What We’re Reading

We keep an eye out for the most interesting stories about Labby subjects: digital media, startups, the web, journalism, strategy, and more.

Digiday / Lucia Moses

The New York Times has 33 email newsletters →

“Average gross open rate (which counts duplicate opens) for weekly newsletters is 50 percent, with some of its newer ones including Kristof’s, the Times Magazine, Booming and Motherlode have gross open rates topping 70 percent” —JL

What else we were reading on August 24

The Wall Street Journal / Jack Marshall

Publishers are struggling to cash in on surging mobile traffic →

“The problem is that for many publishers mobile revenue isn’t keeping pace—by a long shot—creating what industry executives are calling a ‘mobile gap.'” —JL

Storybench / Aleszu Bajak

How to design and code your own responsive news article →

“By the end of the following tutorial, you will know how to build a standalone website that can hold an article, a photo essay, a story packed with multimedia, or your own personal website.” —JL

New York / Gabriel Sherman

Inside the three-way family fight to be the next publisher of The New York Times →

“The outcome is not just a matter of family politics; the next publisher of the New York Times will be responsible for preserving the independence of the country’s greatest newspaper in an increasingly challenging media environment.” —JL

The Next Web / Owen Williams

A sneak preview of an iOS 9 content blocker →

Spoiler alert: it’s very effective. —SW

The Guardian

Twitter blocks access to political transparency organization Politwoops →

“Twitter has shut off access to 31 accounts that chronicled and archived the deleted tweets of politicians, diplomats, and embassies around the world. The move follows the social network’s earlier blocking of Politwoops US, which archived deleted tweets by American lawmakers.” —LO

The New York Times / RAVI SOMAIYA

Rolling Stone’s slow road to reinvention →

“Gus Wenner has been hiring coders and designers, working on Wenner Media’s digital infrastructure, seeking out partnerships and pushing more deeply into video.” —JE

IVOH / Kara Newhouse

The Christian Science Monitor is trying to get readers to take action on issues it covers →

Their Take Action initiative focuses on five global issues: environment, education, conflict resolution, disaster relief, and human trafficking. —SW

A List Apart

Need help picking a CMS? Talk to experts about it Tuesday →

“Spoiler: there’s no ‘best’ CMS, but you can choose the one that works best for you and your team.” —JB

Financial Times / Henry Mance

What next for the BBC? →

“The idea that ‘only the BBC’ can commission certain programmes is now ingrained in the British psyche — alongside a visceral urge to apologise, and a belief that future monarchs’ middle names are an acceptable topic of conversation.” —JB

Direct Marketing News / Al Urbanski

Instagram ads get twice the clickthrough of Facebook ads →

But also cost twice as much. —JB

VentureBeat / Ken Yeung

Flipboard introduces autoplay video ads →

“Cinema Loops” are “three- to eight-second segments of the file and are meant to entice viewers to click through in order to watch the entire video.” —LO

Vox Product / Lauren Rabaino and Frank Bi

What Vox Media built at its annual Hack Week →

An away message for Slack, a new quiz tool, a countdown timer, and a TV recaps Twitter bot. —JB