CNET Sold For a Pittance; Axios Lays Off 50
August 7, 2024
4:56 am
Red Ventures paid $500M for CNET/ZDNet in 2020 and this week sold them for $100M. Kaput went its plan to use AI to monetize content.
>> Axios
Axios Will Outflank AI By Lionizing Edit Stars
April 12, 2024
10:47 am
That’s the strategy as expressed to NYT’s Katie Robertson by Axios CEO Jim VandeHei. First up: Eleanor Hawkins, Sara Fischer and Dan Primack.
Pitch Advice from 6 at Axios
August 24, 2022
9:41 am
A recent edition of the new Axios Communicators newsletter offered pitch advice from five Axios reporters and a co-founder. Newsletter author Eleanor Hawkins polled her colleagues on what PR folks need to be told.
Odds & Ends
May 12, 2022
9:57 am
Bradley Davis left the New York Post to become director of business news at Insider. There he will oversee reporters who cover breaking news for
Axios Launches Five Vertical Newsletters
January 27, 2022
8:25 am
Axios Pro officially launched last week. It comprises three verticals focused on “PE, VC and M&A” news in fintech, health tech and retail. Later this year, look for climate and media verticals. Price: $599 a year for each vertical, after a 14-day free trial.
Odds & Ends
January 13, 2022
11:06 am
Former InformationWeek reporter David Carr has joined Similarweb as senior insights manager. He’ll be mining data and sharing analyses on Similarweb’s blog. SWMS will be
Odds & Ends
November 30, 2021
9:33 am
Peter Allen Clark left Time to become technology editor at Axios…Lucinda Shen left Fortune to join Axios, too — she will cover fintech there… Kyle Alspach left CRN to cover security for VentureBeat…
Two Questions: Kia Kokalitcheva, Axios
April 29, 2021
8:07 am
SWMS contributor Rhiannon Pacheco writes: “Growing up in the heart of Silicon Valley, Kia Kokalitcheva grew up discussing tech over the dinner table with her engineer father — it was inevitable that she’d end up working in tech. As VC and tech reporter at Axios, and in her former work at Fortune and VentureBeat, she’s had access to the tech scene’s who’s who.”
Profile: Ina Fried, Axios
July 20, 2020
5:06 pm
Axios newsletter author Ina Fried discusses her views of virtual events large and small, and the single most important thing PR pros should do when preparing to pitch.
Axios ‘Smart Brevity’ — A New Standard for Internal Comms?
September 20, 2019
1:35 pm
By now you know about Axios and its “smart brevity” (which an Axios comms pro once described as “going deep, writing short”). More than a slogan, smart brevity is a bullet-based, easily scannable writing style designed to convey information clearly at a glance. And now it’s more than a writing style…
YOUR ACCOUNT
FRIDGE NOTES
TechCrunch Layoffs
January 15, 2025
Less than ten individuals were impacted, says a Jan. 15 report in Business Insider. Monitor Fridge Notes for the names as they become known.
‘Bloomberg Tech’ Now Open for Registration
January 6, 2025
Registration is now open for the ‘Bloomberg Tech’ F2F event, being held Jun. 4-5 in San Francisco. With the current early-bird discount, a ticket runs $1,500. There is no better way to build relationships with Bloomberg’s notoriously elusive tech reporters.
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