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

Hello. I’m sending out a brief newsletter as I start two weeks of vacation. I’m unplugging to spend some much-needed time recharging with family and friends in the US.

As I take time off, the stories dominating my reading right now just underscore the fundamental shift that we’re seeing with major things that have underpinned media online for much of the last 15 years: The search and social landscape is undergoing profound shifts right now. Search accounts for about a third of referrals to publishing websites, and AI is threatening to upend what has been a very stable source of traffic for the industry over the last few years.

Traffic from social sites has been much, much more volatile, and as I have written about, this has meant the end of major digital publishers who road the social wave and generated a lot of traffic but found that generating a sustainable business from that traffic was much more elusive - think Mashable, Mic, Vice and Buzzfeed. These brands were once expected to dominate the 21st Century media landscape, and now, I expect most will be a soon to be forgotten footnote to the middle early phase of digital publishing.

And we see that publishers, especially news publishers, are trying to claw back some of the advertising revenue that they have lost to the Big Tech platforms through regulation. However, as we’re seeing in Canada, the platforms are not taking this lie down.

We’re in a period of major change and uncertainty. Publishers will need to redouble their efforts to build direct and deep connections with their audiences. First-party data, newsletters, apps and other tools and techniques of audience development will become more important as ways to drive loyalty and habit. Right, my out of office is on. I’ll see you the last week of July!

Bill C-18: Google and Meta spark crucial test for Canadian journalism

A series of crises in the Canadian media sector will become a crucial test for what the country’s media landscape could and should look like in the 21st century.

theconversation.com/bill-c-18-google-and-meta-spark-crucial-test-for-canadian-journalism-208827

Twitter Reportedly Threatens To Sue Meta Over Threads App

Elon Musk's social media company threatens Facebook's parent company over the Twitter lookalike.

www.cnet.com/tech/twitter-reportedly-threatens-to-sue-meta-over-threads-app

The end of “free-for-all” internet? — What publishers need to know | What’s New in Publishing | Digital Publishing News

Twitter limits could offer an unexpected boost for news publishers Recently, a pivotal announcement from Twitter owner Elon Musk sent shockwaves through the digital world. The social media platform introduced rate limits on the number of tweets users can read per day, based on their account verification status, a paid qualification. This decision was aimed …

whatsnewinpublishing.com/the-end-of-free-for-all-internet-what-publishers-need-to-know

Apple has found that privacy is a good selling point as consumers seek some protections from being targeted and tracked by advertisers. As Josh Benton at Harvard’s Nieman Lab points out, this means that for the third time in recent years, Apple is rolling out a feature that will reduce advertisers, marketers and publishers’ ability to track user behaviour. Link Tracking Protection is set to be rolled out in iOS 17, iPadOS17 and macOS Sonoma. It will be on by default in Apple Mail and Messages as well as Safari’s private browsing. It will also be an option in Safari’s default browsing. It will target the tracking parameters that are part of UTM codes, those long strings appended to URLs that allow tracking by source and campaigns. It’s not all doom and gloom. You will still be able to track users by campaign and medium. What this move really targets is personally identifiable tracking codes that link activity to an individual user. Apple actually seems to be targeting IDs from other platforms such as Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Hubspot and MailChimp. Read on and make sure to click the links for additional detail.

For better and for worse, Apple’s about to make your readers harder to track again

It's a win for privacy, but also another case of a tech giant independently changing the rules for digital publishers.

www.niemanlab.org/2023/07/for-better-and-for-worse-apples-about-to-make-your-readers-harder-to-track-again

Jeff Jarvis is back with another book tying looking at the changes brought about by digital media. I have to agree with Jeff when he says, “This is the last gasp of old media, traffic for traffic’s sake, scale for scale’s sake. All that came out of the advertising business model and I think that changes now.” Those publishers that are still chasing scale are mostly failing. He is talking about how publishers need to rethink value that they are providing foraudiences. I think the message is especially important as publishers consider using AI to generate more commodity content more cheaply.

New book by Jeff Jarvis uses lessons from media’s print history to frame the digital future

It’s been 550 years since moveable type debuted. Author Jeff Jarvis explores the media industry’s history and future in his new book, The Gutenberg Parenthesis, The Age of Print and Its Lessons for the Age of the Internet. INMA Product Initiative Lead Peter Bale interviewed Jarvis on the topic.

www.inma.org/blogs/newsroom-initiative/post.cfm/new-book-by-jeff-jarvis-uses-lessons-from-media-s-print-history-to-frame-the-digital-future

Google is facing a lot of pushback from publishers and regulators around the world so it is interesting to see Richard Gingras at WAN-IFRA’s recent Global Congress. I will agree that those of us who have been around digital media for a long time have seen ‘quieter times’. But we’re in a period in which Google is at conflict with publishers unlike at any time in its history.

‘We must think beyond the memes’: Google’s Richard Gingras on the future of news in our societies - WAN-IFRA

2023-07-05. Following the passing of the Online News Act in Canada, Google’s Vice President of News discusses the use of generative AI related to news content, trends in internet policy and regulations, and offers other observations about the future of journalism.

wan-ifra.org/2023/07/we-must-think-beyond-the-memes-googles-richard-gingras-on-the-future-of-news-in-our-societies

This year’s Reuters Institute Digital News Report highlighted the rising percentages of people actively avoiding news. It is something that they have been covering in greater detail as the practice increases. This year, they delved into the reasons why people avoided news and found that their reasons for avoiding news were varied and that even the most ardent news avoiders still engaged with the news at times, usually around big stories. Others sought out more positive news, not necessarily just feel good stories but solutions journalism as well. Now publishers are actively trying to engage these groups with non-news verticals - think of the New York Times cooking or ‘things to do’ coverage as we used to call it when I was a regional executive editor with Gannett.

