This is a bonus episode of the Rebooting show. I'll take from a conversation that, uh, I had on the other podcast I do, which is called People vs. Algorithms.
You should check it out, get it on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
This is a conversation that Troy Young, Alex Schleifer, and I had, and it fits into a larger conversation that we had around misalignment.
But in this particular conversation, we're talking about the subject of my recent newsletter, which was around what...
I took it from Alex, actually, the uncanny valley of media and how media is gonna have to get more real and, and authentic because, as Troy talks about in this, social media has changed people's expectations as far as what kind of content people want.
[upbeat music] I've-- I don't know if it's just me, but I feel like- I, I can see Troy's gonna unspool something. We can make it into a video and do some social clip. Wait, wait, wait, wait.
Troy, Troy had something to say. What would you wanna say, Troy? Well, no, no. Part of my frustration in where does this all go from here is... And I got it wrong, like, years ago.
I thought that if you took ad units off a page and made a better experience, somehow you would be rewarded for it. But the web is incapable of creating... Like, there's no loyalty on the, on the internet.
In publishing, there's no loyalty. So when there's no loyalty and it's all hit and run, your incentive is just to maximize revenue on that particular journey, and even if it does mean inconvenience for, for the reader.
So I guess the frustration is we're going down a path, the internet as a media delivery vehicle in the text world is completely broken, but fixing it doesn't derive any benefit to a publisher anymore.
This is funny that you say this because a PVA listener, and I'll just say digital media executive, had just emailed me this, this thing. I'll actually read from it.
He said, "We just looked at our digital audience numbers from social and search, and it's significantly down year over year.
We say, 'Well, at least we know the folks who come to us are seeking us out and thus more engaged.' But [chuckles] there's no reward for that engagement in a CPM ad sales model." Right. And that's the essential thing.
Like, you can wanna do...
I always liked when Neil at Dotdash would come to Digiday conferences years ago and be like, "We took ads off the page and yield went up and stuff," and I'm like, "Wow, this is amazing and stuff."
The reality is, like, that wager isn't working for a lot of people. Well, they took ads off the page and were rewarded in yield because it led to higher affiliate numbers. Yeah.
That's a different, that's a different question. Well, I mean, then think that's the thing that Jason was saying is, like, for a lot of these categories, they can't actually get out of the CPM ad model.
So, like, if you're in the CPM ad model, you're gonna put m-more mustard on the hot dog. I don't know if [laughs] that's an analogy. Is that a saying? Can I, can I start that as a saying? Which one?
Put mustard on the hot dog? Let's put more mustard on the hot dog. You know, we keep talking about it so it loses its meaning, but there's this existential threat. It's not even an existential threat.
It's, it's happening, it's a downward spiral. It's happening to cable, it's happening to media websites.
And saying, "Well, there's nothing we can do," if that's the amount of invention, innovation, imagination that you can summon from yourself and the company you work in, then s-sell yourself to some group that can kind of leech the last re-remaining dollars for the next five years and get out of it.
Stop trying. However, if you have some idea, it's also potentially now, now's the time to try something completely new, but it's gonna take massive change. Massive change. Man, every mile...
I did a, I did a podcast with Rich Routman. Do you know Rich, Troy? He, he was at Minute Media. He'd been at the NFL before. He's been at sports media for a while, and he's this- Oh, yeah.
I met, I met Rich not long ago, actually. He's at Sporting News, right? Yeah, he's the CEO of the Sporting News. Nice guy.
And it's from, like, 1886 publication, and they just raised their Series A, a fifty million dollar Series A. They started in 1886, so it took them a little...
I was happy with the progress they've made after I heard that. That's amazing. That's amazing.
The reason that they raised the Series A is because he flipped the model to affiliate and trying to take a rev share off of the gambling ads, right?
And so when you talk about alignment, it's kinda funny because I was, like, on the podcast and saying, "Well, Rich, isn't your alignment then to be rooting for your audience to lose a lot of money?"
He sort of, like, talked around it a little bit, but, like, that's the reality of it. So I mean, any model is flawed.
But I did-- I do wonder, like, with sports media, and we would talk a lot about getting out of this, this CPM ad sales treadmill, and he had a nice little...
You know, he's good at sales, so he, he had a nice little thing of going to LTV, from CPM to LTV.
