At Pugpig, we have a mutual admiration society with Madeleine White and The Audiencers, the content side of the consulting wing of subscription service provider Poool. The Audiencers consistently has top-notch coverage of how publishers are experimenting with reader registration and revenue strategies, much of driven by Poool’s quite interesting technology. In this podcast interview with Journalism.co.uk, Madeleine discusses a range of successful strategies that publishers are using. The one highlighted front and centre is how Journal du dimanche in France integrated a payment solution directly into their paywall and managed to increase conversation by 40%. It goes to show that by reducing friction, publishers can increase their conversion rates.

"Integrating payment directly into the paywall uplifted conversions by 40%": Podcast of the Week

The Audiencers is a B2B publication by Poool (a membership and subscription tech platform). Armed with a rich data set of statistics from its

mediamakersmeet.com/integrating-payment-directly-into-the-paywall-uplifted-conversions-by-40-podcast-of-the-week

In a great interview with Chris Stone of the New Statesman, journalism.co.uk talks about the commercial strategy underpinning their podcasts. The progressive political magazine has a very solid audio offering, and Chris has talked about how they have unified their podcast feeds. But in this interview, he discusses their commercial strategy, which is leaning into branded content, which makes a lot of sense considering their audience of professionals and policymakers.

Inside the New Statesman’s award-winning podcast commercial strategy

70 per cent of podcasting revenue is coming from bespoke deals with clients. Branded content is emerging as the space to watch

www.journalism.co.uk/news/inside-the-new-statesman-s-award-winning-podcast-commercial-strategy/s2/a1064070

A good rundown of the most popular apps in the UK. What is amazing is how the BBC stands so far ahead of other news outlets in the UK.

Most popular news apps in the UK: Paywalled Times and Telegraph report highest time spent per user

Press Gazette's quarterly ranking of the most popular news apps in the UK, using data from Ipsos iris. Apple News and BBC News are top.

pressgazette.co.uk/media-audience-and-business-data/media_metrics/most-popular-news-apps-in-the-uk-paywalled-times-and-telegraph-report-highest-time-spent-per-user

This is a good reminder that when product managers are developing services for internal use - whether they include AI or not - they need to bring their customers - their colleagues - with them. It is a hard lesson that I have had to learn over the years.

Product teams must keep newsrooms in mind with AI product development

Product teams develop new things, these days often with AI in mind. And the success of those new products depend on newsroom adoption of a growing to-do list. Here are a few thoughts on the best workflow considerations for success.

www.inma.org/blogs/product-initiative/post.cfm/product-teams-must-keep-newsrooms-in-mind-with-ai-product-development

I am not sure that this headline is accurate in that monetisation via social media was always a challenge. Publishers who were more aware that social media was a brand-building tool rather than seeing it as a direct monetisation tool have have been more successful. However, seeing how publishers who did rely more on social media make the shift to new strategies is instructive. It provides a template for other publishers looking for new audience and commercial strategies.

Pink News makes 'significant shift' towards direct partnerships as social media monetisation falls

Pink News has carried out a "significant" transformation to its business in the past year with growth in direct sales partnerships.

pressgazette.co.uk/media_business/pink-news-business-partnerships-social-media-benjamin-cohen

As publishers have shifted to subscriptions, it is important to consider the broader subscription landscape. What other services are you competing against? Streaming is definitely one of the biggest challengers for consumers disposable income. And now, we have data on how price pressures and competition are affecting the fortunes of streamers. In the US, churn is up to 47%. Cord cutters are now cutting back on the number of subscriptions that they have. What does this mean for publishers? As Reuters Institute said in their annual digital news report, we are now in a winner takes most world. What will it take for your subscription to be one of the fewer that people keep.

Research: Consumers cutting streaming services to save money

Parks Associates, the technology research firm, has released the consumer study Video Services: Shifting Demand, presenting a focused analysis of the video serv

advanced-television.com/2023/08/24/research-consumers-cutting-streaming-services-to-save-money

And this news shows how economic pressures are affecting publishing models of all stripes. The Texas Tribune has been one of the standard bearers when it comes to non-profit news models, and it is having to turn to layoffs (redundancies) for the first time in its 14-year history. The unsteady economy and advertising volatility seem to have taken a toll, but it also appears that the outlet is feeling pressure “to explore new platforms”. Again, platform pressure is one of the major themes of the year.

Texas Tribune holds first layoffs in 14-year history - Poynter

CEO Sonal Shah told staff that 2023 has been uniquely challenging for the outlet, which many have come to see as a model for nonprofit journalism

www.poynter.org/business-work/2023/texas-tribune-layoffs-first-ever

The week in platforms

This should come as news to no one, but Facebook groups have exposed readers to hoaxes. Research by the charity Full Fact identified 1,200 posts on a range of topics that were “designed to terrify local communities”. If you wonder why people are dealing with increasing levels of anxiety, I direct you to Exhibit A.

Facebook groups exposed to hundreds of hoax posts, study shows

Charity Full Fact finds more than 1,200 false posts on topics from deadly snakes to serial killers at large

www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/aug/24/local-facebook-groups-hoax-posts

And if that wasn’t bad enough, we now have AI feeding content to pink slime, fake local news sites, and with wildfires in Canada, this kind of information not only terrifies local communities but it might be deadly. And in Canada where Google and Meta have stopped linking to real news sites due to legislation in the country, it is a perfect fire storm of false information.

Hundreds of AI ‘news’ sites busily spew misinformation. Google and Meta’s Canadian news ban may make it worse

As it becomes increasingly difficult to trust what we read online, experts say it’s critical to learn how to tell real media from fake — here’s how.

www.thestar.com/business/technology/hundreds-of-ai-news-sites-busily-spew-misinformation-google-and-meta-s-canadian-news-ban/article_734f1666-94ba-5f3f-ad5a-5fde47043393.html

And Mr. Musk continues to conduct what I referred to as “product vandalism” by removing headlines from lines on the social network formerly known as Twitter. Sigh.

Elon Musk to strip headlines off news links on Twitter in latest overhaul

Move by the billionaire owner of the social media site may be an attempt to drive up subscription of the app’s premium service

www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/aug/22/elon-musk-x-twitter-changes-news-links

With stories about the rapid rise and fall of Meta’s Twitter-competitor Threads, they just rolled out a web interface for it in the hopes of renewing engagement.

Meta launches web version of flagging Threads app

‘Twitter killer’ social media platform experienced initial boom in sign-ups when it launched in July

www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/aug/22/meta-launches-web-version-of-flagging-threads-app

A good piece from The Verge on how Google’s YouTube is trying to negotiate with the music majors so that they can use their content to train their AI engines while telling “the rest of the web” that they have the right to scrape their material without compensation. That might be a slight exaggeration, but Google is pushing hard in the AI wars because it is behind companies like OpenAI.

