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Tuesday, March 5, 2019
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Luminary has $100 million, some top talent, and a mission to make you pay for podcasts. Can it pull it off?All it’ll have to do is convince users to use a new app starting with no brand recognition, build exclusive programming that’s always pulling people in (and keeping them renewing), and do it all with VCs looking over their shoulders. By Nicholas Quah. |
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The New York Times is staffing up and expanding its audio ambitions well beyond The DailyPlus: Gimlet adjusts to its new Spotify home, Apple causes a (short-lived, small-scale) freakout, and is podcasting tailor-made to cause burnout? By Nicholas Quah. |
With muddily funded sites emerging in swing states, the race is on to rebuild transparent local news
What We’re Reading
Nieman Reports
The new issue of Nieman Reports is out →
Including the cover story from Julia Keller and pieces on reporting the housing crisis, how to improve coverage of women’s sports, the line between journalism and activism, and threats to press freedom in Central Europe.
Business Insider / Lucia Moses
Barstool Sports founder admits company was “moronic” in its spat with comedian →
“The comedian, Miel Bredouw, said Barstool posted a video clip of hers on Twitter without crediting her, then messaged her hundreds of times and offered her money to drop her complaint against the company.”
The Globe and Mail / Tom Cardoso
Google will ban all political ads in Canada ahead of the federal election, claiming it’s otherwise too complicated to comply with a new transparency law →
“The decision comes in response to the Liberals' signature election measure, Bill C-76, which passed in December. Among other things, it requires online platforms to keep a registry of all political and partisan ads they directly or indirectly publish. The penalties for not doing so include fines and possible jail time.”
Financial Times / Aliya Ram
Europe’s “AI startups” often do not use AI, study finds →
“The research by London-based investment firm MMC Ventures could not find any evidence, based on public information and interviews with executives, of artificial intelligence applications at 40 percent of 2,830 AI startups in Europe. Nevertheless, the companies are often described as AI-focused.”
BuzzFeed News / Ryan Broderick
Thoughts on comment moderation from BuzzFeed’s former comments moderator →
“The hardest days, though, were when we'd get attacked by another online community. The tactic is called ‘astroturfing,’ and usually a community like Reddit or 4chan, or the neo-Nazi message board Stormfront, would flood our comment sections with gore, pornography, and hate speech. If this sort of thing happened overnight — which it usually did — I'd end up working through lunch to clean things up. After days like that, I'd usually spend my nights silently staring off into space, not because I was particularly traumatized, but because there's really only so much vitriol and toxicity a person can absorb before it all stops meaning anything.”
The Atlantic / Scott Nover
Here is Thud, a satire venture cofounded by Elon Musk →
Musk “‘[quickly] and generously agreed to provide initial funding and general start-up support for us,’ Berkley told me, likening the financial relationship to a ‘very kind grant’ that, even with Musk no longer in the picture, has gotten them to their launch. (So far they have gotten by on Musk's original funding, but are looking for additional funding in the near future.)”
Financial Times
Financial Times acquires majority stake in The Next Web →
“The acquisition, its first in continental Europe, will deepen the FT's reach into the European technology community and create synergies with its existing events business, FT Live.”