In 2019, publishers will find competition (and, in some cases, a lifeboat) in a surprising place.
Platforms like Google, Facebook, Snapchat and even Apple have played coy regarding their role as media companies for years. That will change in 2019.
Facing diminishing engagement, strained partnerships, allegations of data misuse, political bias and the perpetuation of misinformation, these platforms will finally admit that the only path forward is to go all-in: It’s not enough to simply curate content and platforms must take on the role of creating content as well. These companies will hire (and maybe even acquire) large editorial teams to produce news, video, music, movies and more in-house — and begin to deleverage themselves from a group of publishers that have increasingly soured on the relationships.
There’s already precedent for this model: Netflix. Facing the expiration of streaming rights with networks that, too, resented the disruption that the platform created, Netflix did the only thing they could: they doubled down on originals. As a result, the streaming platform will soon (if not already) be better known for its original series than as a platform that syndicates shows from traditional television networks. 2019 will be the year the other platforms realize they have to do the same.
Retailers and consumer brands will join the fun as well. Realizing engagement is an effective sales strategy, consumer brands will begin aggressively acquiring content in an attempt to cultivate a community around their products. And like platforms, they’ll lean on the companies that already know how to do this well: publishers, who will be more than happy to consult or license content for the right price.
Amazon’s already doing this. Prime Video is an attempt to keep shoppers within the Amazon ecosystem, and to create additional incentives to pay for “free” two-day shipping (Prime members spend nearly twice as much on Amazon as non-Prime members). The retail giant has also begun natively-hosting product reviews, including those written by my employer, Wirecutter, to help shoppers discover products otherwise buried in a stream of search results.
In 2019, more of these initiatives will crop up — and I expect they’ll include an increasingly diverse cohort of companies. Travel and luxury brands will invest in content to inspire use of their products and services (hello, AirBnB magazine). Pop charts will live on Spotify, restaurant reviews will be published on Open Table and you’ll brush up on gaming tips directly on your Nintendo Switch.
2019 will be the year that platforms (and consumer brands) stop tiptoeing and finally embrace their role as a publisher of record. When that happens, I suspect many of us will feel the heat — but perhaps a few of us will also find opportunity.
Mat Yurow leads Wirecutter Money, a personal finance initiative from Wirecutter, The New York Times Company’s product recommendation service.
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Salem Solomon Correcting our corrections
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Sarah Marshall A return to destination journalism
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Elizabeth Jensen Going where the Acela can’t take you
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Jim Friedlich Meet Citizen Kane 2.0
Frank Chimero Leave the phone at home and put news on your wrist
Ernie Smith The year we step back from the platform
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Thomas Hanitzsch The rise of tribal journalism
M. Scott Havens Time to swing for the fences
Whitney Phillips Our information systems aren’t broken — they’re working as intended
Julie Posetti The year of the fight back
Francesco Zaffarano Towards a rethinking of journalism on social media
J. Siguru Wahutu Think 2018 was bad? Wait until you see 2019
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Jeff Chin We detox from Chartbeat
Rachel Glickhouse Newsrooms will prioritize audience needs
Kainaz Amaria We consider who’s behind the camera
Andrew Donohue Voting rights becomes the new climate change
Alberto Cairo A year of uncertainty and confidence
Julia Rubin Meeting people where they are
Logan Molyneux Seeing social media for what it is
Claire Wardle Forget deepfakes: Misinformation is showing up in our most personal online spaces
Charo Henríquez Pivot to journalism
John Garrett You can’t raise prices forever
Amy King We should listen to the kids (especially on Instagram)
Nico Gendron Reaching Generation Z beyond the coasts
Kjerstin Thorson Time to get mad about information inequality (again)
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Readers are only getting started
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Eric Nuzum The year of the DIY podcast network
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Matt Waite “I went to Node.js because I wished to live deliberately”
Mandy Jenkins Fight the urge to run away from social media
Joanne McNeil Building a digital hospice
Eric Ulken The year you actually start to like your CMS
Bill Adair Another year fighting Trump’s falsehoods
Gabriel Snyder Journalism doesn’t fit well in a funnel
Jared Newman AI-generated fakes launch a software arms race
Zainab Khan Publishers whose products can stand up to social media giants will win
Pia Frey You can’t solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis
Heather Bryant We are responsible for how we use our power
Alexandra Borchardt Newsrooms need to build trust with their journalists, not just the audience
Jonas Kaiser Catching up with “Neuland”
Jesse Brown Canada’s subsidy for news backfires
Jake Shapiro Podcasting is media’s slow food movement
Rebecca Lee Sanchez We are all actors in the running rampant of political theater
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Mike Isaac The old exit doors for digital media companies are closing
Dheerja Kaur A focus on problems, not platforms
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Steve Myers From trying to cover it all to covering what matters
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Talia Stroud Engaging people across lines of difference
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Andrew Ramsammy The great re-pivot to audio
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Zuzanna Ziomecka News leadership gets an overdue upgrade
Andrea Faye Hart Doing less harm, not just more good
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Don Day Timewalls and other reader revenue experiments
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Sarah Stonbely Mapping the local news ecosystem — with scale but detail
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