Trends a plenty: Web3.0, AI and pricing PLUS @baekdal 's healthy dose of scepticism about social media and conversion data

August 15, 2022

Busy, busy time for me and for media analysts and managers. Everyone is looking at tweaking their strategies and tactics including SEO, social and emerging technologies. Read on.

Every few years a few, voices from distant corners of the marketing world whisper that SEO is dying. But with an estimated value of over $70 billion dollars, SEO isn’t going anywhere soon.Even thou...

Publishers have tended to focus on social, mostly as a method to engage younger audiences, but other tactics including newsletters and search have delivered much more in terms of growth and engagement. Focus on the long term. Focus on people, not search engines. At the end of the day, it's about creating excellent content and helping people find it.

We see so many studies, but often the numbers are maybe not what they first seem.

Thomas has some really good points about data and social media in this post. As he points out, lots of people use social media, but it's important to dig deeper to find out how many people use it for news.

The other bit of data that Thomas digs into is a Piano report that I highlighted recently. He questions the idea of registration and conversion. He makes some excellent points about known and unknown users. The only thing I would say is that converting a user from unknown to known also has benefits for advertising revenue even if they don't convert to subscribers.

The latest Innovation on Media 2022/23 World Report, published by U.K.-based Innovation Media, takes a look at what’s to come post-pandemic, including a browser-free Internet.

Juan Señor gazes into the near future and looks at opportunities for publishers using Web3 technologies. He talks a bit about Web3 things like NFTs, but he also touches on the newsletter economy, AI and 'robot journalism'. One thing that struck me in that in preparing for a cookie-less world, the most important thing for publishers is to create a relationship with their audiences.

Digital publishers know the scenario all too well. There’s more competition for eyeballs than ever before and more opportunities for advertisers. As we head into 2H 2022, publishers will be assessing the landscape and trying to balance budgets while increasing audiences as consumer preferences and choices continue to evolve. It’s not a time for the …

More and more trends. Again, this starts with the changes that publishers need to make to adapt for a cookie-less world and also the need for publishers to diversify their revenue streams. AI gets another mention, and personalisation is also getting an increasing mention.

2022-08-11. During consecutive sessions at our recent Asian Media Leaders eSummit, we heard two CEOs share how they had raised the price of their print product dramatically in the last year. Surprisingly, they had experienced little to no churn as a result of the increase. Trend or coincidence? We wanted to find out…

This trend of higher prices to extract more revenue from a smaller group of print subscribers has been a trend for several years. As was recently said by the CEO of Dotdash Meredith, print is becoming a luxury, and the purveyors of luxury products charge luxury prices.

We played Subway Surfers for three weeks. Of 365 ads, 124 were articles from 26 different publishers.

Major publishers are pushing into mobile games to drive traffic. The implication is that they are 'juicing' their traffic numbers. Does that mean that these efforts have staying power or are just a sugar high?

Two local news sites – one a senior citizen in digital years, the other a relative youngster – represent both the opportunities and challenges confronting digital entrepreneurs today.

"Both the Spotlight and the Link have strong support from their local communities. Yet resources available to build and sustain their local news operations are very different. This is indicative of an emerging funding issue that will ultimately influence the ability of both for-profit and nonprofit sites in smaller markets to reach and engage residents in their communities."

A new generation of news organizations is rising across Europe – one strongly committed to serving its audience and democracy athrough public interest journalism.

More about indie journalism sites, but this time in Europe rather than North America. "While the US is further along in establishing not-for-profit journalism as an alternative to legacy media, both it and the European media landscapes are too complex to be reduced to nonprofits alone."

Mediagazer presents the day's must-read media news on a single page.

What do you think this means for Substack? Meaningful repositioning or just a bit of rebranding?

Social Media Today

Speaking of SEO. Changes at Google.

The investor, which has taken positions in Adobe, Citigroup and Nintendo, is pushing The Times to sell bundled subscriptions to readers more aggressively.

How will this affect the Times' ability to execute its ability to execute?