4 ms·

If any newsroom brass is reading this (or independent reporters, especially local) -- I'd love to talk. We're building a platform to help monetize journalism o

If any newsroom brass is reading this (or independent reporters, especially local) -- I'd love to talk. We're building a platform to help monetize journalism outside of the usual predatory social media/aggregator set up. jared (at) nillium (dot) com

floatingatoll 5y ago
In one sentence, what is your primary source of revenue expected to be (aside from VC funding if any)? Do you intend to sell or operate personalized advertisements? Do you intend to sell anonymized (or not) customer data as a revenue source?
- jaredwiener 5y ago
  > In one sentence, what is your primary source of revenue expected to be (aside from VC funding if any)? Freemium model: advertisement based, with a subscription fee for some extra content personalization. > Do you intend to sell or operate personalized advertisements? Not "personalized" the way that you are intending. At the moment we do fall back to programmatic bidding ads like AdMob by default, but the general idea is local based ads. Since its local news, and we know your locale, we sell to local businesses -- it's essentially the same "targeting" that your local newspaper has been doing for the last 100 years. > Do you intend to sell anonymized (or not) customer data as a revenue source? No.
  - floatingatoll 5y ago
    Excellent!
1cvmask 5y ago
How will it differ to Substack?
- jaredwiener 5y ago
  Substack is great for people who already have an audience, or when you write analysis or opinion; it doesn't really work for a team of people covering hard/spot news. It also isn't real time -- so it doesn't really work to cover things _as they are happening._ We're building a network of local journalists, along with others in national verticals. The incentive structure exists in a way to promote news people want to come back to read, not clickbait headlines, divisive or anger driving hot takes, or lowest common denominator coverage. All geared to 18-34 year olds, who are less likely to consume local news in the traditional forms, like subscribing to a local paper or watching broadcast TV.
  - exolymph 5y ago
    Counterpoint, "Judd Legum proved that investigative journalism can thrive on Substack": https://simonowens.substack.com/p/judd-legum-proved-that-investigative https://simonowens.substack.com/p/judd-legum-proved-that-inv...
    - jaredwiener 5y ago
      Yes, he has done a really great job with Popular Information. Still -- a few fine points on this: - He's covering topics of national interest, which is very different than local when it comes to subscription numbers. - To that point, "Twitter continues to be the biggest driver of newsletter signups." We've seen that it can be incredibly difficult for local news to trend on social media, namely because -- by definition -- it appeals to a limited audience. - By being investigative only, it means he can choose what he is willing to cover. Investigative reporting is incredibly important, but it can be very different than replacing local newspapers -- while they can do investigative pieces as well, so much of what they do is covering the events around their coverage area. That takes a team of people, because you cannot be everywhere at once. - He has a big name. True, he might not have been famous when he started, but the article itself points out that he was able to gain coverage in Wired because what he was doing was such a novelty. Now, the headline of the Substack you linked to doesn't even need to include the name of his newsletter, his own name is so well known.
  - arrosenberg 5y ago
wanderingmind 5y ago
I think this deserves a separate Show HN post.
- jaredwiener 5y ago
  Done! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28989779 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28989779

floatingatoll 5y ago

In one sentence, what is your primary source of revenue expected to be (aside from VC funding if any)? Do you intend to sell or operate personalized advertisements? Do you intend to sell anonymized (or not) customer data as a revenue source?

jaredwiener 5y ago
> In one sentence, what is your primary source of revenue expected to be (aside from VC funding if any)? Freemium model: advertisement based, with a subscription fee for some extra content personalization. > Do you intend to sell or operate personalized advertisements? Not "personalized" the way that you are intending. At the moment we do fall back to programmatic bidding ads like AdMob by default, but the general idea is local based ads. Since its local news, and we know your locale, we sell to local businesses -- it's essentially the same "targeting" that your local newspaper has been doing for the last 100 years. > Do you intend to sell anonymized (or not) customer data as a revenue source? No.
- floatingatoll 5y ago
  Excellent!

1cvmask 5y ago

How will it differ to Substack?

jaredwiener 5y ago
Substack is great for people who already have an audience, or when you write analysis or opinion; it doesn't really work for a team of people covering hard/spot news. It also isn't real time -- so it doesn't really work to cover things _as they are happening._ We're building a network of local journalists, along with others in national verticals. The incentive structure exists in a way to promote news people want to come back to read, not clickbait headlines, divisive or anger driving hot takes, or lowest common denominator coverage. All geared to 18-34 year olds, who are less likely to consume local news in the traditional forms, like subscribing to a local paper or watching broadcast TV.
- exolymph 5y ago
  Counterpoint, "Judd Legum proved that investigative journalism can thrive on Substack": https://simonowens.substack.com/p/judd-legum-proved-that-investigative https://simonowens.substack.com/p/judd-legum-proved-that-inv...
  - jaredwiener 5y ago
    Yes, he has done a really great job with Popular Information. Still -- a few fine points on this: - He's covering topics of national interest, which is very different than local when it comes to subscription numbers. - To that point, "Twitter continues to be the biggest driver of newsletter signups." We've seen that it can be incredibly difficult for local news to trend on social media, namely because -- by definition -- it appeals to a limited audience. - By being investigative only, it means he can choose what he is willing to cover. Investigative reporting is incredibly important, but it can be very different than replacing local newspapers -- while they can do investigative pieces as well, so much of what they do is covering the events around their coverage area. That takes a team of people, because you cannot be everywhere at once. - He has a big name. True, he might not have been famous when he started, but the article itself points out that he was able to gain coverage in Wired because what he was doing was such a novelty. Now, the headline of the Substack you linked to doesn't even need to include the name of his newsletter, his own name is so well known.
- arrosenberg 5y ago

wanderingmind 5y ago

I think this deserves a separate Show HN post.

jaredwiener 5y ago
Done! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28989779 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28989779