Episode 13: Push Pop Press (Facebook Instant Articles) with Todd Bishop
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Well.

is IT an entry .

trump then I think for five.

five who. Get true. get. Easy, you busy, you with you see me down stand. Welcome back to episode thirteen .

acquired the show where we talk about technology acquisitions that actually went well, i'm been gilbert. I'm David s, and we are your hosts. We have a very special yesterday visiting us from gee wire tod bishop.

hey, it's great to be here.

So great to have you.

I'm a fan. I'm a listener. I think yours might be the only podcast that i've listened to, every episode of which speaks with that. But I listen. I listen on my walks on the weekend and the really love ship has to do on the show.

Thank you, lad.

to have you. Yeah, it's a privilege. And for this episode, it's going to be particularly interesting. We're talking about the publishing industry.

So we wanted to have taught on because we thought I would be particularly fast to listener to go inside info from from someone who's kind of experiencing the result of the acquisition first hand. So before we get into what the the episode today, a couple couple of administrative things. First one, please leave us rating and review on itunes.

IT is tremendously helpful for the future of the show as we invest in Better tech and we get more and more guests on and we're able to do more things with the show. Appreciate you doing that and doing any sort of sharing on social media that you you appropriate. Secondarily, we started a slack community and we've been some really great up taken that.

So it's been really fun to chat with all you guys and please would love more people to join. But for people who are already in, keep the questions and discussion coming, it's been great. Yeah.

we've got some some email asking, well, how do I join it's it's on the acquired website. If you're on this top, it's a little widget on the right side, you just enter your email and then in emails you had to do IT. And if you are on mobile, IT is down below the posts.

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So without further do our episode this week is on facebooks acquisition of push pop press. Try that, try blair.

say that .

times David, do you want to with the history .

in facts as always. So um very interesting when here the company ebben mentioned is push pop press, which not many people have heard of um but IT was founded in february twenty ten by two guys mike matters and common i'm probably going to butcher his last name since aris I believe and they were both alarms of apple um and they have been designer one a designer and one in engineer at apple for about four, five years and y'd worked on the iphone in the years leading up to the launch yeah .

and as A A total apple on there, these guys are legendary. I mean, look at their portfolios. They've designed everything from the the charging battery icon on the front of the iphone for the first six software releases to maps to on the map.

Venus, you're stealing my thunder here, having my note. So these guys, they weren't just any apple engineers and designers between the two of them. They designed the first uh the first versions of the camera APP the photos APP the maps APP the settings APP the battery display um the photos APP for the ipad and time machine and photo booth for the mac. Well, I should stop .

doing anything from memory ever.

Quite quite impressive guys and interestingly, while they were working on push pop press, which was only for about two years, um mike was also working on the side I don't know which was the side gig and which was the permanent gig, but he was one of the first people working on nest and nobody knew what nest is at this point but they were the secretive started up a from former apple folks and miko was also part of that team.

He was and might had his his hands and really great offer for a long time. He's for the seattle lite listeners out there, actually a native seattle light and worked on some really incredible max often are that is is pixel perfect called delicious library from delicious monster with a will shipped. And that, you know, as yet again apple nerd and and like admire of great software, is is really kind of setting the bar for creating great U. X.

And one of the greatest start of names ever, right? This is monster. Yes indeed.

So um with these two super star engineers and designers from apple, they leave, they start push pop press. What is push pop press? One might ask. So at ted, at the ted conference in spring of twenty eleven, they unveiled a at the conference what they've been working on and IT was an attempt to reimagine the book and what does the book look like on on mobile computer， both tablets and phones, smart ones um and the first book that they lost was in conjunction with al gore um who interestingly was an apple board member and also at the time I believe still affiliated with adventure capital from kiner perkins which was an investor in nest and they worked to with him to launch his book called our choice uh which was about the environment and IT was an incredibly beautiful APP IT was released as an APP within the apple APP store. IT was only on IOS and the technology behind IT that push pop press a created, enabled, highly, highly immersive interactions with I get really, really imagining of what a book was with interactive content, with audio, with video all seamlessly integrated into this experience.

Yeah and one of the things to note about that was you know it's still it's not an easy thing to imagine a really immersive, beautiful kind of perfect animation curve um application like this. That alone is hard. The engineering, especially on on those real early IOS devices, particularly difficult. And these were kind of the the two guys in the world that could they could build that vision.

that that incredible experience and then were talking early ipads and like iphone time frame. Um and actually interestingly, now we can't verify this confirm deny but IT has been reported in the press that this actually might have gotten into them into a little bit of trouble um because apparently again, according to some articles out there, we don't know if this is sure but apparently Steve jobs uh, noticed when these guys left and noticed what they were working on and he believed that um a lot of the technology that they used to build push pop press was actually alarmingly similar to some of the patented technology that they had developed while they were at apple working on eye ooks. So he again supposedly got a little upset about this.

Good thing.

