#120 — Should newsletters offer more?

While one podcast publication is having success with increasing their newsletter frequency, other critics are arguing less is more. Plus: Thoughts on what business model you should use, the 2020 digital news report has landed, some tips for how to make your content easier to read and more. Enjoy 🤗

💯 Top picks

7 things we’ve learned from launching a daily newsletter

Media Voices have a longstanding weekly newsletter called The Media Roundup, but 4 months ago they decided to start experimenting with a daily cadence. Here's what they learnt so far!

💸 Business models

Do most paid newsletters fail because they offer "more instead of different"

Josh Spector argues yes! While we fully agree that offering something unique that your biggest fans can't find anywhere else should be the top priority, we also think that offering more once you find this niche may not always be a bad thing. So long as quantity doesn't get in the way of quality!

Publish less, but publish better

Following on from the above — this Reuters study takes a look at how more but better has been working for local news publishers as they pivot to paid.

Passion economy is now worth over $38bn globally

"The passion economy, in which people monetise their skills and hobbies to earn income, is worth more than $38bn globally according to new research."

What business model should independent journalists and creators use?

"There is something absolutely wonderful happening in the world of media right now [...] we are seeing an incredibly strong trend among new and independent journalists starting their publications, their own newsletters, and their own podcasts ... and they are winning." [Premium article]

Brand New: Subscription model progress after 4 weeks

Four weeks since introducing a subscription model, Brand New, a division of UnderConsideration, has gained 7,500 paid subscribers and growing. Read all about their transition to subscriptions in this honest update, including what their goals are and how this transition has increased morale!

✍️ Modern journalism

What's next for tech and democracy

The Knight Foundation asked leading researchers and policy thinkers to share their views on how significantly technology and social media is shaping our understanding of this 2020 moment!

The 2020 Digital News Report

This year's Reuters Institute DNR report reveals new insights about digital news consumption based on a YouGov survey of over 80,000 online news consumers in 40 markets including Kenya and the Philippines for the first time.

💻 Technology

Read Me! Tips to make digital content more readable

"Some studies suggest that on-screen text might be inherently more difficult to read than printed. That implies that there is no way creators can raise the bar for read-through above a certain level, pre-determined by the properties of a human eye and a human brain." — Make sure you check out the tips at the end of this piece too!

Examples of the best retention/reactivation emails

Learn from the best with these retention email examples curated by Really Good Emails.

Facebook is secretly penalising publishers, new research reveals

"Publishers are routinely being penalized by Facebook algorithms for posting at the 'wrong' frequency. And most publishers are completely unaware."

🤷 WTF?

Oil leads to global warming... and data leads to social cooling

A thought-provoking piece about how our data is used, and how our behaviour is changing as a result of this.