SODP Dispatch - 14 March 2024

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Labrador CMS Q&A: Moving Beyond a Headless CMS for Greater Publisher Flexibility and Speed

By Vahe Arabian

📈 The shift toward headless CMS solutions is gaining momentum among publishers seeking greater flexibility and agility – the headless CMS software market was valued at $592.43 million in 2022 and was projected to reach $672.09 million by the end of 2023.

Labrador CMS aims to take it a step further, distinguishing itself by offering an API-driven approach that transcends conventional headless systems.

We sat down with the CEO, Jan Thoresen, to discuss what advantages journalists, newsrooms, and publishers in general have when utilizing Labrador CMS – “a tool of modern journalists”.

💡 In this Q&A with Jan Thoresen, you will learn:

• Why Labrador’s API approach goes beyond a headless CMS

• The important of serviceability in the context of CMS for news publishers

• How Labrador CMS manages updates and upgrades to ensure minimal disruption to ongoing operations

• The biggest challenges publishers face – tech spaghetti

How Meta’s Refusal to Pay for News Affects Australian Journalism – And Our Democracy

By Peter Greste

When we speak of media freedom, we generally mean it in terms of freedom from unnecessary legal restrictions, so journalists and their sources are not threatened with prosecution for exposing the misdeeds of governments.

But a recent announcement by Meta (Facebook’s parent company) that it will stop paying for Australian news content poses a different kind of threat to media freedom.

The most progressive media freedom laws in the world are meaningless if news companies can’t afford to hire experienced journalists to run expensive investigations. It doesn’t matter how free the laws are if there are no journalists to do the reporting.

By Vahe Arabian

⚙️ Enhancing Your Google News Strategy

Google's latest experiment, the "Popular Opinions" search carousel, is making first-perspective-driven content discovery. However, amidst all this, one thing remains constant: the importance of quality content and adherence to Google News policies.

Here are some practical tips to enhance your strategy:

1. Optimize Your Open Graph Tags: Elevate your social media metadata with user scent copy. If your CMS has an AI feature for this, do leverage it.
   

2. Increase Google Publisher Centre Followers: Expand your follower base to curate a user-centric content environment.
   

3. Leverage Paid Social Traffic: Amplify your reach by tapping into trending topics with strategic paid social campaigns. Time will tell the effectiveness of this outside of meta/FB.
   

4. Reverse Engineer Content Performance: Analyze metrics and double down on successful content strategies to drive engagement.
   

5. Focus on Interest-Driven Headlines: Craft compelling headlines that resonate with your audience's interests to optimize click-through rates.
   

6. Refresh Evergreen Content: Stay relevant by periodically re-optimizing and refreshing your evergreen content during trending periods.

Remember to uphold Google's News policies by ensuring:

• Clear disclosure of sponsored content to maintain eligibility for news surfaces

• Transparency is your watchword

• Your content is free from misleading information.

🌎 Global Media Tech Regulation Tracker

FIPP Global Media Tech Regulation Tracker is a live doc that’s updated monthly, bringing you the latest policy, regulatory, and legal updates from around the media tech world. This month; how the Australian government might respond to Meta’s U-turn on publisher payments, the ongoing battles in US state legislatures over social media and the legal response to generative AI.
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🖥 Webinar: Decoding GA4 & SEO Best Practices For Publishers

Next week, I will be presenting at a webinar by AdPushup, covering the intricacies of GA4 and SEO along with their specific implications for publishers. 20 March 2024 | 4:00 PM Singapore.
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LinkedIn Doubles Down on News as Social Rivals Retreat | Axios

LinkedIn is investing more in journalism and news amid a broader pullback by tech rivals from the industry, the company's editor-in-chief and vice president Dan Roth told Axios in an interview.
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Google’s March 2024 Core Update Impact: Hundreds Of Websites Deindexed | Search Engine Journal

Google's March 2024 Core Update has deindexed hundreds of websites in its early stages, targeting low-quality content and AI-generated spam. Deindexed sites face significant consequences, losing organic search traffic and advertising revenue.
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EU Poised to Enact Sweeping AI Rules With US, Global Impact (1) | Bloomberg

The European Union is on the verge of passing sweeping artificial intelligence regulation—with teeth. The Act would regulate different uses of AI based on risk. It includes prohibitions on certain use cases—such as “emotion recognition” systems in the workplace—which carry the highest fines: 7% of global revenue or 35 million euros (about $38 million), whichever is higher.
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Google updates its page experience docs to clarify ranking signals | Search Engine Land

Google updated its page experience help documentation to clarify how Core Web Vitals metrics are used as a ranking signal. Google also clarified that other page experience signals are not directly used for ranking purposes in Google Search.
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Women and leadership in the news media 2024: Evidence from 12 markets | Reuters Institute

Only 24% of the 174 top editors across the 240 brands covered are women, despite the fact that, on average, 40% of journalists in the 12 markets are women. In 2023, this figure was 22% across the same markets.
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