Bo Sacks distributed an article by Michelle Yeon titled “Stop the churn: Improving subscription retention rates.” It’s a good list, and she has some good commentary on each item, but I think there’s one very obvious thing missing, which I’ll explain at the end. Here are Michelle’s 10 tips, with my comments. 1. Personalize User…
I recently learned about “Gall’s Law,” which is a principle in software development, but I think it’s far more applicable. I absolutely love it. It goes like this. “A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot…
Amy Kean, the CEO and Creative Director of Good Shout, says that if you want to differentiate your media business, you should hire more weirdos. Media is a small, fairly tight-knit community, and most people want to fit in. But that can stifle creativity. There’s been an influx of “really average people,” Amy says, and…
On a recent “people vs. algorithms” podcast, the boys talk about “dark patterns.” I’m not sure where that phrase came from, but it refers to the tricks companies use to manipulate consumers to do something the company wants them to do. An example from the publishing world would be a very low introductory rate that…
Are you tired of changing your business because some programmer has tinkered with an algorithm? They say it’s for the sake of the users, but we all know it’s to increase their ad revenue. LinkedIn recently changed how they promote content on their site. They say they want to make our feeds more relevant and…
Bo Sacks distributed an article by Peter Bale titled, “New book by Jeff Jarvis uses lessons from media’s print history to frame the digital future.” It reminded me of a rather cynical communist I used to work with who said, “Freedom of the press, for everyone who can afford a press.” Jarvis says the era…
As the AI wave threatens to reshape industries and disrupt the publishing business, publishers can gain a competitive edge by training their own large language model (LLM) with a distinctive voice and point of view. This article explains why this is a crucial strategic choice to make right now, explores the merits of this strategy,…
Should we always defer to the lawyers when writing terms and conditions? No. Sometimes their overprotectiveness ruins opportunities. (If you’d rather watch and listen, here’s a link to the podcast version.) I have a contact who wants to be on this show, so he wanted me to send him one of those links where you…
I like to model best practices when I can, so that I set a positive example and don’t just talk about stuff. I do that pretty well with my print newsletter, but I forgot a few things when I started my “Something I Learned Yesterday” podcast. You have to capture the viewer’s attention in the…
Brian Morrissey linked to an article by Mark Stenberg on Adweek about how the Associated Press is trying to diversify its revenue stream. Like every other publisher. But in AP’s case, the’re coming from a different starting point. They get 80% of their revenue from licensing – which is crazy high – and they only…
You can listen here. Google’s Antagonistic Relation with Publishers
On The Rebooting Show, Brian Morrisey and his guests wondered what will replace email. They made a few salient observations. Email was never meant to be a content delivery platform. Using it that way is a bit of a hack. You can’t embed a video player in an email. You can’t even control fonts very…
I don’t often comment on book publishing, but Bo Sacks recently distributed an article called “The Imitation Game” by Ken Liu, and it caught my attention. The article is about whether AI will start writing all our bestsellers, and Ken’s somewhat tentative point is that an algorithm looking for the most likely “token” given a…
Charlotte Tobitt wrote an interesting article called “How to keep subscribers: What’s working at Hearst, Immediate and Mark Allen Group,” which Bo Sacks distributed recently. It’s not one of those annoying mystery articles. She gets to it right away with three things: “Friendly friction; personal phone calls, and positive reinforcement.” The first example is from…
ELLE and Poool have optimized ELLE’s paywall to increase conversions. It’s an interesting story that publishers should know. ELLE’s paywall strategy came out of three strategic challenges. Diversify revenue Enlarge the audience Make them younger I’m very interested in how they made people younger. ELLE worked with Poool, which is a French startup that focuses…