Websites rising from the ashes

Fast Company is back up

Last week, the tech business site got hacked so hard that the publishers had to pull it down. After eight days, Fast Company and associated sites are finally back up, presumably having cleaned out their CMS database of any nasties left behind by the hackers, and hardened their systems.

Of note: they moved into “zero click” publishing — platform publishing — while the site was down:

So last Wednesday, we began to publish new articles on various platforms, starting with LinkedIn (our first article: the scoop that Everette Taylor had been named Kickstarter’s new CEO), and then on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and Medium. The following day, we launched Fast Company Daily, a LinkedIn newsletter that quickly reached 103,000 subscribers. When news broke that Elon Musk plans to buy Twitter after all, we covered it in real time via Twitter Spaces. It was all Fast Company, just not on our owned and operated site.

Will they build on that, or just revert to the way they were publishing before?

Fast Company is back online

Thank you for your patience and understanding during our darkest week.

Fast CompanySarah Lynch

So is Kiwi Farms

So, remember all the pieces from a few weeks ago about how Kiwi Farms —the notorious site where its users obsessively cyberstalk and mock (“milk” in their parlance) “lolcows”, the internet micro celebs they find amusing — had been taken down by a concerted campaign spearheaded by Twitch stream Keffals?

Well, the site has been back up for the best part of a week. No, I'm not going to link it. If you really want to go there, you can find it yourself.

I find the lack of follow-up on this story rather disturbing, not least because many people will be happily assuming that the site is gone, while its users go on merrily doing their thing.

Background reading

‘It’s not that hard’: Does kicking Kiwi Farms off the internet prove tech firms can act against hate speech?

The extent to which private companies should be held responsible for online content is a global issue yet to be resolved

The GuardianJosh Taylor

This one, in particular, has not aged well…

The End of Kiwi Farms, the Web’s Most Notorious Stalker Site

Users harassed people for a decade. Then they messed with the wrong woman.

WIREDCondé Nast

A more co-operative Canary

I wrote on Tuesday about the left-wing campaigning site The Canary reforming as a workers' co-operative:

The Canary becomes a workers’ co-operative

The politics site’s former management is gone, and the staff are now collectively running the title. Can they align their business model with their values?

One Man & His BlogAdam Tinworth

It's fair to say that some of its former leaders are not delighted…

SEO Tips

Ghost's new click analytics show that you lot just can't get enough SEO stories, so…

Writing SEO heads in 2022: keeping them short, and don't stuff them with keywords

Handy little round-up of the shifts in the way Google respects or rewrites your SEO headline, based on how crappy it is…

What should the title tag length be in 2023?

Optimizing title tags is vital for boosting your visibility in Google’s SERPs. But you don’t have to worry about character limits. Here’s why.

Search Engine LandSara Taher

Image optimisation for search

This is handy, but I'd quibble with the first recommendation: smaller is no longer better on image size, given that Google Discover seems to favour larger, higher-quality images.

How To Optimize Images for the Web

Don’t let text get all the SEO love. Follow these optimizing tips so your images shine in the eyes of search engines. – Content Marketing Institute

Content Marketing InstituteIsaac Justesen

[via Kevin Anderson]

Quickies

• 🔎 Spotify has acquired Kinzen, the Dublin-based company that's been working to identify misinformation. Kinzen was founded by Áine Kerr and Mark Little, who were two of the people behind the verification agency Storyful.
• 🍿 It does look as if Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter might be back on. Both sides' lawyers are working to wind down the court case.
• 😵 Facebook offering users options to tweak their news feed. In other news, deckchairs being re-arranged on the Titanic…
• 📨 Substack has acquired an email marketing startup, which helps authors grow their lists.

📚 I've got a book coming out… 📚

Late last year, and early this, I spent a lot of time chasing interviews with key chief marketing officers, from a huge range of businesses. Along with my NEXT Insights collaborator, Martin Recke, we pulled together a book that I'm really very proud of. It's a beautiful object with some great information inside.

It's notionally a book about the way the chief marketing officer role has changed, but in reality, it's actually a book about the digital transformation of businesses.

Why, yes, you should pre-order it. Thanks for suggesting it!

NEXT Level CMO

A book about how business is changing, through the words of 22 CMOs on the cutting edge of the change. 

Pre-order on Amazon

And Finally…

I feel very seen by this, as the young people say…

The Six Stages of Having Too Many Books

What happens when a mere shelf will not do.

The New YorkerCondé Nast

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