#75 — Figuring out why to go paid
Hey 👋 welcome back to your weekly roundup of the most important stories and ideas in publishing. We've featured some interesting takes on the reasons to go paid, micro-memberships an interesting podcast and not one but two free courses. Enjoy!
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💯 Top picks
Figuring out why to go paid
“We know it’s for user revenue, but what’s the why for the audience?”This article explores the when and why of “going paid” and argues that you should only do it if you have something different or exclusive to share, or offer depth that cannot be found elsewhere.
💸 Business models
Why publishers are creating more subscription products
As more and more media outlets focus on reader revenue, will publishers focus on attracting more subscribers and retaining them to grow, or will they introduce additional subscription products? Twipe explore how multiple verticals are becoming a common option for success.
[Podcast] The pivot to paid could create an unequal news ecosystem
“As many publishers zero in on consumer revenue strategies and hardened paywalls, HuffPost is taking a different tack.”Lydia Polgreen discusses the diminishing returns of news aggregation and alternative sources of revenue at HuffPost.
'There's clarity around what you'll make': SmartNews is paying publishers to be on its platform
“There’s a novel idea being embraced by platforms hungry for publisher content: Pay them.” (Subscription article).
✍️ Modern journalism
Do you want a Trusting News coach?
The staff of Trusting News are helping journalists find better ways to demonstrate credibility and earn trust through one-to-one coaching.
Predictions for the next 5 years in podcasting
“The podcast industry is bigger, richer, more professionalized, and more corporate than when Hot Pod launched five years ago today. Here are the worries that’ll need to be addressed in the next five years.”
Sources and keywords: The fundamentals of online newsgathering
“Regardless of your beat or area of focus, understanding how to use the social web to discover, monitor and research stories is an essential skill.”
This guide from First Draft News shares the best free tools and techniques in newsgathering and monitoring.
Watch your language: “Data voids” on the web have opened a door to manipulators and other disinformation pushers
“There’s no easy solution to them, but the media plays an important role in both combating them and making them worse.”
[Video course] Fundamental search for journalists
“In this course we’re going through some of the tips and tricks on how to make your own research faster and more accurate using Google’s tools. We will go from advanced search through to verification, touching upon visualisation and finishing up with Geo mapping tools to help you tell your stories in a beautiful, interactive way online.”
Don’t miss this free resource from DataJournalism.com.
👩💻 Technology
Google has made “one of the biggest leaps forward in the history of Search"
Google has made its search engine more human and this article explores what this means for publishers. The latest algorithm changes could change the rankings for up to 10% of all search queries.
Crash course: custom audiences for social media ads
Buffer created this course that teaches you how to effectively create custom audiences on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn.
The trouble with TikTok
“Journalists should not be promoting participation in a platform with a documented history of political censorship.”
Adobe, NYT and Twitter want to develop an industry standard for content attribution
“An opt-in system that will allow creators and publishers to securely attach attribution data to content they choose to share”
The next major traffic driver for publishers: Chrome’s mobile article recommendations, up 2,100 percent in one year
“It’s already driving almost as many visits as Twitter, and publishers have no idea why their stories get chosen (or don’t).”
🤷 WTF?
Twitter wants us all to calm down
“Twitter knows we treat each other terribly on Twitter. We dunk, ridiculing friends and strangers via quote-tweets. We ratio, piling on replies to bad tweets.”
In the next few weeks, the platform will be running experiments designed to calm us down and motivate us to use quotes, replies and retweets less destructively.