And, and he made the point, and he said to me, he said, "Most digital media companies have no idea what the LTV of their audience, uh, no audience member is. Like, no idea. They're just like eyeballs." True.
That's not gonna end well. It doesn't sound like anybody's making any big enough strides to try to try something new. I don't know what the answer is, but it's not Semafor. It's leads. That's my answer.
Why isn't it Semafor, Alex? Be-be-because I think that it doesn't feel like a big enough change.
Like, I, I, you know, there's, like, very niche subscription models are going to take us this far, but it's not going to save Variety, it's not going to save any of these other businesses.
Like, these business are in, like, a total death loop it feels like. Yeah. But the crazy thing to me about, like- It's not t- But that's not- Wait, huh? It's not entirely true, though, right?
I can bet you- I mean, it sure is. I can... I'll place a bet. I'll place a bet. Wait, about Semafor? No, about... I think Troy is talking about Variety now, but- Oh, got itWhat are you talking about, Troy?
What's not true? Well, I, I just don't think it's in a death spiral. No, things always survive. It's like cockroaches. Mm. Media will come across, come out the other side. People will still wanna make it.
People will still wanna consume it. It'll get harder. It always gets harder. Rinse and repeat. All of these sites are becoming MTV.
MTV is no longer relevant, and so I think you can kind of keep things going on fumes for a while, but there are no longer any- Yeah, but they'll be replaced.
They'll be replaced by other things, and then let the sites that don't make it across and become MTV will get sent off to what I call the SEO glue factory. Just milk those brands, slap...
If the brand has value on it, like a Fortune or Forbes, whatever, slap it on like real estate developments, whatever. I don't...
Did you read this article in the Times about the number of car com-luxury car companies that are, like, putting their brands on condo towers in, like, Miami? Miami. Yeah. [laughs] It's great.
There's always a way to make money. Please read what Gen Z, and I'm, I'm sure there's gonna be even more change with Gen Alpha, but Gen Z, how they're considering brands and media and stuff like that.
This is not-- Even MTV might not be a good analog. These things are dead. Dead. I, I would not put a dollar into them. AOL still makes a lot of money off of broad- Stop. Oh, I know. Sign-on, sign-on subscribers.
[laughs] I mean, that's- Like, they still make a lot of money off it. I don't believe anything is dead. Brian, I'm wondering if you'd stick your neck out. It was interesting for Alex to be entirely dismissive of Semafor.
And the, the reason it sticks out for me is because Semafor has gone down in my media diet. I've reduced it.
But Puck remains a big, big part of my media diet, and both of them kind of employ similar media business strategies. If their content strategies are different, that's- Yes... that's, that's something else.
But I'm wondering how you would contrast the two and assess their prospects. Hmm. Interesting. So I think you actually have to start with their content, like, approaches because, like, I should...
Full disclosure, like, I did this tiny little deal with, with Puck, so I'm seeing if I can convert, like, people into subscribers. It's like a miniature deal.
But to me, like, Puck, I get a lot of people who when I write anything about Puck, reporters who, like, can't stand them.
[laughs] And the reason is, like, a mix of they wanna be able to write, that's something they can't.
Because, like, Puck's basic stuff is the reporter's notebook, and that's the stuff you have in your notebook, but you haven't been able to check it out, and you can't- Puck is simply the rebundling of bloggers.
Good bloggers. Yeah, but it-- But I'm saying the approach is that. Yeah. And, and what Semafor is and, and I know you and Ben d-don't see eye to eye for, for different reasons, obviously.
But Ben is a scoops machine, and, like, they are hanging their hat on trying to break news, and that's really hard. It's very hit and miss. And I don't think Semafor has broken enough news- Right...
at the end of the day. Like, Axios took off because Jonathan Swan broke a shit ton of news.
I would say that Axios has become part of the substrate of certainly for the last f-several years of, of I think how we consume verticalized news. Mm-hmm.
And Semafor is kinda taking a page out of the book, but kinda trying to do that and be the Financial Times and be The New York Times. What Puck is doing is...
There was a good story, I think I shared it with you guys this week, that, like, people paying ten dollars a month to access their favorite blogger is kind of a business model that isn't growing anymore, which is probably you're gonna see it put a lot of pressure on Substack because when you think about it, paying ten bucks for a couple articles a week is pretty expensive relative to another media subscription.
