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👋 Welcome to FWIW by David Tvrdon, your weekly tech, media & audio digest.
Thank you for the patience, you are getting a very late edition of this newsletter. I had a super busy week but didn’t want to skip sending it out despite not sticking to the schedule.
It’s been a slower news week in terms of tech news variety. Of course, there was a lot of news regarding Elon Musk and his Twitter deal. I am not going to go deep as things might have already changed by the time you get this, so just a tl;dr:
Elon Musk said the Twitter deal is “temporarily on hold”. Some think he is trying a) negotiate a lower price amid tech stock fall or b) back out of the deal completely. [Bloomberg]
The Twitter board said it will 'enforce the merger agreement' despite Elon Musk's latest move. [CNN]
The whole story is so crazy that even The Wall Street Journal had to use “poop emoji” in the headline. [WSJ]
Matt Levine of Bloomberg has consistently been one of the most on-point authors on the matter if you are looking for a good voice to follow.
Also in this edition
Apple’s AR/VR headset might be coming soon
There are more 60+ TikTok users than you think
YouTube is now the most used podcasting platform in the U.S.
TECH
📲 iPhone 15 might be getting USB-C, because of EU. [Bloomberg]
🤓 Apple showed its AR/VR headset to board. It will be Apple’s biggest new product category since the Watch. The headset combines virtual and augmented reality features. [Bloomberg]
ALSO: The Information chronicles how the project struggled to get off the ground and has been beset by delays caused by technical and leadership challenges. Apple’s headset was originally planned for an unveiling in 2019, with a release coming in 2020 [The Information]
📱 Amazon’s new Fire 7 tablet finally has a USB-C port, better battery life and faster internals. The price is still unbelievable ($59.99, without lock screen ads for $75), despite the ten bucks increase from three years ago [The Verge]
📊 Politico published its annual ranking of the 28 power players behind Europe’s tech revolution. [Politico.eu]
🇯🇵 How did Japan, once a global tech innovation leader, fall so behind? To understand, you have to go back decades in history. The tech sector is so intertwined with politics it is hard for anyone to break out without causing an issue for the whole ecosystem and it’s better to everyone to just move at the same (very slow) speed. [Rest of World]
📬 Microsoft has announced the beta for the new Outlook for Windows, which will make the desktop email client a lot more like the web version. Outlook will be getting quite a few new features in addition to an updated design. For starters, it’ll integrate with Loop, Microsoft’s system for collaborating on things like polls, task lists, and more throughout Office. [The Verge]
MEDIA
👥 A fascinating look at the rise of multi-bylined articles at The New York Times. In recent years, more stories have multiple authors, which might mean there is more collaboration between news desks and an increased focus on features that need more reporters. [Dan Stone]
📺 Netflix might is exploring the launch of live streaming. It plans to roll out the capability for its unscripted shows and stand-up specials. It would mean that Netflix would be able to use it for live voting for competition series and talent contests. That would bring more engagement and at the same time the streamer closer to becoming a TV. Also, this might open Netflix up for sports which it said in the past it is not interested in. [Deadline]
📈 Antenna posted its Q1’22 Premium SVOD Growth Report for the U.S. market. Yeah, US-only data, still, an interesting look of what’s coming to most of Europe once Disney+ fully arrives and other streamers start competing more seriously. Despite Netflix’s loss of subscribers, the SVOD market kept growing and it was largely driven by Peacock and Paramount+. [Antenna]
🎥 YouTube rolled out its new player to all users. On mobile, in full-screen mode, a new panel will now appear to display information about the video — like the video description, video chapters and comments. YouTube will also show a Facebook-like chart with parts that were the most popular. [TechCrunch]
👵🏻👴🏻 Older TikTok users are using the online platform, regarded as the virtual playground of teenagers, to defy ageist stereotypes of elderly people as technophobic and frail. Research has found increasing numbers of accounts belonging to users aged 60 and older with millions of followers. [The Guardian]
