Is Patch the future of local journalism?
Welcome! I'm Simon Owens and this is my tech and media newsletter. If you've received it then you either subscribed or someone forwarded it to you. If you fit into the latter camp, then you can subscribe over here. Or just click on this handy little button:
Let’s jump right into it…
Is Patch actually producing quality local journalism?
This is my latest piece for What’s New in Publishing. Once considered a drag to AOL’s bottom line, Patch has been consistently profitable for a few years now. But is it actually replacing the high quality reporting that was once a staple of thriving local newspapers? [link]
It’s boom times for food YouTubers
That’s one of the headlines from the latest issue of my paid newsletter. Subscribing gets you extra newsletters, and more importantly, you’ll be supporting my journalism. If I hit 600 paying subscribers then I’ll be able to quit my day job and put out multiple newsletters per week. Don’t just assume others will pay; I’m entirely reliant on you. Here’s a link where you can get a 10% discount for the first year:
If you’re not completely convinced, check out this essay I wrote about the kind of value I deliver with my content.
A publishing platform built for independent writers
Let’s say you’re a writer who wants to publish your work to the web and eventually monetize it. These days you have plenty of options. You might open a Medium account and join the platform’s partner program. Or maybe you’d launch a Substack newsletter. If you’re really ambitious, you could throw together a Wordpress website and integrate it with a payment tool like Stripe.
Or you could just launch an account on Ghost, a publishing platform created a few years ago by a designer named John O’Nolan. Before founding Ghost, John was the deputy head of design at Wordpress, and though he was always a fan of the open source CMS, he thought he could create something a little bit better and simpler to use.
So John launched a Kickstarter campaign, and after raising tens of thousands of dollars, he developed Ghost. Today, it’s used by some of the world’s largest brands, and his hope now is that independent writers will use it to monetize their content. I spoke to John about the platform and why he thinks a writer should choose it over a competitor like Substack or Patreon.
To listen to the interview, subscribe to The Business of Content on your favorite podcast player, or you can go here to read some highlights from the interview. [link]
Speaking of podcasts
Do you need production help on your podcast? Or maybe you’re looking for someone to write white papers, ebooks, or thought leadership articles on behalf of your company. Check out my list of services over here: [link]
Other news
Australia will now force Facebook and Google to pay a portion of their revenue to news publishers. Five years ago I would have considered this move absurd. Now I'm not sure. It's clear Facebook and Google have an iron grip on advertising and a small media company can't even begin to compete in that ecosystem. [link]
The idea of a pop-up blog is kind of cool: collect a group of beloved web writers, get a sponsor to write them a big fat check, and blog like crazy for a week, and then shut it all down. [link]
This YouTube yoga instructor went from 100,000 views per day to 1 million after social distancing was enforced. [link]
Are online audience willing to watch Skype-recorded interviews with lower production values than what you get in a studio? So far there seems to be some appetite for them. [link]
A cool profile of a socialist video network that's funded entirely by paid subscriptions. [link]
There’s one other way you can support my newsletter
Sure, becoming a paid subscriber would be nice, but you’d also help me tremendously if you could recommend this newsletter on social media. So much of my success in growing its readership can be attributed to readers just taking a few seconds to write something nice about it on Twitter or LinkedIn. Here, I’ll even provide some copy that you can paste:
I've really been enjoying @simonowens' media newsletter. If you work in the industry and aren’t subscribed, then you’re missing out.
https://simonowens.substack.com
Thank you in advance.
Public domain image via Pixnio