Media trends I saw in 2021 and how I see them now

I recently came across some research I did for a client about trends in 2021 some of which I have reproduced below. Temporally it's not that long ago, but it is before ChatGPT kicked off the gen AI boom so I thought I'd go back and look at how my views might have changed.

New comments from 2024 added in italics.

Audio

Podcasts have become extremely popular among media although very few, even including the New York Times, have the scale to make them profitable. Most subscription companies use them either to gain new leads or to build loyalty among existing audiences which helps reduce churn. Twitter and Facebook both launched audio products based on the shortlived success of Clubhouse, although it is unclear whether either will endure. Smart speakers, despite their ubiquity, have had less impact on media than has been predicted, perhaps because of a lack of any revenue model.

I think this analysis stands. I'm surprised discovery on podcasts has not improved and this is reflected by Google moving its podcasts over to YouTube.

Newsletters

Substack has sparked a trend for journalists to monetise their own content as newsletters directly, without relying on a publisher. Twitter’s Revue and Facebook’s Bulletin launched in 2021 to offer a similar service. Meanwhile, newsletter-focused publications such as Axios and Politico both became profitable through subscription models aimed at professional customers. Other publishers have used newsletters in a similar manner to podcasts for subscribers to boost loyalty. Newsletter formats have shown tremendous potential for retailers in recent years, spurring massive growth at providers such as Mailchimp and other CRM software companies. As consumers have tired of marketing spam, content driven newsletters combined with targeted advertising could be a revenue opportunity.

Anecdotally I find the window for email newsletter growth seems to be closing as the market is reaching saturation. I'd be interested to see any research on this. The opportunity now feels more around messaging services which are heavily used but not widely for B2C.

Live Stream selling

For several years , live streaming has been a major part of e-commerce in China. 2021 was the year it hit the rest of the world. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram all announced live stream products with e-commerce functionality built in. A product still very much in its infancy, there could be potential for first-mover advantage to brands able to attract the right talent and direct their marketing to relevant audiences.

This didn't happen, at least not in a game-changing sense. Some influencers do make it work but there's little sign it's going to justify big investments by brands.

TikTok

Tiktok overtook Google in terms of total time spent on its platforms online in 2021. Brands have been flocking there for some time but publishers have been slower, largely because of the specific demands of the platform. TikTok is, however, making efforts to recruit more publishers to widen the range of services it offers. For now, although there is rapid growth available, there is no way of driving traffic to publishers’ own sites or generating revenue.

Still stands, although Meta has fought back reasonably effectively with Insta. Both platforms have become less and less friendly to news.

AI personalisation

Increasingly impressive AI algorithms have meant that personalisation has advanced far from the wildly unsuccessful attempts of 10 years ago. Just as Netflix or TikTok can lure users to watch again and again, so publishers can increase session length by automatically promoting articles most likely to appeal to each reader based on his or her previous behaviour. Taboola and other companies offer an outsourced opportunity to implement this.

Very true. Improvements in recirculation and probably the biggest quick win for most small publishers.

Tech companies paying publishers

Google and Facebook had both set up funds to pay media outlets in a bid to head of regulation - Facebook commissioning through Watch and Google using Showcase. These offerings seem to have carried little interest for users and in 2021 regulators in Australia and France forced Google to pay publishers directly. This tended to favour established and larger publishers with payments in the low 6 figure range. This trend is likely to be followed in other EU countries.

This is happening, with the rise of gen AI dramatically upping the stakes and is still largely benefitting the few behemoth publishers.

AR/Metaverse

With huge progress in the technology and Facebook’s declared commitment to web 3.0 the metaverse seems set to become a major commercial opportunity. For years, content producers have directed their efforts towards presenting material on small phone screens but headsets could completely reverse this trend creating a canvas as wide as the field of vision. The question of how users will consume media when screen size is effectively unlimited will be a new and dramatic challenge for publishers. Progress towards driverless personal transport - trials began on public roads in Europe in 2021 - is also relevant in this regard. With average commute times in the developed world trending around the hour mark, a very large portion of leisure time that has previously been reserved for audio content could be opened up.

While this hasn't happened in a major way, there's still a movement in this direction and I remain confident that phones will ultimately give way to some kind of glasses. And there is a big opportunity for in car entertainment, albeit still several years away.

NFTs, crypto

Alongside the metaverse, some media have dabbled in offering NFTs - effectively unique digital copies - of content such as iconic photographs or front pages. . Further out, wider adoption of crypto currencies may create an opportunity for lowering transaction costs and friction which could be an opportunity for an digital commercial business  whether selling goods or services, although the gains are likely to be marginal for smaller businesses and greatest for those operating across borders and in underdeveloped markets. The levels of speculation inherent in this segment make a highly risky and potentially unstable area, however.

This was a dud. I didn't completely identify it.

AI translation

Still developing but already enormously effective, automated translation will break down language barriers, allowing consumers to read, and later watch in any language. This is likely to benefit large-scale English-language brands who have been able to invest more in original content and bring intensified competition into hitherto insulated local language markets.

Yes. And more to come in this direction. One of the most interesting movers has actually been Le Monde which is moving into English, so perhaps I was wrong to see this as largely a one way gain. Expat second and third generation communities may be interested in reading watching news from their home countries in their adopted languages. Advances in speech translation have also been big and broadcasters such as Sky have had some success in relocalising their content.

2024 Conclusion

As I write in 2024, I can see there are a lot of threads from the pre-ChatGPT era which remain highly pertinant for publishers. The game is not redefined although the opportunities have shifted. Right now genAI looks like an accellerator more than a transformer.