This week I go on not one but two rants. Mashable hires some bankers. Spotify needs to talk to their bankers. And I announce a side project. Enjoy!



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🎵 Too Many Pivots, Not Enough Goals 🎵





While every ad tech company and it’s Canadian brother is touting their machine learning algorithms, every venture funded publisher and its mustachioed sibling is pivoting to video. It’s so common we’ve reached the “dumb explainer” level of ubiquity.



The latest example is Mic. Who announced this week that they’re laying off some people and pivoting to video. My opinions on this strategy tends to fall more on the product side than the ad tech side of things. By that I mean successful companies are those who spend all of their effort building the best possible product. So if a company pivots to video because they believe it helps them better tell their stories or reach an audience they couldn’t previously, then it’s smart. But when product decisions are made purely to scoop ad dollars that product is probably not long for this world. Make shit people love, then work really really hard to make it even better.





Did Jason Kint Mention “Duopoly” This Week?





Yep, nine times this week. But I’d rather focus on the ten times he cold-replied to people hyping his own article. Not that I expect anything less but man… desperation is a stinky cologne.

Current streak: 12 weeks







Other Articles





Google Tests Subscription Tool for Publishers

Yeah I don’t like this trend one bit. This is where Jason Kint and I align. Google and Facebook are not our friends. They don’t do things simply as “an olive branch” and woe to the publisher who believes that shit.



🚨 🚨 Goldman Sells Spotify Shares Even As Bank Tunes Into $13bn Float 🚨 🚨

I don’t fully understand what’s going on here but I have a hard time believing this is a vote of confidence for Spotify. To me, the headline “bank sells half its stake in company it’s taking public, before said company goes public” is as big a red flag as I can find. This week’s BFD.



NBC’s Daily Snapchat Show Posts Monster Numbers

Consider this my second rant of the week. Between this article and the business insider article about BuzzFeed’s ‘Worth It’ I’m starting to notice a trend. That trend is where digital companies try to sound like they’re on par with TV by using huge bullshit numbers.



I call them bullshit numbers for two reasons. The Snapchat example they don’t tell you what they count a view as, but I’ve unofficially heard it might be something as simple as having watched 1s of the episode. The Buzzfeed example just uses reach (or views). If you’re going to give a number like views you should also give an average view duration. If 280MM people watch a video for 20s and the first ad break isn’t until after the second minute then, as a marketer, do I even care?





Mashable Hires Bankers to Study Options Including Sale

I get the sense that Mashable isn’t looking to sell but isn’t not looking to sell either. They want to raise more money, but Pete Cashmore (apparently) doesn’t want to dilute his stake without an increase in valuation, but no media companies are getting increased valuations… so… maybe they sell?



In case you’re missing it, the issue we’re seeing now is that any publisher who isn’t default alive is scrambling to reduce their run rate (lay people off), increase their revenue (pivot to video), raise money- often in strange ways- (like private equity deals without any follow on investors or direct listing their stock), or if all else fails… sell themselves.



This is why everytime people get excited when publisher-x raises a big round, I tend to be a little more subdued. No VC hands over money hoping a publisher shores up their core business and gets to break-even. They hand over money because they want that publisher to ramp up and either become a unicorn or die trying. That pressure can make normally sane companies do crazy shit (like make up bullshit video engagement rates) to merit their high valuation. I have no idea if that’s what’s going on with Mashable but I wouldn’t be surprised.



The Road To Rocket Fuel’s Sale

If the Mashable story has you depressed as a publisher… at least you’re not an ad tech company with a thin value-prop trying to sell yourself.



How NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts Took Over the Internet

A fantastic long read about the NPR series Tiny Desk Concerts. With all the news of publishers pivoting to video it’s worthwhile to see an example of someone doing that successfully.





Quick Hits



Can Oath, The Arranged Media Marriage Of Yahoo And Aol, Avoid A Rough Divorce?

“How do you take two things that are already fucked up and put them together and expect it to work?”







Why Do Publishers Still Have Fragmented Sales Teams?





Shameless Self Promotion

No podcast this week. My next episode will air 8/29.



Until then you should really check out a little side project of mine the adops podcast archive. When I’m done with it will house all of the original adops podcast (dan layfield’s) episodes, as well as each, happens in adops podcast. For now, check out one of Dan’s first ten episode and revel in how much our industry has changed.







Thanks for reading and have a great week! Or don’t. I’m not the boss of you.

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