hamas-war-in-unexpected-way.html

In an excellent product management case study, Sarah Ebner of the FT writes about the development of its fashion newsletter, which has become the most opened newsletter in its stable. Ebner has a newsletter pitch document to ensure that the propositions are well thought out, and the FT did market research to ensure there was demand for it. She also went through her launch strategy, which made sure that the newsletter enjoyed healthy growth. It’s a solid playbook.

The Business of Fashion

In the twelve months since it launched, the Fashion Matters newsletter has become the FT’s most opened newsletter and was named ‘Newsletter of the Year’. Sarah Ebner looks at the reasons behind its success.

www.inpublishing.co.uk/articles/the-business-of-fashion-22433?utm_source=substack

In another practical piece, Peter Bale reviews how The Independent measures engagement. It allows them to give every user a score, and it is relatively easy to calculate. As Peter says, the metric allows the news site to measure both the propensity to register and subscribe while also optimising advertising yield.

The Independent’s “engagement score” guides its content strategy

The Independent in London has an “engagement score” using what it calls APV: active days, premium article mix, and volume.

www.inma.org/blogs/newsroom-initiative/post.cfm/the-independent-s-engagement-score-guides-its-content-strategy

As a business school graduate, this brought back memories of the strategic management course. The Fix has an excellent rundown of major management frameworks such as PEST, Porter’s Five Forces and value-chain analysis and also a quick overview of resource-based view analysis and how to apply them to media management.

Don’t know where it all goes? Use these tools to analyse the prospects of a media project - The Fix

It’s easy to lose track of long-term goals when doing routine errands. Here are the tools to envisage the big picture.

thefix.media/2023/9/12/dont-know-where-it-all-goes-use-these-tools-to-analyse-the-prospects-of-a-media-project

Blogs are your SEO superpower

If you want to rank, get yourself a blog, it appears…

onemanandhisblog.com/2023/10/get-ahead-get-a-blog

As publishers block AI web crawlers, Direqt is building AI chatbots for the media industry | TechCrunch

A number of news and media publishers are already blocking AI web crawlers from accessing their sites, worried about the impact on traffic when all their

techcrunch.com/2023/10/25/as-publishers-block-ai-web-crawlers-direqt-is-building-ai-chatbots-for-the-media-industry

Ken Doctor has long been an important contributor to the conversation around local news sustainability, and this interview adds to his contributions to this complex effort. He says:

I think the issue he highlights is around scale. Yes, there isn’t any local, digital start-up operating at a scale that will replace the newspapers in those communities, but there are interesting start-ups that are starting to put together new models. Most of them remind me of Clay Christensen’s model of disruptive innovation. They are low-scale, low-cost operations that usually begin with a newsletter and move up the value chain from there.

In the US, philanthropic launch money is there, but he says that it will take time to rebuild the lost journalism capacity that was once there.

On the Lookout for Local News

Veteran journalist Ken Doctor had been analyzing “Newsonomics” for many years when he jumped back into the game to launch a new local digital news outlet, Lookout Santa Cruz, which debuted in 2020. With the Santa Cruz Sentinel having been taken over and downsized by the Alden Global Capital-controlled Media News Group, Doctor declared that Lookout was entering a news desert, which rankled some journalists in town.

localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu/posts/2023/10/26/ken-doctor-lookout-santa-cruz-q-and-a

Just as there is a lot to learn from the FT’s newsletter playbook, for those working in the verification space, there are a lot of lessons in this post. The first is to be sceptical and curious. I did verification work for more than a decade work when I was doing some consulting with Al Jazeera, and we used online research and technical means, such as looking at the EXIF data. Now, the verification methods are much more sophisticated because the techniques for misinformation disinformation are much more sophisticated.

One of the stories making the rounds this week was how The Messenger was starting to circle the drain. It was launched by The Hill owner Jimmy Finkelstein, but for anyone working in digital media over the past decade, the entire premise sounded very unlikely to work. The audience development goals and plans were grounded in the market more than a decade ago in which social media could deliver tremendous scale. The editorial strategy and poor management alienated staff almost immediately. This comes from Techdirt so expect it to be full of snark.

‘The Messenger’ Speed Runs The U.S. Journalism Implosion Cycle Thanks To Incompetent Billionaires And ‘Both Sides’ Clickbait Gibberish

Earlier this year a new journalism outlet named “The Messenger” launched to great fanfare. The brainchild of former The Hill owner Jimmy Finkelstein, the new news empire launched with $…

www.techdirt.com/2023/10/26/the-messenger-speed-runs-the-u-s-journalism-implosion-cycle-thanks-to-incompetent-billionaires-and-both-sides-clickbait-gibberish

AI this week: Gannett accused of using AI to generate reviews, more AI coming to Facebook

Unionised workers at Gannett’s review site have accused the parent company of using AI to generate reviews after they walked off the job on a busy shopping day earlier this year. It now looks like the reviews came from a marketing agency, which has been used by both Gannett and McClatchy. But the question still remains of whether the marketing firm used AI to generate these really quite poor quality reviews.

I am seeing AI everywhere. We use Hubspot at work to send out our newsletter, and they have AI writing tools included. They aren’t too bad, and I have been using it to root out some bad writing habits that have developed over time.

Meta is bringing AI tools to profile pics and post writing. Is this like the moment when calculators became widespread and students started using them in math classes? Something to ponder on the weekend.

Facebook Experiments with Generative AI Profile Pictures and In-Stream Post Assistance

New AI features, coming to a Facebook feed near you.

www.socialmediatoday.com/news/facebook-experiments-with-generative-ai-profile-pictures-and-in-stream-post/697977