Let’s start with distribution. Google will reinforce its position against Facebook. Publishers will continue to get more audience from Google Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) than from Facebook Instant Articles, confirming the recent shift. Aside from monetization issues, part of the reason is a growing distrust in Facebook, seen as less reliable than the search engine. Among publishers, the general feeling is that Facebook is more likely to change the rules without warning than Google. Facebook has sent multiple wrong signals over the last two years, from increasing the weight of friends-and-family content at the expense of news in 2016 to an ill-advised series of tests of profound changes to the News Feed. In October 2017, FB removed publisher content from its News Feed to evaluate the impact on users’ engagement; it did so in five countries (Serbia, Guatemala, Slovakia, Bolivia, and Cambodia). These felt they were, understandably, considered lab rats by the spoiled geeks in Menlo Park. We can expect more mishaps of that kind in 2018 as Facebook seems unable to address its endemic immaturity.
Apple News could, in theory, gain traction, with its neat layout that is more respectful of news brand and authors. But the trend might not last if Apple News continue to carry terrible ads. Eddy Cue should be reminded that the company’s revenue per customer dwarfs any media ARPU and that Apple can afford to offer a much better experience than anyone else.
News distributors should also keep an eye on the evolution of aggregators. Since last summer, I’ve collected my news mostly with Laserlike, a startup created by a group of Google alumni who wants to reinvent search for news. As for Feedly, it upgrades its service continually. Also on my watch list: the China giant Toutiao, which carries a staggering engagement time of 74 minutes per day (50 percent more than Facebook and 3.5× time spent on Snapchat), thanks to its AI engine. Toutiao, leaning on its $11 billion valuation, wants to move aggressively into the West. I’ll also keep an eye on messaging apps: They tend to overtake social engagement, and therefore could become an essential vector for news. But, as history repeats itself, expect difficulties with monetization.
Digital advertising for news is dying. Only 18 months ago, outlets like BuzzFeed or Vice News were considered models for great ad strategies. Now they’re laying people off. When it comes to BuzzFeed, my take is their costly, high-quality news division is poised for a significant shift, a spinoff being the best case scenario. Unsurprisingly, Facebook and Google are sucking up everybody’s advertising oxygen. Last year, according to GroupM, the world largest media buyer, the duopoly captured 84 percent of all digital investment (excluding China), but also 186 percent of the growth. That means everyone else is losing.
It’s time for publishers to rethink their ad model with fewer but better-sold ads. Users get increasingly sick with invasive ads and can’t stand Outbrain/Taboola/Revcontent’s mediocrity: It ruins the reader’s experience and damages the credibility of the brand, while on the business side, they create a massive user data-leak. My take is high-end publishers will move away from these models. That means that paid-for products will gain traction, paywalls will tighten further, and new transactional systems could emerge, lowering the mental cost of a subscription.
On the fake news front, over the past 18 months, we saw at least seven electoral processes disrupted by information-related manipulations: the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Kenya, India, and most likely the referendum in Spain. Every democratic process will somehow be affected by waves of misinformation, originating either from ideological groups or state-sponsored players. Platforms will continue their effort to contain the pandemic. However, smart fake news providers will always find a way to cheat Google’s algorithms (unless it goes for a massive blacklisting, which it can’t). As for Facebook, I will believe in its commitment to fight fake news and misinformation when Mark Zuckerberg announces that he will consent to a significant impact on the company’s revenues in order to combat false information. No worries, it won’t happen.
The only hope for a serious pushback against misinformation will come from progress in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural language processing. But it will take a while to come up with reliable models able to process at scale a firehose of news.
2018 will see a severe regulatory pushback against platforms, essentially initiated from Europe. It will be on three fronts: taxes, privacy, and abuse of dominant position. Margrethe Vestager, the EU commissioner for competition, will focus on Google, her target of choice. Due to her propensity to wage rearguard battles, she will ignore predatory practices of Amazon and Facebook’s constant assault on privacy. But she rides a powerful ideological wave. For the Big Four, the only way to prevent that would be a move toward paying their fair share of taxes. With smart PR, they could appear as the good guys. But, again, it won’t happen. Silicon Valley is the ultimate cognitive bubble, remember.