There's no non compete revisions .

in california. Actually an I P issue, right? This was a pattern issue supposed. So this was this was after they launched that had in in twenty eleven. And then interestingly, at wwdc that year in june, um not everybody at apple was to accept because uh our choice and push pop press actually won an apple design a award for the ipad is being one of the best designed apps according to apple on the ipad that year, but none. There's very shortly there after in the beginning of August of twenty eleven, facebook announcers that they have acquired push pop press for an undisclosed amount um and again, supposedly according to these articles, the fact that um jobs was kind of on the warpath about this and upset about some of the potential I P violations regarding books and apps might have contributed to the outcome here and that continuing to go along the stand little company, no way for us to know .

interesting hypotheses. I never never took IT there before. I note on this acquisition, I think it's safe to assume that's a pretty small sum, not a big team, very early stage. But what IT did represent, I remember thinking this at the time I I had bought the book IT was incredible to play with um had great reference for sort of the technology behind IT. And I just think a man, facebook just keeps buying up and sort.

We don't know this was an acquired ghe, but had done several acquisitions before of teams that we're just incredible IOS designers and developers and like they really have a warchest there. Thinking back to time period, I mean, this was still a great state of flux for facebook in the mobile era. They were doing the hybrid d web thing. They hadn't managed to to translate there.

The facebook apps were not native on iphone and and android. They were doing the the rapper. The development IT was IT was a mess, right? And their mobile .

future was uncertain with their ad revenues. And then they hadn't translated their cash cow from desktop yet. And as we know, they were had become incredibly successful with the news feed ads, one of the best ad units in history.

But but you're right, there were times back then remembers some, I believe I don't know there were public or not at this point, but there were big questions about whether they could translate their success into mobile apps .

and into the mobile. The time there is an infamous recoding interview at the recovery conference or this might have been .

before we could .

I like all things, things ah, the hood, where mark was being grilled on stage by, while mostly in Carry switch. And who are you on? And he was sweatsuit being grilled about mobile and facebook, missing of mobile at the ended up taking .

the hold off IT. IT was and then had that like the.

and yes, very moment. But others have speculated that that was that moment was the turning point when he realized that facebook needed to go all in on mobile, and they really did after that. Yeah, and this acquisition is part right now.

Interestingly, they will wrap up the history and facts here as as I mention, we don't know the Price of the acquisition. We have to assume that was quite small. Push back press had never raised any money IT was just the two of them in a couple other people who are working on IT.

Um but when they were require they are the founders actually wrote on the website um on their blog that they were this was just about them in the technology they were not going to continue in the book industry they write. Although facebook isn't planning to start publishing digital books, the ideas and technology behind push pop press will be integrated with facebook, giving people even richer ways to share their stories. With millions of people publishing the facebook every day. We think it's going .

to be a great home for push back press, cough publishing, cough .

publishing, not books. Yeah so yeah, let's get into I mean, just rub that up quickly. So then the team goes, the two of them go on and they work on two things that they're still working on a facebook um first is facebook paper, which many people don't remember, but this is a standalone APP that facebook launched in early twenty and fourteen that's basically a flip board competitor yeah.

if you look at this, this was the first thing I think you might have been conditional upon the acquisition. But mike mota, scots to run facebook creative labs. And this was kind of the product to launch out of creative labs.

And the animations and the sensibilities from from push pop press book are just like right there in paper. I mean the whole immersive design philosophy, very smooth curves between things. You can tell it's the same team.

And although paper IT still exists, you can start downloaded in the ap. So it's only on IOS. Much like pop press hasn't been a huge success. But IT informs the real is the trojan horse to the real meat here is that this push pop press becomes and and these guys are are the product leaders of facebook against .

the articles yeah I think mike was and recently left but but common not exactly sure everyone is that is .

still there what you doing now if call us.

I believe I so I fall an instagram like a tremendous nature photographer and is doing a lot of travelling. Think you taking some time.

i'm sure, well deserved. But instant articles is really, i'm sure many of our listeners know about that. But this is really game changing, a product that the facebook wants last year. Um and IT was interestingly, and i'm sure you'll appreciate this， the fact that they were working on IT was scooped by David car at the york times at the in fall of twenty fourteen and that ends up coming out in spring of twenty fifteen. And I I believe the opening line of his article where he talks about this is that facebook is like a big dog in the park that is galloping at you and you don't know if he wants to play with you or eat you.

Oh god, that is so perfect.

so big. If .

publisher exact boy in the park, man.

you guys are in the park.

We are. We are. So in preparation for this, I spent quite a bit of time with our analytics just getting a sense for what we get from facebook what we give to facebook. Um we get roughly ten percent of our traffic from facebook.

And is this the largest single?

It's the largest other than organic search? yes. So if you look at organic surge, you know close to half. But in terms of this, in terms of actual no dedicated in bound refers.

