#98 — Huge growth in subscriptions for digital news and media
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Hope you enjoy this week’s curation of the top stories in independent publishing.
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💯 Top picks
Huge growth in subscriptions for digital news and media
According to a new subscription impact report from Zuora, 22.5% of companies are seeing subscription growth, while 53.3% are seeing no change. It goes on to look at the advantages of the subscription business model and is summarised nicely in this post!whatsnewinpublishing.com • Share
💸 Business models
Be nimble with subscription messaging
Explaining your “why” and your “how” succinctly can help to build trust and grow subscribers. Jennifer Hefty explores how the Coloradoan target their “middle of funnel” audience group with subscription messaging.
How newsrooms can begin making data-informed membership decisions
“We’ve launched our membership program. Now what? What do we need to know about our audience? How can we develop and implement a data-informed strategy for growing our membership program? And how can we do all this in a small newsroom without a dedicated audience specialist?”
Stuck at home with little to do, news consumers are surging toward hobbyist magazine
“Health, food, and home and garden titles, among others, have seen an abundance of readers and social media engagement amid the stay-at-home orders.”
✍️ Modern journalism
Where does good news fit in the coverage of a pandemic?
“Coronavirus news has crowded out almost every other story. And it’s almost all gloom and doom. Should journalists try to report some good news?”
Reuters Institute digital seminar: The business and practice of journalism
Guests include Sarah Sands, Clara Jiménez Cruz, Dorothy Byrne, Matthew Caruana Galizia and Prashant Rao.
[Podcast] Conversation with Dr Claire Wardle (First Draft) by DataJournalism.com
A conversation between Buzzfeed’s Craig Silverman, the editor of the new verification handbook, and Dr Claire Wardle, the executive director of First Draft. The pair spoke about how the misinformation landscape has changed.
👩💻 Technology
How 4 publishers are approaching the first-party data shift and forging new relationships with advertisers
“In January, first party data is set to become the dominant currency in the digital ad market.”
Publishers look to cheap Facebook ads to increase subscriptions
“Over the past seven weeks, many publishers have welcomed a coronavirus bump in subscribers as news consumption rises. That bump has been helped along by a significant acceleration in Facebook ad spending.”
🤷 WTF?
The history of email
“The ancestors of the Internet were kind enough to give us a communication standard which is free, transparent, and standardized. It would be a shame to see the tech communication landscape move further and further into the world of locked gardens and proprietary schemas.”
