Monday 23rd August: Twitter's longform strategy

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For readers, Twitter has always been a great discovery engine. Unfortunately for the blue bird, that utility has never really been translated into cold, hard cash. "Twitter has captured very little of the revenue in digital publishing, despite generating tons of demand," writes Nathan Baschez.

This has been true for advertising referrals forever and, more recently, newsletter subscription referrals. But Baschez thinks, at least on the newsletter front this will change with Twitter's integration of the Revue newsletter platform.

Last week Twitter announced it was letting Revue users solicit new subscribers 'direct from their profile page in two clicks'. As big fans of both Twitter and Revue, we wholeheartedly support this move and applaud what Baschez calls, "Twitter’s goal to make Revue the best place to publish for independent publishers".

Content from news publishers made up a tiny fraction of all the content that Facebook’s U.S. users viewed in their news feeds, according to the social network's inaugural content report. Most content viewed is updates, photos, videos, links and interactions from friends, groups and organizations. No real surprise, but almost 90% of news-feed content doesn't link our of Facebook.

US magazine giant Meredith is reporting a strong fourth quarter, with total revenue rising to $718 million, representing 17% growth year-over-year. The figures include an 80% increase in digital ad revenue, plus a 19% increase in licensing and consumer driven revenue. For the full year, revenue was an eye-watering $3 billion, a 5% increase year-over-year.

More than 20 news brands from 11 UK-based media organisations co-signed an open letter to PM Boris Johnson and (former?) Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab earlier this month calling for special visas for their Afghan colleagues. With the situation worsening a new letter has been sent, urging the Government to ensure colleagues are able to get on evacuation flights.

Podcast throwback:

Big news from our old boss last week as AgriBriefing sold Farmers Guardian and the LAMMA trade show to concentrate on agricultural pricing and market data. So here's an interview with Rory talking about how to build a niche B2B business.

Ko-Fi contributions have really helped us cover our costs over the last year. We love one-offs, but we've also introduced a monthly subscription option to make it easier for our lovely listeners to contribute regularly. It's just like buying us a virtual coffee but you can hit the 'Monthly' button to make use happy over and over and over. 💛💛💛