So so it's quite a bit of traffic now in the old school publishing mentality publishers, we think I ve got to get users on my site. That is where I you converting them into you know potential e commerce customers are, am getting them on to my list. exactly. And I think instant articles is one of the best examples of that mentality shifting for publishers that are a little more progressive .

and and we should say where two about what IT is for people who happen really duggin to the product. This is a major change in the way content and articles, uh, that is owned and written by publishers are is being distributed. So before instant articles, if somebody shared a link to an article on facebook and you click on IT on mobile, you would be taken to the mobile browser and read the article on the on the page.

Just not saying the publishers page, but with instant articles, publishers are actually giving their content over to facebook. It's being hosted on facebook servers and then displayed in a very push pop press like beautiful, immersive reader that loads instantly rather than clicking through to the mobile web and waiting for everything to load. And more even more importantly for this discussion, facebook can sell and serve its own advertising within the article. Now publishers can to, but and if publishers sell the ads in the article, they keep one hundred percent of the revenue. But facebook can also sell in and then they keep thirty percent .

of the revenue yeah and to put some numbers behind the how much faster, as they say, an average webpage article takes about eight seconds to load and people just bounce off that the tremendous, specially on the mobile yeah yeah and they say it's ten times faster in an instant article yeah .

I can count the number of times i've gone. This is not worth IT. I'm going back and finding something else to to read.

So I think that whole construct and that assertion of there is, is very valid based on just casual, everyday user experience. But this is a mentality shift for publishers because, you know, you've got so many readers on facebook already. And the old school mentality is, hey, we get we need to get him on our site.

But when you start talking about the monetization, that's when he starts to go. Okay, well, know, to go back to your dog park analogy, maybe let know facebook. You know, I I do not .

exactly that .

much Better and what going to say? Thank you. So so yeah I mean, that is the thing.

Um we've actually experimented with instant articles a little bit. And I should say this is part of a sort broader set of these types of approaches. And google has accelerated mobile pages very similar. We ve actually had more success with amp.

Then we have with instance articles, apple news, of course, in in flip board, you know all these things are examples of publishers say, okay, the articles don't need to be on our site, but what do we get in return for allowing you to host them? And really for us, it's the monetization with facebook and some articles, apple news. We have not yet seen the kind of user base that would justify putting a lot of effort into IT. And because the revenue just isn't there yet, google is actually a bit of an exception because they're so integrated with the fp double click for publishers here and it's our native system, google gets IT. So in that way, I think google may have a bit of an advantage in terms of the monetization and then in attracting publishers in the article world.

So even facebook is a signal times of travel.

exactly. Yes.

google has a much Better, moist.

ation tools for you. Yes, for us as a but but there's no denying the reality of facebooks user base.

Curious, you know how how do you, john, think about this? We were talking before we started about world publishers, see the to the pilot inquire. I work to the wall street journal back in the day and have been the cost structure at the journal.

We spent a billion dollars every year on everything, putting out the paper and the website now is any is all about creating that relationship with the reader here. And now we live in a different world. How do yeah .

it's definitely changed. Um we talk about our publishing process just as an example. You will publish a story, an wordpress and then every reporter for us, the next step is to go to facebook. And you're really not done publishing until you've published a link on facebook and saw obviously instant articles takes that a step further further because it's just automatically populating that with the cashed version, the push pop press version essentially. So you know, it's just you think of your readers in a much broader way than just the people who are on your site.

You think about other things too, like we've been experimenting a lot with retargeting and the whole notion of once a reader leaves your site, you can still serve them ads from yourself for for events, for example, or for your advertisers on behalf of your advertisers on facebook. So we think about that is it's much more holistic now yeah and in that way, facebook is broaden the horizons, right? They taken away the audience, but they've ve also .

open the door for you to get there what used to be I mean a every publisher, large and small, had their own ad sales force right and that was very huge to part of the cost the journal elsewhere were um but the ability to sell that audience was so limited relative to a facebook. And so now you live in a world where IT probably doesn't really make sense for you for as a publish to invest a lot in your own at, if you can.

like A A few people back to the officer had to be listening .

very and to this. So I have had hundreds of thousand people. I'm sure you guys don't .

have one hundred. We have three. We have three. And advantage there, obviously, is that in terms of direct sales, you can provide more value.

You can provide custom packages you can bundle in events. And so your margins are higher than just going through some kind of network by. So for us at least that our size, there's still a big value in having direct sales.

Not to mention you actually know what experience is being delivered to your reader mean you don't have to hope and pray that some network is inserting the I think that you want to your content oh.

that's absolutely right. yeah. So that is the control issue is something there. And that's all about just making sure you're deliver the right value to the reader .

and to the to the sponsor yeah for accelleration mobile pages, for google and for for facebook facebook instant articles. Do you guys do your own ad sales? Or do you trust the do you hand that off to them and take the we ve only done a .

little testing with instant articles and actually, it's a whole other issue. We've run into a problem with the plugging in created by facebook and automatic, the creator of wordpress. And this is like I said, that this could be a rattle. So you can add this out later that but they have some work to do on that plugged in. And so we haven't been able to fully test that.