Publishers are tackling news avoidance with non-news verticals: Here's how | What’s New in Publishing | Digital Publishing News

The 2023 Digital News Report highlights the continued high level of news avoidance In 2022, the Digital News Report showed selective news avoidance – a practice where audiences take active steps to not get news by turning off notifications or even their devices when news comes up. The 2023 data indicated a continued decline of people …

whatsnewinpublishing.com/publishers-are-tackling-news-avoidance-with-non-news-verticals-heres-how

As a former Gannett editor, this interested me. One thing that really stood out for me is the EBITDA multiple that Gannett had in 2013. I joined them in 2014, and wow, Gannett was still raking in the cash - an EBITDA multiple of 22.3! The piece puts this in context that Politico and Dennis Publishing both sold for EBITDA of 15x. What is cleat that the New York Times decision to focus on digital subscriptions years before Gannett have delivered. But digital subs for local journalism have proven challenging for big chains like Gannett. We can debate why that is, but many folks would say that the product that they deliver doesn’t justify the price of a subscription - especialliy as they have cut their local news gathering capacity.

USA Today and The New York Times: A reversal in fortunes caused by digital revolution | 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). Here Reed Phillips, CEO of Oaklins DeSilva+Phillips—an investment bank for the media, marketing, and technology industries, based in New York City—and Jack Stephen, a Duke University student working with Oaklins as a summer intern, compare how USA Today and The …

whatsnewinpublishing.com/usa-today-and-the-new-york-times-a-reversal-in-fortunes-caused-by-digital-revolution

And I add this one fast on the heals of the previous story because the New York Times is an outlier for so many reasons so it is important to not focus solely on it when looking for a path to the future. As the Reuters Institute report has pointed out, in digital news, every country now has a winner takes most market, in which a few national titles win the vast majoity of the digital news market.

Why researchers shouldn’t study The New York Times to understand U.S. news media as a whole

"I think the value of our paper is to tell researchers that you can use The New York Times, but you need to realize The New York Times is representative of itself."

www.niemanlab.org/2023/06/why-researchers-shouldnt-study-the-new-york-times-to-understand-u-s-news-media-as-a-whole

I type this as my phone flashes every few minutes with a new follower, well, someone who follows me on Twitter now following me on Threads. To be honest, this is the biggest threat to Twitter of all of the services that have been released since Musk turned the platform into a soap opera (that sadly had real life consequences for many people I knew).

Threads: Meta’s Twitter clone is here - and it’s good

Can Threads hit the mainstream, where other Twitter clones have failed?

onemanandhisblog.com/2023/07/threads-first-impressions-of-metas-new-twitter-competitor/?utm_campaign=first+share&utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=social

Twitter’s new CEO proves that she is a team player or at least a good spokesperson for Musk on why he makes the decisions that he does. I can understand this from the standpoint of not wanting Twitter to be scraped by LLMs without some kind of compensation. This is the second best tweet from the new CEO. The one that takes the biscuit talks about how Twitter’s imitators (see above item) can’t duplicate its community. Um, well, if they have the social graph of Facebook, it just might be possible.

Twitter CEO breaks silence on platform’s reading caps | Digital Trends

Twitter’s new CEO Linda Yaccarino has commented for the first time on the platform’s controversial decision to impose reading limits on its users.

www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/twitter-ceo-breaks-silence-on-platforms-reading-caps

This is a bit if history that I know that digital journalists of a certain age will appreciate. I use Feedly to provide me with the links that I use for this newsletter, but I still mourn the loss of Google Reader, the search giant’s RSS reader. I am still not ready to forgive Google for killing this product, but at least I have some context. When you operate at Google scale, products that don’t reach that scale don’t have a chance.

Who killed Google Reader?

Google Reader was supposed to be much more than a tool for nerds. But it never got the chance.

www.theverge.com/23778253/google-reader-death-2013-rss-social

And I am sure that we’ll be seeing a lot of stories like this. AI will kill a lot of commodity content jobs from journalism to marketing copy writers. The school of cost efficiency finds AI just far too tempting.

Want to make tech journalism worse? Replace news editors with AI

We stand to lose everything

www.techradar.com/computing/artificial-intelligence/want-to-make-tech-journalism-worse-replace-news-editors-with-ai

I am traveling in the US so the normal schedule will be a bit abnormal through next week before I take a couple of weeks off. This week, there was a lot of movement both in terms of paid content and also the newsletter scene.

We start off with a bit of research in the UK about the types of calls to action that work in convincing people to pay for a subscription. The research carried out by Dr Neil Thurman of City University in London and Dr Bartosz Wilczek and Ina Schulte-Uentrop of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München surveyed 815 people in the UK.

The research tested four messages about why a person would subscribe to a newspaper that they liked:

• a ‘normative’ message that leaned into the idea of supporting independent journalis.

• a ‘price transparency’ message about the precarious finances of journalism

• a value proposition message about the exclusive content that people could get from buying a digital subscription

• a social message about being a part of a community.

No individual message would produce a ‘significant amount’ of subscribers, but a combination of two messages - the normative and price transparency appeals and a combination of price transprency, value proposition and social messages did produce a significant result.

This is important work considering the low rate of subscription adoption in the UK. According to the most recent Reuters Institute Digital News report. Only 9% of people in the UK had paid for news online in the past year, as opposed to 21% in the US or 39% of people in Norway.