Google and YouTube are trying to have it both ways with AI and copyright

When AI Taylor Swift sings “My Way,” who gets paid?

www.theverge.com/2023/8/22/23841822/google-youtube-ai-copyright-umg-scraping-universal

We’re in a period of profound change in media and journalism right now, and I think that Edward Roussel, head of digital for The Times, puts it best when he says that there the relationship between “media brands and audiences is fraying”. I was just re-reading this year’s Reuters Institute digital news report, and it puts a figure to this fraying “Across markets, only around a fifth of respondents (22%) now say they prefer to start their news journeys with a website or app – that’s down 10 percentage points since 2018,” the report found. Add to this news avoidance and a collapse in trust in news not only in the US but the UK and elsewhere, and it begins to underscore the challenge facing media companies. We must develop and nurture direct relationships with audiences so that they will be willing to support what we do, whether that is journalism or more creative content.

From this overview by INMA, Roussel says that media companies need to end their reliance on search and social. For social media, it is a recognition of the collapse in traffic from social platforms, but moving away from search is also future-proofing your business for expected changes brought by AI. This is a shift from demographic profiling to individual profiling, from third-party to first-party data and from a focus on growth metrics to engagement metrics. This is worth keeping in your back pocket because it summarises some of these major shifts in media and also how companies will need to respond to them.

News publishers should shift their strategies in 3 ways to drive subscription revenue

During this week’s INNA members-only Webinar, Edward Roussel, head of digital for The Times, shared insights into how news publishers can drive digital subscriptions, something made more difficult in the AI era.

www.inma.org/blogs/newsroom-initiative/post.cfm/news-publishers-should-shift-their-strategies-in-3-ways-to-drive-subscription-revenue

When it comes to making these changes, data underpins it all, and WAN-IFRA has a report on what drives data adoption. I remember at a recent conference by FT Strategies and Google that an FT product manager spoke of how data had become a common language that bridged different parts of their business. I’m commonly asked how to start the journey to becoming a data-led organisation, and this report discusses the various ways that news organisations are doing this. One takeaway: Yes, there are best practices, but every journey seems to have unique elements based on the culture of the organisation.

New report: 9 deep dives into data best-practice - WAN-IFRA

2023-08-22. We have just published a new report titled Data Champions in the Newsroom, delving into how nine newsrooms have made data a core part of their publishing strategy. Here’s a glimpse into the report and why you should read it.

wan-ifra.org/?p=61109

And while subscriptions are the foundation of a modern media business, successful companies quickly branch out into other products and revenue streams to add resilience to their operations. Content licencing is just one of many options.

"A healthy new revenue stream": Content licensing evolves into a dynamic marketplace

As part of Mx3's Collectif, in which we feature the work of our partners (see more here), Joris van Lierop of The Content Exchange discusses how

mediamakersmeet.com/a-healthy-new-revenue-stream-content-licensing-evolves-into-a-dynamic-marketplace

A daily newsletter is a real commitment, and I remember from a time when I had the time that this newsletter almost became daily. Here are some great tips on how to remain committed and engaging. “Helping guide you through the noise.” Yes, please, more of that.

What’s it take to make a great daily newsletter? Axios’ Kendall Baker is planning to bring one to Yahoo Sports

"I believe, if we do our job as well as we can, we're going to make sports fans into even bigger sports fans, and we're going to make people who aren't yet sports fans into sports fans."

www.niemanlab.org/2023/08/whats-it-take-to-make-a-great-daily-newsletter-axios-kendall-baker-is-planning-to-bring-one-to-yahoo-sports

Columbia Journalism School opens doors and provides its students with a tremendous network and step up for any journalism career. But the price of admission is too much for many, and the costs can weigh journalists down for years and also prevent them from taking many opportunities that don’t pay six figures. It’s important to note that my first journalism job paid $2000 less than a first-year teacher in the community where I lived, and local journalism jobs can often pay as little as $22,000, the starting salary that was paid to

The Columbia J-School wants to help its alums in nonprofit news pay back their student loans

"It takes away a little bit of anxiety about pursuing a degree in journalism if you know that there is a path through which the cost can be covered.”

www.niemanlab.org/2023/08/the-columbia-j-school-wants-to-help-its-alums-in-nonprofit-news-pay-back-their-student-loans

This makes me profoundly uncomfortable. When platforms have so much power that they get in the way of people getting critical public safety information, then I’m really not happy about that.

Canadian Politicians Criticize Meta Over Local News Bans Amid Wildfire Crisis

Meta recently blocked news outlets in Canada in a dispute over its Online News Act.

www.socialmediatoday.com/news/canadian-politicians-criticize-meta-over-local-news-bans-amid-wildfire-cris/691457

As we wrote about in this week’s Pugpig Media Bulletin, there was quite a bit of chatter about Blendle shutting down its micropayment service in journalism circles. Digging a little deeper, my team member James and I looked at both the micropayments model and also why Blendle didn’t live up to the hype that met it when it expanded from its base in the Netherlands in the middle of the last decade.

The central focus has been on what this means for micropayments, and it definitely raises questions about the place that micropayments play in the subscription stack. As my colleague James pointed out in the piece, micropayments increase conversion challenges because you constantly have to convince people to pay. And I’ve seen a number of different models to reduce this friction, but they all require network effects that no micropayment system has ever been able to achieve. Meaning, a micropayment provider needs to reach a scale so that they make sense for users. Or a publisher might add micropayments for those potential subscribers who just want to read a single article - a day pass for those loosely connected audiences. And we are seeing that with the new generation of dynamic paywall systems.

But more than the issue around micropayment, looking at Blendle, it seemed that they focused too much on the payment system and missed the pivot to aggregators, which they could have made with the high-profile early backers they had. Blende missed a pivot that could have made them a much bigger player, especially for mobile aggregators like News Break. I have to wonder if all of the attention that they received for micropayments blinded them to an opportunity to the shift in user behaviour and the market. Instead, they were acquired by Cafeyn - an ‘information streaming’ service aka an aggregator.

Why micropayment champion Blendle ditched the model and where it might fit in subscription strategies - Pugpig

There are lessons in Blendle's missteps for publishers that can make your subscription and product strategy stronger.

www.pugpig.com/2023/08/18/why-micropayment-champion-blendle-ditched-the-model-and-where-it-might-fit-in-subscription-strategies

Before the pandemic, events were a huge revenue driver for publishers, especially financial newspapers like the FT or B2B businesses. But COVID really dented that business, which is an understatement. While publishers are looking to events as an important source of revenue, there are other pressures or motivations driving publishers, and FIPP reviews how environmental imperatives are also being taken into consideration. It will be a difficult balance between the drive for face-to-face networking, costs and environmental imperatives.

"A shift from face-to-face events into digital": Insights on publishing’s green impact, from FIPP World Media Congress 2023 | What’s New in Publishing | Digital Publishing News

“Trying to educate your users about the importance of them reducing their carbon footprint is every bit as important about actually reducing our own carbon footprint.” Attended by more than 400 delegates from 43 countries, the FIPP World Media Congress in the Portuguese town of Cascais kicked off with a look at the innovation that’s …

whatsnewinpublishing.com/a-shift-from-face-to-face-events-into-digital-insights-on-publishings-green-impact-from-fipp-world-media-congress-2023

I am always on the lookout for great resources, and the Washington Post has shared its guide for optimising web performance, including SEO.

