March 2017 – mathewingram.com/work

March 31, 2017November 1, 2024

The Platform Wars: How should media deal with a frenemy like Facebook?

Amid all of the upheaval and disruption the media business has gone through over the past decade, there is one major shift whose long-term effects are likely to outweigh almost all the others, and that’s the massive power shift towards social platforms like Facebook.

In the not-so-distant past, much of the power and influence — both financial and journalistic — that traditional media entities used to have stemmed from their control over the distribution channels through which their content reached its audience. In other words, the printing plants and newspaper trucks and satellites and broadcasting facilities.

While all of those things still exist, they are no longer the only game in town when it comes to distribution, and therefore they are no longer the only game in town when it comes to making money from control of that distribution. Much of that power (and money) has shifted to Facebook.

This fundamental realignment of the planets in the media universe is the topic of a massive new report from the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, authored by Tow director Emily Bell and former Tow fellow Taylor Owen.

Note: This was originally published on the Fortune website, where I was a senior writer

March 30, 2017November 1, 2024

Even when it tries to do something good, Twitter somehow fails

When I used to cover the banking industry, one firm was known to insiders as “the bank most likely to step on a sharpened stick.” What they meant was that this bank seemed to be so accident prone (or cursed) that if there was a problem to find, it would somehow find it.

It’s hard not to think of this phrase whenever Twitter launches a new feature. It’s not just that the company has lost 80% of its former market value over the past few years, or that it failed to generate much interest from a raft of acquirers last year, despite massive leaks about all the offers it was fielding.

Whenever the service even tries to do something good, it can’t seem to avoid shooting itself in the foot somehow. In the latest example, it announced that @ replies won’t count towards the 140-character limit, as it promised months ago. You might think that this new development would be a good thing. But most users appear to hate it, in part because the execution is clunky at best.

It’s true that almost every tweak that Twitter has made to the service has been received with howls of outrage. Many people just don’t like change. But there are valid criticisms of the latest move, which point out that it makes certain aspects of Twitter harder rather than easier.

In some ways, Twitter is caught in a classic Catch-22. It needs to boost its user base and engagement levels to prove to investors (and potential acquirers) that there’s still some juice in the engine. But every change it makes irritates hard-core users. And so it lurches forward, stumbling and falling and then getting back up again like some kind of cartoon zombie.

Note: This was originally published at Fortune magazine’s website, where I was a senior writer

March 30, 2017November 15, 2024

Believe it or not, online trolling and abuse could get worse

Online abuse has been a problem ever since the Internet was created, but over the past few years it seems to have escalated, despite the efforts of platforms like Twitter and Facebook to try and control it. And some experts believe it could get worse before it gets better. A new report from the Pew Research Center asked more than 1,500 technologists and academics about this kind of online behavior, and more than 80% of them said that they expect public discourse online will either stay the same or actually get worse over the next decade.

The question asked by the researchers was: “In the next decade, will public discourse online become more or less shaped by bad actors, harassment, trolls, and an overall tone of griping, distrust, and disgust?” Over 40% said they don’t expect this situation to change much, and another 39% said they could see it actually becoming more of a problem rather than less.

“Trolling will continue, while social platforms, security experts, ethicists, and others will wrangle over the best ways to balance security and privacy, freedom of speech, and user protections,” Susan Etlinger, a technology analyst at the Altimeter Group, told Pew researchers.

Although certain online “safe spaces” may be developed that will be free of trolls and harassment, some of the experts surveyed said that these will be little more than Potemkin villages — that is, attractive facades that hide the true nature of the social web. In some cases, the research report warns, an attempt to control abuse and harassment could actually result in an infringement of personal freedoms including freedom of speech, and could lead to the web becoming less open and more polarized.

Note: This was originally published at Fortune, where I was a senior writer from 2015 to 2017

March 29, 2017November 15, 2024

Here’s why Facebook and Google can’t fix the problem of fake news

There’s been a lot of attention focused over the past year on the rise of so-called “fake news,” a term that has even made its way into tweets by President Donald Trump. But the problem has proven to be fiendishly difficult to define, let alone solve.

