How Substack—a newsletter company—became synonymous with “frictionless, independent publishing”
Do you remember how we used to say “Skype with me”? Well, nobody says that anymore. It’s been successfully replaced by “FaceTime me” or more recently “let’s have a Zoom… (more)
Ukrayinska Pravda: Bringing innovation to the membership model
With the rollout of another membership program, we look out how the newsroom put the reader revenue playbook into practice and the added value it produced. Editor’s note: The following… (more)
News media must get better at communicating their value proposition
Too many are terrible at it. Test your newsroom: How many sentences do you need to explain your value proposition? The “streaming wars” are one of the biggest media battles of… (more)
Audio is in its second golden age, and Spotify is about to win it all
The future of audio is bright, even though it may never be as dominant as a hundred years ago. Social audio or drop-in audio chat has become the latest tech… (more)
Medium is yet another example of why tech companies won’t save journalism
Time and again a tech firm wants to support journalism but finds out it is a hard business. No shit Sherlock! Media people have always had a special interest in… (more)
In France, an investigative journalism startup beats the odds
13 years ago, the five founders of Mediapart bet everything on digital media The French digital news startup Mediapart’s five founders—well known journalists from the venerable publications Le Monde and Libération— defied conventional wisdom of… (more)
5 MediaTech companies publishers should be following
Publishing is catching up with new players driving innovation The media industry is looking more and more “tech-y”, with product managers, data scientists and designers playing an increasingly critical role.… (more)
“Pay for popularity”: Publishers need to experiment more, not less, with performance tools
Publishing is a talent-driven industry and right now the fight for talent is arguably the sector’s biggest challenge. Recently, a piece announcing the Daily Telegraph would link content creator pay with popularity drew snarky… (more)
In the future, all social networks will have built-in monetization for creators
You know the creator economy is big when Facebook has to announce a new monetization tool for creators. Facebook recently announced new tools and support for content creators — and it’s not… (more)
Year 2020 in social media
Looking back at what happened in 2020 in the worlds of podcasting, subscriptions & memberships, newsletters and social media. This is the third and last part of the series examining… (more)
Year 2020 in subscriptions and memberships
This end-of-the-year series looks back at what happened in 2020 in the worlds of podcasting, subscriptions & memberships, newsletters and social media. Part two of our series examining the biggest… (more)
Year 2020 in podcasting
There was obvious consolidation going on, Spotify kept on growing, Apple started its own daily news show and Amazon got also serious about podcasting. In this end-of-the-year series I will… (more)
What is your newsroom’s audio strategy?
Tech and media journalist David Tvrdon reflects on how the forces of business, technology and journalism intersect and what that means for the media industry. Do you have podcasts? Do… (more)
Working with Instagram: Insights from The Economist’s head of audience
The platform is a growing source of news for younger readers – and a place for media to build their brand Instagram is no longer just a place to share… (more)
Ukrayinska Pravda builds travel, payments industry solutions into unique membership model
The “Toloka” or “communal” membership level is the third subscriber product launch this year for Ukrayinska Pravda, one of Ukraine’s leading publishers Ukraine’s legacy media heavyweight Ukrayinska Pravda announced a novel membership… (more)
Memberships are at the core of everything we do: elDiario.es
The Fix launched Toolbox, a series on digital tools used by the media. The aim of Toolbox is to help managers pick the most appropriate tools for themselves, rather than throwing a… (more)
Time to rethink the media funding model
OPINION It’s time to speed up and scale innovation in independent media. Despite years of philanthropic support, relatively few players have managed to grow and become sustainable. Even fewer have… (more)