Research reveals most effective paywall marketing messages for news sites

A study has found the best messaging to convert subscribers emphasises the importance of subscriptions for sustaining independent journalism.

pressgazette.co.uk/paywalls/paywall-marketing-study

Informing readers about journalism's societal importance could boost subscription revenues

A new study, led by Professor Neil Thurman, Honorary Senior Research Fellow at City University of London along with Dr. Bartosz Wilczek and Ina Schulte-Uentrop from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU), and published in the International Journal of Communication, reveals how a sales pitch mentioning both the financial pressures faced by news outlets and how subscribers support independent journalism significantly enhances a reader's willingness to pay for content.

phys.org/news/2023-06-readers-journalism-societal-importance-boost.html

Major UK national-regional publisher Reach has tried a number of subscription strategies in the past few years, with none of them really delivering the results that the group wanted. But now they are testing a metered paywall for the MEN app. We - being Pugpig - will be watching closely because we have built a lot of Reach’s apps.

Reach launches first metered paywall experiment on MEN app

The Manchester Evening News has become the first Reach title to launch a paid-for premium membership offering, on its app.

pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/regional-newspapers/manchester-evening-news-men-trials-premium-app-with-metered-paywall

The tech majors have moved away from third-party cookies as user privacy has become a selling point, and publishers and broadcasters have moved to first-party data solutions because it means it is much more valuable than third-party data so there has been a push and a pull. The question hasn’t been about the why but about the how.

Like so many strategic efforts, you have to get executive-level buyin. After that, it’s really all about execution including making sure to ask the right questions from providers and still understanding that third-party data has a place as part of your audience funnel.

How broadcasters have moved away from reliance on third-party cookies

Nine broadcast companies were able to accelerate their first-party data collection strategies, as part of the National Association of Broadcasters PILOT’s accelerator program. Read more about how they did it in our Accelerate Local How-To series recap.

localmedia.org/2023/06/how-broadcasters-can-grow-first-party-data

The Online News Association in the US is having a newsletter how-to session packed with smart folks from the Wall Street Journal. It will include how to measure success and grow your newsletters.

Newsletter tips for journalists: Grow revenue, add subscribers – Online News Association

Expand and connect with your audience and send better emails using these tips from past ONA conference sessions.

journalists.org/2023/06/27/boost-your-newsletter-how-to-grow-revenue-attract-subscribers-and-polish-strategy

In another piece of research out of the UK, the News Futures 2035 project has released a report into its findings. The more than 300 experts have been looking at ways to build a more sustainable future for public increase news (rather than simply news that the public is interested in). Reading between the lines, the political orientations of the publishers in the UK make it difficult if not impossible to find a way forward on policy an regulation.

Building a better future for public interest news

The News Futures 2035 project brought together more than 300 experts in search of better ways to supply sustainable, trustworthy news in the UK

www.journalism.co.uk/news/how-to-build-a-better-future-for-public-interest-news/s2/a1048425

Google has joined Meta have now adopted a common front in the face of regulation in Canada that would require them to pay publishers for linking to their content. With passage of the Online News Act C-18 in Canada, it will mean that Canadian news content will disappear from Google Search, News and Discovery. If figures in Canada are the same as elsewhere, this could put about a third of their referral traffic that news organisations get from search in peril.

Google Joins Meta In Killing News In Canada

Tech giants object to bill that would require they compensate publishers for linking to their content.

www.mediapost.com/publications/article/386842/google-joins-meta-in-killing-news-in-canada.html

For professional and business content, LinkedIn can be a valuable platform for publishers, and they have just tweaked their algorithms. During the pandemic, users said that their feeds were flooded with “Facebook-styel” personal content. As they de-prioritise this content, they will also emphasise content from first-degree connections.

LinkedIn Shares New Insights into its Latest Algorithm Updates

LinkedIn recently updated its algorithm to put more focus on professional engagement.

www.socialmediatoday.com/news/linkedin-shares-new-insights-into-its-latest-algorithm-updates/654091

The podcast market definitely seems to be cooling, and the latest example is US satellite radio service Sirius XM deciding to shut down the Stitcher podcast app. I’m personally sad because I was a heavy user in the eight years that we lived in the States. It’s app was integrated into my Mazda’s car entertainment system, and it had a really good discovery service. However, I can see why it ran counter to Sirius XM’s business model, and the company will move podcasting content into its main satellite radio app. And that makes a lot of sense because most people only use a handful of apps frequently. Having two apps simply didn’t make any sense.

STITCHER FAREWELL — Stitcher Help Center

Are you looking for help with STITCHER FAREWELL for Stitcher?

stitcher.helpshift.com/hc/en/1-stitcher/section/151-stitcher-farewell-1687885657

The graphic at the beginning of this article lays out a problem that audiences are facing: information overload. And it strikes me that a number of the initiatives that publishers have tried in the past decade to attract new audiences have helped create the problem of information overload, not solve it. And AI sceptics talk about one possible, if not probable, outcome of AI: a tsunami of crap content. Volume publishers are looking to AI to reduce headcount even further while creating more content than ever. That will only exacerbate the problem of information overload, which technology companies will gladly solve by using generate AI. In the first quarter of 2023, 29% of referrals to news sites came from search engines, which is more than double the amount the amount of traffic that social media sent to news sites - only 14%. If AI disrupts search traffic to news sites, then it could cut into that third of traffic. But in this INMA piece, they break search traffic down even further between navigational, informational and transactional queries, which mean that possibly not all of this traffic is at risk. On the bright side, the piece says that due to computing costs, it will take Google and Microsoft about two years to roll out generative Ai so publishers have time to adapt but no time to lose.

