The Weekly Bulletin | January 7, 2025

Catch up on your members' content, check out the community buzz, and browse through job opportunities

Author

Vahe Arabian
January 07, 2025

Hi SODP community,

Happy New Year! I hope you had a chance to take some time off, recharge, and are ready to rock 2025!

Let’s recap on what’s been happening, the new content, industry updates, tips, and more.

ANNOUNCEMENT

We are delighted to announce 2nd Annual WP Publisher Success Week! We are once again partnering up with Multidots to bring our network of digital publishing and news media professionals WordPress best practices.

📆 24-28 February, 2025
📍 Online

The agenda will cover the following topics:

  • What to expect in 2025

  • Streamlining editorial workflows

  • Migration essentials

  • Security and maintenance at scale

  • Unlocking AI potential for media publishers

5 days, 5 sessions – register for a single session or the entire event.

TIP OF THE WEEK

Even Google has still not identified clear-cut viable alternatives to third-party cookies in 2024. That is why the phasing out of third-party data on Chrome is getting delayed further.

But there is no doubt that third-party data's days are numbered.

Harry Brockbanks from Ezoic highlighted three potential future trends for first-party data collection at PubTech2024:

  • The use of email lists will only increase as they are relatively easy to acquire and offer excellent performance for both publishers and advertisers.

  • When email is not available, contextual data solutions like Google Protected Audience API also hold some promise.

  • Publishers may also want to invest more in audience segmentation for a chance at better PMP deals.

In the immediate future, email offers one of the best ways for publishers to monetize first-party data using ID solutions. Advertisers have shown that they are willing to spend more when users are identified. Even on your audience side, the users are getting much better, higher-quality ad experiences.

Harry Brockbanks had this to say to publishers who are on the fence about investing in first-party data, especially email lists and ID solutions: “Right now, the demand is really high (for secure first-party data solutions). But in comparison, the supply of websites able to provide large amounts of first-party data is really low. So the time to really start taking advantage of this is now.”

SODP POSTS

Bluesky Isn’t the ‘New Twitter,’ but Its Resemblance to the Old One Is Drawing Millions of New Users

Bluesky was created in 2019 as a research project within Twitter led by then-CEO Jack Dorsey. It eventually severed ties with Twitter and became an independent company following Musk’s acquisition. The goal with Bluesky was to build a decentralized standard for social media that Twitter could eventually adopt. In that way, Bluesky is comparable to Mastodon in that they both allow for the creation of different servers that interact, and users can move their data and network between servers. But what does all this mean for your experience on Bluesky?

The Government Is Spending Millions on News, but Crucial Community Media Remains Underfunded

The Australian government has launched its News Media Assistance Program, throwing a lifeline to public interest journalism and local news. The latest push for a more diverse and sustainable news landscape also saw community broadcasters receive a modest but much-needed boost to their funding. But it largely overlooks the importance of community broadcasting in providing accessible, community-engaged news. The program falls short of meaningfully helping the chronically underfunded part of the media landscape.

JOB BOARD

➡️ Front Office Sports is seeking a dynamic director of audience development (NYC, NY, US). SEE MORE

➡️ The Telegraph needs a sport social media editor to develop and implement its social media strategy for Sport content across all platforms (London, UK). SEE MORE

COMMUNITY BUZZ

Industry News

➡️ Microsoft faces backlash after Bing mimics Google's interface, sparking criticism from Google Chrome's security chief. Microsoft designed Bing to look like Google when users search for "Google," automatically hiding Bing's branding. READ MORE

➡️ Reuters, the global newswire, and Gannett, America's largest local newspaper company, are launching a new content bundle. The partnership opens up a new content syndication revenue stream for Gannett and expands Reuters' reach into local news. READ MORE

Social Media Discussions

➡️ Nicolás Billia on LinkedIn:

🚀 Case Study in Nomadic: How server response time can impact in Google Discover traffic 📈

Imagine having amazing peaks of traffic in Google Discover, only to see it plummet the very next day. That was the challenge faced by one of the biggest radio stations in Poland. Despite great content, their Discover traffic was inconsistent. Here’s what we uncovered and how we solved it.

The Problem: Server Response Time Over 1 Second

When analyzing server logs, we discovered their server response time was creeping up—sometimes hitting nearly 2 seconds during high-traffic periods.

Our hypothesis? On “good Google days,” when the site attracted heavy Discover traffic, the server couldn’t handle the load. This created a domino effect, affecting crawlability, user experience, and ultimately, traffic stability.

The Solution: Infrastructure + Smart Optimization

These are the highlights for the last week.

Until next!

Vahe Arabian and the editorial team at SODP