I'm rethinking my Friday newsletter a bit seeing as it usually gets less attention because my UK and European readers get it in the afternoon so I'm thinking more along the lines of weekend reads to support product thinking.

In that vein, we have a good piece from my friends at WNIP about how to build user profiles to support increased subscription conversion. Axios has built a seven-figure software and services revenue stream in less than a year. NPR (one of the public media networks the media group I work for is part of) discusses their programmatic journey. And I've got a good story about making a pivot once your UGC MVP starts to scale. Also, how one local site is reaching diverse audiences and growing revenue through civic partnerships.

And it proves that #FakeNews does pay.

How publishers can build user profiles to increase subscriber conversions | What’s New in Publishing | Digital Publishing News — whatsnewinpublishing.com

If publishers want to convert website visitors into paying customers, they’ll need to master the art of using data to create audience profiles. The digital revolution has forced publishers to rethink their role in the world of media, especially how they make money. To thrive in the future, publishers will need to employ a mix …

Axios has made $1M in revenue from its eight-month-old software licensing business — digiday.com

Axios HQ is bringing in more revenue than expected, but the challenges of a tech company are different than those of a media company.

National Public Media’s programmatic strategy puts users first | What’s New in Publishing | Digital Publishing News — whatsnewinpublishing.com

We recently spoke with Brett Robinson and Sabrina Mohsenin from National Public Media (NPR’s sponsorship subsidiary) about their unique foray into programmatic revenue. The recording of this discussion is available on Beeler.Tech in our First Impressions section (available to publishers only). What makes the NPR story so compelling is that until a couple of years …

How a news service for low-income immigrants earns revenue through civic partnerships — www.lionpublishers.com

El Tímpano's fast-growing revenue stream around civic partnerships could be a model for newsrooms that aim to serve low-wealth communities.

UGC: When You Succeed at Scale, You Have to Pivot to Moderation

You either die an MVP or live long enough to build content moderation | Mux blog — mux.com

Learn how to build an automated content moderation workflow with Mux Video and Hive.ai (including an open source example)

These competitors joined forces to allow readers to use a single login across their news sites » Nieman Journalism Lab — www.niemanlab.org

OneLog brings together some of the largest and most trusted Swiss media companies. Their single sign-on solution will reach 2 million active accounts in 2022 — representing one in four inhabitants in the country.

An Investigation Into Pink Slime Sites

The Metric Media network runs more than 1,200 local news sites. Here are some of the non-profits funding them. - Columbia Journalism Review — www.cjr.org

This is the first part of a two-part investigation. The second piece can be found here. As local news outlets across the US struggle to stay afloat, pop-up newsrooms are filling the void. Organizations with ties to political parties, special-interest groups, and lobbyists have emerged under the guise of news. One of the biggest such […]

Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return | The Economist

The problem starts at the top | Leaders