It’s Friday night in Sydney, and that’s whisky o’clock, while Chris Duncan is still on coffee as he lags in the past in London - but for once, we’re in perfect sync.
The mood across publishing feels up ☝️ There’s a rare scent of optimism in the air.
A Substack-born media brand - The Free Press - sold to CBS for $150 million, proving that a voice, not a corporation, can still be the most valuable thing in journalism.
Benjamin was might impressed - thanks Midjourney 😉
But there was more.
Neighbourly social network Nextdoor called me for help to integrate local publishers into its 100 million-user network.
The UK’s largest publisher Reach gave its newsroom staff time off to launch 26 Substack newsletters about their passions.
Cloudflare and Microsoft both stepped up to launch marketplaces to trade premium publisher content to AIs on the pay-per-crawl model I envisioned in Airgap.
And The Washington Post announced a $100,000 innovation fund for entrepreneurial journalists itching to build the next big thing.
Stick them in a pot and stir and you start to feel like something’s cooking.
It feels like a long overdue realignment between the creator class and the newsroom. Personality is currency again.
And we even got name-checked in court as Google’s lawyers tried to use Scotch & Watch to rattle a witness. Cheers to the unflappable Stephanie Layser 🥃
As Google’s traffic collapses, and AI tries to rewrite the rulebook, it looks like the industry’s discomfort is finally turning into invention.
From Substack to Sora, from Madrid to Canberra, you can feel the battery flicker back to life. The open web isn’t dead. It’s just changing hands.
And about time.
Thanks to everyone who tuned in live. Sign up for the app to join us when we are back this Friday night Australian time and Friday morning in the UK. Slainté.
