 |
Friday, October 27, 2017
 |
How Medium is attracting premium publishers to its partner program (hint: money up front)Unlike other Medium partners, they’re not paid per clap: “Medium has derisked it for us by providing financial value while creating opportunities for us to establish direct relationships with readers.” By Laura Hazard Owen. |
 |
When fake news is funny (or “funny”), is it harder to get people to stop sharing it?Plus: Platforms scramble to do something about shady political ads before Congressional hearings start, and is fake news better thought of as “disinformation advertising”? By Laura Hazard Owen. |
What We’re Reading
Facebook / Rob Goldman
Facebook announces greater transparency on all (not just political) ads →
“Starting next month, people will be able to click ‘View Ads’ on a Page and view ads a Page is running, whether or not the person viewing is in the intended target audience for the ad…As Joel Kaplan mentioned, we're going to require more thorough documentation from advertisers who want to run election-related ads…Once verified, these advertisers will have to include a disclosure in their election-related ads, which reads: ‘Paid for by.'”
The Verge / Casey Newton, Nick Statt, and Michael Zelenko
Most Americans think news on Facebook is about as accurate as news found elsewhere →
Also more than 60% of Americans think Facebook should either warn about or block entirely “news stories that are likely biased.”
MisinfoCon / Phillip Smith
Here are the sessions tackling online misinformation at MozFest 2017 →
“Can we build a 'nutrition label' for assessing content on the web?; Saving Journalism from Fake News and Fake Records; Mozilla Information Trust Initiative: Tracking the indicators of online misinformation; Weaponized Disinformation and Electoral Impact,” and more.
Twitter / Gabriel Stein
“You want proof FB doesn’t just ‘show people what they want?’ I’ll give it to you.” →
“[Facebook] has decided over and over again what’s good for users based on the opinion of execs. Now we’re asking them to think about what’s good for society and suddenly, magically, that capability has vanished! Ironically, in some ways I think that shows growth. It was crazy that Chris Cox had the power to decide what quality of news people needed.”
Recode / Peter Kafka
BuzzFeed wants to sell your gadget, and keep a cut of the sales →
“The publisher is telling gadget-makers and inventors it will make ads for their inventions, in exchange for a cut of their product's sales. This one comes out of BuzzFeed's newish Product Labs group, which has made a splash selling BuzzFeed-branded cookbooks, fidget spinners, and bluetooth-connected hotplates.”
Digiday / Lucinda Southern
How Die Welt has grown to nearly 80,000 digital subscribers →
“Die Welt has created six customer groups that it uses to figure out the best way to counteract signs that people are about to cancel their subscription. The groups are based on about 25 metrics, including how often people visit the site and how many times they visit before subscribing and what types of articles they favor. Algorithms decide how they are contacted if they look like they will cancel their subscription.”
Medium / Freia Nahser
For WikiTribune, launching next week, rebuilding trust is a matter of trusting the audience →
“We will be getting pieces written by the Wellcome Trust media team, for instance, on medical discoveries and they will be going up on the site and open to edit from the audience as well', completely flattening the editorial hierarchy, leaving experts open to challenges from the WikiTribune community.”
The Guardian
The Guardian says it now has half a million regular paying supporters →
Approximately 80 percent of its regular supporters take digital subscriptions or memberships. The remaining 20 percent subscribe to Guardian News and Media's print publications. (In addition, the Guardian received than 300,000 individual one-off contributions this past year.)
Digiday / Max Willens
A day in the life of The Economist’s Snapchat editor →
“8:30 a.m.: Our Snapchat team is based in Bucharest, Romania, and London, so I spend much of my morning in New York online with them before they log off. Today, I spend an hour or so fine-tuning Snaps with our animators and then speak with Charlie Wells, our Snapchat deputy, about a script on e-commerce that he's working on. I check in with our designer and tell him I've decided to nix an edition we were thinking of doing on coal. We discuss what he'll be working on instead.”
Recode / Peter Kafka
More and more people are watching YouTube videos on actual TVs →
“The video service says viewers are watching 100 million hours of its clips a day on actual television sets. And it says that number has shot up 70 percent in the last year…For context: Earlier this year, YouTube said people were watching a billion hours of its videos per day. And YouTube has previously said that the majority of its viewing takes place on mobile devices.”
Global Investigative Journalism Network / Siran Liang
Can in-depth journalism make Taiwan’s next generation believe? →
“For decades, Taiwan's journalism was politically polarized, split between pro-Mainland China and pro-Taiwan factions. Financial constraints and rapidly shifting technologies, plus growing political influence from the Communist Party of China across the strait, posed new challenges in what was an already divided and vulnerable journalism environment.”
Bloomberg.com / Max Chafkin
How Snapchat has managed to keep itself free of fake news →
“But rather than post the clip widely, a Snapchat producer spent hours comparing its time and location data with other users' footage of the attack, and repeatedly called and texted Charlottesville Police Department officers in an attempt to verify the arrest.”