And that's the pluggin that theoretically makes IT easier for publishers that that facebook can go in and automatically suck out your content and then put IT in to an instant article without you doing whole lot of work.

That's right. exactly. Um for google accelerated mobile pages just because of the extension from d fp, all of our ads can go there. So we can if we direct all the add that appears on the site, you can go into the into instance, or you can go into APP in the mob bages. Wow.

huge advances to google.

Yes.

absolutely A A reader. I I much more a fan of facebook and instant articles because you get this experience where i'm in a native experience, it's already downloaded all the content for the article. And I just go right into IT and on mobile pages. You know it's always whenever you're on a website, you're keen ley aware that you're on a website and it's not quite native. And so whenever for those who who haven't or or don't know if you've hit an accelerated mobile page yet, it's when you searched for something on google and there's A A result that's for a news story that sort of keeps you on the search results page, but there's an article overlaid on of IT. Um and i'm always a little disappointed like yeah it's a later website and it's accelerated but it's still kind of a web page and IT IT would be nicer if IT was if IT was .

more nature propres. Like right it's interesting .

to to hear like let's I .

definitely keep this conversation going, but let's to do IT, let's move into acquisition category.

So so um even before you read their their press release, I said that it's primarily a people acquisition, secondary aries, a technology acquisition and sure sounds like more agreement there.

Ah what I had primarily technology secondary people but you know it's automatics yeah i'd have a .

hard time disagree eed with that. And my question is what were they doing between two thousand and eleven and twenty sixteen? Know if there was a talent acquisition or technology acquisition. IT took him a while. I guess I was twenty and fifteen that they came out with instant articles.

But I think paper, I think for a while they were playing what what is the thing that we're gona build. And that was sort of why creative lab was its own little entity and facebook before paper came out. But I I think the team for paper actually got pretty large. And IT was A A sizable effort where I don't know the exact quote, but I remember zuker berg announcing IT and saying, like this is like a new direction for facebook. Like this is the new way you experience facebook.

And I was I was right IT, just standing up becoming within the facebook gap yeah which I think is just the other thing is that very ring earlier, the core facebook APP was such a mess in those early days. I think it's it's amazing how much functionality has been brought back into that APP and how big that piece of off as income.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You want to go.

What have happened otherwise?

Yeah, smoke this because I think this merits an interesting do. Or let's say, they stayed independent and continue trying to reinvent the book. Good idea, bad idea. How does that play out? A there is no way they .

don't get picked up. And if it's not facebook at someone else but will also spend that like I think it's they're so good and it's so inexpensive when theyve built is so interesting to so many players that like I don't think this scenario exists. But let's go down to what would have happened if they had had kind .

of reinvented the book about their .

computing with mazo .

and they're getting suit by Steve jobs maybe yeah I mean, it's interesting like IT would have required for that to really work as a business. IT would have required content producers to embrace a like writers authors to embrace a whole new way of whole new medium basically. And what's interesting about that versus what IT became with instant articles is um you know that put the authors of of content uh publishers don't do anything different. It's just facebook sort of know doesn't magic and make beautiful .

and they can facebook want you to there's all these kind of unique things that you can do with data visualization and parallax images and things like that.

We don't have to yeah and I think probably be very few that splashy when when when publishers do, but they probably don't do a lot of IT.

probably hard to do yeah.

you would have to create a massive behavior change in terms of producers to really reinvent the book. So likely IT would have been .

hard one way we could see that proxy for that playing out. As with eyes book's author, apple came out with that software to create textbooks. And it's supposed to be exactly the same thing, like things that move, things that slide, interactive ways of learning. And when they announced on stage, you know, I thinking like this is really going to require some serious things that apple is not necessarily good at, like you're going to need a lot of sales people, a lot of relationship managers like really to go in and convince the five major textbook publishers, pearson and then the likes of them that like this is their future. Ah and I didn't just don't think they doubled down on them.

didn't work IT.

Yeah seems like the other natural acquire here would have an amazon in my off based on that. I mean.

just given the books angle seems like .

a Barnes and noble. Maybe if they were back because two thousand and eleven, you know, they were still started in the game yeah.

yeah, that is cool to think about like what if, what if kindle were beautiful?

No, thanks.

Anyone working on kindle, but a lot Better.

IT has a lot .

Better at love. Kindle troubling my one of my most used apps and and devices. I use both the .

APP and the device. But and the the oasis is .

pretty down sweet. Do you have one? I three dollars .

in is a whole different game that what we're talking about here. But but yeah, there's still lots of room for improvement .

in the whole digital e book and lots of room.

I do want to raise the point to I think. They had a luxury of being super, super selective of if they were going to get acquired, who IT was going to be by. They strike me, is the kind of people that if they didn't have a tremendous respect for the company and didn't feel that their principles of of design and and beautiful experience were sort of like embodied in the efforts of whatever that company was trying to do, I don't think they would have gone yeah so I think .

that news that they hadn't rays any money. So there were no evil VC on the board of forcing them to sell. But yeah, I think you're early, right.

