This week’s Twipe Weekly Publishing News Digest takes a look at stories from across the world of publishing and news tech, touching on topics like the limitations of ChatGPT, how publishers are using TikTok, Facebook threatening to ban news again and more. Read our top 5 stories of the week below.
1. How publishers are learning to create and distribute news on TikTok
Despite not being a platform famed for its monetisation capabilities, publishers have well and truly jumped onboard the TikTok hype. Last week, Nic Newman and the team at Reuters Institute released a new report exploring how publishers are now learning to create and distribute news on TikTok. 18-24 year olds still dominate usage on the platform with 15% using TikTok for news. Clearly with 49% of "top news" publishers now regularly publishing content on TikTok, it looks as though they believe this is the key to unlocking Gen Z.
Find the full report from Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism here.
2. ChatGPT is less wowed by itself than we are
Over the last week, ChatGPT has become everyone's shiny early Christmas present. Over 1 million people have experimented with its language learning model, writing essays, poems and more through the bot. Whilst it may come across as a fancy new piece of software, apparently ChatGPT is less wowed by itself than we are. Founder of Sifted John Thornhill wrote a great piece exploring ChatGPT's limitations in its own words, as well as posing some of the questions sure to be on people's minds about its ethical use.
Read the full piece from John Thronhill on the FT here.
3. Facebook threatens to ban news in the US over journalism
Same playbook different country. In light of the new Journalism Competition and Preservation Act in the US, Facebook have again threatened to ban news on the platform. The move see's Facebook argue that publishers use Facebook to share their content as it "benefits their bottom line - not the other way around". The latest Facebook v. Publisher debacle will be one to follow going into 2023.
Get the complete story from Emma Roth at The Verge here.
4. How have news apps developed in 2022?
Earlier this year, we discussed app strategies in a webinar with experts from The Telegraph, Schibsted and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung to learn about unified apps, singular purpose apps, digital-editions and more. Over the course of 2022, we monitored app developments closely to see how publishers have developed their strategies.
See our full findings here.
5. GE buys out entire NYT print paper in historic first
As growth has been one of the key themes of 2022 for news, and the last week saw this taken to a new level. General Electric bought the complete advertising space in last Tuesday's edition of The New York Times. This is the first time we have seen this move since The New York Times was founded and it represents a strong shift in advertising strategy.
Get the full story from Axios' Sara Fischer here.
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