WPDS - Web Performance and SEO Best Practices and Guidelines | Resources

Proven strategies and guidelines for optimizing web performance and search engine optimization (SEO)

build.washingtonpost.com/resources/guides/performance-and-seo?itid=lk_inline_manual_5

This week’s development in AI and media

I do feel a bit like a broken record about all of these AI stories, but it is good to see this guidance from AP about how to describe generative AI systems. Language matters, and there has been laziness in describing what large language models are doing.

“Not a replacement of journalists in any way”: AP clarifies standards around generative AI

One new AP Stylebook entry cautions journalists to avoid "language that attributes human characteristics to these systems."

www.niemanlab.org/2023/08/not-a-replacement-of-journalists-in-any-way-ap-clarifies-standards-around-generative-ai

And we have the latest installment in what will be an important front in the battle between AI companies and publishers. The New York Times is considering suing OpenAI. It might well be a legal gambit by the Times to improve their negotiating position with OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT, but we will see a lot more of this.

'New York Times' considers legal action against OpenAI as copyright tensions swirl

The news publisher and maker of ChatGPT have held tense negotiations over striking a licensing deal for the use of the paper's articles to train the chatbot. Now, legal action is being considered.

www.npr.org/2023/08/16/1194202562/new-york-times-considers-legal-action-against-openai-as-copyright-tensions-swirl

As Google makes progress on the technology that many publishers fear, which is a system in which chat services mean that users do not have to come to publishers’ websites to get the information that they need. This will challenge publishers to find a new way to monetise their content, and this is why publishers are putting renewed emphasis on building direct relationships with their audience. These developments will put more distance between ad-based volume publishers and reader-revenue value publishers.

Google's AI search experience adds AI-powered summaries, definitions and coding improvements | TechCrunch

Google today is rolling out a few new updates to its Search Generative Experience, the company's AI-powered conversational mode in Search.

techcrunch.com/2023/08/15/googles-ai-search-experience-adds-ai-powered-summaries-definitions-and-coding-improvements

As someone who has been fortunate enough to navigate many changes in media, this is a good list of how to navigate changes in your media career. It is a good resource.

More than 20 resources for navigating change in your media career - Poynter

Tools to survive layoffs, effectively network, hunt for a job and more: We’ve compiled this list of Poynter articles and guides to provide inspiration and practical tools for our readers.

www.poynter.org/business-work/2023/journalism-career-change-resources

The stories have been rolling out about how engagement has collapsed on Meta’s Threads in a short time after its introduction. Can Zuck’s team pivot the product fast enough to re-engage lost users? (I am re-engaging because it is still a nicely quiet social media space.)

Meta Rolls Out New Elements for Threads as Engagement Continues to Decline

Threads has lost its early hype, but can it still win out?

www.socialmediatoday.com/news/meta-develops-new-elements-for-threads-as-engagement-continues-to-decline/691230

Sigh. This week’s drama at Twitter X is that Musk is throttling links to the New York Times, Reuters, Substack and Facebook. I guess this is the cage fight with Zuck. Social media is really becoming a soap opera.

Elon Musk’s latest petty move targeted The New York Times and others - Poynter

Have you noticed a delay when clicking on links in tweets to the Times, Reuters, Substack, Facebook and others?

www.poynter.org/commentary/2023/elon-musks-twitter-x-throttle-traffic-news-sites-rivals

A very deep dive into Community Notes, a new Twitter feature. This looks at how the algorithms work that surface the notes.

What do I think about Community Notes?

vitalik.ca/general/2023/08/16/communitynotes

I have been a New York Times digital news subscriber for years now, and they have been working to get me to graduate to their higher priced and richer bundle for a while now. I’m paying $17 a month news, and $25 a month will net me the full suite of New York Times products - cooking, games and reviews.

And I get it, multi-product users of any publisher are much easier to retain than single-product customers. That is even true with print. If a publisher is able to get a print subscriber to use a digital product such as an app or games, then it is much easier to retain them. And apps as a platform and games as a content type are the highest engagement products in publishing.

However, as the Press Gazette points out, the New York Times is now pushing the bundle to the exclusion of a news-only subscription or other standalone subscriptions. New or existing subscribers will get a heavily discounted bundle but they won’t get the same cost savings for the standalone products, and the Press Gazette says that it the Times is even making it more difficult to buy a standalone news package. It will be interesting to see how far the Times can push this. People like choice, and they don’t want to go the way of cable TV and offer a package that audiences don’t want. Fortunately, the price difference between a standalone news subscription and the full-price bundle isn’t that great. But it will be interesting to see how consumers respond.

Bundled: Inside The New York Times’ revenue growth strategy

Press Gazette takes a look at how The New York Times is using a multi-product bundle to boost subscription revenue.

pressgazette.co.uk/paywalls/new-york-times-bundle-revenue-growth-strategy

Suw, my wife, is a Substack convert, and I think what links Beehiiv, which I use for this newsletter, and Substack are the audience development tools. Newsletter tools have gone far beyond ESPs. Beehiiv has a referral system, and Substack is working on leveraging network effects to allow writers to build their audiences. I think that Substack is really onto something with Notes and other features that create a sense of a newsletter community. If Substack can work a bit on opening up the top of the funnel, then I think they will really have cracked the newsletter eco-system. Newsletters are a real hustle, but these systems open up the possibility of real audience growth that supports a wider range of newsletter businesses.

Substack now lets you follow writers before subscribing to them

Substack says follows aren’t supposed to replace subscriptions.

www.theverge.com/2023/8/14/23832321/substack-follow-writers-button

Today’s Developments in AI: NYTimes updates Ts & Cs to cover AI scraping, News Corp looks to cut costs using AI and Digiday’s definitive AI glossary

I have to say that I have a lot of sympathy for publishers, artists, writers and musicians who want licencing agreements from AI companies who train their machines on their journalism, music or other artistic output. Frankly, it simply feels like just compensation, and I don’t accept that AI companies without a proven business model today need free access to IP. The New York Times is laying out what it expects from AI companies, and I would expect this type of ring-fencing of IP to become common. Companies should be able to know how their content is being used by AI companies and be able to decide if they want their IP being used in this way and if so, how they will be compensated.

New York Times: Don't use our content to train AI systems

Many large language models are trained using website content without permission – and some brands are demanding compensation.

searchengineland.com/new-york-times-content-train-ai-systems-430556

News Corp is looking at both sides of the ledger with AI - as a way to generate new profits through licencing and also as a way to cut costs.

News Corp’s Pursuit of Profitable AI Opportunity and Journalistic Evolution – Cryptopolitan

In a year marked by a significant drop in profits, News Corp, the sprawling media conglomerate helmed by Rupert Murdoch, has set its sights on a revolutionary opportunity: harnessing the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to unlock a new stream of revenue and streamline operational costs. Despite a 75 percent dip in profits, the CEO ... Read more

Digiday's definitive, if not exhaustive, 2023 artificial intelligence glossary

As AI becomes the industry's latest fascination, here are the key words marketers need to know and understand.

digiday.com/marketing/digidays-definitive-if-not-exhaustive-2023-artificial-intelligencwww.cryptopolitan.com/news-corps-ai-opportunity-journalistice-glossary

The presses are indeed stopping

Newspapers aren’t the only ill part of the print media eco-system but also the physical printing infrastructuve that supports print. In the US, newspaper printing is increasingly concentrated, meaning not only are they less competitive but also that for newspapers, the printing presses are farther away from audiences. It used to be a bit of a media analyst game to predict when the last printed copy of a publication would roll off the presses, but these developments mean that it is likely only a few years off before print becomes uneconomic.