Generative AI search puts one-third of digital news business at risk in next few years

One-third of digital news business is at risk with the competition generative AI search offers. Research about generative AI search and reader behaviour sheds light on what media companies are facing and how they can counter.

www.inma.org/blogs/reader-revenue/post.cfm/generative-ai-search-puts-one-third-of-digital-news-business-at-risk-in-next-few-years

Poool looks at an analysis by the Press Gazette on what drives conversion and adds their own data. The Press Gazette said that conversion depended on variables such as the amount of time that the publisher had had a paywall in place, the brand reach (national vs local brands) and whether the publisher relied solely on paid content or balanced subs revenue with advertising.

Poool added their own data and also found that conversion success also depended on whether a registration wall was part of the conversion process, whether a single or multiple offers were displayed at the paywall and whether the paywall has good mobile usability. They go through other issues affecting conversion success. It’s a good resource for those of you looking to optimise your conversion experience.

What explains subscription conversion success? A new formula and study seeks to find an answer | The Audiencers

Does the paywall model impact conversion success? A study and a new formula for evaluating subscription success aims to answer this question

theaudiencers.com/decisions/what-explains-subscription-conversion-success-a-new-formula-and-study-seeks-to-find-an-answer

In the recent Reuters Institute Digital News report, they showed how news fatigue is continuing to affect engagement with digital news content. As the report found, most people who avoid news do not avoid all news but often specific subjects or anything but major news. Some of those who avoided news were looking for more positive takes on the news.

US broadcaster CBS is finding success with solutions journalism. This is an approach that not only highlights issues but also covers different approaches to solve the problems highlighted.

CBS News effort shows the growth in solutions journalism to combat bad news fatigue

Following the news can be relentlessly depressing, so much that some people use that as an excuse for avoiding it. To combat that feeling, there's been a growth in the idea of “solutions journalism,” or stories that emphasize efforts being made to solve some of society's problems. For the past year CBS News has been training journalists at its locally-owned stations to look for these kinds of stories. Network news chief Wendy McMahon says it's time to look beyond what is happening to figuring out ways to help. Proponents of the idea say it takes rigorous reporting to work — that it's not just looking for good news.

apnews.com/article/solutions-journalism-cbs-watchdog-4fb1d1f4818e2f6f11f9e3446f0a1b62

WAN-IFRA looks at how a coaching approach can help news publishers adapt to the changes that digital disruption has brought to the media business. It covers how a coaching approach works to understand the publisher’s problems and guide the participants towards a solution.

Helping news publishers become audiences-first: a coach’s perspective - WAN-IFRA

2023-06-20. We spoke with Stéphane Mayoux, one of the coaches in WAN-IFRA’s Table Stakes Europe programme, about how coaching can support news publishers as they work to transform their companies into future-proof businesses: “Understanding problems, making changes, carrying out experiments: this is what media companies need to do to survive in the digital environment.”

wan-ifra.org/2023/06/helping-news-publishers-become-audiences-first-a-coachs-perspective

A look at newspaper circulation in the US by the Press Gazette. The bigger they are the harder they fall with the largest print titles seeing an average drop of 14% in their print circulation. And I think it’s important to stress the drop in print circulation. The New York Times saw its print circulation drop by 10%, but in May, it reported that in its latest quarter, digital circulation had grown by 190,000. The New York Times boasts 9.7 total subscribers, with 710,000 of those being print subscribers.

Top 25 US newspaper circulations: Largest print titles fall 14% in year to March 2023

The largest US newspaper circulations fell 14% in the year to March 2023, new figures from the Alliance for Audited Media show.

pressgazette.co.uk/media-audience-and-business-data/media_metrics/top-25-us-newspaper-circulations-down-march-2023

Podcasting is seeing consolidation, with Spotify retrenching its podcasting strategy. The changes have meant a decline in Hollywood stars and other big-budget talent and a focus more on audio specialists.

Hollywood is leaving podcasting to podcasters | Semafor

The new conventional wisdom in podcasting is that A-list celebrities and big-budget audio narratives are out, and that medium is closer to talk radio or daytime television personalities than with Windsors.

www.semafor.com/article/06/25/2023/hollywood-is-leaving-podcasting-to-podcasters

If you want another Twitter competitor, your wait is over. Sensing blood in that water, Meta is only weeks away from launching its answer to Twitter. Forget about the Musk v. Zuck cage fight, this is where the real action is.

Meta Targets Mid-July Launch for New Twitter Challenger App

And the launch could be preceded by an actual fight between Elon Musk and mark Zuckerberg.

www.socialmediatoday.com/news/meta-targets-mid-july-launch-for-new-twitter-challenger-app/653970

Apart from a number of stories about AI in today’s, the theme for the top two stories is about the evolution of paid content strategies. The first piece looks at a model for segmenting users based on loyalty – VORF for Volatiles, Occasionals, Regulars and Fans. While Volatiles account for the vast majority of traffic, the same cannot be said for revenue. As I often say, the goal is to increase habit and loyalty leading to membership or subscription, and Madeleine White of subscription and membership suite Poool writes about how to achieve this by focusing on ARPU. One way is to introduce a ‘cookie wall’, giving loosely attached readers a way to support your content. 

This is just one example of the increasing sophistication of paid content strategies, and Brian Morrissey writes about the evolution of dynamic paywalls. For a while, paid content seemed to be a binary choice between hard and metered paywalls, but now we have registration walls, cookie walls, dynamic paywalls and more. And that is just the evolution of the paywall models rather than the content strategies. Morrissey points out that there are also new subscription bundles. 

