TechCrunch Redesigns
October 2, 2024
1:42 pm
TechCrunch redesigned this week. Still green, less clutter. Built for the phone. Events and newsletters rank higher in the home page scroll than startups, venture
>> Sam Whitmore
Wired To Launch Awards Program
September 29, 2024
8:28 am
Adweek’s Mark Stenberg reports that Wired is getting into the awards business. The Wired 101 Awards will debut in October. Be on the lookout for
BI’s AI-based Paywall Increased Conversions by 75 Percent
September 25, 2024
6:29 am
BI’s publishing software knows what you’ve clicked on before and where you came from. Through Google Analytics, BI also knows how all readers react to
Prepare for Axel Springer to Acquire Publications
September 22, 2024
5:20 am
Now that it has sold off its classifieds business, the owner of Politico and Business Insider will go shopping for more titles. Don’t be surprised
Follow Anthropic’s Steve Mnich For Guidance on Claude
September 9, 2024
10:01 am
Steve is a longtime friend of SWMS and worked at subscriber LaunchSquad before moving on to IBM, Salesforce and now Anthropic. Steve knows exactly how
27 B2B Newsletters, All In One Place
July 23, 2024
6:04 am
The UK-based newsletter company called Trending Now uses AI to scrape what’s trending across 27 areas of B2B. Press Gazette has additional detail. The company
Semafor Goes AI Crazy
May 23, 2024
3:33 pm
Fourteen of 19 tech stories in the Semafor technology section are about AI. Two of the five outliers were about TikTok’s potential sale. Semafor sells
Refinery29 Buys An Event Company
May 8, 2024
8:41 am
Another scoop from Sara Fischer at Axios: Refinery29 is “taking over” B2C event brand Beautycon, among the most successful F2F events in the beauty space.
Microsoft Now Powering Semafor With AI
March 5, 2024
9:36 am
Visit Semafor and you’ll see lots of headlines with blue stars next to them. Semafor reporters write these articles, which then are extended by ChatGPT
The Economist, On Its Own Writing Style
October 6, 2023
9:11 am
The Economist this week held a 60-minute webinar on the topic of its own writing style. Three editors emphasized the power of simplicity: “old, short
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FRIDGE NOTES
Right-Wing Podcasts: Dare You Pitch Them?
November 24, 2025
The day is coming that you will not be able to avoid framing the targets in terms of red or blue. So far you’ve been able to do that. Those days are coming to a close: large swaths of “the audience” are headed in this direction. If you don’t believe it, read this from Bloomberg. You will never see better reporting than this.
GEO and AEO: Be Careful of What You Promise the Clients
November 19, 2025
Superb reporting from Business Insider on what comes after Google Search. All the experts quizzed. The gist: these technologies and techniques are borderline mythical at this point.
AI-Driven Security Threats: A Threat to Edit ‘Shelf Space’ Too?
November 18, 2025
In the latest installment of Sound Thinking...David Strom, a well-known IT reporter and security expert, discusses the threat of AI tricking security systems and luring them to catastrophe. What will that mean to editors? When will it happen? It’s not an if, it’s a when.
Nieman Labs 2026 Predictions for B2B Media
November 11, 2025
Good vision here from Jay Lauf. Interestingly, Jay suggests that B2B publishing will become a service business to B2B pros, providing value directly to individuals and organizations. Static content is dying very quickly. This is the point of the analysis from this great media organization.
SWMS ‘Sound Thinking’ Topics: Literacy Rate, Ad Trends
November 9, 2025
America can’t read anymore. The good news: advertisers can advertise against different kinds of emotion in the copy. So even if the numbers of readers drop, there are more ways to attract ads. So perhaps the bad news will get cancelled out by the good. Sam Whitmore and David Strom discuss.
Xania Rockets Up the Charts
September 22, 2025
Can you imagine not needing to be a human being to be a superstar? You may remember Max Headroom. There’s plenty of examples of technology personas, but AI is a different world altogether. Is there a tech media angle to this item? Not really, but here she is — Xania.