The audio revolution: How to re-purpose audio for digital platforms , the biz model for podcasts WaPo expands a newsletter into a podcast PLUS Happy Ada Lovelace Day! @Suw

October 11, 2022

I want to start off my newsletter today a little differently. In 2009, my wife and partner in a lot of projects, Suw, started Ada Lovelace Day - a day of blogging to recognise women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) - because she was frustrated going to tech conferences and seeing so few women speakers. It grew into an international observance with events all over the world. She had some amazing sponsors over the years including ARM, Red Hat, Digital Science, the IET, the RI and SUSE, and she has had tireless volunteers and collaborators to help her host a major event in London until the pandemic and virtually over the past few years. This year will be the last time she organises that event, and I just wanted to stop and pay tribute to what she has done and achieved.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming. As we're putting a major report at Pugpig on the State of the Digital Publishing Market, one area of focus is audio because it has been such a successful space for groups using the Pugpig platform. Today, I've got a trifecta of stories highlighting audio success stories, practical tips and another major company, the Washington Post, expanding a product into audio.

Plus, Digiday has a report on how publishers are using AI, and INMA has a piece on how to use the Now, Next, Later framework for product management.

Here's an example of how you can create a music news segment for your radio station with multiple digital destinations in mind.

This is a solid practical piece on repurposing a radio segment for digital platforms, but it can equally be used for any audio content. Podcasts are just one way of distributing content. The only thing that I would add here is that with any product, it's important not just to think in terms of platforms and re-purposing but also the audience on those platforms and their needs.

Podcasts are proving better at monetising content, membership conversions and reaching younger audiences

This is a slightly different angle about Tortoise's audio journalism efforts, a more glass half empty but legitimate view. I think with any start-up like Tortoise, they try different things and lean into those that work. Being realistic and honest about what isn't work is just as important, and I think by publicly talking about that, it shows a healthy culture willing to question its assumptions.

The Washington Post has a new, local version of "The 7" for people in the DMV area. A podcast based on the flagship briefing is coming later this fall.

The local newsletter had an audio version, and after seeing strong engagement with that audio, they decided to expand the distribution of that audio to podcasting channels. It's really smart for a commuter-based market where you're often stuck in traffic.

In this third installment of a research series on emerging technologies, Digiday+ Research looks at how publishers are — and aren't — using NLP and data-driven personalization.

As I said on Twitter, as we're putting together a major Pugpig report on the state of digital publishing, personalisation is definitely one of the areas of innovation that we're hearing that people are focusing on. It's interesting to get a bit more detail on what publishers means in practice.

For the first time in 18 years, Facebook saw a drop of one million daily active users in Q4 2021, compared to the previous quarter.

Fascinating. The piece highlights research that shows that "21% of consumers worldwide plan to spend less time on social media in the next six months. And 36% admit they would rather visit websites with editorial content, including national, local news and lifestyle sites." Ads follow attention so brands are just starting to move away from social as well.

Netflix is set to launch an ad-supported subscription streaming VOD option before the end of the year. New data from JP Morgan contends the new pricing plan could generate upwards of $2.7 billion in incremental revenue by 2026 in the U.S. and Canadian markets combined.

And with streaming and OTT still strong, this might be where some of that ad spend is moving to.

The “Now Next Later” framework can help teams understand what is a priority, what is worth exploring, and what simply will not be done.

It's a bit like the Eisenhower matrix, but now, next and later framing can help set priorities, which is so critical. Priority setting is so critical when developing roadmaps for products or deciding between products in your portfolio. It's good to have another tool in your kit.

Collaborative and community journalism

With all of the disruption in local news media in the US, we're seeing fascinating areas for innovation. A few lifetimes ago, both at the BBC and The Guardian, I was involved in audience engagement efforts, and the RJI has a good overview of the next generation of these projects.

Also, as local journalism struggles, local news groups are organising into collaboratives to help share reporting costs across regions. The Center for Cooperative Media discusses how they set up a nation-wide project to cover "pro-democracy" efforts, which even the oldest news co-op in the US - the Associated Press - has started to focus on with reporters focused on coverage that supports civic and civil governance.

Building trust in a community requires listening and unlearning: a discussion with Bevin Christie.

Back in January 2022, Rachel Glickhouse of the News Revenue Hub read a column in the Washington Post by noted media critic Margaret Sullivan titled, “If American democracy is going to survive, the…