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Monday, March 6, 2017
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Sidewire is civil, thoughtful, and either exactly right or exactly wrong for this political momentThe closed discussion platform shuts out the noise of Twitter’s eggs and trolls and is betting on — gasp! — the value of government and media elites talking to one another. By Shan Wang. |
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How four international news outlets are creating truly digitally native content (and making money off it)News outlets are adjusting their strategies as users migrate to more closed messaging platforms. By Kevin Anderson. |
What We’re Reading
Slate / Will Oremus
Twitter’s new order →
Twitter wouldn’t disclose all the signals involved in its new algorithmic ranking of tweets (there are thousands, according to a spokesperson), but they include factors such as how recently a tweet was published, how much time you spend reading tweets by that author, even if you don't engage.
Global Voices Advocacy
France sees sharp rise in blocked and de-listed websites →
“Authorities in France ordered 834 websites to be blocked and 1,929 to be delisted from internet searches in 2016…These figures have more than doubled compared with the previous year’s results.”
The Wall Street Journal / Deepa Seetharaman
In rush to live video, Facebook moved fast and broke things →
“Nearly a year later, many publishers say Facebook Live viewership is lackluster. Facebook is still tinkering with ways for them to earn money from their broadcasts. Facebook doesn't disclose viewer data or financial results for Facebook Live.”
TechCrunch / Jon Russell
Uber plans to turn its app into a “content marketplace” during rides →
“In the future, when a user gets into an Uber, the Uber app will turn ‘into a rich feed of cards,’ in the words of Uber itself: a series of third-party apps will provide you with more information about the area or specific place you are going; some entertainment while you're travelling; work and productivity integrations; and communications with the place where you are going specifically.”
Variety / Todd Spangler
More U.S. households now have Netflix than a DVR →
“About 54% of U.S. adults said they have Netflix in their household — while 53% have a DVR, according to Research Group's annual on-demand study…46% of adults say they often flip through channels to see what's on TV.”
The New Yorker
The New Yorker now has a Poetry Bot →
“Starting today, our poetry bot, available on Twitter and Facebook Messenger, will send out a poetry excerpt at random every day for the next ninety-two days.”
San Francisco Chronicle / Dominic Fracassa
Mother Jones sees a surge in reader support →
“For November through January, the magazine saw a 160 percent increase over the same period a year ago in small donations, typically $20 to $50. It also tripled revenue from donors who have signed up for recurring monthly payments, and had a 72 percent increase in Web traffic in January over the same month last year. What's more, the number of Web viewers who subscribed to the print magazine, which comes out every other month and has a circulation of around 200,000, also tripled.”
Columbia Journalism Review / Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris, Hal Roberts, and Ethan Zuckerman
A Breitbart-led right-wing media ecosystem altered the broader media agenda →
“Pro-Clinton audiences were highly attentive to traditional media outlets, which continued to be the most prominent outlets across the public sphere, alongside more left-oriented online sites. But pro-Trump audiences paid the majority of their attention to polarized outlets that have developed recently, many of them only since the 2008 election season.”
Medium / Ernst-Jan Pfauth
How reader engagement helped unearth a scoop about Shell’s knowledge of climate change →
“At our Dutch journalism platform De Correspondent, we've learned that joining forces with readers leads to richer, more grounded stories. Better yet: It leads to scoops that we would never have found on our own.”
NRKbeta / Henrik Lied
NRKbeta’s comment quiz module is now open source →
Last week, we wrote about the tool developed by the Norwegian public broadcaster, which requires commenters to answer a series of questions before they can comment.