#26- The End of Search (as we know it)
Search on the internet has always been: “Just Google it”. But in an increasingly visual and interactive media environment, search is evolving away from that simple question-and-answer game. In apps like TikTok and Instagram, search has become an exploration without the need of a clear endpoint. And this week Google announced a major shift in the same direction. Search will become more visual, a journey of discovery through related links. The impact for publishers, who depend on Google for a lot of traffic, is not yet clear
This and more in this week’s Wayfinder!
IN FOCUS
The economic outlook is shaky and spending habits are shifting. For publishers converting new subscribers has become increasingly challenging. Flat is the new up. But according to Jack Marshall from Toolkits subscription revenue is proving relatively well-insulated as other revenue streams and business lines slow or become more costly and cumbersome to operate.?
Meanwhile the advertising side of the news business is counting down to the cookiepocalypse, the end of third party-cookies in the second half of 2024. A solid registrations strategy will be gold for any news publisher wanting to offset the effects of the ‘crumbling Cookie’. Reuters Fellow Paul Herman sees a few strategies going forward.
NEWSROOM
Data visualisation in news can play an effective role in countering overproduction of content and increasing trust in journalism according to recent studies. The Fix has collected the best tips on how you can introduce various aspects of data visualisations to your stories in one great article.
Also worth reading: How Vice News is prioritizing its social media efforts on TikTok, Twitch and Instagram to build trust and grow its “core audience” of 18-to-35-year-olds.??
VIDEO
After analyzing hunders of thousands of videos and surveying thousands of viewers around the world YouTube has compiled a new future video trends report. The days of monolithic viral trens are long gone – today digital pop culture is all about you.
Related: A new book called "Like, Comment, Subscribe" reveals the riveting, behind-the-scenes account of YouTube’s technology and business, detailing how it helped Google, achieve unimaginable power.
To that point, according to a new favorite brand report by Morning Consult , 86% of Gen Z adults have a favorable impression of YouTube, making it the most popular brand with that age group.?
SHORT
领英推荐
AUDIO
According to Pressgazette 2023 could be the year that subscriber-only audio and podcasting become mainstream. Audience demand for high-quality audio continues to grow, technical limitations imposed by major podcast platforms are easing, and the notion of subscriber-only audio is becoming socialized by publishers and independent creators.
Meanwhile, the business model is still an open to manipulation. Bloomberg found out that?big podcasting companies like iHeart have reportedly spent over $10 million since 2018 buying listens through auto-playing episodes nested inside mobile games.
AI
This block of Wayfinder keeps expanding. Meta shifted the boundaries once more this week by announcing their Make-A-Video AI that can turn text prompts into realistic high-quality video clips.?It’s a breakthrough in generative AI that?raises some tough ethical questions.
Found on the internet:?"Elvis is still alive" - no longer the stuff of conspiracy theories but just another AI trick.
Meanwhile publishers around the world are looking at artificial intelligence as a powerful resource for achieving critical goals.
And finally some future gazing: Maybe the next frontier for content recommendations is going to be AI merging content rather than users flipping between articles. Imagine an app that is a continuous article and writes itself as you read based on its understanding of your interests & your interaction with the content.?
READ
I enjoyed reading this analysis of the creator economy by Mosaic Ventures. According to MV all creators are not equal . There is a ‘power law’ at work: distribution of eyeballs and income, and a high degree of concentration of engagement are captured by the top ~0.5% of creators.?
Messages released in Twitter’s lawsuit against Elon Musk offer a rare glimpse inside big tech wheeling and dealing .
?The new Innovation in News Media World Report 2022-23 is out. I have not yet read it myself so do let me know what strikes you the most!
And we end as we started, with search. Az16 looks at what China can teach us about video search.
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Next week Wayfinder takes a break because of the annual Mediahuis United conference. Back in two weeks!
Ezra
Executive Chair
2 年Thanks for sharing. Besides the modal shift from (text) search and the practice to score popular content using SEO to a more visual approach, I think something more fundamental is going on. I suspect a shift from Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) to Recommendation Engine Optimisation (REO) - which boils down to creating content that is "likeable" and triggers engagement. Some newspapers and political parties out of my comfort zone have been doing this since a while, with amazing success. More in general, if you want to be relevant as a content creator in the creator economy, you'll likely create content which triggers engagement - which is a fundamentally different approach compared to collecting backlinks to your website. Let's see how that evolves.