On a slow morning in the New York subway, you can read through the handful of billboards that decorate the wagon. This past month, we could only see the podcast startup Luminary’s advertising, covering New York City’s subways. With its bright yellow banners and its enticing slogan (“Original podcasts with original ideas for original people,”) […]
What the almost 3,000 journalism job cuts tell us about the media industry
The US economy is growing, companies are hiring, and the unemployment rate is the lowest since 1969—a meager 3.6%. It’s a party for almost everyone, except for journalists. In the first half of 2019, nearly 3,000 people were let go from newsrooms all over the country, traditional and digital media alike. The scarcity of revenues, […]
Second-screen usage, the perfect sales opportunity
Today, more than 77% of the US population owns smartphones, and 70.1% of adults scroll online when they are watching television. It’s called second screen usage. The rise of two-screen usage may undermine the attention paid to quality content, as viewers divide their capacity to focus between their cellphones and the TV. But it also […]
Watching Video Games—one of the most profitable, popular and effective forms of entertainment
In less than ten years, video gaming has become without doubt one of the most effective forms of entertainment in the world. Not only by the sales of the games but by the incredible number of hours of user-generated content showing individuals playing a whole universe of different games. It is not a surprise, then, […]
Will WhatsApp save Facebook?
Facebook’s reign as the dominant social media seems to be coming to an end. The platform has experienced a slow but steady usage decline in the last two years. Younger audiences turn to Instagram and Snapchat, where messages disappear in seconds without them worrying about the consequences of their posts. Older audiences have become wary […]
Say goodbye to Facebook’s public agora
Last Wednesday, Mark Zuckerberg revealed he would change his social networks’ focus. Instead of prioritizing public posts, Facebook would focus on private communications. No more sharing for a 700+ community and no more joining random Facebook groups. Privacy will become the number one priority for the company, which will undoubtedly impact news outlets. The shift […]
Netflix struggles to compete against content moguls
60% of Americans stream content online and more than half of them do it through Netflix. But that might just change unless the company makes some moves. In early 2019, the company announced price increases. Now, the one-stream subscription plan costs $9 instead of $8; the two-stream plan $13 instead of $11, and the most […]
Apple intends to save journalism… at a price
The next tech ‘solution’ for the news industry seems to be coming from Cupertino, California. Apple wants to launch a subscription service for news, what the media is calling “Netflix for news”. The tech company would require a flat monthly subscription fee—estimated to be around $10—in exchange for access to an unlimited number of articles […]