As social media platforms pivot away from news distribution, a look at news sites like The Verge, which feel more like social media, with aggregation and more
As social networks become less reliable distributors of the news, consumers of digital journalism are seeking out an older form of online real estate.
New YorkerKyle Chayka
Context & Ripple Effects
The retreat of major social platforms from news distribution has already pushed publishers back toward homepage traffic and other direct destinations, following Facebook’s news pullback and Twitter’s deterioration. The Verge is presented here as part of that return, using aggregation and social-style features within a publisher-controlled site.
News publishers such as The Verge have greater incentive to make their own sites habitual destinations, adding aggregation and participatory features that can replace some lost social discovery.
Readers seeking news beyond unreliable social feeds encounter more publisher-curated, feed-like experiences on the open web.
Second-order effects
Competition for direct audience attention shifts from individual articles toward the quality of a site’s recurring interface: curation, navigation, community, and return visits.
Creator-led news accounts remain an alternative discovery layer, but publishers that build destination products may reduce their dependence on any one platform’s referral choices.
Third-order effects
If this pattern persists, digital news distribution becomes less centralized around social referral and more fragmented among owned publisher products and independent creator channels.
The durable advantage may move toward outlets that can combine editorial authority with a useful daily interface, rather than relying primarily on platform amplification.
The trend: News publishers are rebuilding direct, socially shaped destinations as platforms retreat from serving as dependable gateways to journalism.
Fascinated by all this discourse around direct traffic. Anyone sensible has had a long term strategy of trying to build longer term loyalty from new readers. This isn't easy and we all need better tactics. But we love the idea of a pivot in this industry (real and imagined)
THIS from @chaykak “One welcome lesson of the post-platform Internet is that sticking to what you're good at might be a better strategy in the long run than trying to make content that's popular.” https://www.newyorker.com/...
I wrote a year ago about how digital media was returning to the 2000s, with sites like HuffPost and Fox News building strategies around their strong homepage traffic https://www.semafor.com/...
I think this also speaks to the fact that internet users desire more constructive aggregation, because social media really isn't doing it at this point. Threads will actively prevent you from knowing what's happening today lol, hence, newsletters, single-glance landing pages
I've edited home pages you people wouldn't believe. Banner headlines on fire after emails from the EIC. I watched slideshows glitter in the dark under the newsroom skylight. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die. https://www.newyorker.com/...
My @NewYorker column this week: Websites are back baby!!! type in a homepage URL today, fight the homogenization of the platform internet. ft. @reckless, @semaforben, @DefectorMedia, @aldaily https://www.newyorker.com/...
This totally surprised us at @HellGateNY as well. Thought people would be coming to our site thru social, but nope, mostly just people steering to our site and hitting the ol' refresh button a few times a day. Millenial blog-consumption habits are tough to break bb
I think that as the platform era deconstructs, we're seeing more individual publication sites that actually function like social media, with good aggregation, real-time updates, and a lot of multimedia
“Surrounded by dreck, the digital citizen is discovering that the best way to find what she used to get from social platforms is to type a URL into a browser bar” https://www.newyorker.com/...