#32 - The Next Big Thing

With stock prices down across the tech industry and an uncertain future for the overall economy, there’s little budget or freedom to build things that aren’t working. And none of the big tech companies’ futuristic bets are currently working according to analysts.

• Voice (Alexa loses 10 billion a year)
• AR (Snap lays of hardware team)
• VR (Microsoft scraps plans for Hololens 3)
• Metaverse (There’s no fixing Meta’s metaverse)

So far the smartphone continues to crush them all. The next big thing it seems is that thing in your pocket.

This and more in this week's Wayfinder.?

IN FOCUS

A new Reuters Institute report looking at various aspects of change finds that news organisations have embraced the shift to hybrid and flexible working. The most common approach, indicated by 49% of the survey respondents, sees staff required to be in the office for a compulsory minimum number of days a week/month.

The report also looks at diversity, finding gender diversity the single most important priority for news organisations to change, followed by ethnic diversity.?

AUDIENCE

Despite a lot of concerns, teens themselves paint a more nuanced picture of adolescent life on social media. According to?a new Pew Research Center survey of U.S. teens platforms help with deepening connections and provide a support network when teens need it. Others acknowledge the drama and pressures that can come along with using social media.

NEWSROOM

Axel Springer's CEO wants to take on the New York Times and the BBC both in reach and influence. New York Magazine's Intelligencer has a fascinating portrait of Axel Springer CEO Mathias D?pfner, who has been transforming the publisher into a digital player worldwide and is now on a hiring spree for a ‘new global media brand’.

The Newmark J-school has published 6 case studies?featuring independent journalists who?offer guidance on building a successful solo project and managing life balance.

PRODUCT

The News Product Alliance has launched a searchable, curated database of hundreds of free news product resources. You can search it by keyword or follow a structured learning path to develop a deeper understanding of key news product topics

Kat Downs Mulder, Chief Product Officer at The Washington Post, explains how the news publisher builds, develops, and launches its products. Key takeaways? Understand your audience, observe the competitive landscape, create a minimal delightful product, keep evolving and developing, but DON’T do everything at once.?

AUDIO

The car is the next big platform but a highly complex landscape to navigate for publishers and media companies. BBC recently?held the Connected Car Summit, a dedicated event about the latest developments in connected car design, the evolution of radio, innovation in digital products and audience behaviour.?

BBC is on a roll. On 8 December they will host another summit: Ai and the personalisation of audio. Follow online via BBC Academy to explore the evolution of artificial intelligence, machine learning and personalisation of audio content.

PLATFORMS

Some of the largest publishers in the business are walking away from content recommendation ad tech vendors like Taboola.?In a remarkable blog post Bloomberg media CEO Scott Havens says he doesn’t believe it makes sense to allow marketers to reach their valuable audience at a low cost with sub-optimal creative.

Ofcom has put together a great new study on the impact of online news ‘gatekeepers’?– particularly social media, such as Facebook, but also search engines and news apps such as Apple News and Google News. Annex 8 is my favourite document because it has some interesting ecosystem maps.?

SHORT

• Nike has launched Swoosh, the canary in the NFT/Web3/community coalmine.
• Twitter alternative Hive hits 1 million users.
• Google launches new guide to Google Search ranking.
• WAN-IFRA publishes Next-level Newsletters Report with tips and strategies.

READ

Deloitte has published a new Future of News Report looking at four extreme, yet plausible scenarios on how society could develop with respect to news in 2030, namely the Multidimensional Tribes, News Utopia, Benevolent Tech Platforms, and Ignorance is Bliss.?What? Better read the report!

INMA released a report making the case for automated news, using robots for revenue and six ways to get started.

And Damian Radcliffe, Professor in Journalism at the University of Oregon, shares 5 principles to guide your media strategy for 2023. The first one being: keep your foot on the subscription gas.

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Ezra Eeman, Change Director News Domain - Editorial