“Winter might be arriving soon for the economy, it might be fierce.” “Right now isn’t a great time to explore futile experiments…” said Alisports CEO Zhang Dazhong. It’s a hail-mary strategy - so, with the economy threatening a downturn, Alisports plans to start slow, using the marathon as a testing ground before expanding to China’s more expensive sports tournaments. In return, Alibaba will collect information from its sports fans - and then use it to sell them everything from running shoes to health insurance. So, how will it work? Alibaba will allow viewers to send messages (and even ‘virtual gifts’) to marathon runners through its media platform, Youku. In the same way that sports teams use data to maximize performance, Alisports will use data to track user spending habits to get the most out of the way fans consume, interact, and participate in their favorite pastimes - as Bloomberg reports, it’s like “Moneyball” for e-commerce. A targeted approachĪlibaba has been trying for years to figure out how to increase sporting goods sales and other related merchandise on its platforms - which, at $11.2B in 2017, totaled 1/10th the US sports market. Jack Ma’s sports subsidiary, Alisports, plans to use Alibaba’s ever-growing ecosystem of e-commerce, data-driven logistics, and entertainment (and its massive user base) to boost the way sports fans shop. In the process of acquiring numerous newspapers, Gannett has already downsized dozens of news teams - and now if Gannett itself is acquired, the number of layoffs will get even larger.Ĭhinese sports fans, ready yourselves: Tipoff is around the corner, the ping pong balls are flying, and Alibaba is ready to score a goal with your data… clearly we’re having a hard time threading the needle. Things may look bad in digital journalism, but the grim news from Gannett is a reminder that things are still worse in print journalism. In preparation for a potential buyout, Gannett (a massive media conglomerate that owns 101 newspapers across the country,) cut several senior journalists - some of whom had won Pulitzers. Even Pulitzers can’t protect writers at Gannett Verizon acquired HuffPost in 2015 (as a part of AOL), but so far the telecom giant hasn’t cut costs enough to make media margins pay off: Verizon also cut 39 HuffPost union members as part of a massive 2.1k-person downsize in 2017. The Huffington Post will lay off 20 writers and eliminate its Opinion and Healthcare sections as its parent company, Verizon Media, cuts 7% of its total workforce (a total of 750 employees). Why? Because the ’Feed has raised $500m over the last decade and it’s still not profitable.Īccording to BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti, the corporate haircut will help the digital media company “focus on the content that is working, and achieve the right cost structure.” HuffPost is all out of opinions Although BuzzFeed cut 100 jobs in 2017, this is its biggest downsize ever. Here’s a rundown of which publications brought down the ax (and why): A buzz cut for BuzzFeedīuzzFeed is laying off 250 workers ( 15% of its staff). The downsize shows that both print and digital media companies are struggling to find a way to monetize in an ever-saturating attention economy. ’Twas an ugly week for the media industry: After unexpected layoffs across both print and digital publications, hundreds of journalists will be updating their resumes this weekend. I’ll give you $500 if you refer someone who joins our tribe.Īn unexpected ‘long weekend’: Layoffs hit BuzzFeed, HuffPost, and Gannett We’re hiring news writers and editors for this newsletter and a soon-to-be launched long-form business and entrepreneurship product (we call this role ‘research analyst’ on our jobs page). We’re a team of ~25 people who are working to change the media industry by a) creating an informative brand that creates content that people love and b) doing it profitably by carefully choosing our business model. It’s horrible news and we’re sad to report the story. Massive layoffs across print and digital media have sent a shock wave through the industry.Īs you’re about to read, today’s top story is about layoffs in the media world.
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