Interview with Nuzzel CEO Jonathan Abrams on new media investors and firm's intent to work with publishers
Joseph Lichterman / Nieman Lab :
Context & Ripple Effects
This interview extends a conversation Jonathan Abrams has been having all year: a lengthy June interview already covered his view of news discovery on Twitter, Friendster, and founders-as-CEOs. What is new here is the business framing — new media investors entering the picture and a stated intent for Nuzzel to work directly with publishers rather than sit outside the industry as a pure consumer tool.
First-order effects
- Publishers gain a potential partner in Nuzzel, which until now has operated as an independent aggregator layered on top of Twitter's firehose of shared links.
- New media investors now have a named candidate for their capital, with Abrams explicitly courting that category rather than traditional venture money alone.
Second-order effects
- The pivot toward publishers puts revenue mechanics on the table early — a path that materializes two years later when Nuzzel launches its $10/month Nuzzel Pro subscription with ad-free reading and keyword filtering.
- Twitter's role becomes more consequential: investor commentary at the time argued Nuzzel owned something Twitter itself needed most, making the startup's independence from its upstream platform a standing strategic question.
Third-order effects
- If aggregators keep drifting toward publisher alignment, the endpoint is consolidation into subscription infrastructure — realized when Scroll acquired Nuzzel in 2019 and Abrams exited, folding the tool into a broader news-subscription play.
The trend: News-adjacent aggregation startups are migrating from consumer curation tools toward publisher-aligned subscription services, with acquisitions like Scroll's purchase of Nuzzel marking the consolidation phase.