And essentially- Didn't Substack just, just went to Kickstarter to raise a round? No, they didn't go to Kickstarter. This is a while ago. They- That was a, that was a, that was a long time ago. They did a crowdfunding.
My, my point is, is they've picked good people that know their industries, that create main characters, that persist on storylines, and they're, like, really, really good bloggers in one package, and that's what Puck is, focused on stuff that's really fun to read.
And it's, to me, their content strategy is close enough to sort of tabloid or the stuff that feels addictive- Yeah... that you wanna, that you wanna read it all the time. The little snarky asides.
I mean, it's Gawker to some degree, like, modernized because the whole conceit of Gawker was there was this stuff that you... And I think this is, like, a larger conversation.
We could do a whole new episode right now, actually. But, like, 'cause I think people want real shit right now, and they want real conversation. That's why I was always pushing back on this not being too scripted.
And the reason, for instance, Bill Simmons had a thing, uh, recently about NFL pregame shows and why they're s- they seem like they're out of a time capsule, because they're not real conversations.
It's the same as late night shows. Those interviews where they do the canned story, it's like, "Well, let me tell you, this thing happened, Jay." And, like, that is gone with, like, podcasts and with YouTubers and stuff.
And I think it's similar, and journalism is, is reaching this in that Gawker said that we're not gonna have the, the perfect little story that got through editing.
We're gonna have the shit that, like, journalists sit- would talk about at the bar. And that was always they were gonna narrow that gap. And to me, like, Puck is the successor to that in some- Mm-hmm...
way, shape, and form.
And they report stuff, quote-unquote, "report stuff" that they're hearing that The New York Times can't and won't, Financial Times can't and won't, and the, the, the information can't and won't, and that's why I hear complaints from j- [laughs] from journalists.
That's it.
So much of the, so much of the formats for these things that we, we've inherited from stuff that was done a hundred years ago, like the language, even the way things are written, the paragraphs, the fact that we have a headline, all of these things come from, from really o-old formats, right?
Old movies, people used to put on a certain accent because sound quality was bad, and that carried over, right?
And I think what modern media technology has allowed us to do is kind of do away with all of these weird abstractions.
P-People are kind of sick of it, and they just prefer hearing somebody speak rather than- Yeah, you know-... than having this formulaic thing going on.
The first time I ever did a panel at an event, I was, like, so nervous. I remember it was, like, an iMedia Summit. Did you ever go to one of those, Troy? [laughs] Remember those things?
I think Dave Morgan had, like, a lifetime achievement plaque at one. He'd been to, like, four hundred and fifty-six. But I did a panel there, and I was so nervous to do it.
And afterwards, this, this PR guy I know came up. I was like, "Oh, how do you..." And you know afterwards when you're-- people are like, "Oh, it was really great." I was like, "Oh, how do you think it went?"
He's like, "It sucked." [laughs]Nice I was like, "Wait, why?" He was like, "Well, I actually..." And he, he actually meant it in a complimentary way.
He goes, "I know you, and you're very smart and personable, and that wa- you are not that up there. You are some robot." And that was because I was trying to, like, act some role.
And I feel a lot of, at least maybe it's just me, like, you're playing a part in a lot of these media conventions. Like, the way you write is different than how you would write an email.
And it's the same way, like, I would have, like, reporters sometimes, particularly younger people, who, when I knew them in the office, and this is part of the office problem, they were one type.
And then, like, I would-- if there would be, like, a happy hour, I'd run out, they'd ha- have, like, a dr- and they were, like, a totally different person. They were way more interesting.
And I never saw that in their work, actually. And that's because, like, you're, we're trying to follow all these conventions.
And I feel like there's a very vibrant area that is-- it's all around us, of having kind of realer conversations and communicating in much more natural ways than these old-fashioned conventions dictate. Yeah.
That's my two cents. People want real-- I think people want less abstraction between the, the, the thing being talked about and the person talking about it.
I think we're pretty good, humans are pretty good at figuring out what's real. There's this idea of the uncanny valley, where we see something that's fake, and we don't like it. And the more- Oh, I'm gonna use that...
there's [chuckles] yeah, there's a lot of distrust right now, and I think that in an era of, like, deep distrust and not knowing what's real and not, people latch on to, to real conversation.
