March 23, 2022 • 35 mins
Longtime friend of Adlandia and reporter behind Axios’ Media Trends weekly newsletter, Sara Fischer stops by to talk all the things we should be watching as 2022.
Sara takes us through the growing interest and investment in local media, further consolidation of media x tech, innovation in audio, and keeping your edge in a competitive content marketplace. If you want to know where to focus your attention, Adlandia - this one’s for you.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm off my game today. No, you're not. People are
going to have to start making better content. I think
we're gonna be talking about this for a long time.
When you program for everyone, you program for no one.
I think it's at we're purpose driven platform, like we're
trying to get to substance. How was that? Are you
happy with that? This is marketing therapy right now? It
really is. What's up up? Laura Currency and I'm Alexa Kristen.
(00:28):
Welcome back at Lantia. Today on the show, we have
Sarah Fisher, one of our favorites from Axios Media newsletter.
Sarah's going to walk us through what she sees for
two and what you should be looking out for as
a marketer. Atlantia. We are back on the mic with
(00:49):
media reporter Sarah Fisher is in the building. Sarah, welcome
back to Atlantia. We missed you. How are you hi?
I've missed you so much and I'm so grateful to
be back. This is my favorite podcast. Oh my gosh,
that's saying a lot. We appreciate that. So, Sarah, five
years in, I think you were one of our first
(01:10):
guests on Atlantia, dating back to can you believe it's
been that long before we hear you jam on everything
happening in the industry. Would be great to get your
perspective reading within it. Wow, I can't believe it's been
five years since that first podcast. You guys, it's wild. Well,
i'd say before I joined actually as I had uh,
you know, jobs in a bunch of different companies and
(01:31):
both in the business and edit sides. And when I
was at CNN and two thirteen, I wrote a newsletter,
a daily newsletter for politics. And so when I think
about the evolution of creators and journalists in the news especially,
I think about that experience almost ten years ago compared today,
and what it looked like was the star journalists didn't
(01:54):
have newsletters. They didn't have their own and operated channels
to communicate with their guts. That was rare. And if
they did have newsletters, they weren't personality driven. You weren't
you know, getting my insights as an analyst. I was
just you know, delivering information to via email from CNN
servers and from CNNs brand. But you weren't tuning in
(02:16):
because of me. And to that end, you didn't have
some stack and all these other outlets for journalists to
create their own brands. Fast forward almost ten years later,
it's the complete opposite. Now you're seeing news companies intentionally
launching newsletters and oh no, products like podcasts, et cetera,
with journalists and their brands at the forefront. And that
(02:40):
pivot has empowered journalists want to make more money. You know,
you were a much more valuable commodity as a brand
than you ever were, but to its empowered journalists to
really dive in two niches. And that's powerful and important
because we're human beings. You can't be an expert in everything,
but if you can be an expert in something, you
(03:02):
are able to command a really strong audience. It's part
of the reason why I love Atlantia, because you've become
the authority in advertising and marketing, and that focus makes
you valuable to me professionally and in many cases personally,
I'm getting closen to voices of people who would want
to mentor me. So that's been the biggest shift as
a creator, and it's a very positive one at least
(03:23):
the way I see it. You know, we have more opportunity,
Like I said, there's more opportunity to make money, and
there's more opportunity to become an expertence something, and the
tools become so easy and so prevalent that you can
see yourself expanding. Sarah Fisher right, the brand, the journalists,
the point of view, um into lots of different areas.
(03:47):
In the future. Well, I have no plans to leave Accio,
so it for now, my brand extension is helping to
grow the media coverage for my company. And that's important
because is once we start launching subscription products in particular,
I am going to play a large role in helping
to drive sign ups for them. And so it's like
(04:08):
I'm expanding my brand doing TV hits, doing podcasts like this,
doing events, getting out there in kind of people in
order to expand the axiest brand. That's my goal for
the short, mid and potentially long term. I planned to
be here for a while in the very very very
long term if I ever wanted to do something else.
To your point, there's a million opportunities that didn't exist before.
(04:29):
You know, you can easily start your own news letter,
you can easily start your own podcast, you can easily
start your own cable network. These days, it's crazy to
see all these little networks pop up It's not in
my short term plans at all, because I love where
I'm at, But I do feel like it's possible. And
I will say ten years ago it didn't feel possible.