How to improve your Engagement Funnel and increase ARPU – The Fix

A study reveals the adapted engagement strategies to put in place for each user cohort, ensuring you maximize ARPU at every step of the conversion funnel.

thefix.media

The new subscription bundle

Informed is bundling premium subscription content

www.therebooting.com

From failure to success: How to make your old product initiatives earn new revenue – Local Media …

We’ve seen it more times than we want to admit. The publisher, general manager or CEO spearheads a new initiative: “We are going to do [fill in the blank].” The newsroom and sal…

localmedia.org

Sometimes you are too early. Streaming audio was a bit too early in 2002, but audio on demand (aka podcasts) has exploded now. I think that there is a broader point to this piece. Sometimes successful products are a matter of timing, and I think that one of the arts of product management is knowing when to retire a product. I like the idea that some product managers have introduced product retirement parties. 

What is a newsletter?

Rethinking how we conceptualise newsletters, why you should ignore the podcast doom-mongers and more in today’s updates.

onemanandhisblog.com

Adam Tinwoth looks more deeply at newsletters. Yes, they can be audience development tools, but they can also be products unto themselves. 

Industry News: Security as a paid feature and UK publishers lean into Ozone ad platform

For the tech giants, security is increasingly a paid feature

Identity verification on social platforms used to be a matter of trust and safety. Now for Twitter and Facebook, it’s a new line of revenue.

www.niemanlab.org

It is great to see Josh Benton take aim at both Twitter and Meta as they start to make security and identity protection paid features. I don’t begrudge either platform trying to find new revenue streams as advertising goes soft during a period of economic uncertainty, but making users pay for security and identity protection is a stupid idea. And it shines a light on how badly both platforms have managed these issues, with Twitter’s paid blue check debacle and rampant impersonation and spam accounts on Meta. 

Leading UK publishers increase investment in Ozone share advertising platform

News publishers announce new investment in the Ozone Project.

pressgazette.co.uk

How the YouTube algorithm works: What marketers need to know

This guide will help you get the most out of YouTube, understand the platform’s algorithm and gain visibility for your best videos.

searchengineland.com

Whether you’re a publisher or a marketer, understanding how the major platforms work is critical. This is a good one to bookmark. 

AI in media stories reaches a fever pitch

How chatbots can change journalism. Or not. | Semafor

The trick is to focus on the tasks they can do well — which is to work with language, rather than on gathering or verifying facts.

www.semafor.com

Gina Chua, the executive editor for Semafor, has been interested in the intersection of media and technology, particularly with respect to what she calls ‘structured journalism’ for years. Here, she looks at what AI chatbots can and can’t do, and actually how this changes quickly, often without much transparency. 

The FT’s CEO on why ChatGPT can’t replace good journalism – Raconteur

John Ridding joined the FT as a reporter in 1988. He believes his journey from the newsroom to the boardroom helps him better understand the business and guide its future

www.raconteur.net

This article spends much more time discussing Ridding’s rise through the ranks at the FT and the history of this storied brand than AI, but they manage to hook the reader with a headline that actually only addresses two paragraphs of the story. 

AI’s threat to Google is more about advertising income than being the #1 search engine | What’s N…

Google’s dominance as the most visited website has been undisputed since it rose to prominence as the leading search engine in the early 2000s. However, that position could now …

whatsnewinpublishing.com

What this story highlights is that while technology can be awe-inspiring, it is the business model behind it that actually determines whether a company is a footnote to history or a major paradigm shift. Why did Google best Altavista in the battle for search engine supremacy in the early part of the century? Well, yes, it delivered more relevant search results, but it also developed an incredible business model, nay, a paradigm-shifting business model that not only monetised search but actually created an auction system that reinforced its model of delivering better results. 
Now, all that could change with AI. The question becomes whether any of the AI-search providers can develop a business model that will best Google’s model based on search intention. Watch this space. 

ChatGPT launches boom in AI-written e-books on Amazon

Until recently, Brett Schickler never imagined he could be a published author, though he had dreamed about it. But after learning about the ChatGPT artificial intelligence progr…

www.reuters.com

Ugh. 

Sci-Fi Mag Pauses Submissions Amid Flood of AI-Generated Short Stories

Clarkesworld speculates that people are using AI to make ‘a quick buck’ since the sci-fi publication pays 12 cents a word for accepted stories.

uk.pcmag.com

And ugh. Both of this and the story about e-books and Amazon demonstrate how people are more than willing to use technology in an arbitrage game. Can they use AI to drive the cost of creative production down to almost zero? 

PLUS: Being a creator might force you to grapple with your limitations and a tweet thread about an important US court case

A good piece from the Reynolds Journalism Institute about how a solopreneur had to deal with work-life boundaries. I’m grappling a lot with boundaries right now and priorities. I think that talk about side hustles; learning violin, and a second language all the while raising perfect children during the pandemic is actually corrosive. We have so much performative workaholicism on social media that it’s easy to give in to head trash about inadequacy. (Head trash is a wonderful term for negative self-talk coined by Charlie Gilkey. I find it very useful.)
This piece is a wonderful corrective to all of this. 

And lastly, an excellent bit of public service from Jonathan Stray. 

Gonzales vs. Google SCOTUS briefs megathread!
Yesterday a dozen briefs arguing that Section 230 properly protects “targeted recommendations” dropped, from groups all across the political spectrum. I read a bunch of them. Here are some common themes and juicy excerpts.