Frederic Filloux is editor of the Monday Note and leader of the News Quality Scoring Project.
Claire Wardle Disinformation gets worse
Kinsey Wilson Facebook and Google: Help out or pay up
Dheerja Kaur Fun with subscription products
S. Mitra Kalita The arc of news and audience
Jamie Mottram From pageviews to t-shirts
Mi-Ai Parrish Blockchain and trust
Heather Bryant Building the ecosystems for collaboration
Amy Webb Listen to weak signals
Manoush Zomorodi Self-help as a publishing strategy
Jim Brady With the people, not just of the people
Andrew Ramsammy The year ownership mattered
Susie Banikarim R.I.P. Pivot to Video (2017–2017)
Ray Soto VR reaches the next level
Helen Havlak Keywords, not publishers, power the world’s biggest feeds
Rodney Gibbs Tech workers turn to journalism
Kristen Muller The year of the voter
Eric Ulken The year local publishers get smart(er) about change
Hossein Derakhshan Television has won
An Xiao Mina Memes and visuals come to the fore
Tanzina Vega It’s time for media companies to #PassTheMic
Jennifer Brandel and Mónica Guzmán The editorial meeting of the future
Kawandeep Virdee Zines had it right all along
Rachel Schallom Better design helps differentiate opinion and news
Marcela Donini and Thiago Herdy Collaboration is the way forward for Brazilian journalism
Felix Salmon Covering bitcoin while owning bitcoin
Renée Kaplan The year of quiet adjustments (shhh)
Debra Adams Simmons And a woman shall lead them
Mike Caulfield Refactoring media literacy for the networked age
Alastair Coote The year of self-improvement
Feli Sánchez The year for guerrilla user research
Charo Henríquez Training is an investment, not an expense
P. Kim Bui The reckoning is only beginning
Brian Lam Sketchy ethics around product reviews
Steve Grove The midterms are an opportunity
Evie Nagy Pivot to mobile video frustration
Nushin Rashidian Publishers seek ad dollar alternatives
Jessica Parker Gilbert Design connects storytelling and strategy
Julia B. Chan Looking for loyalty in all the right places
José Zamora Revenue-first journalism
Craig Newmark Working together toward sustainable solutions
Lucas Graves From algorithms to institutions
Emma Carew Grovum Newsroom culture becomes a priority
Caitria O'Neill The new court of public opinion
Niketa Patel Live journalism comes of age
Raju Narisetti Mirror, mirror on the wall
Matt Thompson Here come the attention managers
Ståle Grut Reclaiming audience interaction from social networks
Dannagal G. Young Stop covering politics as a game
Zizi Papacharissi Women come back
David Skok Finding an information-life balance
Carlos Martínez de la Serna The new journalism commons
Sam Ford The year of investing in processes
Mira Lowe The year of the local watchdog
Juliette De Maeyer A responsible press criticism
Damon Krukowski Reviving the alt-weekly soul
Tamar Charney We get serious about algorithms
Corey Ford The empire strikes back
Monika Bauerlein The firehose of falsehood
Alan Soon The rise of start of psychographic, micro-targeted media
Matt DeRienzo A recession, then a collapse
Elizabeth Jensen Show your work
Caitlin Thompson Podcasting models mature and diversify
Rachel Davis Mersey AI, with real smarts
Sara M. Watson Feeds will open up to new user-determined filters
Michael Kuntz The only pivot that might work
Eric Nuzum Beyond the narrative arc
Hannah Cassius The year of the echo-chamber escapists
Mario García Storytelling finally adapts to mobile
Federica Cherubini The rise of bridge roles in news organizations
Kyle Ellis Let’s build our way out of this
Pete Brown Push alerts, personalized
Yvonne Leow The rise of video messaging
Sam Sanders Shine the light on ourselves
Alfred Hermida Going beyond mobile-first
Jesse Holcomb Information disorder, coming to a congressional district near you
Edward Roussel Eyes, ears, and brains
Nicholas Quah Stop talking trash about young people
Mandy Velez texting is lit rn, fam
Umbreen Bhatti The trust problem isn’t new
Daniel Trielli The rich get richer, the poor scramble
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen The Snapchat scenario and the risk of more closed platforms
Julia Beizer A longer view on the pivot
Mary Walter-Brown Show a little vulnerability
Carrie Brown-Smith Transparency finally takes off
Millie Tran and Stine Bauer Dahlberg (Hint: It’s about your brand)
Andrew Haeg The year journalists become relationship builders
Emily Goligoski Looking beyond news for inspiration
Jassim Ahmad Thriving on change
Jacqui Cheng Retailers move into content
Alice Antheaume Are you fluent in AI?