You've got on the job at a big media company
or local news company and that was it. There was
(04:50):
no opportunity to start your own thing unless you were
a really serious entrepreneur with big backing. And today there's
a lot more, you know, opportunity to be entrepreneurial. Are
you also looking at and reading what I would call
more amateur you know, editorial and journalists more because of
the sub stacks we are truly at the giant rise
(05:12):
of the blogger. Yes, for very specific things, I do
go to very niche content creators because I know they're
focusing on it better than anyone, even if they're not
a massive media company. So, for example, Jacob Donnelly has
his Media Operator newsletter that also comes out on Tuesdays,
and he works the morning grew. He's not trying to
(05:34):
be a media drinalist. He's just executive in the industry
who puts out this newsletter. And I find it very
smart and has great insights, and so I read it,
you know, Another great example is Judge Lagoon. He is
a subspect reporter. He focuses on the intersection of influence
and power, and he does it so you know, well,
(05:55):
and it's just a niche that he's the authority in
that that I'm reading, So you know, they're are definitely
independent voices that I'm paying intention too much more now
than I ever did. What's the trade off, Sarah and
going the independent route versus having the backing and infrastructure
of a media platform like Axios. And the biggest thing
(06:16):
is legal protections For me at least, I think having
a big news institution with lawyers is massively important because
there's so many legal liabilities when you're covering things, whether
their lawsuits or their allegations, etcetera. And then the other
thing is having the expertise of colleagues and other issue
areas to tap into. So, for example, and put a
(06:37):
story up on the website about the um Chicago sometimes
being acquired by Chicago's Poth media nonprofit. I worked with
our Axist local reporter in Chicago on the ground who
has worked at both of those outlets to put that
out there. That is a very unique opportunity to dive
into that expertise. Another example is we've been trying to
(07:00):
study a lot of the psychology around this information and
trying to understand how it's become a bigger media problem.
I'll team with our science to do those stories. That's
a lot harder to do when you're just looking in aheadible.
How do you keep your competitive edge? And this may
be getting into a bit of the sarifici or secret sauce.
But for those who are out there thinking about going
(07:22):
out at the its side, hustle, main hustle, whatever the
case is, and starting to create, there's so much content
to consume, what's the edge? I think it's really important
to create shortcuts that work for you. For me, it
doesn't make sense to go to a coffee shop and
read tend print papers. For other people, I know Nora
o'donnald does this to read sort of physical print paper
(07:44):
with a highlighter and highlights it out. I'm somebody who
subscribes a lot too cloud source Wall Street blogs like
Motley Fool and seeking output because the alerts are really quick,
which is helpful for me, and I can get transcripts
of currents called that's a short cut For me, I
subscribe to a lot of rs S feed so I
can kind of customize my podcast listening. I try really
(08:06):
hard to create lists on Twitter so I can browse
through specific expertise at a specific moment. So for example,
when the Activision and Microsoft news came out, you know,
I'll go to a Twitter list of gaming experts. So
I've developed shortcuts that helped me cut through the noise
quick that worked for me. Those shortcuts aren't to be
(08:26):
the same for everyone, but I think it ordered to
be the top of your game. Everyone's got to figure
out their own shortcuts. Sarah, you touched on a few
things that we want to go a little deeper with
you on, one of which is Axios is big bet
and what I loved, by the way, when Jim Vanda
High wrote the Axios community saying we're getting into local
(08:47):
and we're really investing in this, it was seemingly so
honest about we're going to fumble, we're going to have mistakes.
But you already gave a major use case around like
the Chicago Sun, of how portant it is to have
local journalists and people who are in a community. And
right now, I think what's really interesting is that we've
(09:09):
got this kind of this kind of polar opposites happening
where local journalism, local media, local community is becoming dare
i say, even more localized, and we've got major changes
on the kind of global scene in media. India is
(09:31):
blowing up with opportunities around media and entertainment. China you
reported on and I think a few other people have
talked about the China's building their own entertainment and their
empire in Hollywood empire. What's happening? What do you see
in this Why are those two kind of polls so
important and are they equally as impactful? Absolutely, they're both
(09:53):
so important for us. Local was always a priority whose
day one. We have been following the you know, demise
of local newspapers due to economic constraints from the very beginning,
and it's something that we care about the Partner mission,
and to your point, Lexa, it does strengthen our national
journalism because we compare with people on the ground for
(10:13):
big stories. One of the ones that really stood out
to me was our report one of our reporters from
northwest Arkansas where a report about big tech talent coming
into that area of the country and recruiting and setting
up offices there, like who would have known? Yeah, I mean,
who would have known? You know, you have Walmart there,
but there's not otherwise a big tech talent cut there.
