@EstherKeziaT looks at the product journey of a news start-up looking to engage young people PLUS @adders outlines how publishes should prepare for Google's next major search update

August 23, 2022

An eclectic mix of things today including a couple pieces about media product thinking but also some items that might take a bit of lateral thinking to connect them to our typical journalism-focused fare. What's New in Publishing continues to deliver some great pieces including a list of metrics if your model is focused on engagement.

RocaNews began after its founders struggled with news overwhelm and avoidance at the beginning of the pandemic. Now, with over a million Instagram followers and 175k newsletter subscribers, the start-up is turning its attention to its own social news app. Confidence in newspapers and television news is at an all-time low, according to the latest …

I really like the product journey here. It began as a way for the founders to solve their own problem - a feeling of being overwhelmed by the news a couple of years. They continued to iterate and have settled into a slide format on Instagram, where all of their friends are, and also a newsletter. Despite repeated commentary about the death of email, newsletters continue to be an important way to connect with audiences, even if the space is getting a lot more crowded.

The email subscription platform has been a source of inspiration and financial freedom for Pitchfork favourites struggling in the streaming economy

Hang with me on this one. It's interesting to see musicians flock to Substack, and it makes a lot of sense. Modern creative work - and some journalism is creative work, but not all (discuss) - is about building an engaged audience, and for folks working in a niche, it can really be about cultivating those 1000 true, paying fines. Of course, the thing that stood out for me was how many of these musicians were pretty famous. I think the nuance in all of these discussions is to make a distinction between enabling discovery, helping you connect with new fans and subscribers if you're relatively unknown, versus an additional revenue stream for an established artist (or journalist) who already has a fanbase. Those are two very different activities.

If the world’s internet users are to have acces

Interesting to see this partner content from the Financial Times about digital advertising in a post-cookie world.

TL;DR: Engagement metrics are considerably more valuable for publishers compared to page views and bounce rates. A new whitepaper by Poool looks into the most useful engagement metrics and also provides tips on building engagement backed by examples from a variety of publishers. Although vanity metrics like page views and bounce rates have long been …

As subscriber strategies have become more sophisticated, many companies have shifted from hard paywalls to a registration 'wall' that allows users to get some content for free before having to pay. The thought is that a known user brings value and that once registered, it is easier for convert that user to becoming a paid subscriber. Subscription services provider Poool puts a number on this propensity to subscribe saying that registered users are 200% more likely to subscribe than anonymous users.

Google's hitting us with a major new update next week. Here's what you should do to prepare.

My friend Adam Tinworth looks at Google's next major search algorithm update and how publishers should prepare.

The midterms are expected to draw a historic amount of political ad spend. How will publishers compete for those dollars?

It is almost unimaginable how much money flows to advertisers during US elections. It is one of the reasons why there is so much M&A activity in the local TV market because local TV rakes in shedloads of cash. Digiday looks at how digital news publishers are competing to get a slice of that pie.

A new generation of employees can feel the benefit of avoiding the commute. Managers must be role models if they are to retain talent

A good piece from my friends at journalism.co.uk about how to adapt to the permanent features of hybrid working.

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It is amazing how many people, especially young people, listen to podcasts on YouTube. And YouTube's recommendation systems and search-based discovery mean that your podcast can be very evergreen.

'USA Today' Joins With The Weather Channel, Tripadvisor To Offer Subscription Bundles - 08/22/2022

The bundled subscription seems very 2022, and it's interesting to see different outlets start to create bundles. Is this the digital version of ala carte streaming packages?

Senators are pressing ahead on efforts to empower small news organizations to negotiate compensation from technology giants such as Meta Platforms Inc.‘s Facebook and Alphabet Inc.‘s Google.

The US may join the list of countries in which national legislators look to support local news.

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There is a yawning gap between the current state of the art and the vision of the future. Yes, we all know what amazing future we want. But is Zuck making his current offering look worse by showing us things so much more advanced than what he is bringing to market now? And for the price, heading into the teeth of a what for a lot of people will be a brutal recession, is this going to be incredibly niche?

Most companies are collecting huge amounts of quantitative data. Behemoths like Netflix and Amazon harness big data and analytics to drive customer satisfaction and run their businesses. This quantitative data can also be used to generate machine learning models to make predictions about the future. However, combining quantitative data with qualitative data leads to powerful insights that can take your organization to the next level.

And this is for the product thinkers (and master's students like me). I really came to appreciate the richness, opportunities and limitations of qualitative data during my master's degree. It's so important to have a mix of both. It will deliver a better product, and qualitative data can keep you close to your users, which is critical.