Restart the Presses?

Every newspaper printing-press closure is another shoe dropping on the local news landscape, and a big one dropped in June. That’s when Gannett announced that it will shutter its Pueblo Chieftain printing operation in Pueblo, Colo.

localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu/posts/2023/08/10/printing-press-closings/index.html

Tipping point in decline of magazines as one large printer remains in UK

All bar one of top-selling titles now printed by London-based Walstead after closure of rival in Liverpool

www.theguardian.com/media/2023/jul/03/tipping-point-in-decline-of-magazines-as-one-large-printer-remains-in-uk

I don’t usually include stories like this in the newsletter, but this story is different for a number of reasons. It is a shocking step by local law enforcement in the Land of the First Amendment, and it is a personal story. I know the owner and editor of the newspaper, Eric Meyer. He taught journalism where I studied as an undergraduate, the University of Illinois. He taught after I had graduated, but we connected when I was working as a regional executive editor at Gannett.

This story is just beyond shocking, and it demonstrates a profound ignorance about journalism, public records and even the laws of the United States. The press, a nearby journalism school and civil liberties groups have all rallied around Eric and his newspaper. I think this is the result of the criminalisation of journalism by political leaders, including former President Trump.

Raid of Small Kansas Newspaper Raises Free Press Concerns

The search of The Marion County Record’s office led to the seizure of computers, servers and cellphones of reporters and editors.

www.nytimes.com/2023/08/13/business/media/kansas-marion-newspaper-police-raid.html

Police stage 'chilling' raid on Marion County newspaper, seizing computers, records and cellphones - Kansas Reflector

In an unprecedented raid Friday, local law enforcement seized computers, cellphones and reporting materials from the Marion County Record office, the newspaper's reporters, and the publisher's home.

kansasreflector.com/2023/08/11/police-stage-chilling-raid-on-marion-county-newspaper-seizing-computers-records-and-cellphones/?fbclid=IwAR0LHUuNBx-5aqOhtA4QqQ0AhBMIgBDjleCgmuPYMtCLUTKV7ewtDag2Afw

It’s been another busy week at Pugpig so I’m writing another weekend edition of the newsletter, and I wanted to flag up something that we wrote about in the weekly Media Bulletin that we write. It is a great summary of a podcast interview on Subscribe Now on one of our favourite sites - the Audiencers. Lennart Schneider, the host of Subscribe Now, interviewed Selma Stern, the chief customer officer of Fortune.

Here was my summary of the conversation in our Media Bulletin:

The interview reinforced my view that in chasing reach publishers optimised growing large but only casually connected audiences. The belief is that by having a sizeable audience that advertising revenue would pay the bills, but it isn’t playing out that way. No matter how large the audience, advertising isn’t paying the bills and is an uneven revenue stream. Advertising has a role to play in revenue strategies but only part of a diversified revenue strategy. However, as Stern points out, chasing large audiences without revenue goals have led to the poor outcomes.

Targeting reach failed to deliver revenue for publishers (and what you should to do instead) - Pugpig

Fortune's Chief Customer Officer discusses diversity, cross-functional teams, measuring what matters and focusing on engagement over growth.

www.pugpig.com/2023/08/11/fortunes-chief-customer-officer-targeting-reach-failed-to-deliver-revenue-for-publishers

And here is a data-point about the challenges of ad-driven, scale businesses and how the big chains will focus on using AI to cut costs and extract value from their IP rather than delivering value to audiences.

News Corp profit collapse; looks to AI

News Corporation has recorded a 75 per cent drop in full-year profit. The US-listed media posted $187 million (€170.5m) in net profit for the financial year,

advanced-television.com/2023/08/11/news-corp-profit-collapse-looks-to-ai

Micro-payment ‘poster child’ abandons the strategy

Dutch media payment provider Blendle was held up a decade ago as proving an ‘iTunes for news’ model. I have always been sceptical of the model because news isn’t like music. I listen to my favourite songs over and over, but news has a short shelf life.

There is evidence that some people start a trial subscription so that they can read only a single article, and that might be a good use case for micro-payments. But Blendle has found that there is ‘very limited’ demand for one-off article payments. Instead, users prefer all-access subscription bundles. It is a useful reminder of how the paid content landscape has shifted and how publishers need to be nimble to adapt to consumer preferences.

The poster child for micropayments for news is getting out of the micropayments business

Blendle has been selling news by the article for nearly a decade, but "very limited" demand and the rise of digital subscriptions have done the idea in.

www.niemanlab.org/2023/08/the-poster-child-for-micropayments-for-news-is-getting-out-of-the-micropayments-business

Blendle shuts down micropayment model due to "very limited user base"

News consumers expect all-access, Spotify-style subscription bundles, not small purchases

www.journalism.co.uk/news/blendle-shuts-down-micropayment-model-due-to-very-limited-user-base-/s2/a1058771

What’s New in Publishing has a good piece about the challenges for UK publishers as they enter the US. Language and differences around political partisanship are just two challenges for British publishers. As someone who was at The Guardian when they launched one of their initial forays into the US, I would also say that British publishers misunderstand one critical element of the media market there - TV. TV news still remains a major source of news for American audiences.

How publishers can overcome potential culture clashes: Insights from HBM Advisory | What’s New in Publishing | Digital Publishing News

As part of our Collectif, in which we feature the work of our partners (see more here), the team from HBM Advisory looks at how UK publishers are targeting the US and offer some advice on how to overcome potential culture clashes British musicians have always struggled to “break” America. For some reason, the songs, lyrics and images …

whatsnewinpublishing.com/how-publishers-can-overcome-potential-culture-clashes-insights-from-hbm-advisory

Podcast networks report Q2 revenue growth, with positive signs for continued improvements in 2023

iHeartMedia, Spotify and Acast reported revenue growth between 12% and 31% year over year in their podcast businesses during the second quarter of 2023.

digiday.com/media/podcast-networks-report-q2-revenue-growth-with-positive-signs-for-continued-improvements-in-2023

The podcasting boom that occurred during the pandemic has cooled, but as with most media sectors, that has meant consolidation so that major networks are still finding opportunities for growth.

The Local-News Crisis Is Weirdly Easy to Solve

Restoring the journalism jobs lost over the past 20 years wouldn’t just be cheap—it would pay for itself.

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/08/local-news-investment-economic-value/674942

Steven Waldman, the co-founder of Report for America, says that supporting local news would pay for itself by curbing local corruption.

How a pop-up community newsroom shed light on wildfire health impacts in Boulder, Colorado – RJI

rjionline.org/news/how-a-pop-up-community-newsroom-shed-light-on-wildfire-health-impacts-in-boulder-colorado

With the fires raging in Hawaii, the Reynolds Journalism Institute highlights how newsrooms have popped up to cover wildfires in the past.