(10:34):
And so our national tech reporter saw that and included
it in her newsletter and expanded on it for our
national audience to say, pay attention to this story of
Silicon Prairie if you will move into the center of
the country. And so we find that it's going to
help our national reporters report better. And we also find
(10:55):
that it helps to serve local communities with stronger journalism
if they have for peace from you know, not just
the local communities, but the national communities they can tap
into as well, or experts on the global side. What
is so exciting to me is there are people who
are tackling it from a hyperlocal but global level. So
(11:15):
not just saying, Okay, I'm gonna cover Asia. They're saying, Okay,
I'm gonna set up micro bureros and Seoul in Taiwan,
and I'm going to figure out how I can cover
these massive places globally in a more local wise way.
And that to me is really powerful and important because
you know, We've had a few global newsrooms. I think
about the wires like AP and Lawyers, but we haven't
(11:37):
had so many news companies to really think about it
like that. I think Ben Smith and Justin Smith announcing
that they were going to create this global newsroom is
exciting if they're gonna go about it from that direction,
which it seems that they will. And increasingly when I
talked to some of the big newspapers here like the
New York Times, the Washington Pist, this is becoming a
bigger clarity for them to getting on the ground globally. Uh,
(12:00):
you've seen Netflix and Spotify and all these big texts
or streaming services start to think this way of entertainment.
But now we're starting to see what happened for me
is and it's really exciting. I actually think there's also
an opportunity for brand. One of my clients has explored
this idea of setting up brand bureaus globally, locally rooted
in perspective, and then obviously the aggregate then of that
(12:22):
content making up the broader global story. And so it's
interesting when brands start to think about perspective from the
ground and potentially participating in a similar model totally. And
I think about this was Superman a lot. Superman last
year changes logo or its slogan rather UM from truth
Justice in the American Way to truth justice and a
(12:45):
better Tomorrow. And the reason they did that is because
streaming and entertainment and content is increasingly being deliberate via
tech platforms and consumed in global markets. And so because
of that, you don't want to have this overly sort
of americanized roach that you're exporting. You want to have
hyperlocal content that can relate to people culturally, even with
(13:08):
their own language on the ground, because a better business.
But frankly and so I definitely agree with you, Laura.
I think brands are starting to make this adjustment as well,
and it's exciting. It is difficult. It requires mass infrastructure, right, yes,
infrastructure investment. And I think also like there has to
be a bit of like a logistics serve or founder
(13:31):
mindset around this because what's been done before hasn't worked
and there needs to be a bit of a rewrite.
We went to big national and global outlets for news
for a long time, and as the UM, local communities
(13:51):
kind of almost got stripped away of a real voice
point of view and that kind of community cohesion that
comes in with critical right information and journalism about what's
happening on the ground in your town where you live.
And so we went from having lots of local journalists
(14:14):
and lots of local newspapers and lots of all you know,
a lot of volume of people to the complete polar opposite.
I'm from Omaha, Nebraska, right Omaha World. Harald was where
it was at not only producing like some great journalists,
but it was the true beat of the city. And
(14:36):
so losing you know, so many towns, so many cities
in Middle America especially, and like as Sarah said on
the Prairie, what Silicon Prairie, I love that, like have
lost um the kind of critical information feed um that
is really speaking to what's happening. So what now we're
(14:57):
going back to write the focus on local, but I
think with better tools and maybe a different viewpoint of
how local really starts to feed into a bigger national
um point of view and information pipeline. It's just like
it just makes sense. It's a total different game when
(15:19):
you start thinking about national brands trying to move the
needle in a specific region or market coming in an
advertising for a season or a campaign and instead using
probably the same amount of money to support local journalism
from a longevity or equity building standpoint, Are you seeing
anything in that capacity? There are, absolutely, It's a huge one.
(15:41):
So let me give you three examples. We had Box
Media creates something called concert Local, which is sort of
a local programmatic advertising marketplace. They came up with Google
to do it in which they can have national brands
put out distinct messaging to local news companies. And the
reason they wanted to do that is because when technology
(16:05):
has made us more globalist, and so you've seen mom
and pop shops, small retailers get choked out by some
of these really big brands like you know, Amazon and Walmart.