1/

— Jonathan Stray (@jonathanstray)
Jan 20, 2023

Artificial intelligence continues to be one of the major themes of the year after ChatGPT became the application of the technology that made it accessible and its potential understandable for consumers and business leaders alike. Peter Bale of INMA says that AI search will provide a new challenge for publishers because they will struggle to attribute content. We’re now definitely at the innovation trigger of Gartner’s Hype Cycle. 

As if to prove Peter’s point, publishers are already lawyering up to challenge generative AI providers for using their content to train AI. In the current regulatory environment, I can imagine that licencing knowledge for the training of large language models could become a lucrative revenue stream for publishers, especially those like Dow Jones that produce a lot of valuable business intelligence. Regulators are much more likely to compel tech companies to share their wealth with content companies. 

One of the themes of the past several years has been newsletter growth, and the Post and Courier in the US has three lessons from its Google News Initiative newsletter project. One that leaped out at me was how they focused on ARPU, which actually helped reduce churn by not setting up a meager introductory price. 

This plus a few bits of social media news including podcast management tools testing in YouTube Studio. Something that makes my blood boil a bit is that Meta is testing a verified account service. I don’t think I should be paying for Meta policing copycat accounts. That seems to me to be their responsibility. And a story on the ad side about how supply-side platforms have become a low-cost commodity service. 

Thanks for the photo from mikemacmarketing from Flickr and on WikiMedia Commons. 

Generative AI search will challenge all news publishers

ChatGPT was all well and good when it was cutely spitting out paragraphs, but what about when it upends search by not directing users to news media Web sites and other important…

www.inma.org

Peter not only identifies one of the challenges that AI search will pose, namely attribution, but his post is a good overview of how that is being handled by different providers including Microsoft’s Bing and a service called Perplexity.ai. 

I think that Peter is right when he says that Microsoft isn’t targeting the profits of publishers with its AI search but rather those of Google. But we’re definitely in a disruptive phase of AI innovation, and it’s during these times when potential winners can quickly rise and then fall to become a footnote to history. 

Dow Jones’ general counsel says OpenAI lacks a deal to use WSJ reporters’ work to train its AI; s…

By Gerry Smith / Bloomberg. View the full context on Mediagazer.

mediagazer.com

This Bloomberg story proves Peter’s point that attribution and compensation are going to become very important for all kinds of generative AI as the companies behind them seek new sources of knowledge to train their LLMs. 

Post and Courier shares 3 lessons from its newsletter growth strategy

The Post and Courier collaborated with the Google News Initiative to explore the efficacy of paid newsletters as a viable growth strategy for the news organisation.

www.inma.org

Social Media and Industry news

YouTube has become a major podcasting platform, and podcasters have been uploading simple videos that remind me of a lot of studio cam footage. So it comes as no surprise that YouTube is testing tools for this market.

Meta hops on the verification bandwagon. I think they need to fix the cloning of accounts on their own as an act of good faith rather than charging for this privilege. This is affecting not just brands but regular people. It’s not a good look. 

And lastly, as I mentioned last week, with the economy going through a soft spot in the US and several places really, the ad market is shifting quite a bit. 

YouTube Tests Podcast Management Options in YouTube Studio

YouTube’s gradually evolving its podcast elements.

www.socialmediatoday.com

Meta Announces Initial Test of ‘Meta Verified’ Paid Verification Scheme on Facebook and IG

Meta’s following Twitter’s lead with a paid verification program.

www.socialmediatoday.com

Yahoo Shuttering Its SSP Is Evidence That Ad Exchanges Are Becoming Interchangeable | AdExchanger

Yahoo pulling the plug on its SSP demonstrates how difficult it’s become for supply-side platforms to prove their value in a commoditized marketplace.

www.adexchanger.com

I am starting to do some user needs work with consulting clients at Pugpig, and I’m keen to do more. I think it’s an excellent audience-first framework that provides a way to refine a content strategy and also develop new products, and we’ve got a great example from The Conversation, which publishes pieces from academics on topics in the news. They used the model to achieve a goal that many publishers are trying to achieve – attracting a younger audience. 

My friend Damien Radcliffe continues to provide some excellent coverage of commerce media, which is a range of approaches that merge content and retail. These tactics range from affiliate marketing to brand extensions, and he provides an update with one of his signature pieces showing how a digital media trend is playing out in five charts. 

Rounding out our top-featured pieces are two items about the newsletter space, which has and continues to be a very active focus for publishers because they are key across a wide range of editorial from stand-alone products to elements of conversion and retention strategies. That plus industry news. 

How The Conversation is attracting younger readers

The academic news website created a user needs model, a new series and a text messaging service to engage with the under 30s

www.journalism.co.uk

A detailed on how to run the user needs playbook and also how it leads to some really interesting product development. 

eCommerce and Publishing in 2023: 5 key charts | What’s New in Publishing | Digital Publishing News

After enjoying a giant leap forward during the early stages of the COVID crisis, eCommerce is increasingly ingrained in the shopping habits of consumers around the world.  …

whatsnewinpublishing.com

Damian looks at the rapid rise of social commerce and also something I just flagged up this week, which is how Amazon is starting to bite into Facebook’s ad business with better targeting. 

3 newsletter formats to expand publisher lineups | What’s New in Publishing | Digital Publishing …

Almost 70% of publishers see newsletters as an area for investment in 2023 Newsletters are having a moment: this year’s Reuters Institute Predictions report showed that 69%…

whatsnewinpublishing.com

Briefings, deep dives and summaries. The newsletter that you’re reading falls solidly into the briefings segment. It gives me a chance to share some what I’m paying attention to, and it also serves as a good archive for media intelligence. 

