Happy Friday! Today's Media Roundup is brought to you by Esther.

New York Times testing a digital subscription for "NYT Kids" — www.axios.com

There have been a number of key updates from the New York Times this week, it's been challenging to keep track! Here's a quick round-up:

• Digiday looks at how they're aiming to convert The Morning readers into paid subscribers as the newsletter reach 1 billion opens

• Its consumer reviews site Wirecutter is testing a subscription product, which would expand the site's primary revenue stream from just affiliate revenue

• The publisher is also investing more in digital games and puzzles, as a third of its 2.3 million new digital-only subscribers have come through its cooking, games and audio apps

The latest hot-off-the-press update is that the New York Times is in the early stages of developing a digital subscription product for families called NYT kids. The content will be aimed at kids aged 8-11, and will cover a range of topics and activities including crafts, recipes, experiments and activities. There have been a number of other launches recently from publishers like NowThis News and TIME as parents have looked for ways to educate and entertain their children during lockdown.

It's not an easy market to crack, but it's a big one, with 33 million households in the US with kids under the age of 18. Crucially, it forms habits and relationships from a young age. It's an investment in the next generation of subscribers.

Facebook is said to be building a product to compete with Clubhouse — www.nytimes.com

Clubhouse is the latest hot new social app on the block. So naturally, Facebook has ordered employees to create its own version. It's the latest in a long list of features the tech giant has pinched from up-and-coming platforms, from Snapchat's Stories to TikTok-like Reels. As a wise man once said, there is truly nothing new under the sun.

“Housty, I’m a new magazine publisher, how do I get better fast?” — internationalmagazinecentre.com

Magazine publishing is not rocket science, but reinventing the wheel every time a new title launches is an incredible waste. Peter looks at the fundamentals of content, audience and revenue in response to the latest 'Housty, we have a problem' column.

Google is going to start paying UK publishers for news — www.cnbc.com

Google has launched its News Showcase product in the U.K., meaning the tech giant will now pay for news content in the country for the first time. As part of the licensing agreements, they're also launching the ability for readers to access select paywall content. We'll be watching the results with interest.

This week's podcast:

Quartz CEO Zach Seward on charting a new course for the business lifestyle brand — voices.media

This week Zach Seward, CEO of Quartz, explains why he bought the business lifestyle brand from Uzabase. He tells us how it all started and how it’s going, about memberships and advertising, and the Quartz mission to make business better.

How The Media Roundup supplements our podcast — www.youtube.com

Just before Christmas, I had a chat with Curated's Ashley Guttuso as part of their series going behind the scenes on newsletters. We spoke about 2020's biggest publishing trends, and lifted the bonnet on how we curate and produce this very newsletter.