Hi there.

This week, I want to look at expanding beyond the core. A number of publishers with multiple titles are aggregating into a single core app. What are the considerations that need to be made from a publisher point of view? 

Speaking of aggregator apps, Artifact is expanding beyond news and publishing into links. Is this a kind of Yahoo-esque “organising the Web?” Or a Pinterest for information? Or could it even be a replacement for Twitter/X? 

Next week, I’ll be hosting our executive study tour, doing a deep dive on all things AI in Silicon Valley. Stay tuned for some top-level insights when I am back. 

If you have anything product on your mind you want to chat about, drop me a line at  Jodie.hopperton@INMA.org.

Thanks, Jodie

Are publisher aggregation apps the new top of funnel or a long-term product?

A range of new apps are coming out. There is a great summary of Roularta’s effort in this area from our recent Media Innovation Week in Antwerp recently here. What are these? In short, one media organisation with multiple brands bundles those brands together in a mega subscription. 

There are similar efforts elsewhere in Belgium, Sweden, and Norway. And these are just the ones I have come across in the last few weeks. My colleague Greg Piechota, who runs INMA’s Readers First Initiative, writes a lot about bundling and unbundling and their effects on subscriptions (you can find his work here). 

I want to look at this from a product perspective. 

Are these new bundles solving a user problem or a publisher problem? 

For publishers, it seems to offer a good revenue stream. It may work as top-of-funnel into individual brands or it may be a relatively low-cost, high-value subscription revenue (depending on cannibalisation of individual subscriptions).

For users, this may be good value and/or giving them the ability to find a lot of content in one place. This works particularly well for national and local coverage. But which users are publishers focusing on? Is it truly expanding the pool of potential readers, or is it a good proposition for core news subscribers? If the latter, we may be moving people between products rather than acquiring new.   

Here are a few thoughts/considerations:

1. Much of the apps/sites functionality has already been built through existing products, so this makes it a relatively low-cost set up. Products can likely benefit from upgrades, too, so the ongoing maintenance and support is also relatively low. Going back to my point last week about investing in core vs innovation, I see this as an expansion of core.  

2. While the core functionality is the same, what other possibilities are there to be creative? Roularta offers the ability to have multiple people on one subscription, reminding me of some of the early success of Netflix.  

3. Branding is an interesting debate. Do you create a new brand? Or do you want to use this as top-of-funnel to showcase your many other brands, in which case the name may want to reflect the parent company. Too many brands can be confusing for a reader. In the case of a single title branching out, is there a way to bring in the main brand (e.g., The New York Times with NYT Cooking, NYT Games, etc.).

4. Is more really more? While we are offering more content, how do we make sure the reader is getting what they need, when they need (and in the format they need) rather than making it more difficult to sift through even more content? If you don’t already have personalisation functionality, now is the time to start getting serious. 

From the conversations I am having, the general thinking is that these publisher aggregator apps will provide a short-term bump and then flatten out. The bigger question is around what we can learn from these apps and sites.

Perhaps there is more opportunity to bundle around a specific interest (e.g., sports) or platform (e.g., audio). As of yet, there is no consensus, but the experimentation into new products should provide insights into what consumers really want and will use and, importantly for many, what they will actually pay for.

ICYMI: essential information on upgrading your CMS

On October 4, INMA launched a project we’ve been working on around selecting a suitable CMS provider/technology. There is a report to frame the internal work that needs to be done before making any upgrade decision and a vendor selection tool to help you shortlist suitable technologies. The report is now available in audio format, too.  

Artifact goes beyond news to organise the Web

If you read this newsletter regularly, you’ll know of Artifact, the news app that was quietly launched by the founders of Instagram a few months ago. There are a few reasons I am following it but mainly because the experiments they are running are reflective of the conversations I am having with news product leaders: personalisation, AI generated summaries, audio articles. 

Artifact is new and nimble. They are not creating their own content; they are  aggregating — likely simply scraping at the moment. And because they are not weighted down by legacy products and processes, they are able to use a lot of learnings from around the Web. Some of the efforts are reminiscent of some of the (flailing) social networks. 

In Artifact you can now view and follow specific writers. This makes it easier to follow people that may write for different publications. Writers can claim their profile, write their own profile, get notified when people comment on their articles and track analytics on their content. They even get a verification checkmark. Sound familiar?  

Right now users have to go through the article page to follow writers (see below). Maybe there will be a time when you can search for writers. Maybe have personalised recommendations. Maybe one day they could even charge for additional content. Are they coming for Substack and Patreon? 

There are also some basic functions, such as going through a list of writers to add them, which would make it a lot easier to follow people.

Also, regular Artifact users may have noticed a new link icon popping up on the main bottom navigation a few weeks ago.

If you click on that link, it brings you to a page of curated links and articles from people you follow.

Getting started is a little clunky as you can’t “add” people through the app. See the screenshots below. If I want to invite Jeff (Hi Jeff!), it sends me outside the app. That feels clunky. Perhaps it’s deliberate to invite only people you know. But adds limitations to flooding people’s inboxes or — perhaps worse — not allowing for relatively anonymous following.

Being able to save articles and following people reminds me of Pinterest, only for text. 

So is Artifact a news app? Or is it an app to help you organise a messy Web to the way you like it? Only time will tell. 

About this newsletter 

Today’s newsletter is written by Jodie Hopperton, based in Los Angeles and lead for the INMA Product Initiative. Jodie will share research, case studies, and thought leadership on the topic of global news media product.

This newsletter is a public face of the Product Initiative by INMA, outlined here. E-mail Jodie at jodie.hopperton@inma.org with thoughts, suggestions, and questions. Sign up to our Slack channel.

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