A 22-year-old minimalist newsletter with 300,000 subscribers: Popbitch (case study) | What’s New …

The case study today is a successful plain text newsletter that shuns pictures, graphics and emojis. Yet this 22-year-old weekly has 300,000 free subscribers, and advertisers qu…

whatsnewinpublishing.com

And this piece is definitely not a summary but a deep dive, an in-depth case study of the low-tech newsletter that has been going for 22 years. It’s a detailed look at its editorial and commercial strategy. 

78 percent say AI-written news articles would be a bad thing: survey

A new poll found that while most Americans expect there will be a time when entire news articles will be written by artificial intelligence (AI), a majority said that would be a…

thehill.com

I have to keep up with the unbroken string of AI headlines. Again with the focus on AI-written stories as opposed to all of the other applications for AI in media!?

Industry news: Media startups and eco-systems

Launching A News Ecosystem Hub: Lessons From New Mexico – Local News Ecosystem | Democracy Fund

ecosystems.democracyfund.org

The biggest news media start-ups from the post 2000 era

Press Gazette research has uncovered the biggest media startups since 2000. Includes revenue data and founding years.

pressgazette.co.uk

GQ’s First NFT Collection Offers Buyers Exclusive Products And Access

Buyers of the inaugural token will claim a GQ magazine subscription, a box of selected products, a ticket to the first GQ3 party in New York City and branded merchandise.

www.mediapost.com

I am a little surprised that we’re seeing an NFT collection in 2023, but I think the bigger story is the brand extensions. 

Twitter is removing free API access and no one is excited – Poynter

The API has been used by researchers to identify content that is going viral and to quickly map out disinformation networks

www.poynter.org

This story has been bubbling up for weeks now, and finally, we have some details on what exactly what Twitter will be doing with their API. 

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki steps down after nine years

One of Google’s earliest employees, she rented out her garage to Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they founded the company

www.theguardian.com

One of the earliest of Google’s employees decides to step down. 

In boom times, profits come easily, and dumb money flows into the latest media shiny thing. In lean times, profits come to those who work hard and smartly, and dumb money dries up. We’re entering a lean time, although one that doesn’t feel right now like a washout like the dot.com crash or the Great Recession. Publishers are focusing on retention now, and our first two featured articles focus on different techniques to keep subscribers paying. Gannett presents its onboarding process, and the folks at Media Voices speaks to the head of the newsletter team at the Financial Times about various roles that they play including retention. 

But we also have a couple of features that look at how companies are grappling with the issue of the challenges of running a digital business in a downturn. One article looks at Canadian local news startup that is realising that the market is harder than they thought. It’s a great corrective for critics on the sideline who think that meeting the challenges of local news media is easy. And the New York Times says that the era of ‘dumb money’ is over for podcasters. Ouch. 

Plus, LSE has an excellent overview of what AI means for new, and we find out how the Super Bowl drove app downloads. Vice gets a bailout, and US states are considering subsidising subscriptions for local news. 

And for today’s photo, thanks to Jp Valery on StockSnap

Gannett’s fresh onboarding process indicates new subscribers are more engaged

Gannett’s new onboarding journey ranges from 10 to 15 e-mails, depending on the type of subscriber that starts. The results are impressive.

www.inma.org

This overview from INMA is full of actionable insights. As we have seen from Piano data, onboarding needs to start immediately at checkout because you’ve got hours not days or weeks to engage new subscribers. Those morning newsletters are a major tool in onboarding, and subscribers want ‘actionable benefits’. 

Financial Times’ Sarah Ebner on the varied role of newsletters

Sarah Ebner, Executive Editor and Head of Newsletters at the Financial Times tells us about her role leading the newsletter team at the FT, and more.

voices.media

Newsletters operate at all stages of your conversion funnel and as Gannett has found are important in your retention efforts. I think it’s important to note that for a brand like the FT, they also see newsletters as an important two-way communication tool. 

AI is in the news. 7 thoughts to reflect on what that means

Artificial Intelligence is permeating newsrooms worldwide, and the conversation around the use of AI in news organisations has gained increased prominence with the arrival of Ch…

blogs.lse.ac.uk

Of the many important thoughts here, I think the idea that small newsrooms can use AI and that there needs to be accountability rank highly on this excellent list. 

Data: US app installs surge on Super Bowl day

Super Bowl LVII on February 12th brought in an average 113 million TV viewers, according to Nielsen. But consumers weren’t merely tuning in, they were also tu

advanced-television.com

The Super Bowl supercharged app downloads as people ordered food, placed bets and shopped. 

Industry News: Local news is hard, Footballco leans into social video breaking news and ‘dumb money’ is done with podcasting

Startup aimed to reshape media – and learned ‘news is hard’ the hard way

Two-year-old Canadian local news startup had heady plans when founded, but now trims jobs while execs snipe at workers on Twitter

www.theguardian.com

Ouch, the startup Overstory got millions in investment but has found it much harder going than anticipated. How much of this is timing and how much of it is arrogance? 

Footballco plans to cash in on growth of video breaking news via social media

Footballco says its appointment of Joe Strange as Goal’s UK managing editor reflects a ‘pivot’ in where football news is breaking online.

pressgazette.co.uk

Footballco is an interesting company, and it’s interesting to see how they are keeping a close eye on market and audience trends. 

Podcast Companies, Once Walking on Air, Feel the Strain of Gravity

“The dumb money era is over” as layoffs, budget cuts and scuttled deals challenge a long-booming industry.

www.nytimes.com

The opening line says a lot. This is what happens when a format gets overheated sadly. When it starts to cool, it not only takes out those who capitalised on the hype but also some solid performers. That being said, recent coverage suggests that money is still flowing into podcasts, but it might not be flowing into podcasting quickly enough to support all of the investment. 

