Thoughts on Rerun

The unexpected benefits of starting an industry newsletter at Axonista

A year ago, the Axonista team launched a weekly newsletter all about the future of TV, video and the oncoming rise of virtual reality. On the occasion of its first birthday, here are some thoughts on why it’s been really great for our company.

Rerun is the brainchild of our creative director Ian Goode, who spotted a gap in the market for an informed weekly newsletter about the future of TV and suggested that we start one curated by the Axonista team.

Launching a weekly newsletter curated by an already very busy team may seem like a nutty endeavour, but we loved the idea and the initial treatment that Ian pitched was so good that we decided to dive in.

Collaboration

Rerun has a weekly editorial meeting that’s attended by a core crew but is open to anyone in the team who has a story they would like to pitch. People who work in different business areas get the chance to come together once a week to collaborate on something creative, outside of their daily role.

Publishing to a deadline every week, together, is a great habit to form. We get an immense sense of satisfaction at Axonista when an issue has shipped. We work together and help each other achieve that deadline and check each other’s work to make sure it’s perfect for our readers. 🚀

User Focus

Our newsletter is for our readers. We appreciate each and every subscriber and aim to deliver something of value to them every week. In our editorial meetings, we say ‘ It’s a great story, but is this Rerun material?’ and collectively we decide whether or not to include it in the issue.

Future of TV Focus

With a rich archive of examples of innovation in interactive media, mobile video, social platforms and VR, our entire team not only understands where TV has come from, but also where it’s headed.

There’s so much momentum and change in new technologies, devices, experiences and so on. It can be really difficult to make sense of it when everything is happening at once. Rerun creates a narrative and helps guide readers through this by referring back to previous developments, or packaging similar stories together.

It’s very important for our team to understand not only what we’re building at Axonista, but why we’re building it. Rerun is a great body of knowledge that our team can use for conference panel sessions, white paper research and generally keeping focused on the future of TV.

Thought Leadership

In a content marketing focused world, there’s a lot of buzz about thought leadership. However, to be great at thought leadership, you actually have to have and express original thoughts in the first place.
Rerun has been a great way for us to share our thoughts about the future of the TV industry and build thought leaders in our team. We love when customers say to us, ‘Oh yes, I read about that in Rerun!’

All of these reasons combined gives us a competitive edge … and helps us build better products.

And Finally…

So happy 1st birthday to Rerun, thanks to everyone who has contributed over the past year, particularly Ian, Sarah, Daragh, Lisa, Ben and David.

Thanks to all our readers! Keep your recommendations and feedback coming. We always love to hear from you.

Interested about the future of TV and interactive video? Subscribe to Rerun.

Axonista’s award winning technology powers realtime interactive video graphics for some of the world’s leading video and TV companies.