And I'm, uh, actually pretty happy. I hate all the fanfare. Writing a letter in French, you need to put, like, thirteen words at the beginning and end of it.
There's, like, such a formula for being polite in a letter, and those things always threw me off. And I, I like the fact that it's happening to media. Like, why do we need titles? Yeah, the honorific.
Anyone who still is using an honorific, I mean, stop. Yeah. Fuck that. Who cares? Who gives a shit? Mr. This. The, I, although the, the opposite of that is the first name thing with the Silicon Valley people.
I use first names th- with people who I know. I actually flip back and forth. If I really know someone, I use their first name on second reference, and it's intentional what I'm doing.
But if I don't know the person, I'll use their first name. I hug people. I just hug, like, first time I meet them. No, I'm talking when I'm writing.
See- I would like-- I ta- I call people by first name- I, I hug them in my writing... what am I, Mr., Mr. Young? [chuckles] Like, no. Fifty years old, I'm not calling someone Mr. or Mrs. anything. [laughs] All right.
Well, I'm glad we added, added this segment. [laughs] Okay, so I actually think that this, I, I, I- Can I use this for my newsletter on Thursday? Hang on. Hang on, hang on. H- hang on.
We'll release this as a bonus episode, so take it as that if you wanna do something. No, no, no, no, no, no. I don't, I don't wanna do that. I, I want...
I-- my preference, Alex, would be that this appends the conversation about that we didn't really finish on the failure of website design. Or not website design, just, like, the cluttered bullshit of the web.
This, that's where, that's what this is meant to logically follow. Well, but I would say, like, we release this, like, a day later, bonus episode. I wanna try it out.
No, so I want- I wanna see how it does in the numbers... I'm writing about this, uh, for Thursday. About what?
I'm writing about, I'm gonna call it the unca- uncanny valley of media, is because, like, it's about how you make media changing and using all of these...
I just think that there is this, this shift to, to more, like, I've tried to call it, like, real media or something like this, that is less just like a lot of the conventions that were required of media.
And I think that you see it across, you know, radio seems all, like, late night TV, it's like, you really? Like, nobody would watch that shit. It's so corny. NFL pregame shows, calling people Messers.
Like, all this stuff is like- I mean-... leave it behind...
in late night shows, so the, the most uncomfortable thing for me to watch right now is, or, I mean, they're not, they're not happening in the strike, but it's those late night interview shows with a- Yeah, same for me...
host where everybody's... So these I find so cringey. They're impossible to watch. Everybody's fake. Nothing is real.
It's like, I got a bunch of, like, emails after doing that podcast with Jason because he wasn't full of shit. Literally, that's how full of shit people are when they talk about their jobs. [chuckles] It's hard, so.
Like, the fact that if you're just, like, moderately not full of shit, it's remarkable. So how does this tie in with your job about the internet becoming a piece of shit, Troy?
How does this- Just real-- I think that there's a potential for the internet as a real place for personal expression, and that, that there's, we're building new mechanisms so that people can allow you to be you and make that commercially viable.
I mean, maybe that's where media is going. I agree. I think that there's a pool of content, this is, this connects us to the beginning of the episode.
I think that there's a pool of content that sort of seamlessly extends from human beings, be it text, pictures, video, whatever, that is a category of media that we've never known before.
We call it social media, but, and we thought it was just something to replace one category of media. And to me, it's eating more and more and more of the spectrum.
When I was at Digi, I was like, my sort of theory was that the feed had changed consumer expectations as far as how engaging content should be.
That, in that, like, they wouldn't say that, "Oh, I'm reading this for work, so it can be dry and boring and nonsense." But when I'm reading stuff otherwise, like, it, it has a, I have a different, like, criteria for it.
I think that's broadly true, but I think what you're saying is it's changed all kinds of expectations, and we haven't fully recognized all of them yet, I think, in the way we create media.
And that's why podcasters and YouTubers and TikTokers and stuff, like, it's just natural to them. And the media's gonna have to catch up because people are just consuming media.
It's not like, "Oh, I watch TikTok," and then I went to, like, turn on NBC News. That's right. I think that's right. [chuckles] Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. Gold. Awesome.
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