But the challenge that Amazon and Walmart base is that
they don't have the direct relationships with the communities. And
they started to realize that they're going to struggle competitively
(16:25):
against the local retailers that are there because they have
a marketing problem, they have an outreach problem, they have
a community problem, and probably perceptual also, I would imagine, yes, absolutely.
I mean some of them are large employers in some
of these places, but a lot of times they're not.
And you know, Amazon has just perceived a sort of
the big looking man, and so they have found that
(16:46):
they want to message locally, but there's not a great
way to do it. I mean, Amazon is not going
to put direct sellers on the ground in every single
city in America. So these programmatic marketplaces like what Box
created became very compelling. And then you have Washington Post
created Derrek Dicker, who's a good friend and on the
show a lot created this with Zeus where they were
(17:06):
gonna bringing a lot of local papers starting with them
the class who changed in the Seattle Times, and they
were going to add into a marketplace. So national advertisers Compression,
then Mcclatchyannet teamed up and they said, we're going to
create the same thing because the demand was there and access.
That's the way we're thinking about it too. You know,
we definitely want to have vocal on the ground relationships
with communities and with advertisers, but we also see an
(17:30):
opportunity to bring some of our national brand partners to
the local level, and you're seeing them take advantage of it.
Facebook is running ads in our local newsletters. So I
think this is a massive, massive, trend. It's only going
to get bigger. And the thing I'm keen to see
is how do the big brands think about this from
a messaging perspective. Okay, so we solved the tech problem, right,
(17:52):
Plus I was going to ask, is that enough? They
will have to be smart about how they marry the
medium and the message. So we are getting there with
the media, we know how to deliver this for creating
smart technology solutions. To get there, the message is a
lot more nuanced. You're gonna have to invest in communities
learn about their needs in order to blanket them. So
(18:13):
right now, when you look at national as at the
local level, oftentimes they do seem a little bit impersonal.
What it's gonna have to start looking like is, hey,
you know, we know that you had a massive snowstorm
two days ago, and that communities are looking for water
and supplies. Buy one, get one, give one, and help
(18:34):
out your local community. But they're going to invest in
learning the community problems before they can message like that.
And so that's going to just take a few years exactly, Yes,
which is why having those connections on the ground really matters. So, Sarah,
(19:02):
we're talking about two You're hot on local you're hot
on at the same time global expansion. What else are
you focused on in two and what would you tell
our listeners? Here are the things that I'm going to
be looking at, or here are the things that I'm
putting bets on. Yeah. So we saw a lot of
consolidation in Discovery announcing that it would do a joint
(19:27):
venture with a T and T that just getting out
Warner Media to create a huge congomberant their Amazon acquiring
and d M and in the private level, you know,
Boxing Group nine coming together. I think you're gonna see
more consolidation, and I think in entertainment especially, there's so
much need for programming for streaming that you're going to
(19:50):
see more production houses get gobbled up. In the digital
media space, which is interesting. One of the areas where
we saw a lot of deal volume was digital audio,
which is super important because I think the audio space
is right for innovation. And then add tech and Martek.
You know, as the ad market grew, there are new
(20:10):
college industries going around it, like CTV or even just
add verification. You know, in the eighties or seventies and
before that, when we just had to measure whether or
not households viewed a television show. We didn't have companies
designed to authenticate that the people were sitting in front
of their TVs who just made those assumptions. With digital,
(20:33):
you can actually authenticate that. And so you have this
whole college industry of authentication and verification. Think about integral ads,
science going public, things about double Verify going public. So
that's a huge one. We have a college industry around
marketing and commerce that's taking off. Um you know, Tabula
made an eight hundred million dollar acquisition UH to get
(20:55):
into commerce last year, and so that whole idea of
ottage industries around brand, marketing and advertising taking off is
so big. Last year was the biggest year on record
for Ada and marchek ideas to give you a sense.
So I think all this consolidation will continue into two.
