With using Twitter becoming increasingly like smoking — a habit you can’t quit but know you should — there’s a chance that a better RSS reader will finally, finally take hold and scale.
Two years ago, Sara Watson boldly predicted in this space that we might see a return of the RSS reader, or something like it, recognizing that the world of constant email newsletters was simply impossible to maintain. But the appetite wasn’t strong enough yet.
The difference, going into 2023, is that even the Inbox Zero people are going to have a reason to complain. Left without a better way to quickly zoom in and zoom out on the state of the universe (also known as the world according to Twitter), I predict those people will reach a point of frustration in even their ability to manage email.
It is at this point that the most organized people in late capitalism will rise up about a very small matter and demand something better: An RSS for the people, open source, easily used, and not some weird niche version for podcasts or that uses AI.
Two years ago, Substack was becoming a thing, but the newest spawn of DC beltway publications based on newsletter distribution had yet to break through. But now the mix includes Semafor, Puck, Punchbowl, more Axios Locals, and new ones on the horizon like Pluribis News.
There are two types of Inbox Zero people in this world: Those who do not read any news or shop online, and those who use a lot of Twitter. You may recall them talking about how RSS readers were obsolete in a world of Twitter (after all, even Google killed Reader). Twitter could be their perfectly curated and controlled sandbox of content. Now, it’s less socially acceptable to tweet.
Contrary to what The New York Times has speculated, we are not at peak newsletter. We are just at peak newsletter via email delivery. The 10% of people who claim that email newsletters are their primary form of news consumption include among them the most anal, powerful, and high-net worth people in the country.
I predict that these people won’t stand for a universe where their email becomes ever more crowded just because of Elon Musk mucking up Twitter. The only way to survive in a world where multiple DC-insider publications are launching multiple newsletters and Twitter is no longer socially acceptable is to use an RSS reader that satisfies the intelligentsia and political elite.
Will we get it? It may well be that the feed from email to robust RSS reader needs an API that isn’t yet possible, given password-protected, your-and-Gmail’s-eyes-only email. RSS readers may need their own ecology of analytics in order to be commercially desirable and worthy of tech investment.
Given that tech companies have taken to these newsletters to plead their case to the beltway, they certainly don’t want to lose the readers of these email newsletters, either. That provides a market incentive to make a better, bigger, bolder RSS reader. And if Ben Thompson is right that that “text on the internet is arguably the most competitive medium in all of human history,” then there is an opportunity for a very retro version of tech disruption.
Nikki Usher (they/them) is an associate professor in communication studies at the University of San Diego.
With using Twitter becoming increasingly like smoking — a habit you can’t quit but know you should — there’s a chance that a better RSS reader will finally, finally take hold and scale.
Two years ago, Sara Watson boldly predicted in this space that we might see a return of the RSS reader, or something like it, recognizing that the world of constant email newsletters was simply impossible to maintain. But the appetite wasn’t strong enough yet.
The difference, going into 2023, is that even the Inbox Zero people are going to have a reason to complain. Left without a better way to quickly zoom in and zoom out on the state of the universe (also known as the world according to Twitter), I predict those people will reach a point of frustration in even their ability to manage email.
It is at this point that the most organized people in late capitalism will rise up about a very small matter and demand something better: An RSS for the people, open source, easily used, and not some weird niche version for podcasts or that uses AI.
Two years ago, Substack was becoming a thing, but the newest spawn of DC beltway publications based on newsletter distribution had yet to break through. But now the mix includes Semafor, Puck, Punchbowl, more Axios Locals, and new ones on the horizon like Pluribis News.
There are two types of Inbox Zero people in this world: Those who do not read any news or shop online, and those who use a lot of Twitter. You may recall them talking about how RSS readers were obsolete in a world of Twitter (after all, even Google killed Reader). Twitter could be their perfectly curated and controlled sandbox of content. Now, it’s less socially acceptable to tweet.
Contrary to what The New York Times has speculated, we are not at peak newsletter. We are just at peak newsletter via email delivery. The 10% of people who claim that email newsletters are their primary form of news consumption include among them the most anal, powerful, and high-net worth people in the country.
I predict that these people won’t stand for a universe where their email becomes ever more crowded just because of Elon Musk mucking up Twitter. The only way to survive in a world where multiple DC-insider publications are launching multiple newsletters and Twitter is no longer socially acceptable is to use an RSS reader that satisfies the intelligentsia and political elite.
Will we get it? It may well be that the feed from email to robust RSS reader needs an API that isn’t yet possible, given password-protected, your-and-Gmail’s-eyes-only email. RSS readers may need their own ecology of analytics in order to be commercially desirable and worthy of tech investment.