And not to mention that um was IT mike I think was working on the side of full time and nest. So um yeah this was not a this was not a forced sale of enemy. Now all right listeners, our next sponsor is a new friend of the show. Huntress countries is one of the fastest growing and most loved cybersecurity companies today. Its purpose built for small ammie sized businesses and provides enterprise grade security with the technology, services and expertise needed to protect you.

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s let's jump back into um to tech themes because I I think we can really impact some some cost stuff with out here you go first yeah .

this really does speak to the broadening horizons for publishers and and the risks and opportunities that come along with that. I mean, this is I think a lot of I ve been around since the days when I had one daily deadline for you, one story that needed to get to the printing press by a eleven at night, you know. So not not to date myself here.

but I remember those two from two thousand and nine at the old street turn. Nl.

so is not that long ago. So I think you got through a few transitions there for publishers, first, obviously, to the web and then to mobile. And now in some ways, you're seeing a fourth transition to beyond your own property.

What needs what needs to happen? What can you do? What can you reach and how can you monitise IT? And that really is the big thing for me here.

Yes, I taught. I've had a crazy idea for started for a while, and I like this perfect time to poke calls. And I, could you start a publisher at this point that doesn't have a website that purely exists on on social? It's only on APP.

It's only on this is what buzbee is.

But they yeah they have a destination site. I'm curious how how much their destination versus social.

But I think you could and I think you should and that would be fantastic. I think you should do everything Better. website.

So in other words, to publish on facebook. The verge has been talking about this, and I knew I think they're new. Gadget blog is focused almost exclusively on facebook, and I think it's the verge. I get all those the verge on and gadget and his mother, they blend .

together in .

my mind in the on .

facebook.

I don't think the verge and key quire competitors, i'm a big equi e because but it's just I one of my teams was hitting at earlier is the sort of reinvention of the publishing industry. I'm curious how you guys like equip. I mean, you you're such a you are a news site, of course, first foremost, but there's so much more to what you do, your community and how do you think about life in your business model in this world? absolutely.

So I can share a few broad details. So about roughly sixty percent of our revenue has nothing to do with the website, and it's not because it's coming from facebook or anything else. IT doesn't. It's probably not accurate to say that has nothing to do with the website, but we get event revenue. I mean, that is a major driver .

of our business. You saying, you know your ad sales efforts are focused on holistic package, right? You you're getting a on the site. You are also getting sponsorships at events and you know it's you're offering something beyond just a way site.

The way we look at IT is that our news brings people to the site and then we create a community around that news. And then the question is, okay, you've got this great community. How can you provide value to the community into the people who want to reach IT? And if you think about IT in that abstract way, then all these really interesting possibilities come up.

If you just think about IT as I got people come into my website and I want to serve a mad, then it's too simplistic, and it's a decade ago mentality. So this is all part of that broader revolution. And how publishers .

think in thinking about instant articles, some of the bigger publishers that have this sort of a uh, a train behavior of the whole city going to their website every morning, much like they used to read the paper at the dining table every morning, and they worry about doing something like this because IT untrained, that habitual behavior of going to the site. Do you guys worry IT all about sort of losing that? Oh, no, they are not used to going to require anymore.

Certainly, there's a core set of your readers who will always do that. But so much anymore the front door the front yeah the front door of your website is not your home page. It's an article that somebody comes into.

And when we think about the design of the site, we think about that, no, this is really the place that people are coming to. So and that's driven by social. It's the fact that people are getting a link of a twitter, of a facebook and y're coming into your site through the back door.

As enamels, I know I subscribe to troubles. We all do many of listeners of, no, I don't go to the news anymore. The news comes to me, right?

yeah. So if you're not playing and although that the entire ecosystem, then you've got you're taking a big risk. And there are some people who can do is successfully.

And you there are some a great biotech site in seattle, rumba I I named looked timer man and he does ninety nine dollar or your subscriptions and is built to a successful one man business out of IT. So is there's different approaches. But for the most part, if you're going to be A A hollis's publisher in this world, you'd ve got to play in all this stuff. It's interesting.

I was going to bring up one of the tech trends that identifies to me, sort of the corporate unbundling, building away from core competency, where you can decide to take a dependency on a different business for something that you're deciding is not the thing that is unique and differentiating to you. And so one, one thing that all bring up here as benton and has has a great theory is.

one doing how long we would go in before we reference .

time tooth tra tegor. And oh, is thirty two minutes. I actually I don't know what marking be, but here's a great theory about, okay, I can be a one man independent publisher because I have this very sustainable business model where people pay me directly and um I know that i'm not a destination site.

So um there I need to run extremely lean because I only have you this very specific business model that allows me to do that. And then on the other side of the continuum, you have the new york times, and they can afford to do all things for all people because they have just all lies on them. That the first thing that people check, I mean, there there are very few of those who have survived the facebook ization of the front door of the internet.

