The Splice Slugs: Week 65

What if everything we’ve assumed about the death of newspapers was wrong? Newsrooms have feared the death of print and pushed headlong into digital. Could those assumptions have been wrong? Researchers have looked into this and found that while newspapers made a big bet on digital, print in fact continued to survive better than digital itself. In a contrarian way, if newspapers didn’t bother shifting investments into digital, they would still be ok. How can that be?

Some newsrooms are trying out push notifications on desktop browsers. You may have already seen this on Chrome or Safari — that little pop-up that asks if you want to get notified on stuff. The Washington Post started this 2 months ago. It now has 200,000 signups — an amazing 10% opt-in rate.

The ad tech market is an obscure black box. Fraud, wastage and a lack of standards. “We’ve created a monster which now has greater influence than we do.” Check out some of these rants.

How much money can celebs make with their endorsements on social media? Hint: If you’re famous, you’ll want to be famous onYouTube, not Twitter.

…Is Twitter better viewed as a media company? If you take Jay Rosen’s definition of a media company as one that “makes the stuff that draws the attention”, then yes. But then what?

…And in a odd twist of fate, Twitter is now worth less than its Chinese clone Weibo. And here’s the other thing about Weibo: It’s pulling in 70 million new active users while Twitter is losing them.

Netflix put its plans to enter China on hold. It won’t roll out there because “the regulatory environment for foreign digital content services in China has become challenging”. Here are 5 reasons why Netflix shouldn’t even try.

Now that it’s raised almost a billion dollars, LINE is focusing on its media strategy. “The core business is the media strategy. Our news and some things we hope to derive from news.”

Indian news app Dailyhunt (formerly Newshunt) picked up a Series D funding round of US$25 million led by China’s ByteDance. “Dailyhunt is serving a huge unmet need of providing local language content to Indian mobile users.”

Google News added a “Fact Check” tag against articles that have been verified. It basically pulls the tags from the ClaimReview markup code.

Google’s fast-loading AMP format is apparently making a big difference for publisher traffic. According to one publisher, AMP articles are loading 95% faster and the bounce rates have more than halved. But there are two downsides: Monetization is still limited and you still can’t capture meaningful user data.

…And publishers are also complaining that while Apple News sends them a good amount of traffic, it isn’t doing much to help them monetise that traffic. The other problem: Apple still hasn’t added comScore tracking to Apple News.

Trump is reportedly planning to build a TV empire. His son-in-law has been working on financing the deal. As Quartz put it, even “if Trump loses the election, there will be tens of millions of Americans eager to see what the businessman would do next.”

…CNN President Jeff Zucker said it was a mistake to air so many Trump rallies last year, which basically gave the candidate an unfettered platform to share hate speech.
“Because you never knew what he would say, there was an attractionto put those on air.”

…Researchers found that 33% of pro-Trump tweets are coming from bots and automated accounts. It’s 22% for Clinton. They just can’t figure out who’s actually behind them — the campaigns, supporters or the candidates themselves.

BBC has grounded its TV anchors as part of its cost-cutting plan.Anchors will no longer be sent to cover major events around the world — except under rare circumstances. “If newsreaders are sent now it will be one per channel and they’ll be asked to enhance the journalism, not merely be a cosmetic presence.”

Barron’s — the stuffy but influential finance publication for C-level execs — rolled out a digital version called Barron’s Next, which it hopes will resonate with millennials. Quick analysis, video and custom stock indexes.

Quartz launched a new weekly email newsletter. It covers how people spend their time and energy — somewhat loosely themed. If you’re interested, sign up here.

Is donor funding bad for newsrooms? There’s a big rise in funds coming from donors and these come with specific agendas such as human rights, poverty or corruption. Here’s a look at both sides of thedebate.

Roshni Mahtani is the CEO and Founder of Tickled Media, which runs ParentTown, theAsianparent.com and IndusParent.com. Her goal is to build an indispensable resource for mothers in Asia. I met Roshni about a year ago when I first started The Splice Newsroom and I was immediately struck by her generosity of time and advice. Here’s a look at what it took to build her business.

The Online News Association is putting together a leadership accelerator program for women. There’s looking for 25 promising female leaders “who are pushing innovation in their organization”. You’ll learn leadership and management skills in the context of media. Better yet, you get to learn from Kara Swisher. Apply here.

…Speaking of Kara, she did a fantastic interview with Ashton Kutcher. Yes, that actor. But he’s also made really smart investments in Skype, Airbnb and Uber. This is what he looks for in startup founders: “If you have a gumption about you, or a disdain for the problem that you have, the likelihood of you persevering through some great obstacle you’ll meet along the way is going to be relatively high”.

There’s a company on Indiegogo that’s trying to build a luggage that follows you around like a dog. “Suitcases haven’t really changed for the past couple of decades. It’s overdue for innovation.” You gotta see the video.

Odd fact. Doctors and medical staffers in the U.S. all seem to believe that the full moon drives bizarre behavior. Luna = lunacy.

Quote of the week:
“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.” — Eleanor Roosevelt

Deals:
WAN-IFRA’s annual Digital Media Asia — the biggest dedicated to the news publishing industry — comes up on November 8–10 in Singapore. You can use our promo code DMA_SPLICE_#16Q9Pfor a 10% discount.

From our readers:
“And that, my friends, is how you write a weekly newsletter.”
— Uttam Chopra

I started The Splice Newsroom consultancy to help solve a difficult problem: getting newsrooms to adapt and evolve in the ongoing shift to digital with the right strategy, operations and training. I help transform traditional newsrooms and support the development of editorial startups. What can I do for you?

Questions or feedback? Want to sponsor this newsletter?
Email me at alansoon@thesplicenewsroom.com.

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