I have been thinking a lot about the podcasting industry lately. The main thread is how even though there were massive layoffs in the podcasting industry, ad revenue and listenership continues to grow. It seems the podcasting industry is set to have the same fate as the newspaper and television
To kick things off, we had a roundtable conversation with a trio of makers and thinkers, all of whom are creating independent media. They are Gita Jackson (Aftermath), Alex Sujong Laughlin (Defector Media), and Rusty Foster (Today in Tabs). We wanted to talk with Gita, Alex and Rusty about the
I love the idea behind Project Tapestry by The Icon Factory. With Project Tapestry, we’ll create a universal, chronological timeline for iOS for any data that’s publicly available on the Internet. A service-independent overview of your social media and information landscape. Point the app toward your
Manton Reece: Today we’ve added a brand new option for manual cross-posting from Micro.blog to other services, including Threads. This new option is great for services that don’t yet have an open API, so Micro.blog can’t automatically post to them, or for when you want
Link
Matt Birchler: More Birchtree is a way to get more Birchtree writing, ad-free browsing, and the fuzzy feeling of supporting indie writing. Member posts will be more personal pieces, as well as more raw feelings about the tech news of the day before I’m ready to share with a
Mass Media
Alex Cranz writing for The Verge: a memo from CNN CEO Mark Thompson outlines some of the early plans to try to save CNN from cable — and grow its presence on the phone. As noted by The Wall Street Journal, which has seen the memo, the first step will be
Substack
After a hellish month for Substack many writers on its platform have decided it is time to set up their newsletters and writings elsewhere. If you aren’t familiar with what happened, you can find out more on a timeline I made. A large number of Substack writers, including Ryan
Substack
Over a month ago an article from Jonathan M. Katz at The Atlantic made waves with an article titled "Substack Has a Nazi Problem". At least 16 of the [Substack] newsletters that I reviewed have overt Nazi symbols, including the swastika and the sonnenrad, in their logos or
This Longform episode with data journalist Mona Chalabi, who has written for The Guardian, The New York Times, and won a Pulitzer for her work, was so good I listened to it twice in one day. In the podcast she speaks about the ongoing Israel and Palestine war and her
An old college buddy of mine, Adam, who also has been a creative partner for me over the years, created an awesome video essay. It’s about the end of physical media, what it might hold for the future of media consumption, and how collectors might be dealing with this
Creator Economy
Between the Vice News layoffs, the podcasting industry crumbling, and Jezebel closing its doors it's safe to say that the media industry is having a bit of a crisis. It's clear that advertising on sites like Jezebel and large podcasts aren't cutting it anymore,
Apple
Apple created a really interesting post covering the “Shot on iPhone” keynote they did for Scary Fast. They also created a video accompanying it. What I thought was more interesting though was the backlash it got from people saying that because it had so much gear and equipment required to