States Consider Bills To Subsidize Local Newspaper Subscriptions

Massachusetts and Oregon would provide a $250 tax credit to residents who subscribe to local media.

www.mediapost.com

Local journalism continues to be under pressure in both the US and the UK, and both countries are now looking into policy responses. In the US, I see blue (Democrat-controlled) states considering these efforts while red (Republican-controlled) are resistant to taxpayer support of media. 

WSJ News Exclusive | Vice Media Gets $30 Million-Plus Lifeline From Fortress as Bills Pile Up

The new-media company owes millions of dollars in overdue payments to several vendors, some of whom have resorted to debt collectors.

www.wsj.com

This is unsurprising. Once a media darling, Vice has been struggling for several years now after being seen as a rising number of Millennial-focused outlets. Note, a lot of them have suffered similar challenges including Buzzfeed. They were supported by investments for a while, but those investments have not paid out. The question for me is whether they can find an exit or will just shutter. 

There are times when a theme seems to emerge from the random stories that are published in a day across the media industry, and today’s theme is definitely advertising. Economic uncertainty always leads to a softening in advertising, and when it comes to digital advertising and the media that rely on it, this is causing ructions. Honestly, it’s long overdue a pretty fundamental realignment in digital advertising, but as often happens, the first stage of a disruptive period is that incumbents will lean into their models even harder. That’s why the New York Times has a story about a coming pandemic in junk ads, and the Press Gazette takes aim at Taboola and the news industry’s co-dependent relationship with it.  

Before we get to that though, I have my usual collection of smart thinking about the industry. Peter Houston has a great piece for What’s New in Publishing, about his wishlist for 2023. I especially like his call for publishers to focus on value and revenue diversification. 
The Audiencers look at how The Conversation has a ‘decision-first’ approach to user research. The thing that is attractive about this approach is that it is action-oriented. 

And in the next featured story of the day, we look at a Reuters Institute piece about an Italian digital news outlet the refocused away from investigations to opinion. It carved out a unique position, and it is focusing on digital but also print and events. It’s an intersting case study about positioning and branding. 

A publishing wishlist for 2023 | What’s New in Publishing | Digital Publishing News

I’m so happy that publishing’s prediction season is over. Don’t get me wrong, I love reading predictions. Making them? Not so much. It’s a thankless task. Life comes at you fast…

whatsnewinpublishing.com

Peter Houston offers up his very clear-headed analysis of the direction that he hopes publishing will take in 2023. His reference to Mix of Six, a rough guide to how many revenue streams a publishing business should have, speaks to the focus that successful publishers have on revenue diversification this year. 

User research: How The Conversation used a decision-first approach to inform two key products | T…

Make your research process more efficient, unlock collect valuable data-points, and inform multiple products through this decision-first research approach

theaudiencers.com

How to make sure that your research results in action.  Consider the action that you want to take, and then design the research around that goal. 

This is a classic case study in positioning and branding as a response for how to compete in a crowded market. You have to be unique not only to stand out but also to be valuable and unique enough to audiences that they might to pay. If you want to reach a mass audience, be prepared to produce as much lowest common denominator content as possible. 

21 Basic SEO Tasks All Business Owners and Marketers Should Learn [Infographic]

Some handy pointers for your SEO approach.

www.socialmediatoday.com

This a solid and simple guide to SEO with a number of steps you can take to improve the SEO of any site. Some of these are baseline tactics that you need to be successful while others are next-level things to do to make you stand out. 

Politico launches new Pro subscription product on UK tech policy

Politico is launching a new Pro product based around UK tech policy, following in the footsteps of its work in Washington and Brussels.

pressgazette.co.uk

Politico’s strategy of moving up the value chain is by providing high-value research for lucrative verticals for lobbyists and policy shops willing to pay. It’s expanding that overseas. 

The major shifts in the advertising market already in 2023

European telecoms’ advertising venture against Big Tech wins EU antitrust nod

Deutsche Telekom , Orange , Telefonica and Vodafone on Friday secured unconditional EU antitrust approval for their advertising joint venture to take on Big Tech.

www.reuters.com

This speaks to concern about the large US digital advertising companies that the EU would brush aside antitrust-anticompetition concerns to allow major mobile phone companies across Europe to join together in a joint venture to take on GAFA – Google-Apple-Facebook and Amazon. 

The amazingly easy hack which is making millions for UK news websites

After the Manchester Evening News was accused of clickbait on the Today programme, we examine the Taboola suggested content boxes.

pressgazette.co.uk

The Press Gazette highlights how news publishers are using services like Taboola to net millions in ad revenue. The piece walks up to the line but doesn’t answer the question of whether such services degreed the brands that use them. 

Why Are You Seeing So Many Bad Digital Ads Now?

Scrolling past ads has rarely been enjoyable. But in recent months, people say the experience seems so much worse.

www.nytimes.com

And that leads to the next item from the New York Times about whether we’re seeing a junk ad epidemic. 

Amazon is the latest threat to Facebook as ad targeting suffers

Brands are shifting ad budgets away from Facebook and toward Amazon now that targeting users across social networks has become more difficult.

www.cnbc.com

And even amongst the platforms, the ad landscape is shifting. Amazing is taking business from Facebook. 

More than half of Twitter’s top 1,000 advertisers stopped spending on platform, data show | CNN B…

More than half of Twitter’s top 1,000 advertisers in September were no longer spending on the platform in the first weeks of January, according to data provided to CNN by digita…

www.cnn.com

And Elon is taking away business from Twitter, while obsessing about how many impressions his tweets get.