#20 - Search for Gen Z

“I Don’t Google Anymore. I TikTok. ” It was a random tweet a few weeks back but it rapidly became a signifier for how a new generation is searching for information. #tiktoktaughtme has 6.6 billion views. Under that hashtag you’ll find hacks and advice for almost anything: from learning sign language to how to deep-clean a bathroom. A growing audience of users are getting more and more comfortable with relying on TikTok as a source of valuable information even if the platform itself doesn’t seem to be overly concerned with the spread of misinformation.

This and more in this week's Wayfinder!

IN FOCUS

Media organizations around the world can agree on one thing: Young people are increasingly hard to reach and engage. NiemanLab takes a closer look?at the rising generation of news consumers and finds that the differences between the 'social natives' and 'digital natives' are growing.

Related: A new report from the Walton Family Foundation paints a picture of a Gen Z as a generation that prizes family and well-being over money-making, isn't afraid to job-hop, and sees civic participation as vital to advancing their values.

NEWSROOM

What does it take to transform an entire newsroom from being print-driven to becoming digital- and subscriber-driven? Lyndsey Jones led an entire digital transformation within the Financial Times newsroom, streamlining operations from print to digital.

Local Facebook groups have supplanted local newspapers as the default source of information in many British towns, according to a report into so-called “news deserts”. The research was backed by the Charitable Journalism Project.

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

Education may not be an obvious segue for a news publisher but The Economists sees it as a major growth area. In 2021 they launched their Executive Education pillar as a way to leverage its journalists’ deep knowledge and understanding of global issues.

And the Washington Post is looking to double down on its investment in its tech publishing arm , Arc XP, despite outside sales interest valuing the company in the low nine figure.??

SUBSCRIPTIONS

Toolkit has again a good primer on a subscription challenge: This time on so-called ‘sleepers’ . An inconvenient truth for most subscription publishers is that their businesses are driven by inactive subscribers.

Mather Economics brings together 3 case studies on how publishers have achieved measurable gains in subscriptions by optimizing their offer and using A/B testing technology.

And the Washington Post had a remarkable offer this week: an annual digital news subscription for $50 — for the year 2072.

PLATFORMS

Google has launched a ‘News Equity Fund’ , to provide financial support and opportunities to news organizations that primarily serve underrepresented communities.

Tiktok has grown into a major force on social media. In 2022 many news outlets have seen their accounts on the app explode in popularity. Press Gazette found out why and also gathered publisher tips for success.

Related: Hootsuite is organising a series of interactive sessions to get started with TikTok: Fearless on TikTok .?Date: 28-30 June, 2022?

SHORT

• Amazon Alexa will get a feature that can clone voices.
• Google News has a new look.
• Spotify is testing a tool to record a podcast directly into the Spotify app and they are working on a 'community' feature.
• Facebook announced several new ways for creators to make money on their platforms and they published a beginner’s guide to NFTs.
• Twitter is testing a new feature called Notes and they look like 'online articles'.
• The Obamas take their podcasts to Audible.

AI

The mayor of Berlin has been duped into holding video calls with a deepfake of her counterpart in Kyiv , Vitali Klitschko. “There were no signs that the video conference call wasn’t being held with a real person,” the mayor's office said in a statement. Since these kinds of video interviews are standard on every news outlet these days - the question becomes how news services will ensure the authenticity of interviews in the future?

Meanwhile DALL-E 2, the new and much hyped AI system that can create realistic images and art from a description in natural language has made its first magazine cover for Cosmopolitan. Not everyone is happy.

And what happens if you ask DALL-E 2 to generate images for news headlines? A little experiment and some questions.

READ

For most outlets, most readers arrive from other websites, search results or social media shares. But in an era where more and more news sites are putting up paywalls this also means that soon most and perhaps even essentially all links will lead to dead ends.?Interesting blog post on “share-fail” or the “link-fail in a subscription world.

And to finish an excellent long read on the revival of the long tail . Fourteen years ago, Kevin Kelly famously proposed that a creator could make a living online with a thousand true fans. But big tech platforms turned the unique, diverse user-generated Web into a much more homogenized experience. Now the long tail might be back...?

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This was the last regular Wayfinder before the summer holiday - Next week there's a Summer Special with book tips, long reads and podcasts to enjoy on the beach or dive into next to the pool.

Ezra