Friday 28th May: Do recommendation engines deliver more value to audiences?

May 28, 2021

Good morning! Today's Media Roundup is brought to you by Peter.

This headline is properly triggering for Esther, but it's OK, it's not about Taboola or Outbrain. It's more about the platonic ideal of a recommendation engine and what that could do for legacy publishers looking to build relationships and their bottom line.

The big takeaway is you're getting 'the sh*t kicked out of you' by companies that didn't exist 10 or 15 years ago. Netflix and Spotify, for example, are really rather good at recommending stuff that keeps your audiences with them and you need to fight back with better recommendation engines.

“The biggest mistake media companies make is they think they are in the content business. But they are in the data business – and their data management sucks,” says MIT's Michael Schrage. I don't totally agree (obvs), but I get the point. “It’s not just about how to tell a better story, it's about how we can learn from people who read our stories and engage with them.” I'd recommend you read this.

Maybe Canadians are not as nice we thought. In a bid to update existing media rules protecting Canadian-made content (written in 1960s) the Canadian Government is looking at a bill that will make video- and audio-sharing sites prioritise the country’s artists. Digital-law experts reckon it's one of the most aggressive internet regulations yet from a Western country, but I'd be OK with it if it bumps Neil Young and Joni Mitchell up the playlists.

I have no idea how successful this will be but I love the sentiment. Launched in Berlin by journalist Jonathan Widder, Squirrel News curates solutions-focus stories in three editions a week. A bit like Positive News in the UK it seeks to introduce 'possible solutions to many of the challenges facing humanity today.' Has to be better for you than reading about the daily failings of disaster capitalism.

This article was mentioned in our Publisher Podcast Insiders meetup on Wednesday and there were more than a few nods in response to the article headline. Not every celebrity podcast is terrible, but celebrity commissioning is lazy commissioning and unlikely to do much to advance the podcaster's art. Thank God for publisher podcasts is all we're saying.

This week's episode:

This week we hear from Bo Sacks, a columnist and lecturer with a long career history in magazines and publishing. He talks about trends that have come and gone, why he thinks print is strong as a niche product, and why we’re currently in the golden age of publishing.

Ahead of our latest Conversations episode being released next week, take a look through our archive and hear experts discussing the state of the digital publishing market, privacy, subscription success, and more.