Tag: Media

It’s All Bad, Till It’s A Little Better

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Money Quote Friday Nov. 3

Read to the end.

One of the many extraordinary and clever Russian hacks of our social media addiction machines.

When I sat down to write this morning, I was working my way up to a full fire and brimstone rant, but honestly, I need to do more reporting before I let loose, and I also want to finish a couple more books. I’m almost through Tufekci’s Twitter and Tear Gas, and am about a quarter through Galloway’s The Four. Can you guess what I’m going to rant about?

In the meantime, I’m going to do an extended-play Money Quote for you today. I have about 50 tabs open on my big screen browser, and at least 15% of them are worth sharing with you. So here we go!

Jenna Abrams, Russia’s Clown Troll Princess, Duped the Mainstream Media and the World

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Medium Targets 10 Million Paying Members in 5 Years

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After On Podcast Episode #13

And no, I DON’T think Ev has lost his mind

Photo by Helena Price/Courtesy of Medium

Incumbents who dominate vast markets for decades and then lose their grip echo Hemingway’s depiction of sliding into bankruptcy: they do so gradually, then suddenly. Major network dominance of programming was an eternal fact of life when Netflix launched its first original show in 2013. But next year, the streaming leviathan’s $8 billion content budget will dwarf that of any broadcast network. Similarly, just a few years after launching in San Francisco, Uber eclipsed the revenues of the cab companies which had jointly monopolized that market for decades by a factor of 350%.

Shifts this big only happen when network effects are in play. Which is to say, that virtuous cycle in which more users make a platform more valuable, which draws more users, who make the platform more valuable still, which summons still more users, etc. In the digital era, we’ve seen network effects fuel the rise of messaging apps, social networks, and dating sites; as well as two-sided markets for Beanie Babies, handicrafts, and (of course) short-haul rides, to name but a few.

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Axios and Facebook: A High Wire Act

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The Fast-Rising Media Company and the Tech Giant are Partnering for a Series of Important Interviews

About a year ago, right after the 2016 Presidential Election, Mark Zuckerberg ridiculed the idea that Facebook influenced the election as “crazy”. Oh, how far we’ve come.

Facebook, struggling to defend itself as it becomes clear how Russia and its operatives used the platform to spread misinformation and stoke anxieties, is currently in the midst of a large-scale PR effort aimed at influential and powerful decision-makers in DC. Beyond several long and reflective posts on its site from leaders like Zuckerberg, the company has also taken out ads in leading newspapers. Here’s an example of an ad that ran in the Washington Post last week.

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Decoding Advertising In A Digital Age

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Medium Premium Preview

The internet doesn’t understand the advertising business. Then again, neither do most advertisers. A Preview of a Medium Premium series from NewCo Shift.

One of the first Medium Premium series created in conjunction with noted authors and journalists, Which Half Is Wasted, by agency vet Rick Webb, explores the role of advertising in our society and economy, with a particular focus on digital advertising, which Webb argues presumes the migration of television brand dollars to the internet (a presumption that he declares false). In this exclusive series (membership is required, but Medium does have a “metered paywall’), Webb asks if we really understand the advertising business, and explores the effects the business has on what gets built online.

The first article in the series, which you can read here, states that society has thrown out the social contract that made advertising moral, as more and more advertising money is spent on online platforms like Facebook & Google, rather than supporting news gathering and content creation. It wasn’t long ago when advertising’s upside was that it allowed media creation to flourish.

Read the first article here: Which Half Is Wasted?

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Mid Day Take: What I Read Today

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Money Quote, Issue 1. Possibly a regular column. Or not.

My morning news reading is starting to stretch throughout the day. So here’s what I found worth reading before my day got started. May it help you be more efficient in your daily media consumption.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-09-21/mark-zuckerberg-s-political-awakening

Read this. It really nails Zuck, and we’re going to be living with this guy for, well, pretty much the rest of our lives. Money quote: “Throughout the interview, he seems irritated that his actions could be viewed as anything other than expansive benevolence.”

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Not All of Uber’s Problems Are “The Valley’s Problems”

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Don’t paint every company in the Valley with Uber’s tarred brush.

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Now that the other shoe has dropped, and Uber’s CEO has been (somewhat) restrained, it’s time for the schadenfreude. Given Uber’s remarkable string of screwups and controversies, it’s coming in thick, in particular from the East coast. And while I believe Uber deserves the scrutiny — there are certainly critical lessons to be learned — the hot takes from many media outlets are starting to get lazy.

Here’s why. Uber does not reflect the entirety of the Valley, particularly when it comes to how companies are run. As I wrote in The Myth of the Valley Douchebag, there are far more companies here run by decent, earnest, well meaning people than there are Ubers. But of course, the Ubers get most of the attention, because they confirm an easy bias that all of tech is off the rails, and deserves to be taken down a notch.

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What Has the Internet Done to Media?

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This essay contains my thoughts, analysis, and supporting links about how Internet has been evolving over the past 20 years. These ideas have been driving me over the past decade to develop a set of improved technologies, practices and standards.

Let’s come together and fulfill the dream that was at the core of Internet: to unleash the potential of networked humanity. Please reach out to aleks+ie@ganxy.com.

1. Introduction

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Think You Know Verizon? Read This, Then Think Again

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NewCo Shift Forum Dialogs, in Partnership with Work Market

Diego Scotti CMO, Verizon, gives us an earful on the Yahoo and AOL deals, challenging Google and Facebook, and how best to run a massive marketing organization



Diego Scotti commands one of the largest marketing spends in the world as CMO of Verizon. He joined us at NewCo Shift to discuss how Verizon, once merely a massive carrier brand, is shifting into overdrive, becoming not only a major content and advertising player (through its acquisitions of both AOL and Yahoo!), but also a pure technology brand (the jury is out on that one, but I’d not bet against them in the long run). Scotti is also an innovator in his approach to management — since taking over the helm of Verizon’s marketing machine, he’s forced his agencies into a diversity audit, created “Challenger Boards” that rip his marketing plans apart, and instituted new programs that address the fundamental “pipeline problem” in STEM education for minorities. Below is the full video interview and text, edited for clarity.

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The Lesson of Twitter’s Market-Shocking Surprise

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The NewCo Daily: Today’s Top Stories

Andrew Mager | Flickr

First the market watchers said Twitter was shrinking — and that was not good. Then Twitter announced in its quarterly earnings report today that, actually, it is growing — and that was good. Its stock soared.

The whole financial system around tech companies, startups, and mission-driven newcos is oriented towards growth. Keep growing and you must be on the right track. Stop growing and you’re dead.

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It’s Hard to Change Overnight When You Roll 60,000 Trucks A Day

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NewCo Shift Forum Dialogs, in Partnership with Work Market

The Chief Product Officer of Comcast Is Very, Very Focused on Business Experience

Comcast CPO Chris Satchell


While a major pillar of the first annual Shift Forum was policy and it’s interplay with business and society, we also spent a lot of time wrapping our heads around the experience that a business creates for its customers, its employees, and the communities it impacts.*

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