And it's interesting to see like how publishers in the middle play with that. And I think tell you, you raise a great point that you sort of have to embrace that. You it's it's the world around our publication.

I just pull up our analytics to maybe shed some light on this. So about forty five percent of our inbound traffic is from organic search. About twenty two percent is from social, all forms of social, i'm sorry, twenty two percent is from direct and then about eighteen percent is from social. So you get a sense for you would still be pretty good .

direct audience there. Crazy to me that organic search is still by far the largest IT is.

and I don't know that they may speak to courts of our audience, our site, but and that's the case for everybody and .

that does not include direct .

that does not include ah that's organic search.

the testimony to the omnivore right there. I mean.

I think as much as yeah yeah google is serving ads on google shares do not spend of my investment advice on this show. We should .

probably be legally bound to say that more often. Know most people don't know that their friends between you typing in words and typing in URL ah and so they're going to the internet, they're typing in the words and if keek wires the first comes up with the information about they are looking for, they hit IT right? And it's interesting only that well, the interesting new answer to me is that more people are being active about the news that they choose to learn about rather than reactive to whatever comes up in their facebook feed. I don't think I was giving people enough credit.

Yeah like I said, we may not be representative of broader .

and there are some. But you you would IT be fair to say that you guys at least have reimagined um your product from being journalism to being a community or not。 But being a new site, being a community.

I say it's still at its core a new site. And that that's the thing when you look at the drivers of the business, then you know doing quality news, we're trying to break news that really is your ultimate competitive advantage, and that is what you're talking about. Van is like focus your core competencies.

Developing a social network is not microcomputers. Cy, I was trained as a journalist and most of folks at the the company were. And so that that really gets to what you're saying there.

yeah. And I think I should just you guys do a really missing job.

Yes, we should say you we are both big fans. Keewis is i'm sure for all of our listeners in seattle are already fans, but for people who are not in seattle, you probably also have heard, but IT is a fantastic technology news, say, and and I think especially speaking at majora as A, B, C here and the community just a linchpin of the whole technology community in the northwest.

thanks. Well, and I should say only thirty percent of our traffic, washington state. So wash state is is our largest individual market, but it's not the majority of our traffic speaks to a couple things.

First, there's intense interest in what's going on here from other parts of the world. Yeah, but we found at the site on the premise that seattle and the psychic northwest deserve a national and international technical technology new site of their own. And so the traffic kind of bears that out.

And that's my stomp eh that's my old later pitch. I'll be on a future episode. I'll be on episode one fifty of acquired the the .

acquisition of acquisition .

washington nis as a largest single geography, but not a majority. You can acquire both very good and nice.

awesome.

perfect. We're basically the we can do. We can do emerge now.

Yeah, talk after so talk after you. That's not on not on the recent. So yes, the other we've covered great tech teams. And the other one I wanted to bring up quickly is bento's son, his aggregation theory, which we've talked about also on the show before, but basically is the theory that in the past, and is represented nowhere Better than publishing in journalism, where in the past you needed to aggregate distribution as a distributor, or you needed to aggregate and you need to aggregate journalists and you needed to aggregate delivery routes of newspapers and all everything basically backwards from the customer.

You didn't really care about the customer, the customer needed to come to you in the internet world, you need to aggregate the customers, and then all of the producers will come to you. And and this is what's happened with facebook here with with ah it's in articles, you know they cater the customers, they care about the user experience. They care about making IT beautiful, which is why they acquired push pop press so that the customers come to them, the customers are there customer the the readers um and then producers come to them, which is, I just think super.

super interesting. No, it's great. Had never thought about IT that way. That's it's true. It's completely true and that's why facebook has so much power. I mean, if you watched just the casual person pick up their phone, the chances that they are going to open .

the facebook APP first or so high and they decide what you're going to be entertained by and that is a tremendous sort .

yeah and and informed by which is the whole issue that's come up recently with the the issue with the facebook training .

stories yeah that's an interesting thing.

Should we touch on .

that a little IT? Yeah ah so for listeners who we haven't been been tracking, there was basically, you know there are mixed feelings about how true IT is, but basic, not in the news feed itself but in the little trending news widget on desktop, in the top right or on mobile.

When you tap into an empty search field, you see hand curated top news that facebook thinks you would be interested in and the new story that that um basically alleges that they had talked to someone who used to work on that team and they said IT was anti conservative. And the blow up from that has been unbelievable. And the interesting takeaway boy of the blow up from that little thing has been that big, that little thing that half of you probably haven't even seen, and most of you probably have never clicked on.

People give facebook a tremendous man of credit for having this like agnostic algorithm. So can you imagine if they were doing anything in the the news feed algorithm till one way or another? I mean, their viewers like this arbiters of the truth, and there's this pure, clean alga that that decides what you look at. And I think that that trust that theyve been .

stealin is is crack has emerged, though, in the past month to see what happens.

