Where are the pitchable consumer tech podcasts? So many of them are produced by people who disregard pitches. So we used our best judgment building this cheat sheet — which ones might you have a ghost of a chance of influencing?
We’re really trying to thread the needle on this one: who are the consumer tech journalists who aren’t necessarily product reviewers, and who don’t specialize in particular products or brands? Simply put, who are the consumer tech generalists?
Most of the 11 targets write either for low-traffic sites, or sites you’ve barely heard of, or both.
SWMS contributor Rhiannon Pacheco writes: Landing a product review in Wired is a big win. We sat down with senior editor Michael Calore to learn more about who and how to pitch, whether Wired takes exclusives, and how product coverage can be a cultural reflection of sorts.
Most B2B publications serve professional buyers of products and services. In B2C, typically, it’s all about passions. Is parenthood a passion? Some Spider Studios knows it is. The NYC-based web publisher is doing pretty well these days with the combination of Scary Mommy, Fatherly and The Dad.
Context and emotion aren’t just coming — they’re here. The New York Times has begun classifying its articles by the emotions they generate. Sirius/XM recently launched several new audio channels programmed for listening while partying, barbecuing or working out. The newest clean-slate industry in America, cannabis, sells its products by context and emotion, too.
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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 to harness Claude’s power for comms purposes. Follow him and learn.
Press Gazette has a great story about Google reintroducing AI summaries into search results — less so in queries about breaking news, but definitely when someone searches for trend or how-to info. Convenient for users, maybe… but publishers stand to lose a ton of long-tail traffic because of this. No wonder the vast majority of publisher “innovation” is about commerce or consulting and no longer builds upon journalism.
CNBC Make It had a popular video franchise called My Biggest Lessons, in which CEOs shared something valuable that they learned along the way. No new segments have appeared since May 31. We’ll monitor this for you.
Great reporting from Mark Stenberg at Adweek. Two departures on the sales side seem to have hurt. The story also suggests that former Fortune CEO Alan Murray — who said he was retiring — may turn up at WSJ. Fortune is said to have released Murray from his noncompete, taking his word that he was ending his career.
Adweek subscription required.
Ten months ago SWMS spotlighted five up-and-coming Fortune reporters, suggesting that PR get to know these rookies. Where are they now? Jane Thier continues to excel in the Success section. Ruth Umoh now edits Next To Lead. Kylie Robison split for The Verge. Rachyl Jones is a fellow at Semafor. Alexandra Sternlicht this summer won a Knight-Bagehot fellowship at Columbia. Competition for this is brutal — congrats Alexandra!
