Cloudflare CEO buys paper to stop criticism
Jamie Tarbay writing for Bloomberg (via Archive.org):
Early last year, a twice-weekly newspaper in Park City, Utah, published a story on the rejection of a state measure that would’ve allowed tech billionaire Matthew Prince to build an 11,000-square-foot mansion on a hill with little say from locals.
It was the first time the Park Record had ever written about Prince’s mansion. And then something curious happened: The paper started covering Prince’s plans more regularly, and positively.
One major change had occurred at the Park Record between the time of that first story and the rest: Prince bought the paper. And Don Rogers, the editor Prince hired to run it, is living rent-free in one of his properties at the moment.
Rogers says he doesn’t believe Prince’s ownership of the paper (or his current living arrangements) poses a conflict of interest. The Park Record identifies its owner in coverage. Even so, this arrangement is one of the multiple ways that Prince has irked some Park City denizens. They accuse him of steamrolling his way into a new sprawling home that would eclipse surrounding residences and challenge local height and size limits. They’ve painted him as a bully who turns petty when he doesn’t get his way. And at an April 30 review to consider an appeal of his project’s approval, they plan to fight back.
Just learned about Fontshare and their awesome fonts that are totally free to use for commercial and personal use. Needless to say I am saving them now for my next project.
How this $40 pencil nearly went extinct
This video from Wall Street Journal is a fantastic short doc about the history of the Blackwing 602 pencil and how it nearly went extinct.
I absolutely love docs like this. It’s short, informative, niche, and well edited. Sign me up for any and all other documentaries like this out there.
A New Addition
I’m elated to share that my daughter, Sloane, was born 13 days ago. She’s a happy and healthy girl born 3 weeks early. She has beautiful blue eyes, a fierce set of lungs, and loves being a night owl.
As a new parent there’s lots of learning being had, sleep being lost, and mistakes being made. But that’s parenting, at least that’s what I’ve been told by everyone who has shared their experiences.
It’s been incredibly emotionally and physically draining these past couple of weeks but I wouldn’t change it for the world.
The Future of Podcasting
I have been thinking a lot about the podcasting industry lately. The main thread is how even though there were massive layoffs in the podcasting industry, ad revenue and listenership continues to grow. It seems the podcasting industry is set to have the same fate as the newspaper and television industries, which had to “do more with less.”
Just last year, Spotify laid off large portions of its staff, including the podcasting department, on three separate occasions. Other companies that laid off staff include Pushkin Industries, which let go 30% of its staff, WNYC, which also laid off staff in the podcasting division, and podcasting and radio powerhouse NPR did the same.
Now, the podcasting industry isn’t totally destitute. Just this past month, Joe Rogan signed a new multi-year deal totaling $250 million with Spotify, and the comedy podcast SmartLess with hosts Will Arnett, Jason Bateman and Shawn Hayes signed a $100 million deal with SiriusXM.
Here’s the kicker: neither of these huge signings are platform exclusive. Spotify is no longer walling their podcasting garden. Instead, they have had a change of heart and are opening up their podcasts to any player you want. That said, there are podcasts that come out on their respective app first and then it is available to the rest of the public after a period of time. Still, it is a win for podcasting and a win for RSS.
Amanda Silberling wrote something for TechCrunch about the decision for these companies to minimize workers to maximize value; and it has stuck with me for some time.
This “maximum growth” mindset has poisoned venture-backed digital media companies like Buzzfeed, which descended from a shining star to an IPO embarrassment. The “middle class” of podcasters can’t rely on Spotify, and other media workers can’t rely on failing media conglomerates like G/O Media and Vice anymore. Over the last few years, worker-owned media outlets like Defector, Aftermath and 404 Media have begun cropping up, often founded and staffed by journalists who had been repeatedly laid off from mismanaged media companies. Now the podcasting industry is facing the same reckoning as Spotify’s losses prove that growth can’t take priority over sustainability. Already, podcast studio Maximum Fun has adopted a worker-ownership co-op model, and as podcasters continue to lose trust in big corporations like Spotify, we’ll see this trend continue.
For me, this is where I have been spending most of my focus lately. The independent podcasts that don’t have millions of dollars behind them. These are also the major majority of podcasts on the internet. The podcasting ocean has several big whales, but swimming amongst them are thousands, if not tens of thousands, of minnows.
Silberling already mentioned Maximum Fun, but another worker-owned podcast that’s on my radar is Never Post, “a podcast about and for the internet.”
Mike Rugnetta, the host of Never Post, said it best in their trailer episode.
I love the internet as a place, a piece of technology and also, conceptually as a set of protocols that … link stuff. That connect things; massive numbers of things in surprising, illuminating, confounding, and yes occasionally ENRAGING ways. The human experience is vast and so I guess of course it is vast also … online. I wanted to make a show about all of this; I have for a long time: a show not just about the internet specifically, but for the internet – demonstrating and sharing a love of it through its complexity, and all the ways it puts vastly different things in close proximity. Taking that idea, and making it a piece of media – that does the very thing it is about.
This is where I hope the future of podcasting goes, something that is more sustainable, independent, and passionate. I know this can easily be read as me dunking on major podcasting studios and platforms for being big spenders, but I understand their side of things. If you want lots of revenue it is better to manage a few big whales than thousands of minnows. Still, I hope the minnows win out as everyone continues to cast their own net in the podcasting seas.
