Why don't media outlets personalize their homepages?
PLUS: Patreon is leading the way in the fight against web enshittification.
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Wall Street Journal and Washington Post tech chiefs on personalisation for publishers
From Press Gazette:
‘Hyper-personalisation’ is one of the biggest opportunities for publishers created by AI technology, according to the head of digital at the Wall Street Journal Taneth Evans …
She said: “The thing I’m really excited about is that I think it’s the era that we will begin to take in true personalisation. I think new audiences expect it …
“But at the Wall Street Journal, it’s really tricky, because you talk to our users, if you talk about personalisation, they say, ‘no, don’t want it’.
“They say ‘I pay for the Wall Street Journal to tell me what’s important that day’. And so it’s important to us that we retain that kind of curated editorial experience and editorial homepage.
It’s kind of amazing that all the major social media platforms implemented homepage personalization — meaning that the content you see is determined by your previous browsing habits — at least 15 years ago, yet I can hardly think of any examples of news publishers personalizing their homepages. To be fair, the vast majority of publishers don’t produce a high enough volume of content to make personalization work, but you’d think there would have been at least some experimentation within the largest media outlets, especially as they came to realize that homepage traffic was worth more than virtually every other kind of traffic.
Inside The Atlantic’s AI bot blocking strategy
The Atlantic now actively tracks the bots that regularly scrape its website and then determines whether the platform associated with a particular bot is sending the magazine any meaningful traffic. For those bots that send no traffic, the Atlantic simply blocks them using Cloudflare’s newly-released tools. [Digiday]
ICYMI: How The Future Party collaborates with the world’s largest brands to host events
The outlet has over 200,000 subscribers to its newsletter, but it still generates significant revenue from its events.
Rupert Murdoch’s Last Hurrah: Conquering Hollywood With the California Post
Is there really an audience for a right-wing newspaper tabloid in California? Well, one thing to remember is that more people voted for Trump in California than just about every other state other than Texas and Florida. When you also consider the LA Times’s recent stumbles, it’s not hard to understand why the Murdochs see a big gap in the market that’s just waiting to be filled. [Vanity Fair]
Patreon CEO: I’m Building an Algorithm That Doesn’t Rot Your Brain
Patreon CEO Jack Conte partnered with the New York Times on a video explaining Patreon’s embrace of a content discovery algorithm. It’s kind of funny how much of what he says aligns completely with what Substack’s founders have been saying for a few years now (in fact, several Substack employees have snarkily noted these parallels).
Basically, the gist of it is that Patreon is trying to wrestle content discovery away from the huge tech companies — which monetize primarily through ads and don’t share much revenue with creators — and place it in the hands of much smaller platforms that monetize through subscriptions. This not only puts more money in creators’ pockets, but also disincentivizes ragebait and other kinds of sensationalized content.
And I know it’s easy to be pessimistic about the state of the internet, but I’ve actually been encouraged by how much web usage has flowed away from a handful of tech conglomerates in recent years. The rise of platforms like Substack, Beehiiv, and Ghost have done much to decentralize content distribution; the same can be said for podcasts, which are still mainly distributed through RSS. Twitter has relinquished its stranglehold on shortform text communication, with many of its users flowing to Bluesky, Mastadon, Substack Notes, and even Threads. And the rise of generative AI startups like ChatGPT and Anthropic have carved out some market share from Google.
For all the talk of the web’s enshittification, I do see lots of green shoots that could lead to a much richer and healthier media ecosystem. And I think Patreon deserves a lot of credit for being one of the first companies to focus entirely on incentivizing content quality over engagement.
I’m looking for successful media entrepreneurs to feature in my newsletter and podcast
I am consistently on the lookout for successful media entrepreneurs to interview for my podcast, whether it’s a solo creator or someone running an entire team. I want to feature people who are killing it with YouTube videos, podcasts, newsletters, or virtually any other type of digital content. I’m especially eager to talk to folks who have really interesting business models.
If this interests you, I created a special landing page for folks who want to pitch me.
Defector Annual Report, September 2024 – August 2025
Defector generated $4.65 million in revenue in its fifth year, only slightly more than the year before. Its annual report suggests that the explosive early growth has tapered off, and the worker-owned publication is now focused on incremental gains in both audience and revenue — which is getting more difficult as the large tech platforms rein in clicks.
Some of the most fascinating parts of this report dive deep into the organizational challenges of running a worker-owned cooperative. The low turnover means that it’s very difficult to bring in younger staffers with completely different skillsets, and the lack of hierarchical structure requires that they develop clear processes for employees to give feedback to each other. It’s a fascinating read for anyone who might consider launching this sort of media outlet. [Defector]
Why the Guardian doesn’t mince words when calling out MAGA extremism
The Guardian now has 400,000 paid members in the U.S., and its American operation is on track to generate $50 million this year. As a U.K.-based outlet, it also enjoys a distinct advantage: its leaders feel less pressure to normalize Republican behavior than many U.S. news organizations do. As a result, the paper has benefited from the wave of liberal outrage during the Trump administration. [CJR]
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Forget Joe Rogan. The Next Big Podcast Bro Is in the Senate.
The podcast Ted Cruz started in 2019 generates over 2 million downloads a month. Given the role of podcasts in the 2024 election, his show may give him a key advantage heading into the Republican primaries for 2028. [Politico]
What’s coming down the pipeline…
Tomorrow I should have a fresh interview out with a former USA Today columnist who launched his own travel show on YouTube.
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