I think very, very dangerous for them.

But IT speaks to their power. And that speaks to that, that all flipping of you, you aggregate the user.

You agreed. As long as users are coming every day of facebook as a, as a producer.

as a publisher, you you have to be there right back what we said last episode, that their crown jewels are engagement and its its engagement and time on site and just how much of your life you're giving to facebook. And that's the power that they they wield. And interesting .

to contrast that with stamp out to from last episode, which is they're said like we're not going to we're not you funny algorithms, we're not tracking you or not anything. We're like you watch the stories you want to watch and you follow the people you you want to follow. And it's hard to discover things on sand jet. Should we move on to conclusion grading?

Yeah, yeah. This is an easy a for me, me. I think that like they really going to do any wrong. They I don't think that this acquisition necessarily made IT so that they were going to go this direction.

I think that this is doing something like inst articles is a natural course and they would have done IT maybe just like slightly less beautifully. But I think you know, great people to pick up. They were great leaders at facebook talking to friends that that worked with my king. I think that only the only good things .

yeah I I agree. I'm just thinking I think you're right though if if they hadn't acquired push pop press, they would have done this anyway just would have been less beautiful. So in that sense is probably really a great opposition for them. I don't think they spent that much. And when we know where we don't know, but they probably didn't. Yeah, I give me I give you an a to I think what's holding me, what's nagger at me is is there is an element of creepiness to in to facebook as we were talking about this crack that's emerged one until um could there have been something um bigger that push pop press could have been, I don't know. This was a great bye for facebook and no doubt .

do do you mean within facebook?

Because no, not necessarily.

I think we typically to lay out the criteria for how we grade this is usually imagining that you are .

a shareholder. I don't .

know they done, but I feel like todds get some what what was the .

thing that you say was paper that they worked on? What was the right facebook? Shouldn't have. If I have been like a run away yet, then shouldn't .

have been A A.

I don't know, I know. Plus, okay, yeah. So i'll give you a bless of reserve the right to move that to an a if they fixed the damping g. And yeah and I get me explicit language warning there just now no.

I say good and .

and it's interesting .

that the only the only thing that I think could lower at your eyes, an interesting points, this a strategically good idea for facebook. Should they be this so hard on on news and not just what you would discover that already .

lives on facebook? I think that .

was brilliant today. I mean, the the whole notion that they become the platform and they hosted they serve IT up there. They're in control from facebook ebook perspective. It's hard how it's bad.

So as facebook school is engagement and they want to keep you in the facebook experience and ecosystem longer and they really want to be the internet to you. We've seen social, we've seen publishing. What's next? What else lives within facebook that's not currently within facebook that will be .

the next instance articles, but live they're investing usually in television course.

They they did this with games for a while. I would be interesting to see if that was you reincarnated in a new way course, virtual reality? Yes, with oculus.

Yeah, life is in the whole other topic. Yeah, we've been experimenting with that too. It's total change.

What we think about video.

So we've been doing life streaming and we we now have a debate every time, youtube or facebook, youtube or facebook. And in the past month, the baLance has shifted the facebook because you just see instant engagement.

Have you guys tried paris scope .

or we tried that a little bit a paris scope?

And have you tried snaps at no.

no snaps that when were not as advanced as we should be, honestly? And that part of the problem as a publishers like where you put your resources, yeah and it's like that there is that at the joke where the two executives are going up the elevator and the two bike messengers are talking about some hot new social work so you can feel like that and you never know exactly when to jump on board. Interest is another one where we have .

not gotten as much traction .

but live has been IT. We're not tizer you not anyone? I'm not sure. I'm not sure if that's an option at this point.

So I mean, you could you could hawk products while you're talking live on, but that wouldn't be as part of a facebook product. And now facebooks .

about the whole thing too, where publishers can actually do sponsored content so they sell a sponsor content. And the'd got the in the facebook business interface, we've got a little handshake icon. And so that's opened up new options too. So I long way of saying facebook is finally starting to make IT where it's financially at least worth expLoring as a publisher versus just putting your stories on there and hoping that you get traffic back. That's the big shift that we've seen.

And did you see that you mention that with live video, others, the debate between the two with prerecorded video are using the same thing where you you're going, yeah, let's put them on facebook .

and not on youtube. We are part that's because life is just such an interesting thing to do right now. And so we're still very much key into youtube.

Although now I take that back, we do we're not posting on both youtube and facebook after the fact, but the reason is a debate. And either or debate is because our equipment some of our equipment, you can simultaneously live broadcast. You can obviously later .

up look to both yeah what is there a particular event? There are live event that you have done that you think is like really example of of .

the future yeah. So we've been doing tours. So in fact, we did a tour of the facebook headquarters here.

IT was kind of is very matter. And so I joke to my trip for their C. T. O.

I said you were going to be trying to sound on a little social network you might have heard and he thought I was actually talking. He didn't get the joke he got was some mother like total paranoia. You thought we were like streaming on something you never heard I said, no, no.