Given that tech companies have taken to these newsletters to plead their case to the beltway, they certainly don’t want to lose the readers of these email newsletters, either. That provides a market incentive to make a better, bigger, bolder RSS reader. And if Ben Thompson is right that that “text on the internet is arguably the most competitive medium in all of human history,” then there is an opportunity for a very retro version of tech disruption.
Nikki Usher (they/them) is an associate professor in communication studies at the University of San Diego.
Felicitas Carrique and Becca Aaronson News product goes from trend to standard
Dana Lacey Tech will screw publishers over
Ståle Grut Your newsroom experiences a Midjourney-gate, too
Danielle K. Brown and Kathleen Searles DEI efforts must consider mental health and online abuse
Brian Moritz Rebuilding the news bundle
Ryan Gantz “I’m sorry, but I’m a large language model”
Jody Brannon We’ll embrace policy remedies
Jarrad Henderson Video editing will help people understand the media they consume
Wilson Liévano Diaspora journalism takes the next step
Tre'vell Anderson Continued culpability in anti-trans campaigns
Johannes Klingebiel The innovation team, R.I.P.
Jenna Weiss-Berman The economic downturn benefits the podcasting industry. (No, really!)
Joni Deutsch Podcast collaboration — not competition — breeds excellence
John Davidow A year of intergenerational learning
Anita Varma Journalism prioritizes the basic need for survival
Alan Henry A reckoning with why trust in news is so low
Julia Angwin Democracies will get serious about saving journalism
Sarah Alvarez Dream bigger or lose out
Gordon Crovitz The year advertisers stop funding misinformation
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Well-being will become a core tenet of journalism
Francesco Zaffarano There is no end of “social media”
Doris Truong Workers demand to be paid what the job is worth
Laxmi Parthasarathy Unlocking the silent demand for international journalism
Alexandra Svokos Working harder to reach audiences where they are
Leezel Tanglao Community partnerships drive better reporting
Parker Molloy We’ll reach new heights of moral panic
Lisa Heyamoto The independent news industry gets a roadmap to sustainability
Sumi Aggarwal Smart newsrooms will prioritize board development
Joshua P. Darr Local to live, wire to wither
An Xiao Mina Journalism in a time of permacrisis
Errin Haines Journalists on the campaign trail mend trust with the public
Bill Adair The year of the fact-check (no, really!)
Mario García More newsrooms go mobile-first
Anthony Nadler Confronting media gerrymandering
Victor Pickard The year journalism and capitalism finally divorce
Nicholas Diakopoulos Journalists productively harness generative AI tools
Gina Chua The traditional story structure gets deconstructed
Megan Lucero and Shirish Kulkarni The future of journalism is not you
Alex Sujong Laughlin Credit where it’s due
Kavya Sukumar Belling the cat: The rise of independent fact-checking at scale
Daniel Trielli Trust in news will continue to fall. Just look at Brazil.
Molly de Aguiar and Mandy Van Deven Narrative change trend brings new money to journalism
Sue Schardt Toward a new poetics of journalism
Michael Schudson Journalism gets more and more difficult
Tamar Charney Flux is the new stability
J. Siguru Wahutu American journalism reckons with its colonialist tendencies
Mael Vallejo More threats to press freedom across the Americas
Josh Schwartz The AI spammers are coming
Martina Efeyini Talk to Gen Z. They’re the experts of Gen Z.
Ayala Panievsky It’s time for PR for journalism
Nicholas Thompson The year AI actually changes the media business
Don Day The news about the news is bad. I’m optimistic.
Pia Frey Publishers start polling their users at scale
Larry Ryckman We’ll work together with our competitors
Jesse Holcomb Buffeted, whipped, bullied, pulled
Kerri Hoffman Podcasting goes local
Sue Cross Thinking and acting collectively to save the news
Barbara Raab More journalism funders will take more risks
Nikki Usher This is the year of the RSS reader. (Really!)
