Guess I’ve gotta talk about Bluesky
Plus: Reporting matters
Good morning.
There was a lot to catch up on and plenty to cover already this week. So we’re going with back-to-back sends for maybe the first time ever.
Let’s get to it.
I really don’t want to talk about Bluesky.
I really don’t want to talk about Bluesky.
But the flight of journalists from Twitter/X to Bluesky dominated a lot of media discussion in November and so I gotta talk about Bluesky.
Naturally, there have been pieces about how outlets are finding a new traffic source in Bluesky and how it is already delivering more traffic than Twitter/X.
There have been pieces about Bluesky gaining ground in total users on both Meta’s Threads and Twitter/X, even if the overall user pace is still far behind those two major platforms.
And there have been pieces about how journalists are finding less toxic audiences on Bluesky, even if that then reinforces some of the existing incentives I talked about earlier this week.
On the /r/billsimmons subreddit (a trusted source of news if there ever was one) people are already pointing out that the comments on Bill’s posts pretty much resemble what the comments on Twitter looked like.
(Trust me, that’s juicy info for people with a strange, fading, parasocial relationship with a media personality they grew attached to in their formative years.)
I don’t want to write about Bluesky because, as I’ve covered, I truly dislike pieces that cover some platform or referral source as if it is a new answer to the problems that face media organizations today.
I’m sure Bluesky feels refreshing for people who don’t like being on Twitter or X. I’m sure it feels like a great place to build a healthy, engaged audience. And I have the luxury of not needing to be on a platform like that because building an audience on every surface isn’t essential for me personally.
But it strikes me as the same old game. And it increasingly feels like a shell game: Wait, you thought your audience was over here, no it was actually over here.
I’m sure that shell is going to move again.
Or, maybe it won’t. As Marketing Brew reports, Bluesky has plans to roll out a monetization support service so that journalists and creators can monetize on the platform like they can on Substack of Patreon.
For some brands and individuals, Bluesky might make sense to focus on right now.
But in most cases, as it with with establishing a presence on Threads or even Substack Notes (though Notes has the benefit of being attached to the Substack newsletter and subscription management infrastructure), I’m still pretty sure it’ll feel like more of the same.
One good journalism matters quote
“The American miracle rests on untamed democracy, the animal spirits of capitalism, the magic of unrestrained innovation, and the soft power of a vigilant and vibrant free press. I'm a believer in — and beneficiary of — all four. I'm also, on balance, a fan of our increasingly scattered information ecosystem. I'm smarter today about health because of podcasters like Peter Attia, and exposed to new people and ideas because of Joe Rogan and a lot of smart people on X and other platforms. But I also believe strongly and immovably that reporting and journalistic standards are vital for the American system, and the emerging information ecosystem, to prosper. Hell, I would find X a snore if it didn't surface and feed off reported news.”
This is from Axios CEO Jim VandeHei’s piece earlier this week explaining his position in his “beef” with Elon Musk over the importance of reporting facts, which I touched on yesterday. I highly recommend giving the story a read as it summarizes a lot of what VandeHei discussed in his excellent conversation with Dylan Byers’s on the Grill Room podcast last month.
More links about journalism and media
On Sunday, Semafor reported on Vox’s rollout of a new mobile app (happened on Monday) and a paywall on The Verge (happened yesterday).
At Feed Me, Emily Sundberg covered Puck’s acquisition of Sarah Shapiro’s shopping newsletter. I’m not familiar with Shapiro or her work but earlier this year Puck also acquired long-time art market pundit Marion Maneker’s Artintelligence newsletter. Expanding into retail trends makes a lot of sense for them just like expanding into the art market did.
NiemanLab covered how news outlets are increasingly pushing vertical or social video assets forward on their homepages and article pages. Yeah, of course they are because that is what people expect from the surfaces they encounter on the internet now. The Times has been doing this well for a while now as I’ve mentioned ad nauseam.
On Monday’s episode of Puck’s The Powers That Be podcast, Peter Hamby and Jon Kelly discussed the Hearst layoffs.
Speaking of Hearst, Axios’s Sara Fischer took a look at how the majority of the company’s revenue now comes from B2B oriented products vs. pure consumer media.
One more Hearst story for ya: they hired their new CEO from TikTok.
On last week’s People v. Algorithm’s podcast Troy Young and Brian Morrissey discussed the “new media consensus.” This one was a bit more meandering than usual but, as always, they brought up a lot of interesting ideas.
hi Matt! just wanted to say hello and let you know how much I always enjoy these... we do a 'monthly creative potluck' at my job and I always make sure I read what you've got going on beforehand. hope you're well!