Digital Media Brief October 6, 2017

#243: How Misinformation Spread After Vegas Shooting; Jason Calacanis on the Tech Bubble and Media

In the news this week, the good, bad and ugly of those dominating tech giants. On the bad side, Google, Facebook, and Twitter were overrun by misinformation during the Las Vegas shooting, with alt-right sites and manipulators naming the wrong shooter. On the good side, Google announced it was ending its First Click Free rule for publishers with paywalls, allowing them to set the number of articles people can see for free via Google search and news. And on the ugly side, we learned more about how Russian-linked actors manipulated Americans in battleground states leading up to the election with targeted ads, fake accounts, and Facebook Groups. Our Metric of the Week is on hiatus this week due to the ONA conference, and we speak with angel investor and entrepreneur Jason Calacanis, to talk about the death of blogs, his new book “Angel” and diversity in tech.

Digital Media Brief October 6, 2017

In the news this week, the good, bad and ugly of those dominating tech giants. On the bad side, Google, Facebook, and Twitter were overrun by misinformation during the Las Vegas shooting, with alt-right sites and manipulators naming the wrong shooter. On the good side, Google announced it was ending its First Click Free rule for publishers with paywalls, allowing them to set the number of articles people can see for free via Google search and news. And on the ugly side, we learned more about how Russian-linked actors manipulated Americans in battleground states leading up to the election with targeted ads, fake accounts, and Facebook Groups.

#242: Pivots to Video Are a Mixed Bag; Cortico’s Deb Roy on Doing AI for Public Good

In the news this week, many publishers have been pivoting to video, but they’ve also lost a lot of traffic to their websites. Did they go too far? And Twitter is testing out doubling the size of tweets to 280 characters, and users are upset that Trump might get a super-sized megaphone. The Knight Foundation puts $4.5 million into seven projects aiming to restore trust in media, and convenes an all-star Commission in Trust, Media and Democracy. Can they make a difference? Our Metric of the Week is Audience Shrinkage, and Mark speaks with Deb Roy, co-founder of social venture Cortico and Chief Scientist at Twitter, to talk about his efforts to use AI and analytics to create healthier public discourse.

Digital Media Brief September 29, 2017

In the news this week, many publishers have been pivoting to video, but they’ve also lost a lot of traffic to their websites. Did they go too far? And Twitter is testing out doubling the size of tweets to 280 characters, and users are upset that Trump might get a super-sized megaphone. The Knight Foundation puts $4.5 million into seven projects aiming to restore trust in media, and convenes an all-star Commission in Trust, Media and Democracy.

#241: Social Platforms Help Target Ads to Racist Groups; NYC Media Lab’s Justin Hendrix

In the news this week, journalists found that Facebook, Google and Twitter all allowed them to target ads toward racist groups like “Jew haters” and “black people ruin neighborhoods.” The social platforms quickly removed those terms. A new initiative called Report for America aims to place 1,000 public service journalists into newsrooms over the next five years. Can a Peace Corps idea help boost local journalism? And the creator of the Pepe the Frog cartoon is taking legal action against alt-right groups for selling merchandise with his image. Our Metric of the Week is ARPU, and we go one-on-one with Justin Hendrix, executive director of the NYC Media Lab, to discuss his upcoming Summit next week and a new center focused on virtual and augmented reality.