Simon Owens's Tech and Media - Google traffic is overrated
Welcome! I'm Simon Owens and this is my media industry newsletter. If you've received it, then you either subscribed or someone forwarded it to you. If you fit into the latter camp and want to subscribe, then you can click on this handy little button: Let’s jump into it… Quick hitsThe Origin Story Of #1 Sports Podcast Pardon My Take Regardless of what you think of Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy as a person, you have to admit he has an amazing capacity for spotting creator talent. He reminds me of Gawker Media founder Nick Denton in that regard. — Pardon My Take Court documents reveal how MrBeast pitches brands on sponsoring his YouTube empire One of the biggest challenges facing MrBeast is that his audience is too big — which means he either needs to drastically lower his rates or only do business with the tiny number of brands that can afford him. That's why he's invested big recently in developing his own products that he can sell to his huge audience of young male viewers. — Business Insider Dog Man Movie Is Here to Swoop In and Rescue the Children’s Book Business "Despite an uptick during the Covid-19 pandemic, print sales of children’s books have declined since 2022. In the first half of 2024, print sales of middle-grade books, intended for readers age 9 to 12, fell by 5% from the same period last year, resulting in 1.8 million fewer units sold." — Bloomberg How Newsweek became world’s fastest-growing English language news website Newsweek has 200 people in its newsroom and is currently experiencing a huge surge in traffic. Most of it is coming from search products like Google Discover, however, which means the outlet probably doesn't have much of a core readership. — Press Gazette Publishers hooked on Google Discover traffic risk race to the bottom At my last legacy media job all the way back in 2012, the editors were focused on having writers pump out articles about hours-old stories because occasionally Google News would pick up one of those articles and send a short, intense burst of traffic. Pretty much all of these visitors bounced off the page immediately and did nothing to enhance the publication's brand. — Press Gazette The Rise of Creator-Led Product Lines in Mainstream Retail The biggest creators no longer just push their products online. Large physical retail outlets like Walmart are increasingly carrying more and more creator-launched products. — Passionfruit Creators Still Don’t Know What Threads Is For Threads may have 275 million users, but a lot of creators still don't bother posting there, There's still a perception that the platform isn't part of the cultural zeitgeist. — The Information I am my own legal department: the promise and peril of “just go independent” An independent journalist who covers crypto scams wrote about what it's like to deal with legal threats when she doesn't have the support of an actual legal department to back her up. "Had I been a journalist at an outlet like the Post, this likely would never have required any of my time at all. Outlets like that have teams of actual lawyers who are in charge of handling copyright complaints. They also vet journalists’ stories to ensure they are carefully written so as to minimize the chances of defamation lawsuits, and defend the publication and its journalists from any claims that come in anyway. They handle all of the many other types of legal concerns that impact journalists and publishers." — Citation Needed How Android Intelligence built a thriving paid membershipWhen JR Raphael launched his Android Intelligence newsletter in 2018, it was mainly a roundup of news meant to complement his Computerworld column of the same name. But as the newsletter amassed an audience, it began to take on a life of its own, so much so that JR eventually built a thriving paid membership that now provides the bulk of his income. In a recent interview, JR walked through every aspect of his membership strategy, including why he lets in new members only a few times a year, how he built a thriving community forum where members interact with each other, how he reduces churn, and why he decided to launch two new newsletters focused on Windows and internet tools. You can watch, listen to, or read the interview over here. More quick hitsWho’s Really Writing Celebrity Novels? It's pretty widely known that a lot of celebrity memoirs are ghost-written, but there's a growing number of celebrity-authored novels, and, surprise surprise, they're largely ghostwritten as well. Usually the celebrity comes to the table with a vague outline of what the story is about and the ghostwriter does all the work of filling in the details. — Vulture Book Publishing Sales Stayed Hot in August I think an under covered story in media is that the book industry continues to do well in an era when attention spans are supposedly shortening. People still want to be deeply immersed in a story or topic. — Publishers Weekly Inside the strategy that grew Cristiano Ronaldo’s YouTube account to 1M subscribers in 90 minutes Cristiano Ronaldo launched his YouTube channel in July and it already has over 65 million subscribers — making it one of the fastest-growing YouTube channel of all time. It's part of a growing ecosystem of athlete-led content verticals that are changing the way athletes interact with and monetize their fan bases. — Digiday Three YouTube podcast results that blew my mind The New Statesman experimented with producing polished documentaries for its YouTube channel, but it wasn't until it started posting video versions of its podcast that the channel actually took off. "Our assumption at the time was: 'who would want to watch a video of two people just talking?!' But as it turned out, that was precisely the content that drew the biggest audience and delivered the longest watch time. " — Podcast Strategy Weekly Rise of the Reasonably Priced, Moderately Successful Blockbuster Sony's been engaged in an interesting experiment over the past few years: can it make super hero movies without spending truckloads of cash to produce them? The strategy is sorta working. — Puck Who Gets the TikTok in the Divorce? The Messy Fight Over Valuable Social Media Accounts With the Creator Economy now generating over $250 billion a year, the legal system will have to increasingly grapple with who owns valuable social media accounts that can generate income into the millions. For instance, what happens if you start a podcast with a friend and then that podcast goes on to become incredibly valuable long after that friend stopped co-hosting it with you? Can they claim any equity? — WSJ How Saveur magazine is rebuilding a ‘couture’ print presence for superfans One of Saveur Magazine's staffers bought the publication from Recurrent Ventures and is now re-launching a print version. This time, however, the magazine will have a higher price tag and be targeted more toward its super fans. “Frankly, the old-school, high-volume print model isn’t sustainable” — Media Voices The End Of Independent Publishing And Giant Freakin Robot A film criticism website claims that a tweak in the Google algorithm caused it to go from generating 20 million visitors a month to "a few thousand." After 16 years of publishing, it's shutting down its web operations and doubling down on its YouTube channel, which is still seeing growth. — Giant Freakin Robot Please don’t take my newsletter and podcast for grantedI rely on paid subscriptions for the vast majority of my revenue. Without enough paid subscribers, I can’t continue justifying spending 40+ hours a week on my newsletter and podcast, and I’ll need to shut them down so I can seek out other work. Let me put this another way: if you’d be disappointed if I suddenly announced that I’m shutting down my newsletter and podcast — a very real possibility — then you should probably subscribe. Seriously, it’s only $100 for a full year, and if you’re using insights from my content to improve your own business, then that $100 pays for itself. And if you use the link below, you get 20% off for the first year: You're currently a free subscriber to Simon Owens's Media Newsletter. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription. |
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How Lon Seidman used his tech YouTube channel to build a huge affiliate business
Friday, November 8, 2024
He specializes in reviewing non-sexy gadgets that sell in high volumes. ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
It's a great time to invest in independent media
Wednesday, November 6, 2024
I'm not going to bore you with my analysis of the US election. ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
Is there life after CNN? Chris Cillizza hopes so
Tuesday, November 5, 2024
After being cast off from the “most trusted name in news,” the political analyst is trying to forge his own path. ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
Has TikTok improved its revenue share for creators?
Friday, November 1, 2024
PLUS: How some publishers are benefiting from Google Discover ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
Facebook has become a punchline
Wednesday, October 30, 2024
PLUS: What happened to all the feminist blogs of the 2010s? ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
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Another cable news star goes the independent route
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