IF YOU read ONE THING
Two metrics that can help your subscription-based newsroom

As more newsrooms shift from ad revenue to subscription revenue, they may need to rethink how they measure success. Lensfest Institute’s Matt Skibinski advocates that instead of chasing clicks and pageviews, organizations should understand the “unit economics” of their business. He highlights how two metrics can go a long way into shaping newsroom strategy: Consumer lifetime value and digital ad revenue per 1,000 impressions. By comparing the two, newsrooms can find out the true value of their reporting. In one case, a piece that generates just one subscriber for the publication makes as much revenue as 48,000 pageviews. For an in-depth dive and some advice on how organizations can utilize their findings, read the article on Nieman Lab.

POWERSTAT
Coaching for nonprofit newsrooms yields positive results
As a result of a study conducted by the Institution of Nonprofit News, eight newsrooms raised over $1.7 million in net new revenue after receiving coaching tailored to their messaging.

Source: Nieman Lab

TREND WATCH
As newsletters go big, what are we losing?

Are the strengths of newsletters compatible with the revenue models that newsletter subscription products offer? In a comprehensive breakdown, Kaitlyn Tiffany of The Atlantic outlines the pricing models of the biggest players in the space. These plans, on their own, are good for writers: “It’s nice to feel that we are moving away from a mode of thinking in which people who put out creative work on the internet should mostly do so without getting paid,” writes Tiffany. However, the influx of money into newsletters comes with some trade-offs. “Intimacy and weirdness and specificity don’t tend to be compatible with making money, at least not at Silicon Valley scale.” Moreover, the new boost in attention toward newsletters appears to gloss over the history of women using the medium: “I think it’s just convenient to … act like this is something that a few enterprising men and Silicon Valley guys realized, cut out this period where women were popularizing it and using it in very particular ways, and be like, Oh yeah, look at this thing we found,” Charlotte Shane, a writer, told The Atlantic.

NEWS YOU CAN USE
‘Obvious’ beats ‘obfuscation’ in product design

When designing a product, it may seem attractive to make the sleekest, most streamlined product for design’s sake. Luke Wroblewski of Google, however, advocates that shouldn’t always be the case. In a recent post “The Obvious UI is Often the Best UI,” the product designer details how engagement increased or decreased as designers changed their product’s user interface. Project management tool Redbooth, for instance, saw their session time increase 70 percent when they changed from a hamburger menu—in which links to other screens are hidden off-screen—to a bottom navigation bar with visible links by default. He also gives the following advice for product designers:

• Not all icons aren universal. Although it may seem obvious to those who grew up with desktop computers, not everyone knows what a floppy disk is, nor that they mean “save” in computer parlance. To avoid confusion, pair that icon with text or simply omit the icon if possible.
• Copying other designs doesn’t always make your design better. While it may have worked for Redbooth to switch their navigation menus, it may not for your product. In order to find what works best, consider the Rapid Iterative Testing and Evaluation (RITE) method, where changes are tested often with end-users. In Wroblewski’s case, the product was put in front of users every week.

PERSPECTIVES
Making heads or tails of the media acquisition craze

Earlier this week, Group Nine Media acquired PopSugar, a digital lifestyle brand. This news comes hot on the heels of Vice’s acquisition of Refinery 29, and Vox Media’s purchase of New York Media. What can these mergers tell us about the state of digital media? And are the newly-combined companies primed to succeed?

• “On Wall Street, when you combine two companies whose prospects are pointing downward (in the short term) it's the kind of deal that bankers describe as ‘tying two stones together to see if they float.’ … Most mergers fail. They start with layoffs ("synergies") and they usually end with both sides being at war and snide remarks about the other company's people. Where mergers fail is the stage known as ‘integration.’ … What many (many!) business studies have shown is that the hype cycle of mergers is irrelevant. What makes them work is steady, careful, thoughtful integration.” - Heidi N. Moore, business editor (Twitter)
• “A slew of digital media acquisitions over the past few weeks shows how unreliable private valuations can be. … When privately-held companies sell via all-stock transactions or via a mix of cash and stock, dealmakers can essentially make up the value of the assets they are looking to purchase. … [And] even if we assume that these figures are correct, we don't know what lies behind them.” - Sara Fischer and Kia Kokalitcheva, reporters at Axios (Axios)
• “There’s no huge mystery to what’s behind the trend. Overall, print advertising has been shrinking for years. In 2019, U.S. spending on newspaper and magazine print ads will fall 18%, to $15.4 billion, research firm eMarketer projects. To survive, print-centric brands need to cut costs, diversify revenue streams and amass greater online scale, all while vying for digital ad dollars against the likes of giants such as Google and Facebook.” - Todd Spangler, NY digital editor at Variety (Variety)
• “It can be demotivating. The hope is through the merger [the combined company is] worth even more, but it pushes the goalposts out even more. And in a market that hasn’t seen any cash acquisitions in a while, it’s really daunting. And depending on how these deals are structured and how much capital they’ve raised, a lot of that stock can just be going to the investors.” - Anonymous executive at a media company involved in an acquisition this year (Digiday)

This week in our office
Pitchfork released their top 200 songs and albums of the 2010’s this week, sparked heated debate in the office. The consensus? Some hits, lots of misses.

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