What Does CNET's Sale Say About the State of Digital?

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Welcome to this week's issue of the Niche Media Publishing Newsletter.

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Let’s get started with this week’s topics.

What the CNET Sales Says About Digital Today

Big news in the media world this week as CNET gets acquired by Ziff Davis for $100mm. This is a truly fascinating story as Red Ventures purchased it for $500mm in 2020 and it originally transacted with CBS for $1.8B in 2008.

What I think this foretells for me is that the era of PE style editorial arbitrage is over.

By this I mean the strategy of acquiring venerable early internet (or pre-internet) publications and merely executing a modern “brass tacks” SEO playbook.

This isn’t to say that this play didn’t involve tremendous skill. DotDash’s metamorphosis of About.com in into the disaggregated "Verywell” portfolio is worthy of a media Hall of Fame nod.

But slightly below the radar was the remarkable news that DotDash was sunsetting one of the marquee’s of this strategy: Verywellfamily.

This brand alone ate at least two of our microbrands for a mid afternoon snack a few years ago.

For years, all the big players like DotDash, Red Ventures, Future, and Ziff Davis had to do was acquire a well-known - but fairly digitally unsavvy - household publication and “run the playbook”.

This typically involved implementing a standardized, proven, tech-stack, an SEO-first content strategy, an in-house ad optimization stack, and an affiliate friendly content profile.

CNET’s demise was a sort of late stage, baroque-era, representation of this wedge. Acquired in 2020, Red Ventures pushed the envelope with topically broad content… moving CNET far away from it’s tech-nerd roots.

But I think this relative failure of the CNET play speaks to where both users and digital platforms are today.

The great Google goldrush is over. At least as we know it. SEO best practices are common knowledge. There are few unturned publishing stones left.

Perhaps users started to see through the charade of “me too” listicles, often produced by the same content production, lightly rearranged, and distributed across portfolio publications.

Maybe appending “Reddit” was the warning sign. A subtle rebellion against the homogenization of Search.

And maybe this is why Google “broke glass” and shook the jar of marbles in such an aggressive manner.

So it certainly feels like the end of an era. And I’m not as sad about it as I initially was.

The fragmentation of digital creates opportunities to reinvent and for new growth. Community, newsletters, and UGC, are where it’s at right now.

Hopefully, there’s a good 5-6 years before PE ruins the fun again.

Google Gets It

I won’t add a whole lot to the news coverage here, but in case you missed it, a judge formally ruled that Google has violated the Sherman Act anti trust provisions.

As many have noted, this could take years for the appeals process to play out. But for now, Google is a certifiable Monopolist.

I do think the potential break up of their “deals” with Apple, Mozilla, and Android come at a VERY interesting time for digital publishing.

There’s clearly an open-season for publishers and platforms to re-imagine their roles and re-negotiate contracts.

Will Apple start their own search engine?

Could Android strike a deal with one of the new AI-search players?

Will publishers start negotiating more deals?

Will discovery and search platforms create new explicit incentive structures for creators and niche publishers?

Need Traffic? Want to Build Community?

I’m “all in” on Reddit right now as the fastest way to acquire users and build community.

As such, my course is a fluid, evolving project. I’m adding new modules weekly!

Building Resilient Media

I’ve been thinking a lot about how niche media brands can “build back better” with more resilient traffic and monetization strategies.

Gunnar Holm provides an excellent example of how to think about newsletters:

But I think this applies to ANY media play moving forward.

Other Things I Read Recently

These are some articles I enjoyed, but don’t really have anything to add to!

Other Newsletters Worth Following

Here are some other publications I subscribe to, author, or co-sign.

If you are operating a newsletter (or even just interested), this next one is one of my “must opens” every week as a newsletter operator myself:

For some of the best breakdowns of creator success stories:

If you want to go deeper with Reddit (one of my favorite creator ecosysystems right now), check out my sister publication:

And don’t miss Amy’s excellent insights into wants happening in the world of content marketers.

Interested in Booking an Ad?

I’ve put together a resource sheet over at Passionfruit here.

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OK, that's it for this week...

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Ewen