📝 The state of journalism 2022 report by Muck Rack was published. The average journalist covers 4 beats. Last year, the average journalist covered 3 beats. 77% of journalists value Twitter more than any other social media platform (BBC has the most journalists on Twitter, followed by Bloomberg and NY Times). Most journalists surveyed create content in at least one medium in addition to their primary medium. 58% of journalists are optimistic about their profession. Fewer journalists said that CEOs and company PR pros are credible sources for reporting (the report has useful data for PR pros, like journalists saying they prefer to be pitched stories in the beginning of the week and between 5:00 and 12:00). [Muck Rack]
FROM THE FIX
2️⃣ Why I have mixed feelings about our Pulitzer Prize award
3️⃣ Why diversity and representation in your newsroom matter for its revenue and long-term development
6️⃣ 73% cite increased traffic as the major priority: Publisher Trends Report 2022
[ 📬 Get The Fix newsletter delivered to your inbox every week with the latest insights, news, and analysis about the European media market. Sign up here > ]
AUDIO
☺️ Is audio less stressful for news consumption for journalists? Jon Crowley finds many journalists feel that audio makes the most sense for them and can be in times also relaxing as they can tend to cooking or exercising. [Journalism.co.uk]
🎙 Tortoise’s slow news approach has a fast-growing audience. The British news publisher is featured on Apple’s podcaster portal. Basia Cummings, the editor at Tortoise Media, says that subscribers to Tortoise+, its paid podcast offering on Apple Podcasts, is 39 compared to 55+ on web. And also, the average listener age is 29. [Apple Podcasts for Creators]
🎧 What is next for podcasting? Spotify’s head of content thinks it’s audience growth. Also, documentary storytelling (true crimes) and conversation podcasts are driving the most listening hours for the streamer. Johan Seidefors also thinks scripted podcasts (fiction) are a good bet for the future and they are experimenting in that area. [RDE]
📊 In the U.S., more than half of all the listening happening in the top thousand podcasts is happening in the top 100. Fascinating, a bit unsurprising, and I bet the same could be said of other developed podcast markets. [Edison Research]
📈 YouTube, by a nose, is now the most used podcasting platform in the U.S. That’s according to a new study by Cumulus Media and Signal Hill Insights. 24.2% listen on YouTube, Spotify is at 23.8% and Apple at 16%. Over the last four years, YouTube’s share has steadily grown from 14% in 2019 to 24.2% in 2022. Podcast newcomers who started listening the last year use Spotify and YouTube most; Apple is the leading platform among heavy podcast listeners and “podcast pioneers” who have been listening for 4+ years. [Westwood One]
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
Six in ten weekly podcast listeners say they prefer podcasts with video (interest in podcast video is highest among those who started listening in the last year).
Also, more women than men started listening to podcasts in the last year.
Podcast listeners are heavy users of ad-free video streaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime.
Podcast listeners spend nearly half their TV viewing time with ad-free video streaming.
Podcast advertising is a great way to reach the ad-free video streaming audiences of Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Disney+
Podcast listeners prefer funny and entertaining ads but say they are more likely to hear rational podcast ads that communicate features/benefits
📲 BBC Sounds, the podcast and music app, reached 4.06 million weekly users on average during Q1 2022. There was a record total of 179 million plays of on-demand radio and podcast content, which would put BBC. Podnews pointed out, BBC also revealed that it achieved a total of 288 million global podcast downloads across the world during this quarter (making it about the same size as Wondery). [Music Week]
🗣 Pacific Content writes they’ve found promoting podcasts through host-read ads on other podcasts is the most effective way to bring in new listeners. Annalise Nielsen also writes that audiograms aren’t the best promotion tool for podcasts on social media in general (a targeted approach on Instagram and YouTube is better), she recommends using social media as an extension. Planet Money repurposes the concept from an episode in TikTok-first format. I have also written that TikTok is an opportunity for podcasters as not many podcasts are active on the platform. [Pacific Content]
GAMING
🎮 Tiktok is planning a major push into videogames, beginning with an experiment in Vietnam. TikTok would likely allow users to play casual games. Such games are attractive to businesses as another platform to host ads. [Reuters]
❓ Poll: Will Elon Musk abandon his Twitter deal?
🙌 Thanks. I used HandyPolls to create this poll (instructions).
Last poll results: Is your faith in Google’s hardware ambitions restored? 42% will see, 21% said yes, also 21% answered it’s not Apple and 16% don’t think so.