ABC exiting Twitter: Australia’s national broadcaster shuts down almost all accounts on Elon Musk’s X

The public broadcaster says interactions on the platform are ‘toxic’ as it closes almost all its Twitter accounts

www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/aug/09/abc-australia-leaves-twitter-x-elon-musk

Australian public broadcaster ABC has decided to shut down most of its accounts on the social network formerly known as Twitter.

Two really smart people - Damian Radcliffe of the University of Oregon and Charlie Beckett with the Polis media think tank at LSE - have come together for a conversation about AI. Charlie has been the driving force behind the JournalismAI project, and this work has been way out ahead of the recent surge in interest in AI spurred by the release of a version of ChatGPT last November that suddenly brought the technology to the larger public.

Two things jumped out at me: disintermediation and efficiencies/overabundance, the last two issues I see being linked. As Charlie points out, disintermediation is a little way down the road. This is the fear that AI-driven chat services will provide people with answers and news so that they don’t need to go to publishers’ sites. It will be another way in which technology gets in the way of publishers’ relationships with their audiences and also the commercial benefits that come from those relationships. The second issue is really at the crux of AI and publishing: How will publishers use it? Will they use AI to free up journalists to do more reporting and create more original, more engaging content experiences? Or will they use the technology to generate more redundant content that simply overwhelms audiences?

And Charlie makes a really good point, if publishers are able to drive efficiencies with AI, will they use the funds to reinvest in the business or simply to enrich investors or buy back their own stock. Goodness knows that many news publishers will have a motivation to prop up their stock values. It’s a clear-headed overview that helps set up the timelines and some possible implications of the technology.

What Generative AI means for media companies - DCN

AI has the potential to both disrupt and revolutionize the media industry so it is vital that to understand the risks and possibilities.

digitalcontentnext.org/blog/2023/08/03/what-generative-ai-means-for-media-companies

And here is how it is being used in the US, in the state of New Jersey. Questions are raised about a small local publisher using AI to generate news reports from local government meetings. I would guess that it summarises the meeting transcripts. But they aren’t checked, only corrected after the fact, which raises a lot of questions.

AI-generated news has arrived in New Jersey

It’s not journalism, but does it have a role to play in the information ecosystem?

medium.com/centerforcooperativemedia/ai-generated-news-has-arrived-in-new-jersey-6971f9949c47

As I have said, at Pugpig, we’re currently working on a report about retention, and we touch on the issue of zombies, those subscribers, or known audiences who have become disengaged with your content. Dominic Young says that you don't need to fear them, and based on his business, he thinks a pay-as-you-go option is one way to re-engage with these audiences.

For those audience engagement editors out there, this is a really well-thought post about a local newspaper in the US trying Meta’s new Twitter-esque text social network, Threads.

A few of their takeaways that stood out for me:

• It’s not about breaking news updates.

• A strong community feel, usually published during the afternoon. (And that time has always been solid for social media posting. In fact, we used to see a social spike after 4 when people seemed to be wanting to pass some time before quitting time.)

• For this publication, the posts did best when they focused on local issues and the community.

An interesting look at how Norway’s VG is handling corrections. There are some excellent ideas here about how to increase transparency and ultimately trust.

A Norwegian newspaper’s “transparency portal” aims to anticipate and answer reader questions about reporting

Readers "have to see this again and again and again, I think, before you really make an impact."

www.niemanlab.org/2023/08/a-norwegian-newspapers-transparency-portal-aims-to-anticipate-and-answer-reader-questions-about-reporting

Archives can be the source of a tremendous number of stories, and it has become one of the trends for a certain class of well-to-do publication with deep archives - think the New York Times and The Atlantic. Now the Wall Street Journal is getting in on the action. This is such a good product idea. Even the small newspapers I used to edit in Wisconsin have their own Throw-back Thursdays. So smart and likely to generate some excellent business.

The Wall Street Journal launches archived content newsletter

It is not all about the latest news: limited series provide a steady feed of highly engaged subscribers for months and years on end

www.journalism.co.uk/news/the-wall-street-journal-launches-seven-week-newsletter-based-on-archived-content/s2/a1054694

This is so sad and depressing. A woman working for the BBC covering misinformation and disinformation receives a vast majority of online abuse. Trolls are gonna troll. But when is society going to say enough is enough?

80% Of The BBC’s Online Abuse Is Addressed To One Female Journalist: “It’s Normal To Hate Me”

A female BBC journalist has discovered that she receives more than 80% of all the online abuse received by the entire corporation. Marianna Spring, the BBC’s first disinformation and social media c…

deadline.com/2023/08/marianna-spring-journalist-receives-80-percent-bbc-online-abuse-1235455940

The NFT is definitely cooling down.

NFT Sales Drop To New Low In July

NFT sales have dropped almost 50% since January of this year, and are now at the lowest recorded level since April 2021 -- a few months before the NFT boom launched in July 2021.

www.mediapost.com/publications/article/387910/nft-sales-drop-to-new-low-in-july.html

It was a busy week so this is a rare weekend edition of the newsletter, but that gives me a little more time to think and share a few things a bit farther afield but still relevant to media. It seems like a lifetime ago that I met Robin Sloan at Poynter. It was right before I moved to the UK the first time in 2005, and he and Matt Thompson created Epic 2014, a rather dystopian vision of the media future that actually hasn’t come to pass, at least in the same way. They predicted that the New York Times would go offline and Google and Amazon would merge. Interestingly, Matt now works as an editor at the New York Times.

Robin, like Matt, has continued to do interesting things, and in his most recent newsletter, he described what he called as a “crisis of discovery”, which is to say that many of the tools that media and publishers had come to rely to connect their content with audiences have been wilfully degraded. Facebook has engaged in a public divorce with journalism, and Elon Musk’s Twitter lurches daily from one drama to the next with no particular direction apart from vague but unrealised vision to become a Chinese-style super-app. And the fear that AI will completely remake search into an information-hoovering destination instead of a referral are rampant. Search and social have been the pillars of content discovery.

However, in some ways, Robin’s newsletter is an example of one of the new discovery channels that have developed. Yes, newsletters have become a valuable discovery tool for me. His newsletter highlighted a number of really interesting things, and I found out about his newsletter through another channel where I find interesting things and mine for knowledge - Slack. I was recently invited to publishing-focused Slack, which has become a much more interesting space than I had expected.

I will leave you with this important and choice quote from Robin about how to respond to all of this disruption:

A summer wind

Discovery and forthcoming.

www.robinsloan.com/newsletters/summer-wind

And this underlines the crisis of discovery when Google and Meta can cut off links to publishers because they don’t like the regulatory changes made by a government in the public interest.

Instagram, Facebook blocking news in Canada, creating 'news desert'

Meta recently began blocking news from Instagram and Facebook in Canada in response to the Online News Act.

www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/instagram-facebook-block-news-canada-online-act-desert-rcna98225

Meanwhile, the response to the Canadian bill that has led to the blocking by platforms has been varied with broadcasters and most publishers blasting the move but others saying that the regulation is harming journalism and local communities’ access to information.

