Since no one is around this lazy Sunday Easter afternoon, I can go on a media bender and no one will notice, right?

Ok, here goes: everyone "disrupting" media with on format innovations fails. Or pivots. Complicating media always fails, will continue to.

Let's look at examples: Circa tried to "atomize" the article. Many others went into it as well. What's their fate now?

Medium tried to make act of writing beautiful, forgetting writing is inherently all over the spectrum, no one gives a shit about formats.

Take FB Instant Articles, a dud after so much hype, read this. Again, formats are NOT a business, nor readers care.

Quartz launched promising brevity in stories, less than 500 words. Now, no one gives a shit, they're better for it.

Axios is promising "smart brevity", it fits into one mobile screen. Noble, but beyond media insiders, no one gives a shit. Pivot it will.

Outline is gorgeous, promising story design as differentiator. It is novel, but wears off quickly. Expect that to drop as positioning.

Formats innovations are inherently insular decisions based on own media habits. That is why they fail as a business outside of bubble.

Write a great story, any length or format, on any CMS, Geocities site, blog, Snowfall, Medium, mobile-first, any social platform, it works.

If a story is crappy, it won't work in any freakin' format innovation, whatever the mediatypes wish upon the world.

I have more rantiness left, but my son just woke up from his afternoon nap. Gotta go.

You should start a blog ;)

New formats is about the only brand you can have as a new media outlet though. Good marketing

In the long run though of course it's all words on a screen

That's the genius of Jonah's BuzzFeed thesis: if real folks won't share it, it won't work no matter what resources went into the CMS or UX

so still true that "News is what somebody somewhere wants to suppress; all the rest is advertising." - Lord Northcliffe

The metric that actually matters: Do folks SMS, email, or share your reporting/stories with the individuals/small groups that matter to them

What's lost all too often, we can measure that sharing pattern (best friend, boss, etc) yet too often our peers optimize for mass shouting

If you help your audience feel/be more connected to the people they care about, then you matter. That can be measured and optimized.

yes but has to be findable...agree overall though as format doesn't much matter to me

So you think the content of all these will run together in the end?

Also, I personally loved the “Skift Take” summary. Know it’s a feature not a business, but it was a format I think has value.

I think axios has the most useful news format now.

I really agree with Dave here… why will they have to pivot? Politico never had to…

That somehow *every* story it does will fit the one format. It won't and they will do regular stories like Politico does.

also, not always smart.

Hmm, I might challenge this one. Medium's format innovation has impacted content creation positively. But format innovation != biz model