Adweek’s 22 Most Popular Stories of 2022

If you’re feeling slightly out of breath and confused that the year is almost over, you’re not alone–it felt like we packed 18 months into 2022. One reason is because the world looks so different from where we started in January. Crypto companies ruled the Super Bowl, but by November the entire industry was quaking…

As the Platforms Stumble, Some Publishers See Increased Ad Spend

For nearly a decade, the digital advertising ecosystem has been dominated by a handful of social media platforms, whose data-rich targeting, ease of use and reliable performance revolutionized the field. But according to proprietary data collected for Adweek by executive research firm NewtonX, a confluence of emerging factors has loosened the platforms’ stranglehold on the…

After Further Revue, Twitter to Shut Down Newsletter Publishing Platform Jan. 18

Twitter is shutting down Revue, the newsletter publishing platform it acquired in January 2021. Revue founder Martijn de Kuijper said in a post on the company’s website that the platform will shut down Jan. 18 and all data will be deleted, adding, “This has been a hard decision because we know Revue has a passionate…

How to Come First in First-Party Data 

While big tech and regulation still play out, The New York Times continues to lead first-party data collection with products backed by the growth of its incredible subscriber base. Erin Hennessy, executive director of product marketing and insights at The Times, joined Adweek’s NexTech Summit to discuss how her team is setting the standard for…

Semafor Will Generate 30% of Its First-Year Revenue From Events

The news and business publisher Semafor is on pace to generate nearly one-third of its first-year revenue from SemaforX, its experiential business, according to co-founder and chief executive Justin Smith–a percentage that will likely increase in 2023 as it expands its portfolio from 15 to more than 40 global events. Partly, this is thanks to…

Vox Media Will No Longer License Chorus, Its CMS Software

The digital media company Vox Media, which houses editorial titles including Vox, New York Magazine and Thrillist, is discontinuing its business of licensing its content management system, Chorus, to publishers, Adweek has learned. Chorus, which has six clients currently, will no longer take on new customers and will not renew its existing contracts, according to…

Harlequin Teams Up With Audio Up to Adapt 52 Romance Titles Into Scripted Podcasts

Audio production company Audio Up Media and book publishing house Harlequin Enterprises are teaming up to adapt 52 of the publisher’s romance titles into scripted podcast series, with an eye to also turn these into–more highly monetizable–TV series. Audio Up, also home to mental health and wellness podcast Maejor Frequency, has experience in turning series,…

Condé Nast Unveils New Commercial Products for 2023 to Diversify Revenue

As businesses prepare for a new calendar year, Cond? Nast has unveiled a number of new commercial products, as well as enhancing existing ones, with the aim of making it easier for clients to work with the publisher amid an uncertain economic climate. The offerings fall into two camps, according to Deborah Brett, global chief…

Affiliate Marketing Needs a ‘Big Tent’ to Keep Growing

For an industry with partnerships and relationships at its core, the affiliate marketing world is shockingly siloed. Media sellers and programmatic ad-tech companies have a long history of collaboration in areas like standards and measurement. Organizations like the Interactive Advertising Bureau have dedicated working groups where partners and competitors come together to brainstorm and enact…

Outside Media Lays Off 12% of Staff

Lifestyle media company Outside Media, which houses titles including Backpacker, Ski and Climbing, laid off 12% of its workforce Tuesday, according to a memo sent by founder and CEO Robin Thurston. The layoffs primarily affect roles in content and journalism, and stem largely from slowing consumer appetite and a softening digital ad market, Thurston told…

Publishers Are Moving Away From Open Auctions. Advertisers Must Follow

Publishers often express concerns about the programmatic open market, but Bloomberg Media took a more decisive step recently. The company said it would stop serving open-market third-party programmatic display advertising on its website and mobile app when the new year begins. Publishers, advertisers and ad-tech players should pay attention to this development because it validates…

Publishers Expand Parenting Content to Entice Child-Rearing Millennials

When the first wave of digitally native publishers launched in the early aughts, they initially aimed to attract an audience of millennials by creating content–cat videos, adulting fails, life hacks–that resonated with young adults of the era. Now, more than a decade later, much of that millennial audience has found itself in an entirely new…

Insider’s Paywall Pivot Hits Roadblock From Union Pushback

The business and culture publisher Insider has hit a roadblock in its plan to place more editorial content in front of its paywall, according to internal communications obtained by Adweek. The strategy, first reported by Axios earlier this month, aimed to increase the amount of traffic the publisher generated through an internal reorganization. To do…

Code and Theory’s Dan Gardner Reveals New Media Company Designed to Help Readers Understand Technology

LISBON–Code and Theory founder Dan Gardner and Social Media Week founder and chair Toby Daniels, a former Adweek employee, are launching a media company with 28 other founders next year called ON_Discourse. Together, the founders make up a decentralized autonomous organization, called a DAO. DAOs have no central authority and, as a result, ON_Discourse members…

Newsletters Are Booming. Can Their Ad Products Catch Up? 

Over the last decade, publishers’ drive to maximize their digital advertising revenues nearly ruined the open web, as the financial incentive to monetize every inch of digital real estate led to a whack-a-mole landscape of pop-ups ads that sacrificed sensible design for the sake of profit. Now, even as publishers have begun to prioritize user…

Hot Off the Presses: Publishing Week 2022

There’s an elephant in the publishing room: third-party cookies. While Google’s deprecation of the third-party cookie has been pushed back a few times, it’s a reality the media industry still has to contend with. From October 18-19 leaders and executives from the top media and publishing companies gathered virtually to discuss how they plan to…

Social Logins, Increasingly a Liability for Publishers, Are Fading From Sites

Social logins, the options people have to log in to a website with credentials from their social platforms like Facebook or Google, are increasingly falling out of favor among publishers amid increasing privacy regulation and media companies’ desire to own their relationship with audiences, four sources told Adweek. When social logins started popping up on…

With Its Recent Launch, Semafor Is Rising to Meet the Current Media Moment

The media landscape is at an inflection point, but it’s also ripe for innovation. In 2022, global audiences share more consumer frustrations than ever. So do brands, clients and partners. All are looking for new opportunities and fundamental change. Enter a new wave of media organizations looking to create solutions to some of our industry’s…

The BuzzFeed Blend: How the Publisher Is Harnessing the Power of IRL Events

As publishers stand up more in-person events, many are working to determine how to best incorporate the virtual offerings they launched during the pandemic into their larger events portfolio. The pandemic changed not only the technology and logistics of the events themselves but also consumers’ expectations, motivations and perceptions of value. BuzzFeed’s chief revenue officer,…

How Publishers Can Capitalize on the Rise of Intent Media

The intent media model has come to dominate the digital media world, and Future plc is one of its most well-known practitioners. Future’s chief revenue officer, Zack Sullivan, joined Adweek media editor Lucinda Southern at Publishing Week to discuss the rise of intent media, how the pandemic changed the consumer buying journey forever, and what…