Wednesday 9th June: Have you opened this email? Soon, we won't know.

June 09, 2021

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

Apple has announced that they are introducing Mail Privacy Protection for their Mail app. This will stop people from using invisible 'pixels' to collect information about the user, which will mean senders won't be able to tell whether you've opened an email or not.

This essentially signals the end of open rate tracking. Adam Tinworth explains what the tracking pixel block means for email senders, and speculates that Apple are likely to turn this on by default, given their track record.

The block will only apply to people using Apple's own mail apps. But it still means that a chunk of recorded opens are about to go away for most newsletter publishers. Time to look for alternative ways of measuring email engagement...!

Damian Radcliffe rounds up some of the new products, approaches, partnerships and other work that journalists have used to help shine a light on the impact of the pandemic. A fascinating and detailed list with some good case studies.

There's a growing willingness from companies to pay for subscriptions - something which has been the bread and butter of trade and B2B publications for a long time. But a new report says that there is 'huge uncovered potential' for bulk and corporate subscriptions for news publishers as well.

Facebook is recruiting and paying writers for its paid newsletter product for a late June debut. The social media giant seems to have learned lessons from Substack, which has found itself embroiled in rows over the use of its platform by controversial figures. Now, Facebook is limiting access to its product and is hoping to avoid divisive writers and subjects.

This week's episode:

In this week’s episode we hear from Decanter’s Editor in Chief Chris Maillard about the challenge of refreshing Future’s newly-acquired wine brand – without alienating its incredibly loyal readership

For publishers with a well established content workflow, adding podcasts can seem like a daunting task. But, as this Conversations episode demonstrates, those publishers already have what is needed to create and distribute podcasts that add value to your audience and business alike.