Late this year, we saw strong evidence that consumers quickly and willingly substitute news apps for Facebook in the case that Facebook is unavailable (and similar evidence for other platforms). That makes for an opportunity as publishers’ relationship with the platforms evolves.
With Facebook traffic on the decline, a steady stream of bad news about the effects of social media on society, and no major new platform emerging for engaging with news readers, publishers will need to work hard to own their audiences rather than building audience on distributed platforms.
From those publishers who succeed, I suspect we’ll see an enhanced focus on two things:
Josh Schwartz is chief of product, engineering, and data science at Chartbeat.
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Sue Cross Return of the water cooler
Carl Bialik Fatigued news consumers will pay more for less news
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Pablo Boczkowski Reimagining the media for post-institutional times
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Soo Oh Just showing our work isn’t enough
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Monique Judge Committing to the truth, calling out lies
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Errin Haines Say it with me: Racism
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Ben Smith The pendulum starts to swing back
Alyssa Zeisler We expand what (and how and who) we serve
Julia Rubin Meeting people where they are
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Renan Borelli Developing loyalty means developing your talent
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Renée Kaplan Our future could lie within our own organizations
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Salem Solomon Correcting our corrections
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Heather Chaplin Agree we’re partisan — for the democratic system
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Jennifer Dargan You don’t build diversity through one-off training sessions
Reyhan Harmanci Selling more stories to Hollywood
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Sarah Alvarez Simplify and redistribute
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Taylor Lorenz Personal branding is more powerful than ever
Laura E. Davis More access, but not that kind
Elva Ramirez News — but make it cinematic
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Amy King We should listen to the kids (especially on Instagram)
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