SWMS tends not to cover the business initiatives of its subscribers, but the Marker Collective has embarked on something revealing. The parent org of Archetype,
A veteran tech edit freelancer one told SWMS that freelancers are entrepreneurs like any other. Time is money. Profit beats all. Few PR pros pitch with this in mind — but they won’t be able to break through with John Edwards unless they do.
Ever use AI to test pitches before sending them to reporters? Try it sometime. It’s a fun way to improve them. For the proper horsepower, you’ll need a paid subscription to a Gen AI service such as GPT-4 or Claude 3.
Just for fun, try creating the story pitch after the story is written. We did that this week, using generative AI. We pasted an already-published story into each of three GenAI tools and asked it to write a compelling PR pitch based on that article.
It’s 2026. You’ve got a new job, earning $250K a year as “VP, Pitch Analytics.” You’ve got a modest budget to retain freelance tech reporters. You manage an intern.
Sometimes it’s easy to forget that when you’re pitching Tier 1 reporters, you are pitching their bosses at the same time. That’s why it’s helpful to understand the entire editorial process in the publications you’re pitching — not just the persuasion part.
… is now available. Big thanks to SWMS subscribers Morgan McLintic and Chris Ulbrich for the opportunity to be a guest on the newly launched
A subscriber reports that HARO needs to do a better job of labeling a corporate blogger as a corporate blogger. Because of how HARO presents
Search platform TechNews last month introduced features that let users spot trends deep within tech editorial. Launched as IT Database in 2007, TechNews is widely used within tech PR to learn who is writing what.
We’ve decided to go ahead and publish selected slides from a presentation we made to a subscriber several weeks ago. We hesitated because some of the slides leaned toward “preachy”; subscribers typically like it when SWMS stays in its lane, delivering cheat sheets and tech media analysis.
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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.
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.
This timeless explainer — a powerful blend of visuals and text — will explain the psychology of how we read, as in, how does the mind actually work? Hats off to Message Labs, the producer.
Ars Technica recently filed this revealing piece on how the NYT uses gen AI to analyze gargantuan transcripts, ones that would overwhelm mere mortals. The results still need to be reviewed by humans, but the grunt analysis is done by the LLM. Investigative reporting becomes easier. Journalism is served.
It was announced long ago, but on Nov, 26 we learn whether TechTarget stockholders want to join forces with Informa and its legion of IT media brands, not least of which is Industry Dive. It will be hard to imagine a rival of equal power, with IDG/Foundry now a shadow of its former self. IDG/Foundry’s lack of investment and focus on cost-cutting will look unwise if TechTarget and Informa do merge.
404 Media may not be on your radar, but it currently ranks 8th of 50 leading publications recognized by Techmeme. The edit startup took a step forward this week, announcing a deal with Wired, which will run two 404 Media stories a month — and the pair might collaborate on stories beginning in 2025.