And we're doing our facebook unch. Yeah but even just, you know, the quick stuff know you got your phone. Obviously that's fully produced. We've got a hand to help my him we're walking around with him streaming to a box that goes to facebook.

But just the whole notion of being a reporter, of being anybody out there, being the pull etter phone and immediately broadcast to a giant audience. No, of course, this has ve been around for a while with you dream and those kinds of things. But because to your point, facebook has the user base. And so IT changes everything.

yes, and has your user base. That's right. People presently, people that are fans of keeps are on facebook, see this right at the top of their news viewing your life, right?

exactly. So yeah, it's changed the dynamic a lot now that it's just seems like there's been a cade of changes over the past year basically. Yeah.

yeah. Facebook is is investing heavily .

in all this stuff. They are, should we I get to the car out. Let's doing taught. Do you want to go first as our guest?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So microbus is actually another podcast. So and but IT touches on themes that you all touch about. And so i'm to be very specific here, giving late media started podcast. I'm sure a lot of people watch, listen, listen, here's what here's the DNA ic that happen with this. A lot of people listen to the first season, which told the story of alex blinder g the form of this american life reporter journal starting his own company um which was fantastic and then season to kinases honestly.

did the dating room shut down?

How what happened? Yeah I was I persons I personally didn't. I was not into that up but that all season I suffering through IT season three.

If you if you got lost in season to go back and start again on season three. And I don't want to ruin IT, but they do this great. They do a story where they tell them, how can I do this that were running for everybody. They tell the story of a startup and its founding, and then do a reveal, and they tell you, I like, I think it's at the end of the second episode, what the startup that y've been talking about. And it's one that one that everybody knows it's one that you you featured on one of your eyes.

odes last phone.

you soon as you started hearing, you would be like, oh, that I know what company that a lot of people out there won't know. Like casual listeners not in the tech industry, won't know which company they talking about. So that's my car. About start up episodes are start up season three, the first couple episodes.

God, I love, I love the teaser. I'm like, that's yes, on the spoil.

this is great. You're good pitchman. I'll go next because it's it's somewhat related unless you have another podcast.

This is auo auditories OK. So I had my car for the week is something to listen to your podcast on. Super interesting. I read this um article on back channel um which is part of medium, which is mediums tech a collection just yes and the title the piece is called what if the future of technology is in your ear and it's about this this bluetooth ear piece that fits in your ear.

IT looks like a hearing a you you really can't it's you can buy IT in a variety of skin tones and you can't tell its there. And it's made by made in china by some chinese company and you can buy IT for like eleven dollars on I bought IT for eleven dollars when the piece was written in with thirteen dollars and IT connects to your phone by a blue eth. And and and you can stream audio to you.

You can stream music, you can stream podcast. You can stream audio books. Um you can talk to IT uh via theory and the whole the article is Better like the devices you know kind of jack you like but but it's amazing for like eleven dollars and then you can like talk to syria in your ear and it's like it's like the movie here like that and it's seven dollars on the amazon.

The article is really good. Um and then the device like it's I all my pack cast in box i'm driving when i'm walking just in my year and nobody knows it's there. It's all just .

wait all series good and then .

it'll be there waiting on that w dc.

fingers crossed. Um mine is an article on medium by andy done, the founder of bonobos or bond to both, as i've heard of both ways, called the risk can not taken and it's a really great reflective peace about different points in in his life one one who is starting the oboe and and one of that many years earlier, really just about times when he's face a difficult decision.

But art sort of knew the answer and he calls at the little little voice, little little something on his shoulder and A. IT shows up and and he looks over and he doesn't recognize IT at first and then he realizes, oh, my decisions are made and I have to go do that thing. And it's a really interesting playing out of the two different past that you could go taking the risk and not taking the risk.

It's really politically written, really, really smart guy. And you know really great for any readers who were sort of looking to try and figure out. So I take the risk. Should I not take the risk or or maybe perennially thinking about these things?

So that is good.

So what's the end of the article?

Again, the risk not taken by any done and it'll be in our notes or the the show description. You can hit the little little icon next to the .

episode and finally wrap up we I think we need to talk about this per minute at the metal level we just did this episode about facebook and interactions and publishing and two of our three car well all of our car belts were media and um and two of them were on medium one was a podcast and these are all new forms of journalism and publishing that um are outside the bounds of facebook really and in a lot of ways for now, for now, for now. But it's interesting that like just when you think the just when you think the walls have closed around the garden, there are flowers springing up .

outside of speaking .

of politics.

all right, before we wrapped up here taught, where can our .

listeners ers find you quiet and simple and i'm taught this ship on on twitter also.

ably on face and on face. Thank you. awesome.

This is really exciting for me. Like I said, a yal listener.

I see you .

to are probably wait that's that's the how I can to do thinks so yeah no, I really appreciate .

you me on thank you who got.

The truth got the truth.