Welcome to your week! Today's Media Roundup is brought to you by Esther.

Direct-to-consumer: some of the best brand extensions from Vogue, The New Yorker, Atlas Obscura and more — www.fipp.com

Direct-to-consumer (D2C) is fast becoming a vital revenue stream for publishers across the world, as media brands are moving away from traditional reliance on ads. While D2C comes in many guises, some of which have been around for decades, one tried-and-tested approach is brand extensions.

This article from FIPP looks at seven media companies who are nailing brand extensions. It's a refreshing look at how publishers as varied as The New Yorker, Vogue, Playboy and Buzzfeed have taken their brands in a new direction.

Not every publisher will be able to flog fancy pyjamas to consumers (Media Voices pj's, anyone?) but it's nice to be reminded that creativity can be rewarded, even if it is for an idea as off-the-wall as Vogue Café.

Facebook struggles to prevent false claims from reaching millions of Indians online — www.independent.co.uk

As India suffers a devastating second wave of coronavirus, misinformation about home remedies, steam inhalation and vaccines spreads almost unchecked on Facebook – just not in English. A sobering reminder that we need global solutions to global problems.

5 places to source data for better data-driven content — whatsnewinpublishing.com

The most powerful pieces of content are informed by data—not just a hunch. This piece from Parse.ly looks at which sources you can mine for data in order to inform content that will resonate with your audiences, from social media surveys to keyword searches.

WTF is a hybrid event anyway? The new challenges & opportunities for events — www.thedrum.com

Virtual events proved their worth during lockdown. Now with more and more live events looming on the horizon, marketers are spending a lot of time talking about a hybrid approach. But what exactly is a hybrid event? And what will it take to succeed as expectations grow for both live and virtual interactions?

This week's episode:

Media Development Investment Fund Deputy CEO Mohamed Nanabhay on investing in sustainable media businesses — voices.media

This week, we hear from Mohamed Nanabhay, Deputy CEO of the Media Development Investment Fund. He talks about his work in the early days of online publishing bringing ‘new media’ to Al Jazeera, how the MDIF decides which businesses to invest in, and why he thinks the pandemic has provided an opportunity for independent media to thrive.

Buy The Media Voices Team a coffee — ko-fi.com

My sound has been bad the last few weeks as we've (finally) moved house. Fear not though; sound panels are arriving for my new cupboard/office/studio this week, funded by your kind Ko-Fi donations. Every Ko-Fi is massively appreciated by us, and goes towards making Media Voices better*.

*Money can't improve US, but it can improve our sound...