Bluesky
The Bluesky explosion and the Substack trap
The Twitter offshoot is edging towards becoming an X replacement — and two old school web thinkers critique Substack
TikTok
Missing Links and Unfinished Thoughts: dead internet, living video
More interesting reading and viewing culled from a long list of unpublished posts.
audience strategy
The Media Inflection Point: a manifesto for audience centricity
The doomsayers are out in force. Journalism is dead, they say. Just look at the job losses, the titles closing. But we’re just paying the price of bungling the last digital transition. Let’s not repeat that mistake with the coming one.
substack
Why I don't read the Press Gazette newsletter now
The problem with playing the platform game, even if it's a newsletter platform. And another reason to mistrust AI…
Social Media
Some notes on Substack Notes
Who is the new Substack feature serving? Plus the final nail in the coffin of the keyword from Google.
Social Media
Platforms and Publishers: the best of frenemies?
Are we any nearer buidling a more healthy relationship between news publishers and social media platforms? The outlook is not good, suggests a news:rewired panel…
apple
The secret of Apple News+ success? Knowing your content and your audience
What does a fried egg have to do with the Wall Street Journal and Apple News+? It's all about your most important content…
Blogging
It's 2019, and you still need to own your content
Beware the roach motels of the platforms - if content is your business, you still need to own and publish it yourself.
blog platforms
Is Medium aiming to be the Facebook of long-form writing?
Stowe Boyd has some serious questions about the future of Medium [https://medium.com/@stoweboyd/is-medium-following-the-facebook-playbook-6a21b3db6e7d] : > And what about Medium? Are we better off because of Medium’s mechanisms to suggest to us what to read, or would we be better off with thousands of independent curators and publishers,
fake news
Social platforms: perfect propaganda delivery tools
This post by JP Rangaswami resonated with me, because it summed up one of the areas digital seems to have gone wrong [http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2017/10/30/on-platforms-and-sustainability/]: > So is that it? Back to seats and eyeballs, channelled not connected, “audiences” sucking up linear “content”? Back to a
How The Economist plays the platform game
How do you recruit new subscribers - especially young ones? For The Economist, social platforms are a big part of the equation…
business models
Medium is struggling to break out of the tech niche
Interesting analysis of Medium’s audience [https://mondaynote.com/a-new-model-for-medium-3ad7cc638c13#.k4ef5accn] from Frederic Filloux, which I missed last month: > This is both good and bad news. On the plus side, Medium mostly addresses the tech elite. This is a premium audience, attracted by quality, more likely to pay for