Let’s Make the Really Good Stuff Go Viral
Alright, so I’m moving to Holland. After growing up in Switzerland, and a crazy adventure as an independent journalist in the U.S., I joined Blendle as a Senior Editor for Germany.
I will be leading a team of editors that curates a daily newsletter for Blendle users, thinking about editorial strategy and finding new ways to get the world’s best journalism to our readers.
For those, who don’t know Blendle: The founders of the Dutch company like to call it “the iTunes for journalism” (I’d add that, unlike iTunes, Blendle has a terrific user experience). On their platform you’ll find most of the best journalism from some of the most trusted sources in the world. If you want to read something — say from the Economist — you don’t need a subscription. You pay per story. A story will cost you anything from 15 cents for a shorter one, around 35 cents for longer stories and up to 80 cents for in-depth investigations (the publishers decide this themselves). If you feel duped by the headline, you’ll get your money back. Users signed up in droves. Today, a little over a year after it started, Blendle has 400'000 users. And that’s in Holland alone, a tiny country.
As a journalist, this idea is very exciting to me. I think Blendle is a unique start-up with an amazing team, and a great business with badass investors. But what mostly convinced me to join is their mission.
Blendle wants to make the world’s best journalism available to everyone.
Their tech provides easy access to journalism that has been hidden away. And it is making sure that those who made it, get paid. That’s a win-win. For readers, Blendle allows for a media diet that doesn’t only consist of the ad-supported, free stuff. For media brands, Blendle allows to be rewarded big for deep reporting, challenging thinking and compelling stories of any kind. Or for these really geeky articles about running.
This was one of the first stories I heard when I visited Blendle’s HQ in Utrecht, a city just outside Amsterdam. There’s this small running magazine in Holland, called “Runner’s World”, with roughly 35,000 subscribers. On one day a couple of months ago, one of our editors spotted a piece in this magazine that stood out to him. A geeky story about running and its effects on the human body. He decided to share it with Blendle’s readers in our daily newsletter. The piece started trending on Blendle. Soon, it spread to other networks like Facebook and Twitter. Then it happened again with a second piece of theirs. Then with a third.
Within days, the stories spread to an enormous amount of people. They went viral.
As we’re not disclosing exact stats just yet, you will have to trust me that the stories spread far above the number of subscribers of “Runner’s World”. You might say, that this happens on the internet everyday. But it really doesn’t. Usually, the stuff that spreads, is free. The creator gets attention. Monetizes that attention by showing ads alongside whatever they made that sparked people’s interest. Why would you even share something that is behind a paywall of some magazine for geeks?
The answer is: Because that paywall doesn’t feel like a wall of pain. In the case I mentioned, “Runner’s World” got paid. It was rewarded for their deep expertise and their beautiful writing. With money. Money from people who would never pick up an issue at the newsstand or who didn’t know “Runner’s World” even existed. People who are young — more than two thirds of Blendle’s users are under 35 — and who don’t read the news on paper. But who loved these stories they found on Blendle. These are people just like me and my team.
In Germany, we’re just getting started. Every morning at seven we have a call and discuss what we found in today’s newspapers and magazines. There’s so much great journalism in Germany. We have titles from all major publishers on board — DIE ZEIT, Süddeutsche and NEON among them — and we’re adding more titles almost weekly. Not only German ones. You’ll also find international titles like The Economist, The Wall Street Journal or The Washington Post.
So, my team and I have pretty much the coolest jobs in Germany: Reading through these papers, looking for that amazing stuff.
Last week, we opened the platform for a few hundred additional beta-users. And sure enough, Blendle links started spreading all over Twitter. Sure, this is happening on a smaller scale for now, as we’re still in the closed beta. But these paid stories on Blendle spread just like the free stuff. Just like the cat videos, we are obsessed with. Wait But Why? stories. Or, you know, this. Zero things wrong with all of these things. But let’s give the things that are not supported by ads a chance as well. High quality, unique reporting that makes you smarter, better informed and changes the way you think about the world.
Let’s make that stuff go viral, too.
(You can sign up here. We’re launching soon. And by the way: we have global licenses.)
I’m always interested in hearing what you think about the future of journalism, what your perfect piece of journalism was, and whatever else you’d like to chat about. Email me: jarjour@blendle.com, or tweet at me @derjarjour
