Today we're exploring the fragility of building on the internet, the benefits of registration walls for publishers, how corporate takeovers are changing podcasting, and the resilience of the Mark Allen Group.

This morning's newsletter is brought you by Esther.

When you build on the internet, you build on sand — medialyter.substack.com

I'm bringing you this from Mark Stenberg in the hope it raises a smile this morning. "The social platforms have finally begun to crack," he writes. "At Twitter, the lunatics are running the asylum. Facebook, meanwhile, has become a glorified paddock for the elderly and the disabused. And Instagram, once the crown jewel of the Zuckerberg empire, now shuffles through identity crises like a paranoid croupier."

I'm going to cheat and use this story to highlight two others. Firstly, Axios is reporting that Campbell Brown is to oversee a new media partnerships team at Meta. The team formerly focused on just news partnerships. So there's a clue about where the platform's efforts are shifting (not in your direction).

Secondly, BBC News' Instagram channel has surpassed 20 million followers, thanks to their push into explainers. Take it with a pinch of salt as it's authored by the BBC's Instagram Lead herself, but it's nonetheless a great example of how there's still good that can come from (tactically) being on platforms.

Registration wall benefits for publishers — toolkits.com

One from this week's podcast guest Jack Marshall. He explores the benefits of registration walls for publishers, and what to consider when thinking about implementing one. They aren't just for publishers with subscription offerings either - registration can be a good way of creating stronger audience connections and, of course, collecting valuable first-party data.

How corporate takeovers are fundamentally changing podcasting — theconversation.com

By implementing paywalls, making exclusive content deals and incorporating ad tech, big media companies have reshaped what was once an entirely free and open ecosystem. They will have an even bigger role to play in its future, as John Sullivan explores in this piece from The Conversation. A somewhat depressing outlook for independent podcasts.

B2B publisher Mark Allen says early bet on subscriptions and rewarding staff both key to success — pressgazette.co.uk

Pre-2020, a third of Mark Allen Group's revenue came from live events. But the business has proved resilient, with pre-tax profit up 20%. “I think one of the reasons why I believe that we’ve been successful is as far as I’m concerned content is absolute king and if you put the emphasis on getting the content right, everything else falls into place,” Mark Allen said.

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This week's podcast

Toolkits Co-Founder Jack Marshall on what’s next for subscriptions — voices.media

This week we spoke to Jack Marshall, Co-Founder of Toolkits, a business information and consulting company focused on subscription publishing. We talked about his past life as a media reporter at Digiday and the WSJ, what opportunity he and co-founder Shareen Pathak spotted in the market, and whether he thinks the subscriptions wave has crested.

The Top Media Newsletters — voices.media

We at Media Voices get a LOT of media newsletters between us to keep on top of everything that’s going on for the news round-up. It’s often tough narrowing it down to just a couple of key things to discuss in just 15 minutes each week. Here's our (updated) recommendations of the top media and publishing newsletters to sign up to, including how often they come out and key features.