Thursday 17th August: Differentiating between links and *links*

August 17, 2023

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In The Verge’s new newsletter, there are links and there are links

“I’ve been trying to think of the Bold Links as action items, and the other links as supporting materials.”

https://www.niemanlab.org/2023/08/in-the-verges-new-newsletter-there-are-links-and-there-are-links/

The Verge has launched a new newsletter, Installer; a “guide to all the best, newest, coolest and Verge-iest stuff in the world.” But Joshua Benton spotted something particularly interesting about this newsletter. It has two distinct ways of showing links.

“I wish I could tell you it came from some grand scheme of A/B testing and smart thoughts about the future of the internet,” editor-at-large David Pierce told him. “I think a lot of newsletters (and articles on the web, frankly) link so much that it’s hard to know what’s The Thing I Should Go Check Out and what’s, like, a tag page on your website or a semi-related article you linked for some unknowable reason.”

Having a link hierarchy is a small but simple tweak which makes it easy for readers to take action. That’s my inspo for this week!

Telegraph Media Group hits one million subscriptions

Telegraph Media Group says it has hit its target of signing up one million subscribers before the end of 2023.

pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/nationals/telegraph-one-million-subscriptions

The Telegraph has become the third publisher in the UK to reach 1 million subscribers, joining The Guardian and the Financial Times. More than 70% of the subscribers are digital, and the publisher has 300,000+ of them using the app each day. Those figures should make the publication an attractive

The New Little Magazines

Keeping literature and long-form journalism alive

www.harvardmagazine.com/2023/09/university-people-the-drift

Any story with this opening paragraph is worth a read: “Seven hundred people were surrounded by taxidermied peacocks and monkeys in the lounge of New York’s Jane Hotel. That evening this spring, they gathered beneath the erratic light of a disco ball. And they were there to talk about literature.”

Google's AI search experience adds AI-powered summaries, definitions and coding improvements

Google today is rolling out a few new updates to its Search Generative Experience, the company's AI-powered conversational mode in Search.

techcrunch.com/2023/08/15/googles-ai-search-experience-adds-ai-powered-summaries-definitions-and-coding-improvements

With the aim of making search better (of course), Google is rolling out some more AI tools that will help users find what they’re looking for in longer-form content online. These won’t provide AI summaries for paywalled articles, but by the looks of it, publishers will need to choose to block the features by designating their content as paywalled.

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