Hello, bear with me as a get a rhythm and workflow with Revue. After a couple of years doing this with Nuzell's easy tools, this is taking an adjustment. Interesting news though with Piano's funding round and The Skimm shopping itself. I have long used The Skimm as an example of how to build a proper newsletter, and I still have a lot of respect for what founders, Danielle Weisberg and Carly Zakin, have built. With their financial literacy service for millennial women, they might just make a good buy for a financial services company. Until tomorrow.

Axios: Skimm Looks for Sale to Non-Media Company

Scoop: TheSkimm hires bankers, exploring sale to non-media company — www.axios.com

The company brought in roughly $20 million in 2019 revenue.

And it looks like investors may not recoup their investment of $30m as market gets crowded for the kind of thing that the Skimm does. To be honest, this would be a good acqhire for the two founders, smart media brand builders.

Subcription-tech Company Piano Raises $88m

Piano raises $88M for analytics, subscription and personalization tools for publishers, adds LinkedIn as investor – TechCrunch — techcrunch.com

As publishers face up to whatever might be their next existential crisis — there are so many options from which to choose, including Substack stealing all their writers; or Clubhouse pulling in people through audio-based conversations where news and analysis intermingle seamlessly with networking — a startup that’s helping them build more tools to keep […]

Piano has been one of the bigger players in the field of supporting companies to turn to reader revenue, and with this round of funding, it looks like they will bolster their existing tools for analytics and subscription services with personalisation tools as publishers turn to retention.

What Is Known About Twitter's New Paid Service

“An internet without friction and frustration”: What we know so far about Twitter’s upcoming subscription service | What’s New in Publishing | Digital Publishing News — whatsnewinpublishing.com

“There’s a model for a better internet. Members get clean, fast-loading sites without ads while publishers make more money.” Twitter previously confirmed, a few months ago, that the social media platform was exploring a paid subscription model.  At that time, CEO Jack Dorsey mentioned the bar is “really high” for asking Twitter users to pay …

Twitter is sending out surveys to find the most valuable features that users would be willing to pay for. As we've highlighted before, the ability to undo a tweet seems high on the list.

What Telcos Don't Understand About Network Effects

Distribution and Demand – Stratechery by Ben Thompson — stratechery.com

On the business, strategy, and impact of technology.

Ben Thompson makes an important point about digital network effects and economics versus the 20th Century economics of distribution networks. "What makes Google and Facebook so successful is that they are the linchpin upon which these massive markets pivot, in large part because both services increase in functionality with scale," Ben says, which is a classic statement about digital network effects.

The architecture of Google is such that its value increases with the size of the network, which is in Google's case the internet. It is why Google's model won over the portal model of Yahoo. Yahoo's model worked for the earliest network but didn't scale in value as the internet grew. Google doesn't create content, but it plays a critical function for people by helping people find content.

Facebook is a classic network play where the value of the network both to users and advertisers grows the more people use it.

Content networks don't work in the same way. Like most of Ben's stuff, it's well worth reading.

Digiday Research: Agency professionals more likely to stay remote than publishers — digiday.com

Eventually, most of us will have to go back to the office — but a much bigger slice of agency employees will have the option of staying home.

Some good data here on when people might return to the office as well.

New Harvard Project Tracks US Media Ownership

US Media Ownership (May 2021) | The Future of Media Project — projects.iq.harvard.edu

If information wants to be free and journalism is about shining light and offering readers context, it is then in the service of journalism to understand who owns our media outlets: What is their reach? Who is making money or benefiting from a particular lens?  – Heidi Legg, Research Fellow, Future of Media Project

An interesting project especially for those who are interested in how ownership in media might affect diversity in content.