Simon Galperin Philanthropy stops investing in corporate media
Priyanjana Bengani Partisan local news networks will collaborate
Peter Sterne AI enters the newsroom
David Cohn AI made this prediction
Mariana Moura Santos A woman who speaks is a woman who changes the world
Masuma Ahuja Journalism starts working for and with its communities
Anna Nirmala News organizations get new structures
Dannagal G. Young Stop rewarding elite performances of identity threat
Matt Rasnic More newsroom workers turn to organized labor
Alexandra Borchardt The year of the climate journalism strategy
David Skok Renewed interest in human-powered reporting
Emily Nonko Incarcerated reporters get more bylines
Emma Carew Grovum The year to resist forgetting about diversity
Eric Nuzum A focus on people instead of power
Surya Mattu Data journalists learn from photojournalists
Esther Kezia Thorpe Subscription pressures force product innovation
Burt Herman The year AI truly arrives — and with it the reckoning
Khushbu Shah Global reporting will suffer
Cassandra Etienne Local news fellowships will help fight newsroom inequities
Elite Truong In platform collapse, an opportunity for community
Jakob Moll Journalism startups will think beyond English
Rodney Gibbs Recalibrating how we work apart
Jessica Maddox Journalists keep getting manipulated by internet culture
Susan Chira Equipping local journalism
Paul Cheung More news organizations will realize they are in the business of impact, not eyeballs
Eric Thurm Journalists think of themselves as workers
Janelle Salanga Journalists work from a place of harm reduction
Alex Perry New paths to transparency without Twitter
Jaden Amos TikTok personality journalists continue to rise
Christina Shih Shared values move from nice-to-haves to essentials
Stefanie Murray The year U.S. media stops screwing around and becomes pro-democracy
Kirstin McCudden We’ll codify protection of journalism and newsgathering
Sarabeth Berman Nonprofit local news shows that it can scale
Basile Simon Towards supporting criminal accountability
Laura E. Davis The year we embrace the robots — and ourselves
Rachel Glickhouse Humanizing newsrooms will be a badge of honor
Kaitlyn Wells We’ll prioritize media literacy for children
Snigdha Sur Newsrooms get nimble in a recession
Dominic-Madori Davis Everyone finally realizes the need for diverse voices in tech reporting
Ben Werdmuller The internet is up for grabs again
Kathy Lu We need emotionally agile newsroom leaders
Sam Guzik AI will start fact-checking. We may not like the results.
Andrew Donohue We’ll find out whether journalism can, indeed, save democracy
Janet Haven ChatGPT and the future of trust
Jennifer Brandel AI couldn’t care less. Journalists will care more.
Jessica Clark Open discourse retrenches
Gabe Schneider Well-funded journalism leaders stop making disparate pay
Cindy Royal Yes, journalists should learn to code, but…
Jonas Kaiser Rejecting the “free speech” frame
Jim VandeHei There is no “peak newsletter”
Christoph Mergerson The rot at the core of the news business
Delano Massey The industry shakes its imposter syndrome
Julia Beizer News fatigue shows us a clear path forward
Hillary Frey Death to the labor-intensive memo for prospective hires
Sarah Stonbely Growth in public funding for news and information at the state and local levels
Richard Tofel The press might get better at vetting presidential candidates
A.J. Bauer Covering the right wrong
Raney Aronson-Rath Journalists will band together to fight intimidation
Shanté Cosme The answer to “quiet quitting” is radical empathy
Anika Anand Independent news businesses lead the way on healthy work cultures
Jennifer Choi and Jonathan Jackson Funders finally bet on next-generation news entrepreneurs
Taylor Lorenz The “creator economy” will be astroturfed
Bill Grueskin Local news will come to rely on AI
Peter Bale Rising costs force more digital innovation
Kaitlin C. Miller Harassment in journalism won’t get better, but we’ll talk about it more openly
Brian Stelter Finding new ways to reach news avoiders
Ariel Zirulnick Journalism doubles down on user needs
Mary Walter-Brown and Tristan Loper Mission-driven metrics become our North Star
Eric Ulken Generative AI brings wrongness at scale
Mauricio Cabrera It’s no longer about audiences, it’s about communities
Moreno Cruz Osório Brazilian journalism turns wounds into action
Ryan Nave Citizen journalism, but make it equitable
Joanne McNeil Facebook and the media kiss and make up
Cari Nazeer and Emily Goligoski News organizations step up their support for caregivers
Tim Carmody Newsletter writers need a new ethics
S. Mitra Kalita “Everything sucks. Good luck to you.”
Juleyka Lantigua Newsrooms recognize women of color as the canaries in the coal mine
Jim Friedlich Local journalism steps up to the challenge of civic coverage
Jacob L. Nelson Despite it all, people will still want to be journalists
Michael W. Wagner The backlash against pro-democracy reporting is coming
Upasna Gautam Technology that performs at the speed of news
Mar Cabra The inevitable mental health revolution
Andrew Losowsky Journalism realizes the replacement for Twitter is not a new Twitter
Joe Amditis AI throws a lifeline to local publishers
Amethyst J. Davis The slight of the great contraction
Ryan Kellett Airline-like loyalty programs try to tie down news readers
Sarah Marshall A web channel strategy won’t be enough
Amy Schmitz Weiss Journalism education faces a crossroads
Sue Robinson Engagement journalism will have to confront a tougher reality
Eric Holthaus As social media fragments, marginalized voices gain more power
Nicholas Jackson There will be launches — and we’ll keep doing the work
Cory Bergman The AI content flood
Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau More of the same
Walter Frick Journalists wake up to the power of prediction markets
Al Lucca Digital news design gets interesting again
Sam Gregory Synthetic media forces us to understand how media gets made