SWMS in Review: Q4 2020
January 6, 2021
6:29 pm
Here’s a highly scrollable look back at what we covered during Q4 2020. Check out all the cheat sheets. You’ll still need your login and password to read the articles.
>> Strategies
Newsweek Paid Community Lets Members Publish
January 6, 2021
5:04 pm
Add Newsweek to the growing list of publishers launching readership communities. The Newsweek Expert Forum now offers a waitlist in advance of its formal opening later this month. Newsweek is building the Expert Forum in association with The Community Company, a virtual professional services firm that manages councils for Forbes, Rolling Stone and Bizjournals.
Tech Edit Spotlight: Bloomberg Quicktake
January 4, 2021
8:11 pm
Bloomberg Quicktake might not change the lives of tech PR pros but it surely has changed Bloomberg. Launched in November, Quicktake is in that newborn stage, getting budget that otherwise might have gone to newsroom key clickers or to Bloomberg Television. Management is betting big on this OTT network to succeed.
Techworker Launches in January
December 20, 2020
6:05 pm
Do you care enough about tech workers to read and support a publication about them? Paul Bradley Carr hopes so. Next month he launches Techworker, “an independent news site for, and about, the most powerful workforce on Earth.” You may know Paul’s name from Pando, and going back a decade, from TechCrunch TV.
Why Substack Might Be a Flash in the Pan
December 20, 2020
3:41 pm
All year long we’ve read about editors planting their flag in Substack. Rare is the story about someone leaving it. That’s what Jacob Donnelly is doing. Jacob believes he has outgrown Substack, explaining in a Dec. 15 post that the platform is too rigid and prevents him from growing his business.
Edit Opportunity for Telemental Health Clients in 2021
December 18, 2020
10:31 am
SWMS contributor Rachel Odenweller writes: The holidays are coming up, and even in a normal year, it’s a hard time for many. While The Great British Bake Off has helped quell our feelings of despair, sometimes circumstances call for a professional mental health perspective.
Newsletter Spy: The Tool That Unearths Substack Newsletters
December 17, 2020
7:33 pm
Newsletter Spy is a new tool that searches Substack for newsletter authors and topics. It’s exactly what the media-curious have been waiting for, since Substack itself provides little in the way of discovery. Prepare for disappointment.
Video Playback: ‘Strategies for Startup Coverage in 2021’
December 7, 2020
8:33 pm
On Dec. 2 we hosted a Zoom session with TechCrunch senior editor Alex Wilhelm and Madrona Venture Group strategic comms director Erika Shaffer. The mission: to spot the best ways to land startup coverage in 2021. Here’s the video playback. So many tips and nuggets! Huge thanks to Alex and Erika for their insights and generosity.
Virtual Techfluence at CES 2021
December 7, 2020
6:44 pm
CES is virtual this year, just like the accompanying and independent product showcases — Pepcom, ShowStoppers, CES Unveiled and Techfluence. This shift to cyberspace creates fresh opportunity to lead this category. Last week we spoke with the least known of the four brands — Techfluence — which hopes to reinvent the show-within-a-show CES experience.
Eight SWMS Predictions for 2021
November 25, 2020
6:46 pm
No single 2020 predictions list amounted to much, thanks to a pandemic and the murder of George Floyd. Next year begins a bit more clearly, with a conventional American president and a surging stock market. Oh, trouble lurks, of course. With the proviso that anything can go poof, let’s gaze into the crystal ball…
YOUR ACCOUNT
FRIDGE NOTES
Congress to Investigate the Omnicom-IPG Deal
December 20, 2024
Well, for now it’s Jim Jordan… but such news illustrates the kind of world we seem to be headed for. Adweek has the details, subscription required.
SWMS Predictions for 2025
December 10, 2024
No “predictions” post will appear on this site. That said, quite a number of subscribers have asked for a Zoom/MS Teams presentation on what 2025 will bring. A conversation is precisely the right tool for the job. After the election — and with AI transforming publishing and life — “2025” is best discussed among peers, not predicted. So if you’d like to have a confidential group exchange on what stands to unfold, and why, and how comms pros can come out on top in spite of it all, drop a line and we shall schedule something.
Talk About Confidentiality…
December 10, 2024
According to Adweek, Omnicom CEO John Wren and IPG CEO Philippe Krakowsky were in merger talks for eleven and a half months before the transaction was announced this week. Amazing that it didn’t leak.
Introducing ‘SWMS Sound Thinking’
November 22, 2024
Should PR pros stop visiting X, with all its lies and hate? It’s only going to get worse. Or are tidbits from targets too important to walk away from? Click here to watch tech edit vet David Strom and I disagree (at high speed) about this, as one compelling visual after another pops up on your screen. In 2025, SWMS will officially launch “SWMS Sound Thinking,” designed to be “argumentative insight in six minutes or less.” Each segment will explore a timely and controversial topic of interest to tech comms pros. This prototype runs 5:25. Hope you enjoy it — feedback vital and welcome! –Sam
Business Insider Reporters Starting to Go on Camera
November 19, 2024
New EIC Jamie Heller has asked her reporters to start going on camera — for the BI TikTok channel — to explain the big, deep-divey story they just published. Other publications do this — especially archival Fortune. BI is now on that too. Game on.
The ‘AI Fantasy Draft’ From Eric Newcomer
November 13, 2024
At this time last year, Eric Newcomer and his two podcast co-hosts — Max Child and James Wilsterman — each formed an “AI startup fantasy team” and picked five AI startups to seed their rosters. We’re now in year 2 and it’s time to draft again. The podcasters wonder… which startups do they dump? Which do they add? The player whose startups accumulate the most total value by Nov. 1, 2028 is the winner, so there’s plenty of time to make adjustments. Here’s a link to the AI fantasy team podcast — you may need a password. Not sure.