Good morning.
I’ve been rethinking the monthly structure of this newsletter so I can do a better job of getting sends out more consistently when I get busy.
So moving forward I’m going to try out something like this. Each month you’ll get:
4-6 short write ups of media business stories that I find interesting plus a roundup of useful links from the link
1 longer personal essay
1 playlist post
1 post focused on music, TV, movies, or books
That comes out to about 1-2 emails per week. I’m going to see how it goes and welcome any and all feedback from those of you out there still getting these emails each week and (hopefully!) reading and enjoying them
Now, for today’s focus.
Last week, the New Yorker published a piece by Kyle Chayka called “The Revenge of The Home Page.”
This is a CLASSIC media business story. Usually every year you get a story or comment about the home page not being dead.
Chayka’s installment looks mainly at The Verge who radically changed their website in 2022 with some fanfare. Their bet was that social media (what is it for?) was radically changing and that people wanted a place where they could find relevant, trusted, and curated information on topics they were interested in. So they modeled their site on a social media feed. The results, as Chayka points out in his piece, have been positive for The Verge.
When The Verge made this announcement, I remember Slacking with my co-workers about the change. I thought it was smart for The Verge and their audience of very online people interested in technology and the ways it changes the way we live. The idea of becoming a hub for information and referring traffic to other sites and internally to your own coverage was a radical rethinking of the last 10 years of media thinking.
I thought it was a good idea for The Verge. But it's not a good idea for every outlet. That’s because people don’t really spend time on websites anymore. They spend time on apps—including apps that provide access to their email.
The other examples in Chayka’s piece are Semafor and Defector. Those are certainly websites. But, as Chayka notes in the piece, Semafor was founded on a model copied from Axios—email first, website second. And Defector is an evolution of the original Deadspin, which was known for its vibrant commenting community.
Sherwood, the new website from Josh Topolsky that is supposed to get people using the Robin Hood app more, is taking a page out of The Verge’s book. They are mixing external link aggregation with original reporting to show audiences they can get all the relevant news around finance and business in one place. This is something we also flirted with at Artsy.
The fact is, though, that most websites stink as products. In the case of Defector and Semafor, they are smaller operations that can make websites that feel better than your average major media outlet. The New York Times has multiple apps that allow for community experiences, such as The Athletic’s game discussion feature and commenting section and even the Cooking App comment feature. The Times has also modeled their mobile web experience on a social media feed. Tons of individual proprietors are creating communities through Substack and the features they’ve pushed in their app experience.
What people want are communities because social media as a communal space is over. As I said last month, “community” in media a major blur word. But to me it means spaces that are owned by a business where people can engage with each other and with experts directly. Even that is still an imprecise definition and could take on many different forms.
Home page’s are not coming back. What will be au courant is creating better surfaces for consumers to find helpful content and information they are looking for in a non-intrusive way. And sometimes those may be websites and other times they may be apps or just a collection of emails. It’s all easier said than done.
One great quote:
“The Atlantic’s business strategy, which has been very successful for us, is not likely to succeed for many other publications. It just happens to work for us at this moment. It might not even work for The Atlantic in three years—we might have changed the way we produce content or the way people read might have changed so we might need to pivot with that. But it works right now.”
That one is from Nicholas Thompson of The Atlantic in an interview on reaching profitability and what’s next.
More recent stories I found interesting:
If you want more on The Verge, listen to Nilay Patel and Ezra Klein discuss the future of the internet. Spoiler: there will be a commercial internet (like the way our current internet is evolving) and a community-based one.
Good profile of Jimmy Pitaro who heads up an ESPN in search of direction amid a rapidly changing live sports landscape.
Loved this interview with Wall Street Journal EIC Emma Tucker. Sounds like a very smart and inspiring leader.
Another one from The New Yorker—this one about the fight for maintaining attention.