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Quick hits

Social media platforms are less focused than ever about sending traffic to publishers, so publishers are trying to determine what level of investment they're willing to make in those platforms. [Digiday]

So many news sites closed down their website comments, but there's a growing body of evidence that users who regularly comment are much more likely to convert into paid subscribers. [WAN-IFRA]

"Chief executive Anna Bateson told staff that The Guardian would return to Apple News in the UK after experiencing success on the platform in the US since 2020 and Australia since 2021." [Press Gazette] It's been a while since we've heard any updates on Apple News.

There are so many news apps that launch every year aimed at "decluttering" news consumption. I just don't think there's enough differentiation for any of these apps to truly scale, especially since they're competing with Apple News and Google News. [TechCrunch]

This is a pretty big deal: paid Patreon subscribers will now be able to access subscriber-only podcast content on Spotify. They were previously unable to do so because Spotify doesn't use the typical approach of pulling podcast episodes from RSS feeds. [Spotify]

Online audiences are increasingly becoming fragmented across multiple platforms, which is causing a lot of anxiety among creators who feel like they need to generate content for several formats. [Digiday]

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Simon Owens's Media Newsletter

Publishers shouldn't have closed down their…