#53 — Lessons from a year behind a paywall
In this week’s roundup of the latest news in publishing, we’ve pulled together some interesting podcast episodes about reader revenue, lots of technology news from the likes of Apple, YouTube and Facebook and a hot take on the difference between influencers and creators!
Enjoy 👉
💯 Top picks
“300% increase in new digital subscribers”: Lessons from a year behind a paywall [Podcast]
Media Voices catch up with Nicholas Thompson, the Editor-in-Chief of WIRED, who has been the driving force behind two high-profile paywall launches for Condé Nast. This weeks top listen!
💸 Business models
Substack expands its subscription platform with discussion threads
The subscription email newsletter platform are launching a community feature - unlocking discussion threads that can be open to everyone, or limited to a newsletters subscribers.
A framework for developing habits with news products
The newspaper industry had the art of habit forming down, but what can modern, digital publishers learn from their print-based ancestors? Twipe share some insightful tactics for news products in this 7 minute read.
Publishers need to have a reader revenue component for a viable strategy [Podcast]
The Financial Times CEO, John Ridding, shares his views on the Digiday podcast about their biggest growth areas, their difficult relationship with Facebook, and cautions that the road to building subscribers is much harder than it looks!
✍️ Modern journalism
These reporters lost their jobs. Now they’re fighting back against big tech!
“John Stanton and Laura Bassett are warning about what they believe the tech industry is doing to journalism, as thousands have lost their jobs this year alone.”
Inside the Washington Post's hybrid newsroom structure [Thread]
@JasonJedlinski shares an insightful snippet from the WNMC event in Scotland earlier this week about how the Washington Post manages their newsroom.
Vice.com editors exit as shake-up continues
Two key editors left Vice.com after mass layoffs and a pivot towards video.
How did journalists file before Google Docs?
Ever wondered how journalism actually happened before we had the technology we have today? Take a journey back in time from the 60s to present day with CJR.
Sobering reality for news outlets: Your readers are somewhere else 99% of the time“
And figuring out where else they’re spending their time online is a key part of generating competitive intelligence.”
👩💻 Technology
R.I.P. iTunes and more power to the iPad: Important news for publishers from Apple’s WWDC keynote
“It’s getting a lot easier to build a Mac news app, the words spoken in all podcasts will soon be searchable, and Siri might soon read your news alerts straight into someone’s AirPods.”
A curated list of best email designs in the universe
We recently discovered reallygoodemails.com which is full of examples of good email design and best practice. There’s lots of categories to choose from, including news, subscription and technology.
Facebook is offering new subscription tools for publishers via Instant Articles
“Facebook is introducing more tools for users to kick in subscriptions for publishers, but it’s unclear how many subscriptions it will meaningfully drive.”
YouTube bans kids live-streaming video unless accompanied by an adult
In an ongoing response to backlash about how minors use the platform, YouTube have introduced new rules around live-streaming.
🤷 WTF?
The real difference between creators and influencers
“Influencer is a platform-agnostic term. It describes anyone who leverages social media to grow a following and exerts influence over that following in order to make money.”