What exactly qualifies as “fake news?” A story about secret child sexual-abuse rings operating underneath a pizza parlor? A Breitbart News item that suggests billionaire George Soros pays anti-Trump protesters? Or a New York Times report that says something the president doesn’t want people to believe? All of these have been defined as fake news.

After initially poo-poohing the suggestion that it plays a role in the spread of hoaxes and inaccurate information, Facebook has implemented a number of features designed to address the issue, including flagging stories as unverified or questionable. But will this actually correct the overall problem? Social-media researcher danah boyd (who chooses to spell her name using only lower-case letters) argues in a recent essay that it won’t. And the reasons for that have a lot less to do with Facebook and a lot more to do with human nature.

Note: This was originally published at Fortune, where I was a senior writer from 2015 to 2017

March 29, 2017November 15, 2024

Here’s why going public could be a risky move for BuzzFeed

The rumor mill is buzzing about a potential stock offering next year by BuzzFeed, the digital-first media venture that was started by Huffington Post co-founder Jonah Peretti and is backed by Comcast subsidiary NBCUniversal. But an IPO would likely be far from a moonshot. Some of the more recent IPO talk — fueled in part by a report from Axios writer Mike Allen, whose company shares an investor with BuzzFeed — was likely sparked by the response to Snap Inc.’s recent public offering. The video-messaging company’s shares have faltered somewhat since the issue, but it still managed to sell $3.4 billion worth of stock.

BuzzFeed, however — or at least certain insiders close to the company — have been hinting at a possible share issue since last fall, when Recode and the Wall Street Journal both reported that the company was considering going public next year. There’s no question that some of BuzzFeed’s financial backers would probably like to see the company do a public offering, since that would allow them to book a return on the investments they have made in the company over the past several years.

In its last funding round in November, BuzzFeed raised $200 million from NBCUniversal, an investment that doubled NBC’s stake, giving it about a third of the company (Lerer Hippeau, another of BuzzFeed’s backers and a former investor in Huffington Post, also has a stake in Axios). The hard part for BuzzFeed is that it isn’t a hot social platform like Snap, with a messaging product that is used by hundreds of millions of people daily and revenues that are doubling or tripling every quarter. And so investors are not likely to pay as much for it.

Note: This was originally published at Fortune, where I was a senior writer from 2015 to 2017

March 28, 2017November 15, 2024

The Trump Factor: Fox News just had the best quarter in cable history

It could be the sheer volume of Trump-related news, or it might be the fact that Fox News is tuned in to the mood of those who elected him president. Whatever the reason, the conservative-leaning network just turned in the best quarter in cable news history. Fox News closed out the quarter with the highest 24-hour viewership rating ever recorded, according to audience analytics company Nielsen Research. It was number one in the entire cable universe in both prime-time and total day viewership, marking the 61st time it has won both categories.

The O’Reilly Factor, the network’s flagship show, also had its highest quarterly ratings ever, and broke all cable industry records for the most-watched show with 4 million viewers in the quarter. But it wasn’t just O’Reilly—in the overall ranking of cable shows, Fox had all 10 of the top 10 most-watched shows, and 11 out of the top 12. The 12th spot went to Rachel Maddow’s show on MSNBC, primarily because of her special on Donald Trump’s taxes.

Fox averaged 1.7 million total day viewers, an increase of 27% and significantly more than CNN—which had 823,000—and MSNBC’s 776,000. Although it came third in the rankings, however, MSNBC showed the most growth in daily viewership, increasing its reach by about 55%.

Note: This was originally published at Fortune, where I was a senior writer from 2015 to 2017

March 13, 2017November 15, 2024

Here’s what Nick Denton regrets about that Hulk Hogan story

Now that Gawker Media’s controversial privacy-infringement lawsuit with former wrestler Hulk Hogan is over, and the company has gone through bankruptcy and sold off its assets, is there anything founder Nick Denton regrets about the whole episode? During a panel discussion as part of the South by Southwest Festival’s interactive program, Denton admitted that the Hogan story—which was about a sex tape that the wrestler made with a friend’s ex-wife, and included a short clip from the tape—didn’t have an obvious point to it, apart from embarrassing Hogan. That was a mistake, he said.