The Lose-Lose-Lose-Lose Bill C-18 Outcome: Meta Blocking News Links on Facebook and Instagram in Canada - Michael Geist

For months, supporters of Bill C-18, the Online News Act, assured the government that Meta and Google were bluffing when they warned that a bill based on mandated payments for links was unworkable and they would comply with it by removing links to news from their platforms. However, what has been readily apparent for months became reality yesterday: Meta is now actively blocking news links and sharing on its Facebook and Instagram platforms. The announcement does not reference Threads, but it would not surprise if news links are ultimately blocked on that platform as well. The company says that the blocking will take several weeks to fully roll out to all users, suggesting that it has learned from the over-blocking mistakes made in Australia and is proceeding more cautiously in Canada. By the end of the month, the world’s largest social media platform will become a news desert in Canada, with links to all news - both Canadian and foreign - blocked on the platform.

www.michaelgeist.ca/2023/08/metablockslinks

Niche business publishing is having quite a good run as opposed to consumer publishing, and one of the reasons is the number of revenue streams that can be attached to it. What’s New in Publishing, soon to be rebranded as Mx3, highlight how medical publisher Karger has expanded into new markets and developed new products including online courses, communications and awards. Being in the lucrative medical field gives them certain advantages, but the diverse revenue model is something that has become quite standard operating procedure.

Publishers: Developing new content and services for an entire ecosystem | What’s New in Publishing | Digital Publishing News

This is an excerpt from our free-to-download report, Specialist Media Innovators in Europe Specialist media businesses are thriving by serving consumer and professional communities around topics of interest. It is a bustling, agile sector with creator-led, consumer and B2B media. We interviewed six leaders from our featured companies to dig into their strategy, uncover best practices …

whatsnewinpublishing.com/publishers-developing-new-content-and-services-for-an-entire-ecosystem

While there is a lot of anxiety on the editorial side of publishing about artificial intelligence, there has been wider adoption on the commercial side of the business. AI for commercial teams includes driving a lot of process efficiencies. In a lot of ways, it can be a good template for the editorial side of the business as well. AI can reduce a lot of repetitive drudgery.

Publishers Are Already Using AI Internally to Optimize Revenue Operations

Unlike in editorial, the commercial benefits of the technology are already here.

www.adweek.com/media/publishers-ai-optimize-revenue-operations

Poynter has some excellent examples of how local news outlets in the US are using AI to ensure that reporters have more time for original reporting. AI cannot do reporting, and by leveraging what it can to do add value for local audiences, it is smart.

How some local newsrooms are using AI - Poynter

Local newsrooms have been experimenting with AI for years, and interest has grown since the latest releases of ChatGPT

www.poynter.org/tech-tools/2023/how-some-local-newsrooms-are-using-ai

A good summary of a podcast episode with Fortune Chief Customer Officer Selma Stern that highlights how publishers are adapting to the challenges in media right now. I like the clear-eyed case made for diversity. It brings in different points of view and can help curb the impulse to group think. Bridge roles are also important in helping to make sure that different parts of an editorial business are in alignment with their goals. I led an initiative in my last job to refine our digital processes because it was clear that they overlapped in ways that our traditional organisation didn’t support. I especially like the part about metrics. I am in full agreement with Stern about the need to rethink metrics. There are too many publishers who still focus on reach to the exclusion of content performance metrics that drive engagement and revenue. It’s a good read and listen.

4 things to learn from Fortune: diverse teams, bridge roles, economic metrics & paywalls that adapt to the reader | The Audiencers

Chief Customer Officer Selma Stern shares her thoughts on the subscription business at Fortune Media

theaudiencers.com/inspirations/4-things-to-learn-from-fortune-diverse-teams-bridge-roles-economic-metrics-paywalls-that-adapt-to-the-reader

Last but not least, we have some research from UK media regulator Ofcom about the most popular types of content on social media. News comes in second. It came second only to ‘how-to’ videos on social media video platforms. Interesting read.

News is second most popular type of social media video – Ofcom

News is the second most popular type of social media video among UK audiences aged over 15, according to the 2023 Ofcom Media Nations report.

pressgazette.co.uk/social_media/news-video-social-ofcom-media-nations

I’ll start off this week with a good piece from my friends at WAN-IFRA on what it takes to be an editor in a modern, technology-driven newsroom. The piece is consistent with my own experience in that you need to be a generalist but build a team of specialists. It is a very product-y approach. Product in journalism scholar Damon Kiesow says, you have a T-shaped skillset - a deep skill in one area of expertise but then a broad and shallower expertise across the range of skills needed in a technology-filled newsroom. No one can be an expert in all of the areas that comprise the work environment. However, it is a tension in product management and newsroom management that you have to have some literacy in all of the areas that you manage. It’s a fine balance.

What does it take to be a newsroom editor in today’s technological age? - WAN-IFRA

2023-07-31. As we hurtle into the transformative era of AI, editors face fresh challenges to the way they lead their newsrooms. Do you have the skills to change traditional hierarchy and the way you and your staff operate so that the audience and data-led processes guide what you do? A new workshop may help.

wan-ifra.org/2023/07/what-does-it-take-to-be-a-newsroom-editor-in-todays-technological-age

Download this now: A free e-book on project management in newsrooms

Project management is one skill set that I have really grown to appreciate since joining Pugpig and making the shift from being a technically-minded, product-thinker in editorial organisations to a consultant for a software company that builds apps and websites for publishers. Robin Kwong, who has a great reputation due to his important work at the FT and Wall Street Journal, has just released a free e-book about project management in newsrooms. It’s a really useful resource, and I have to say that if you want to learn the secret of delivering innovation, it is really down to becoming proficient at project management.

Q&A: Why newsrooms need to embrace project management - Poynter

Robin Kwong's new resource guide lays out best practices for each stage of a successful editorial project's lifecycle

www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2023/qa-why-newsrooms-need-to-and-can-embrace-product-management

New guide helps journalists become better project managers

Robin Kwong, the brains behind special projects at the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal, publishes a blueprint for planning, executing and wrapping-up new ideas

www.journalism.co.uk/news/new-guide-helps-journalists-become-effective-project-managers/s2/a1057639

Grounded in research from Google on what makes effective teams, Samantha Ragland with the American Press Institute looks at the importance of psychological safety. In this context, psychological safety is defined as “a shared belief held by team members that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking.” It is a key ingredient for innovation, and this is a good read on creating a strong, supportive culture that helps people to be their best and builds great teams.

How news leaders can foster psychological safety

This week’s mental health reset asks you to interrogate how your contributions create a psychologically safe workplace.

www.americanpressinstitute.org/publications/articles/how-news-leaders-can-foster-psychological-safety

Today’s AI Round-up: Developments and news from Sweden, Australia and India

The AI headlines in publishing keep rolling in, and I’ll just briefly summarise them.