Never Post Episode 0 Independent Media Roundtable
To kick things off, we had a roundtable conversation with a trio of makers and thinkers, all of whom are creating independent media. They are Gita Jackson (Aftermath), Alex Sujong Laughlin (Defector Media), and Rusty Foster (Today in Tabs).
We wanted to talk with Gita, Alex and Rusty about the current state of media, and why each of them has decided to strike out beyond the big, legacy media organizations and create something new.
Never Post is a brand new podcast but this first episode as well as their official first episode has made it part of the conversation for one of my favorite active podcasts.
Hearing these guests, as well as host Mike Rugnetta, share their experiences in navigating today’s internet to make something that is sustainable and also respectful for their audience provides a window into something I hope others do.
Micro.blog Adds Threads and Twitter Cross-Posting
Today we’ve added a brand new option for manual cross-posting from Micro.blog to other services, including Threads. This new option is great for services that don’t yet have an open API, so Micro.blog can’t automatically post to them, or for when you want to edit and preview your posts before sending them elsewhere.
This brings support for Threads for the first time. When choosing Threads, Micro.blog will reformat your blog post as plain text, truncate it if necessary, and copy the text over to Threads where you can finish sending the post. You will need to be signed into Threads in your web browser, or in the Threads app on mobile.
Twitter X is also now back in a more limited form with this new cross-posting option. We still can’t automatically post to Twitter X because of their API changes.
This feature doesn’t work exactly like Micro.blog’s existing, automatic cross-posting, so be sure to check out the help page for the details. In future updates, I expect that the two different ways of cross-posting will look more similar.
I love the simplicity of this workflow and have long wanted to have Micro.blog offer Threads support in some capacity while we wait for full fediverse integration.
More Birchtree
More Birchtree is a way to get more Birchtree writing, ad-free browsing, and the fuzzy feeling of supporting indie writing. Member posts will be more personal pieces, as well as more raw feelings about the tech news of the day before I’m ready to share with a wider audience. I’ll also have little sections shouting out other creators I love, apps I’m loving, and more.
I’d like to do more (ha) with it down the road, but I’m not going to commit to anything else now until I know I can keep up with what I’ve said already.
If you like my work, a large part of that is indirectly because of Matt Birchler. He’s been a guiding light for me and what I want to do with my work, writing, and website.
He has been writing on the internet, for free, for 14 years. Not only does he have one of the best eyes for design, he also has an authentic voice that hasn’t deviated. While I am excited for the extra bit of content he will be making for subscribers, I am just happy to support someone’s work I cherish online.
I think he more than deserves my $5 a month. You can subscribe too if you feel the same and can afford the added subscription.
CNN Plans to be Everywhere Your Phone is
Alex Cranz writing for The Verge:
a memo from CNN CEO Mark Thompson outlines some of the early plans to try to save CNN from cable — and grow its presence on the phone.
As noted by The Wall Street Journal, which has seen the memo, the first step will be combining CNN’s myriad news-gathering groups into one team. CNN, in its current structure, has a TV-focused operation, a streaming one, and a digital one. They communicate, but they’re separate organizations with separate leaders and goals. Thompson will combine them and then create a new organization focused on finding new ways to grow CNN’s audience.
Beyond a major restructuring of CNN, Thompson is also working on the problem of how to get people to use CNN on their phones. “For many people today, the smartphone is a more important device for consuming news than the TV,” he wrote in the memo. “Their news prime time is in the morning, not the evening.”
Thompson and CNN don’t yet have a solution for getting people to go to CNN on mobile devices. “I don’t think anyone’s yet cracked the code on how that translates, truly translates to a great news experience,” he wrote.
I don’t doubt Mark Thompson is the man who could potentially save CNN, after all he did become a trend-setter when he was at The New York Times directing the creation of some of the best apps any media publication has offered both past and present.
That being said, I think getting CNN to everyone is only half of the problem. the other half, the much more difficult half, is getting people excited about consuming CNN.
I can’t remember the last time I watched CNN willingly. It has always been at an airport, doctor’s office, or at a hotel lobby. The programming at CNN, like all 24-hour news channels, is soul-sucking and numbing with regular consumption. I don’t care how many places I can get my CNN news, it is still the same annoyingly hostile and sensational news it has always been.
The Death of Physical Media
An old college buddy of mine, Adam, who also has been a creative partner for me over the years, created an awesome video essay.
It’s about the end of physical media, what it might hold for the future of media consumption, and how collectors might be dealing with this change. At 12-minutes long, it’s the perfect video to watch while having lunch or taking a break from work.
If I’m being honest, this kind of stuff wrinkles my brain in all the right places. I think Adam hit the nail on the head about why physical media is going away and had some good ideas about where it might live in the future.
One thing that I think isn’t talked about enough though is the extra features and bonus content like deleted scenes, bloopers, director’s commentary, and more. I don’t consume nearly as much of that kind of content anymore because of streaming services. It is because I own Hulu, Paramount+, Disney+, and more subscriptions that I don’t shell out the money for a physical disc. That being said, if I didn’t have that kind of access right at my fingertips I would most likely have bought The Batman on Blu-ray, or lined up to buy Oppenheimer today1.
I remember renting DVDs from Blockbuster and rewatching Clerks with the commentary track on and eating that shit up like it was gospel. I loved hearing what the creators had to say about their work and the things they had to do to make certain shots happen. Hell, even some of the best video essays I have seen use commentary tracks on them.
My hope is that streaming services find a way to offer bonus content like this more frequently. I know that some services do have some of the stuff I mentioned above, but it certainly isn’t guaranteed, which I think is a shame.