Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
Nine digital publishing execs that spoke with Digiday said they are investing in other social platforms like Instagram and TikTok to grow their reach. But the question remains if alternative platforms can actually make up the social referral deficit. As Digiday reported last year, those platforms do more for publishers trying to build up their…
Google Is Killing Retro Dodo & Other Independent Sites It honestly breaks my heart to write this article, but I want to be as transparent as possible with our readers because you are the ones that have quite literally kept our lights on over the past five years, and you deserve to know the truth…
Forbes for years ran an alternate version of its website where it packed ads that were intended to run on Forbes.com, another sign that brands don’t always get what they pay for in the opaque digital-advertising market. The alternate site, which Forbes shut down Tuesday following inquiries from The Wall Street Journal, featured stories from…
Kotaku’s future is hanging in the balance. It hinges on whether the decades-popular online publication’s owner G/O Media succeeds in transforming it from a gaming news outlet to a hub for game guides — tips and walkthroughs to help gamers overcome tricky challenges. This strategic shift is a gamble for G/O Media, spurred by the…
Shane Smith built Vice into a cultural behemoth by bluffing his way into round after round of funding — until he reached a dizzying $5.7 billion valuation from which only a precipitous fall was possible. That fall has been happening in slow motion for years, but things finally crashed to the ground in February of…
First, you have to gather the cash to preorder the game at the local GameStop, where your cousin works, and, even though he hooks it up with the employee discount, the game is still a bit out of your price range because you’ve been using your Taco Bell paychecks to help your pops, who’s been…
Google regularly launches updates to its algorithm to continuously improve search results quality. Think of these updates as a refresh of the system where rankings change: some websites see an improvement while others see a decline. At HouseFresh, we keep an eye on Google’s news and documentation because these updates can literally make or break…
The Messenger, a news website that pledged to shake up the media industry with a playbook borrowed from the doomed publishing start-ups of yesteryear, will be closing down. In an email to staff, the site’s founder, Jimmy Finkelstein, said that The Messenger’s shutdown was “effective immediately.” “This is truly the last thing I wanted, and…
How to name the rude currents eroding the Left, those which have claimed the hearts, minds and Substacks of so many former friends and fellow travelers? There are the journalist-provocateurs and the readers who have followed them rightward, the Trumpers-come-lately marching on to Glenn Greenwald’s Rumble or vanishing into Max Blumenthal’s Grayzone. There are those…
A new report published on November 28th, based on data from Adalytics (an ‘Ad quality and transparency platform’), reveals a number of potential transparency and brand safety concerns with regards to Google Search advertising, and in particular, Google Search Partner network. WFA is in dialogue with Adalytics and Google, and many other partners, to further…