Swedish daily Aftonbladet finds people spend longer on articles with AI-generated summaries

Aftonbladet explains how it uses ChatGPT in the newsroom. Swedish daily is using generative AI to create article summaries.

pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/digital-journalism/aftonbladet-sweden-biggest-daily-use-chatgpt-in-the-newsroom

News Corp using AI to produce 3,000 Australian local news stories a week

The Data Local team uses AI technology to generate stories on weather, fuel prices and traffic reports for hyper-local mastheads

www.theguardian.com/media/2023/aug/01/news-corp-ai-chat-gpt-stories

Rise of AI newsbots shakes up India's media landscape

Virtual anchors mean no 'ego hassles' in newsrooms, but will they kill jobs?

asia.nikkei.com/Business/Media-Entertainment/Rise-of-AI-newsbots-shakes-up-India-s-media-landscape

Publishers and broadcasters respond to the changes in social media

As I have highlighted several times in the newsletter, the social media landscape is changing, and media is in an experimental phase as the strategies and platforms that had severed them so well over the past 15 years shift radically.

First off, The Guardian has a good overview of what Elon Musk’s overarching ambition is with X. It isn’t surprising that Musk with his history with PayPal would want to bring payments to X, but his broader ambition is to copy the uber apps in China such as WeChat that do much more than allow users to post micro-updates.

‘The everything app’: why Elon Musk wants X to be a WeChat for the west

Twitter owner’s rebranding is part of larger strategy to add payment functionality and more

www.theguardian.com/media/2023/jul/29/elon-musk-wechat-twitter-rebranding-everything-app-for-west

With Musk creating a lot of needless drama at Twitter, journalists and the organisations that they work for are experimenting with other platforms. The BBC announcing a six month trial on Mastodon is the biggest such experiment with the federated social service that I have seen. I will be really interested to see what comes of it, especially because the BBC tends to be very public and open with the results of its experiments.

BBC launches an “experimental” Mastodon server

The BBC has launched social.bbc.

www.theverge.com/2023/7/31/23814556/bbc-experimental-mastodon-server-twitter

And while I’ve highlighted the rapid user growth and stagnation that has happened with Threads, enetertainment and lifestyle publishers are experimenting with it, which makes sense seeing at Meta has been quite open that it doesn’t see this as a service catering to news. Whether that means that they are hostile to news on the platform or simply want to position it for a broader audience has yet to be seen. With Threads being so tightly connected to Instagram, I’m not suprised that entertainment and lifestyle publishers are dipping their toes into that pool. It seems a good git.

Entertainment, lifestyle publishers trial different post formats on Threads to see what sticks

Entertainment and lifestyle publishers are taking a variety of approaches to their Threads strategies, with some prioritizing sharing visual content while others are focused on text and link posts.

digiday.com/media/entertainment-lifestyle-publishers-trial-different-post-formats-on-threads-to-see-what-sticks/?utm_campaign=digidaydis&utm_medium=rss&utm_source=general-rss

I’ll close out with a few other bits. Having done a lot of data journalism over the years, I try to keep on toip of the latest and greatest. A few examples are examplars of traditional news graphics being translated into the interactive space, but it’s a good round up nonetheless.

Data Journalism Top 10: Wagner's Corporate Network, Barbie's Career History, and Spain's Election Results

GIJN's weekly round-up of data journalism looks at the Wagner Group's vast network, the many careers of Barbie, and Spanish election results.

gijn.org/2023/07/28/data-journalism-top-10-wagner-empire-barbie-career-history

And we start to see what Vice will focus on in the future. Instead of publisher, it looks like it will be more of a production studio. It makes much more sense than what it was doing. We’ll see if they can leverage the brand.

Bankrupt Vice Media Closes $350 Million Asset Sale to Lenders - Media Play News

Vice Media, the bankrupt independent producer of original content, including series for Max, Netflix, and ESPN, among others, has closed a $350 million asset sale to its lenders led by … Continue reading "Bankrupt Vice Media Closes $350 Million Asset Sale to Lenders"

www.mediaplaynews.com/bankrupt-vice-media-closes-350-million-asset-sale-to-lenders

At the risk of falling into the trap that two data points make a trend, I have noticed something interesting out of WAN-IFRA’s recent Global Congress: Media outlets in the Global South are now expanding their ambitions globally. First there was the story about Clarín in Argentina looking to the US as a new market and now we have Nation Media in Kenya. Nation Media admits that most of its revenue, some 80%, comes from legacy products, and it wants to accelerate what it calls digital integration. It wants to be a go-to news source in Africa and beyond. They have set an ambitioius goal of re-balancing their revenue so that 50% comes from digital by 2027. Digital integration means that they are looking to streamline their existing five newsrooms across titles and broadcast outlets. At the moment, those newsrooms are all competing for resources. They first needed to integrate their workflow, and then they will tackle content stragegy. With a broadcast wing, I would say that they are uniquely placed to take advantage of the shift to video-based content.

Of north stars and moon shots: Nation Media’s bold two-step journey to 500 million engagements by 2027

"We know it's audacious, but we think it's achievable." – Pamela Sittoni, Group Managing Editor. A quarter of a century after opening its online desk, the Kenyan legacy media group is relooking its digital-first approach with a bold move to becoming Africa’s go-to content platform.

wan-ifra.org/2023/07/of-north-stars-and-moon-shots-nation-medias-bold-two-step-journey-to-500-million-engagements-by-2027

Wirecutter used its Odes - “a short love letter to Wirecutter picks that have been beloved over time” - to create content on Instagram that drove affiliate revenue. The review site, which is owned by the New York Times, also used the reach of its parent company to drive double-digit revenue growth on Prime Day.

How Wirecutter's social strategy led to increased Prime Day affiliate revenue

Wirecutter's overall earnings from Prime Day-related content increased by "high double-digits" year over year, in part due to a prioritization of social media in its audience strategy.

digiday.com/podcasts/how-wirecutters-social-strategy-led-to-increased-prime-day-affiliate-revenue

While social helped Wirecutter, it is not doing any favour’s to Reach in the UK. Some of their sites were heavily dependent on Facebook traffic, especially from instant articles it would seem. The hit to their revenue was grim, grim, grim. I consulted with Reach from 2016 to 2018. I love their teams, but it’s time for a new strategy. The one they have isn’t working.

Reach revenue hit by cost of Facebook unfriending the news industry

Reach results: Profit and revenue hit by Facebook decision to remove news from feeds. Prince Harry privacy case could mean more payouts..

pressgazette.co.uk/media_business/reach-half-year-results-2023

This is a great example of how AI can help speed up processes. This is bread-and-butter application of the technology that does speed-to-text transcription and NLP to help speed the addition of metadata. It helps Reuters’ video customers find the video that they need.

How Reuters uses AI to speed up discoverability of video news content

The latest tech enhancement enables journalists to quickly find, identify, edit and publish material from video library Reuters Connect

www.journalism.co.uk/news/how-reuters-uses-ai-to-speed-up-discoverability-of-video-news-content/s2/a1055917

See the story above. I would expect Meta to start de-emphasising news content quickly on their new Twitter-killer. I hear more and more journalists are feeling exhausted by the churn and burn on social platforms. There is much more emphasis by publishers on using social to build direct relationships with their audiences via newsletters, podcasts and apps.

