Why I don’t believe in Google Zero

PLUS: HGTV is being disrupted by the Creator Economy

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Quick programming note

If you’re a longtime reader of this newsletter, then you know I often link to paywalled articles. I actually pay thousands of dollars a year to subscribe to publications like Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Washington Post, Business Insider, Digiday, the New Yorker, and Puck, to name a few.

Anyway, the reason I’m mentioning this is I decided this week to start making more of an effort to use gift links when they’re available so you can still access an article even if you’re not subscribed. If you want to reward me for helping you bypass paywalls, then feel free to become a paid subscriber. A portion of my subscription revenue will go toward subscribing to more outlets, so it’ll only benefit you in the long run. I’m itching to subscribe to the Financial Times and The Information next.

Why I don’t believe in Google Zero

From the Columbia Journalism Review:

Earlier this month, the Independent Publishers Alliance submitted an antitrust complaint against Google to the European Commission, alleging that AI Overviews “have caused, and continue to cause, significant harm to publishers, including news publishers in the form of traffic, readership and revenue loss.” They pointed out that most publishers cannot opt out of having their content ingested for AI Overviews because that would mean exclusion from Google search.

I continue to be deeply skeptical that the rise of AI summaries/chatbots will have a net negative impact on content creators in the long term. The way I see it, the media industry collectively wasted tens of billions of dollars over the last 20 years creating content specifically geared for Google rather than investing those resources into growing their core audiences. The outlets that continue to thrive will be the ones that focus on the KPIs that always actually mattered: newsletter signups, homepage visits, repeat visits, mobile app users, and paid subscribers. There will always be an enormous number of humans who seek out original analysis, entertainment, and reporting from other humans.

I’m also not really a believer in Google Zero — the idea that eventually there will come a day when Google sends zero clicks to websites. Not all users who come to Google are looking to answer a quick question that can be addressed in a few short sentences. A huge portion of users come looking to conduct deeper research, and for that they’ll often seek out primary source material. Besides, without that source material, all the LLMs will eventually become useless.

Emma Tucker is killing it at the Wall Street Journal

From Puck:

Editors and reporters [at the New York Times] readily acknowledged the [Wall Street Journal’s] recent editorial triumphs and were quick to praise its plucky and charismatic editor-in-chief, Emma Tucker, whom virtually everyone in the industry likes and admires—save, of course, for the largely somnolent bureaucrats that she evicted from the joint upon her arrival from Fleet Street a few years back. “They’re having a great run on Epstein, and, in general, I think Emma has succeeded in sharpening them,” one reporter said. Another veteran Times journalist was more effusive: “Emma is the best editor they have had in a long time, and she knows what a juicy story is and how to get it. And they’re the most competitive I’ve ever seen … They worry us.”

I have to agree with this take: Emma Tucker's been killing it at the Wall Street Journal. Obviously its Trump reporting has been good, but I'm much more impressed with its embrace of longform journalism, as evidenced by the fact that I consistently link to it in my weekly longform newsletter. These pieces aren't just informative; they're also genuinely fun to read. The WSJ’s success proves you can make a lot of headway in growing a media brand without focusing solely on scoops and breaking news.

Want to pick my brain on your content strategy?

At this point I’ve probably interviewed over 1,000 media entrepreneurs about how they built their businesses.

I also spent over a decade consulting with organizations ranging from small nonprofits to Fortune 100 companies on their content strategies.

For this reason I get a fair number of people who reach out to me to see if I offer consulting calls so they can ask me questions related to their own content strategies.

Currently, there are three options for booking consulting calls with me:

Become a paid subscriber to my newsletter: When you subscribe, you automatically receive an email with a Calendly link that allows you to book a half-hour introductory call with me. Many of my subscribers use these calls to ask me questions related to their own businesses. Use this link and get 20% off for your first year:

Book an hour-long consulting call: This is a good option if you want to have a more in-depth discussion about your strategy. [Book a call on my Calendly]

Book a series of calls: Sometimes people want to book multiple calls with me. I can offer a significant discount for three or more calls. Reach out to me for details.

MrBeast’s plan to sell more toys? Turn them into an animated series

This will be a really fascinating experiment to watch over the coming year. MrBeast has essentially cast himself as a super hero in an animated action series for a new YouTube channel. Not only will it be monetized through the traditional media business models, but also with action figure toys. We'll get to see whether MrBeast's massive brand and reach translates well to animated fiction. Obviously, animation geared toward toddlers does extremely well on YouTube, but this will be targeted toward a slightly older cohort. [Tubefilter]

Bookshop.org Reports 65% Growth, E-books Add $1 Million in Sales

$1 million in ebook sales is a tiny milestone, but an encouraging one nonetheless. Bookshop has done an admirable job of helping independent book stores band together to put a dent in Amazon's ecommerce monopoly for print books, but until recently there were few ways for these indie stores to participate in the massive ebook market. Bookshop not only created its own ebook marketplace, but also stayed true to its mission by sharing revenue with its book store partners. It's a true David vs Goliath business case study. [Publishers Weekly]

BTW, if you want a deeper dive on Bookshop’s ingenious business model, check out this Verge interview with its CEO.

ICYMI: How a B2B outlet that covers the corporate travel industry built up a loyal subscriber base

The Company Dime mostly eschewed sponsorship revenue and focused instead on delivering high-quality journalism.

Podcasts become a strategic IP play for Hollywood talent

This is a really interesting trend: narrative fiction podcasts are able to attract A-list acting talent by giving them equity in the shows — that way the actors not only benefit from any of the podcast's financial success, but they also see upside if the show is eventually adapted into a TV show or movie. [Digiday]

Hypothetical question

Let’s say you specialize in interviewing really successful entrepreneurs and then converting those interviews into 3,000-word case studies that detail all the strategies those entrepreneurs used to build their businesses. Then let’s say you compiled all those case studies into an ebook that’s about 230,000 words — or 450 pages — in length.

How much would you charge for such an ebook? Keep in mind that the people buying it are doing so because they want to mine it for strategies they can implement in their own businesses.

HGTV is being disrupted by the Creator Economy

From Deadline:

Falling linear ratings, the rising cost of materials needed for home renovations, the threat of further price hikes due to President Donald Trump’s tariffs and the rise of DIY TikTokers have all hit [HGTV] like a slab of Italian marble to the face.

It has emerged over the past few weeks that the network has canceled at least seven shows … [HGTV] is down almost half its total audience in the last eight years: in 2017, it averaged around 1.5 million viewers, while last year this number was 773,000. Perhaps more importantly, it is heavily losing young viewers; in the 18-49 demo it was down 26% last year, averaging only 101,000 viewers in this age bracket, down from an average of 425,000 in 2017.

This is a really good example of how the Creator Economy can carve away at a media niche with content that's cheaper to produce and — in some instances — better in quality. An HGTV show costs a minimum of $500,000 an episode to produce, and yet a DIY home YouTuber can operate at a fraction of that cost, paying only for the building materials themselves. In many cases, the YouTubers are actually contractors, so it's their clients who are paying for all of the materials and labor. HGTV can't compete with that kind of efficiency.

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