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 […]
In music, content ownership can overthrow distribution
Universal Music Group is up for grabs, and the tech platforms are interested. The French media empire Vivendi wants to sell half of it to the highest bidder. When the world’s largest music company is for sale, that bidder might just be Google. The music industry has vastly changed in the last twenty years. In […]
Clouds ahead for the video gaming industry
The video game industry is about to suffer a hurricane. Both Google and Amazon have announced they will enter the business and they won’t be satisfied with releasing just one more game in an already crowded space. They want to change the rules of the market. On the one hand, Amazon Game Studios is working […]
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 […]
The NYT proves that media can live off digital revenues
Living off digital revenues is every news outlet’s dream. Last week The New York Times revealed the dream had become a reality for them. The prominent newspaper announced its 2018 financials, disclosing that 40% of its total revenue comes from digital sources. This is good news, a story of success after the January layoffs that […]
Spotify wants to control the podcast industry
In 2019, consumers are constantly listening to podcasts. They play them on the commute, when they clean the house, while they are enjoying breakfast. Their phone reproduces their favorite news or comedy podcasts whenever they want and with the minimum effort. Spotify, the Swedish music streaming platform, wants to be the service where all those […]
Local journalism needs net neutrality
On February first, Washington DC was the scenario of probably the most important conversation on the Internet that is taking place these days. The case Mozilla v. FCC, which is being heard by the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, relaunched the conversation over net neutrality in the United States, a discussion […]
Digital advertising is not enough to keep digital news outlets afloat
For the media industry, 2019 is not starting off on the right foot. In a little over a week, 1,000 jobs were cut nationwide. This avalanche started last Wednesday when Verizon Media Group; Yahoo, AOL and The Huffington Post’s parent company; disclosed a 7% cut in their media unit staff (800 jobs.) Short after, Buzzfeed […]
Bandersnatch: Netflix does it again
It’s 1984, and Stefan Butler wakes up at 8.30am ready for a big meeting with Tuckersoft, a video-game company, to show them his video game demo called Bandersnatch. He takes his morning pills, washes his face and goes to the kitchen to have breakfast with his dad. They chat about his video game for a […]