Snark FM 105: the Durp

[Someone]

Originally Posted by Someone

Some of the suggestions to bring in new blood and engagement are so quaint and out of touch as to be make me laugh. Email newsletter, now there's a cutting edge way to drive Board engagement for new blood.

It's not that daft an idea - email newsletters having been having a resurgence over the last two-three years, and they're only getting more popular. The NY Time Daily, The Skimm (which gets bagged a lot because of its tone, but it's still hugely popular), Quartz's Daily Brief - these and other newsletters are actually booming at the moment. I work for an Australian news/media organisation and we have the same experience - they're very popular.

• Everyone has email, and email is inherently mobile
• Spam filters are pretty damn good at the moment, so most people's email accounts are relatively uncluttered by spam
• There's an appetite for the right information - by which I mean info that matches what the reader wants, is simply delivered and has additional information available via links. As long as the newsletter has a focus and keeps to it, you have happy readers e.g. if you advertise the list as being for political wonks, don't bother with sports content; if you advertise the list as being about football, don't bother with basketball.
• They're actually pretty economical for publishers to put together - you're already making the content if you're a media publisher (e.g. NYT, Quartz) or you've got tons of sources to filter from if you're not, and you just link to several to bring readers a broad perspective.

I don't know if the Dope would be able to do a daily one long-term, but the overall idea ain't that daft given the way newsletters are going at the moment.