Meta wants Threads to keep a light tone, but some publishers say the audience is ready for news

News publishers aren't shying away from Threads, despite Meta's direction that it isn't a platform for news and politics.

digiday.com/media/meta-wants-threads-to-keep-a-light-tone-but-some-publishers-say-the-audience-is-ready-for-news

While podcasts might have come off the boil that they experienced during the pandemic, they still have a role in audience development and engagement. And Spotify’s CEO says that this role is that they engage younger audiences - something that publishers are always looking to do.

Spotify Eyes Younger-Skewing Podcasts As CEO Gives Shout-Out To ‘Call Her Daddy’, Mum On Archewell; Q2 Subscribers Jump, Losses Widen

Spotify had its best quarter ever for new additions but revenue fell short of expectations and the music streamer booked a wider loss on severance and other business charges for the three months en…

deadline.com/2023/07/spotify-podcasts-call-her-daddy-alex-cooper-archewell-q2earnings-1235447293

The breakneck pace of AI announcements continues with the major tech companies all scrambling to take advantage of the buzz (and the market pop). While AI experts have decried ‘doomerism’, but it isn’t jus consumers who have concerns about AI. A growing number of IT specialists are also worried about the ethics of AI as well.

In the category of flash-in-the-pan social applications, those audio chatroom apps - Clubhouse, Twitter Spaces and Amazon’s Amp - seem to have failed to really grow beyond a small user base.

Remember Amazon’s Clubhouse competitor? That’s okay — neither does almost anybody else | TechCrunch

Amp, Amazon's answer to the pandemic darling Clubhouse, has struggled to gain traction since its launch in March 2022.

techcrunch.com/2023/07/25/remember-amazons-clubhouse-competitor-thats-okay-neither-does-almost-anybody-else

And for the former tech reporter in me, I am going to throw in a little less recent tech history. For those of us who have been around for a while, it often does feel like history repeating itself.

Twenty years ago, AIM chatbot SmarterChild out-snarked ChatGPT | TechCrunch

Before ChatGPT, there was SmarterChild, an instant message chatbot whose encyclopedic knowledge and quick wit could put Google to shame.

techcrunch.com/2023/07/25/twenty-years-ago-aim-chatbot-smarterchild-out-snarked-chatgpt

First off, thank you to The Fix for positively mentioning my humble newsletter. Welcome to new readers. I publish a couple of times a week as the content merits and time allows. And if you like this newsletter, you might also like the newsletter that I write for my day job at Pugpig. Here is the last installment I wrote before going on my recent two-week holiday. Now, back to today’s newsletter.

It seems that there are only a few days since last November that AI hasn’t been in the headlines, and publishers have quickly taken stock of how their content has been and should be used to train LLMs. Big players like Bloomberg and plucky innovators like Skift are creating their own LLM products, but many other publishers want to be compensated for the value that LLM-based AI companies have already derived from their content. Players like Barry Diller and his IAC want big sums. This is the next battleground, and with regulators already feeling antagonistic toward platforms, publishers might have more success than in the past.

Publishers want billions, not millions, from AI | Semafor

Barry Diller fired publishers’ opening shot at artificial intelligence platforms in a Semafor interview this April, suggesting they sue the companies that have trained models on their data.

www.semafor.com/article/07/23/2023/publishers-want-billions-not-millions-from-ai

This is a classic Ansoff Matrix expansion strategy with both diversification and product development. Clarin has already grown their subscriber base in their home country of Argentina to become one of the top 20 publishers in the world based on its number of digital subscribers. Now, it is looking to build on its existing audience in the US and also launch new products including a football manager game.

With 700,000 paying subscribers, digital more profitable than print for Argentina’s Clarín - WAN-IFRA

2023-07-19. With 30 million readers, and paying digital subscribers surging past 700,000, Clarín has the distinction of having the largest number of paid digital users for any news publisher in Latin America.

wan-ifra.org/2023/07/with-700000-paying-subscribers-digital-more-profitable-than-print-for-argentinas-clarin

This acquisition shows the value of community and focus. I have long used DPReview, and I’m glad that it was saved.

How Gear Patrol acquired DPReview from Amazon | TechCrunch

DPReview and Gear Patrol are different boats, rowing in the same direction toward better products and product knowledge for enthusiasts.

techcrunch.com/2023/07/23/slow-is-smooth-and-smooth-is-fast

It’s a rebuilding year, but with new leadership, it looks like Jeff Bezos isn’t looking to sell but to make a new start.

Sources: Jeff Bezos is taking a more active role in The Washington Post's operations as staff morale craters and the newspaper is on pace to lose ~$100M in 2023

From New York Times. View the full context on Mediagazer.

mediagazer.com/230722/p2

Eight rounds of fundraising since 2017 as the company tried to raise enough money to replace the cash that they were haemorrhaging.

How Vice Media Went Bankrupt

New documents reveal a yearslong slide into increasing financial desperation

www.adweek.com/media/vice-media-bankrupt

Josh Bentons is encouraging journalists to engage with AI more constructively. AI is like any tool, and journalists need to stay rooted in their values and their mission to ensure that they use AI constructively. He addresses a lot of the thorny issues that surround AI.

Google wants you to let its AI bot help you write news articles

Dystopian, yes — but tools don't have to be perfect to be useful to journalists.

www.niemanlab.org/2023/07/google-wants-you-to-let-its-ai-bot-help-you-write-news-articles

And the important thing is that editorial organisations need to engage with these issues before the pressures of deadlines. Max Tani shows how Insider is grappling with the issues now.

Insider’s executive editor sent a note to staff today addressing how the newsroom’s pilot group is using AI

— Max Tani (@maxwelltani)
Jul 21, 2023

Social Media Update: Threads use declines and Twitter starts rollout of the super app with a branding update

Threads jumped out to 110m registered users within days, but data shows that activity has already dropped by 70%. But that doesn’t mean that we should start writing the obituary for it. Facebook iterates products quickly, and the first draft of this product will improve. The question now is whether Facebook can outpace Musk’s changes at X…

Threads Sees Significant Decline in Usage, but Opportunity for Disruption Remains

Threads has lost momentum from its early hype, but it's still early days for the app.

www.socialmediatoday.com/news/threads-sees-significant-decline-usage-opportunity-disruption/688715

And then today, we have the latest installment of the rolling drama that is Twitter these days. Elon Musk demonstrates that his forté is not branding and that he ran out of ideas by wanting to rebrand Twitter as X and eliminate all of the bird-related branding. Musk has not been shy about his desire to remake Twitter as a Chinese-style Weibo über app. Musk needs more services attached to the product because advertising is down by half.

Elon Musk says Twitter's blue bird to be replaced by an X

Musk signaled he would do more to take the company in a new direction with a rebranding after acknowledging advertisers have been slow to return.

www.reuters.com/technology/elon-musk-says-twitter-change-logo-adieu-all-birds-2023-07-23

And we have CNN product manager Upasna Gautum taking a poke at Twitter’s CEO in explaining the product vision behind X.

When you have ChatGPT write your product vision

— Upasna Gautam (@UpasnaGautam)
Jul 24, 2023