Is Patch actually producing quality local journalism?
With the journalism industry in a freefall and hundreds of local newspapers facing possible extinction, it’s uplifting to occasionally read about the success stories in local news, the startups and… (more)
Why The New York Times bought a text-to-audio app
While nearly every publisher has built out some kind of podcast offering, few have dominated the medium as much as Slate has. The magazine’s podcasts generated 250 million downloads in… (more)
Why local news outlets struggle with digital subscriptions
Comparing the economic health of national news outlets to their local counterparts almost feels like you’re comparing two entirely different industries. On the one hand you have the national publishers.… (more)
Why The Information’s paywall strategy is so successful
If you survey the field of publisher subscription models, you’ll basically find that the vast majority of media outlets utilize one of two kinds of paywalls. The first is the… (more)
What The Athletic’s success teaches us about monetizing local news
A little over a year ago, I wrote about the popping of what I called the “VC-fueled media bubble.” For a period spanning from about 2012 to 2018, Millennial-focused publishers… (more)
Business Insider’s fascinating approach to paywalls and free content
As we embark on a new decade, I think it’s safe to say that the metered paywall’s best days are firmly behind it. This method of charging readers for news… (more)
How Complex Media became one of the most innovative digital publishers
Back in September, I logged onto Twitter one day and saw that the actor Shia LaBeouf was trending. At the time I had only a passing familiarity with the actor;… (more)
Why it’s so hard to scale paid podcast subscriptions
The last decade hasn’t been kind to digital publishing, but if I had to name one bright spot within the industry, I’d point to the rise of paid subscriptions. When… (more)
3 ways to create a bad user experience for your podcast listeners
I get it. Driving podcast discovery is hard. The podcast app space is fragmented, with your potential audience spread out across a dozen or so different platforms. Podcast episodes don’t… (more)
How platforms abandon their homegrown creators
Facebook is currently rolling out what it’s calling a “News tab,” a dedicated section on its platform that aggregates news story links from about 200 publishers, and for reasons that… (more)
The media industry might be healthier than you realize
It’s rare that a private media company opens up about its financials, so I was surprised that Nick Quah, in an interview on the Longform podcast, did just that. Quah… (more)
How BuzzFeed is solving native advertising’s scale problem
There was a time, earlier this decade, when it seemed that native advertising -- the kind embraced by web native publishers like Buzzfeed and Vice -- would serve as the… (more)
Why nearly every news publisher should have a podcast strategy
Back in February, I wrote an article asking whether it was “time for every publisher to ‘pivot to podcasts.’” The headline was a tongue in cheek reference to the industry-wide… (more)
Why bundled subscriptions won’t save the news industry
Earlier this month, a company called Mogul News launched a news app that curates article content from three media outlets: Bloomberg, The Financial Times, and The Economist. If you were… (more)
How newsletter innovations are driving publisher revenue
If you were to travel back in time about a half decade and inform news publishers that, within a few short years, they’d be pouring significant resources into growing their… (more)
Publishers that closed their comments sections made a colossal mistake
With layoffs, bankruptcies, and fire sales emanating from the digital publishing industry on an almost daily basis, there’s constant debate about whether online media outlets deserve the blame for being… (more)
Should news publishers get in bed with Amazon?
In its 15-year lifespan, Facebook has spawned adversarial relationships with countless companies, politicians, and even its own co-founders, but perhaps no industry has garnered more distrust for the social platform… (more)
Facebook Watch vs YouTube: Where you should invest your resources
In April, Digiday granted anonymity to a Facebook Watch video creator who’s built up over a half million followers on the platform. Free to speak candidly, the creator laid out… (more)
Why platforms like Facebook and Apple struggle to boost local news
A few months ago, the Lenfest Local Lab, an innovation team within the Lenfest Institute for Journalism, embarked on an interesting experiment. Teaming up with The Philadelphia Inquirer, it developed… (more)
Why Apple News+ won’t cannibalize publishers’ paid subscriptions
There’s a natural life cycle that occurs any time a large tech platform develops a product aimed toward news publishers. It starts with some initial leaks that the tech company… (more)