“Was it the greatest story?” he said. “No it clearly wasn’t the greatest story. In hindsight, as an editor, if you are going to expose someone to mockery there needs to be a point to it.” Denton went on to say that part of the idea behind the piece was to “put up a mirror to the public,” but that “it was a little too sophisticated a point to be making in a couple lines.” In hindsight, he said, it could have been done with more words and less video. “The meta point is worth making, but I don’t know if that form was the right one.”

Ultimately, the outcome of that mistake was a lawsuit by Hogan—financed by Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel—which resulted in a $140-million judgement handed down against Gawker by a Florida court. The company filed for bankruptcy and its assets were bought by Univision for $135 million.

Note: This was originally published at Fortune, where I was a senior writer from 2015 to 2017

March 10, 2017November 15, 2024

Netflix is winning the streaming race, but for how long?

There’s no question that Netflix is currently the king of the over-the-top streaming-video providers, with a service that reaches more than 80 million users in over 200 countries, and hit shows that drive millions of those users to “binge watch” entire seasons in a matter of days.

All this has put Netflix in an enviable spot, with enough cash to acquire whatever movie and TV projects it chooses to bid on, and a market cap in the $60 billion range — in the same league as media and entertainment giants like 21st Century Fox and Time Warner. There has even been talk that Apple might want to acquire the company.

As dominant as Netflix is, however, not everyone is convinced that this leadership position is going to last, as more and more competitors move into the streaming space, especially in the U.S.

Count Morningstar Research as one of the skeptics. In a recent research report that took a look at the video-on-demand market, the investment management firm said that while Netflix is the clear winner in the space right now, “we have reservations about its ability to meet or exceed market expectations around future subscriber growth and margin expansion.”

Note: This was originally published at Fortune, where I was a senior writer from 2015 to 2017

March 7, 2017November 15, 2024

The Trump Effect is driving a subscription wave for media companies

Repeated attacks by President Donald Trump and his administration on what they call the “dishonest media” appear to have had an unexpected—and very welcome—side effect for some media companies, which have seen record numbers of new subscribers and donations.

One of the most widely reported examples of this “Trump bump” is the New York Times, which added more than 250,000 new subscribers in the final three months of 2016. That was its best quarterly performance since it launched its digital subscription plan in 2011.

But the Times is just one of the more high-profile media outlets that have seen a boost in sign-ups since the election. The Washington Post has also seen a wave of subscriptions, with a record number of new sign-ups in January, and is said to have passed the 300,000-subscriber mark for the first time.

Magazines have also seen a dramatic rise in interest in subscriptions. Mother Jones saw the number of donors to the non-profit magazine jump by more than 150% in January compared with the same month the previous year, according to a report by Poynter, and saw a more than 300% increase in new digital sign-ups.

Note: This was originally published at Fortune, where I was a senior writer from 2015 to 2017

March 6, 2017November 15, 2024

Google’s fake news problem could actually be worse than Facebook’s

Ever since “fake news” first started to get traction during Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, it has been seen by many as primarily a Facebook problem, since so many hoax and fake-news creators use the giant social network as a distribution system. But Google also plays a role in the promotion and dissemination of false information, and in some ways it’s a more disturbing one than Facebook.

While Google was once just a search box followed by a page of blue links, the search giant has been trying hard to become a one-stop provider of answers to common questions. Some of these consist of what it calls “featured snippets” from webpages that deal with those topics, which are highlighted in a box at the top of the search page.

In most cases, these answers — which Google selects from the billions of pages it scans and indexes every day, based on how many people have shared them — are uncontroversial, like the answer to “When is Mother’s Day?” or “What time is the Super Bowl?” Other one-box solutions point to cheap flights to your chosen destination, or supply the answer to a math question.

Note: This was originally published at Fortune, where I was a senior writer from 2015 to 2017