Cindy Royal Your journalism curriculum is obsolete
Mary Meehan Real lives are at stake in rural areas
Raney Aronson-Rath Transparency is the antidote to fake news
Borja Echevarría TV goes digital, digital goes TV
Vanessa K. DeLuca Women’s voices take center stage
Bill Keller A growing turn to philanthropy
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Publishing less to give readers more
Doris Truong Computer vision vs. the Internet vigilantes
Juleyka Lantigua Women of color will reclaim and monetize our time
Nicholas Diakopoulos Fortifying social media from automated inauthenticity
Matt Boggie The intellectual equivalent of the Dead Sea
Adam Thomas Sharing is caring: The year of the mentor
Marie Gilot No assholes allowed
Sally Lehrman Trust comes first
Cory Haik Suffering from realness, pivoting to impact
Justin Kosslyn The year journalists become digital security experts
Rodney Benson Better, less read, and less trusted
Richard Tofel The platforms’ power demands more reporters’ attention
Jennifer Coogan The future is female
Will Sommer The year local media gets conservative
Amie Ferris-Rotman More female reporters abroad (please)
Amy King Let’s amplify visual voice
Michelle Garcia Navigating journalistic transparency
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer Skepticism and narcissism
Lanre Akinola Making noise is not a strategy
Aron Pilhofer We can’t leave the business to the business side any more
Kathleen McElroy Building a news video experience native to mobile
Francesco Marconi The year of machine-to-machine journalism
Ruth Palmer Risks will grow for news subjects — especially minorities
Joanne Lipman Journalists inventing revenue streams
Rubina Madan Fillion Unlocking the potential of AI
Trushar Barot The Jio-fication of India
Matt Carlson Attacks on the press will get worse
Jim Moroney Newspapers have to be good enough for readers to pay for
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Seeking trust in fragmented spaces
Jarrod Dicker Honesty in advertising
Mariana Moura Santos Think local, act global
Monique Judge Letting black women tell their own stories
Michelle Ferrier The year of the great reckoning
Dan Shanoff You down with OTT? (Yeah, DTC)
Rick Berke Value is the watchword
Mariano Blejman News games rule
Sarah Marshall Loyalty as the key performance indicator
Joyce Barnathan It will be harder to bury the news
Lam Thuy Vo Breaking free from the tyranny of the loudest
Christopher Meighan Passive partnership is in the rearview
Jennifer Choi Standing up for us and for each other
Molly de Aguiar Good journalism won’t be enough
Laura E. Davis Writing answers before you know the question
Alexios Mantzarlis Moving fake news research out of the lab
Luke O'Neil The end is already here
Basile Simon We need better career paths for news nerds
Joanne McNeil Gatekeeping the gatekeepers
Kim Fox Audience teams diversify their approach
Nikki Usher The year of The Washington Post
Jared Newman Venture funding and digital news don’t mix
Pablo Boczkowski The rise of skeptical reading
Andrew Losowsky The year of resilience
Corey Johnson The pro-fact resistance
Vivian Schiller Pivot to tomorrow
Tanya Cordrey Finally, the seeds of radical reinvention
Taylor Lorenz Social and media will split
C.W. Anderson The social media apocalypse
Imaeyen Ibanga Longform video leads the way
Gordon Crovitz Serving readers over advertisers
Tracie Powell The muting of underserved voices
Errin Haines At the ballot, it’s time to count black women
Cristina Wilson The year of the Instagram Story
Pia Frey Address users as individuals
Miguel Castro The arrival of the impact producer
Tim Carmody Watch out for Spotify