I think watch the entertainment digital audio, added martech sectors
(21:18):
specifically for continued consolidation. And the flip side of that
is what's to see how regulators respond. The f C
and the d J announced that if they're taking a
sort of calls for your review guidelines to change because
we're recognizing that, you know, anti trust and competition is
a bigger issue on century. So that would be the
(21:39):
flip side of while this consolidation is like, to what
extent do we actually allow it to happen? Like the
Microsoft Activision deal, Yes, seventy billion dollar deal. I mean
Microsoft went through the ringer with antitrust in the ninety
nineties and so as a result, they spent the next
two decades being very cautious and pandering to regulators, building
(22:00):
the big DC presence, and the result of that was
that a lot of their competitors were able to grow
bigger than them through acquisitions. Look at Google buying YouTube
and Basic buying Instagram. But what happened in the past
few years as Microsoft saw that the tune and change
and kind of turned and people began to look at
(22:21):
their competitors with the negative lens in terms of competition,
and they quietly came in and scooped up a lot
of stuff. You know, they bought the Does, the Games,
and a huge deal they bought LinkedIn for twice six
billion dollars. And so the announcement that they're buying Activism
those there's almost seventy billion dollars. This serves as a
pivotal moment actually for dealmaking forever. If regulators let this
(22:42):
one go, it will be a huge signal built to
Microsoft and big tech that they're not as serious about
climbing down on these types of mergers. But if they
take a hard look at it, you know, you can
expect technical giants, but also other corporate giants just start
to think differently about their organic versus inorganic and purchase
growth strategies because they might not be able to buy
(23:04):
their way to dominance forever. The more we consolidate, the
more it seems fewer bigger players will continue to dominate
the market. Is that the trend you're seeing that is
and that's the concern that lawmakers have. It is is
that good for consumer choice? You know, if you have
a few services that control the market, they can control pricing,
and they can control creativity. And so what you're starting
(23:26):
to see is smaller companies come out and push back
and say, look, we want to have to see at
the table because it's good for consumers. They have one,
you know brand I'll call out for doing this well
has been broken Brokeu's pushed back a lot, and Google's
dominance as a result. They're the number one smart TV
platform and think about the opportunity for brands. I mean,
Broku has it really big edge and connected TV advertising.
(23:50):
They bought part of Nielsen's Connected TV ad business last year.
That's an huge opportunity for brands to be able to
get into the CTV game in a meaningful way And
wouldn't have happened if it up start brand like Broku
didn't try to challenge the dominance of the existing incumbents.
And so I think that's a trend that's just going
to continue to happen across every industry. You know, an
(24:12):
audio you're going to have smaller upstart podcasting companies try
to challenge Apple and Spotify. And Spotify at one point
was that start company? Right, That's right, So it'll just
continue that. I want to go two seconds into audio.
So I made this prediction in I don't know October
to a group that I was advising that this year
(24:34):
we were going to see two We're going to see
an explosion of audio and audio innovation. Um, what are
you seeing specifically there? Is it related to podcasts, is
it related to more audio search and home devices? Tell
us what you're thinking. We're probably speaking MPR and Edison Edison,
(24:54):
being one of the premier resource firms to audio, put
out the study that they do every year, and they
found on that the share of ear meaning the amount
of listening time that's going to the spoken word being podcasts, audiobooks, etcetera,
has increased eight percentage points in the past eight years
from you know, taking away some of the dominance of music.
(25:17):
Now it doesn't mean that our music dies are shrinking,
they're actually growing bigger. It just means that the piece
of the pie that spoken word is taking is growing bigger.
And as a result, it creates a whole new economy
for audio that didn't exist before. You know, we had
spoken word being primarily consumed on radio eight years ago.
Now it's primarily consumed on digital, which means we can
(25:39):
serve much more targeted advertising that we can measure, etcetera.
And so part of that consolidation you're going to see
that you mentioned Colesa in the next year is going
to be consolidating the business side of audio to accommodate
this new reality. And you're starting to see it, you know,
Spotify acquiring Megaphone, et cetera. But it's going to continue
(26:01):
to get even bigger and right now, the podcast advertising
market specifically is still pretty small. It's only about a
billion dollars TBS like. But once we're able to create
more end to end audio platforms that you can create
a message, place and message, distribute a message, measure, measure
(26:22):
the impact of that message all in one place, similar
to like what Facebook the social media and what Google
Live research, it's going to bring a lot more dollars
into the audio advertising one escape. So I think Spotify
is definitely taking the leave right now and building that
end to and landscape. But you also have other competitors.
I HURT is getting in their serious XM is getting
(26:42):
in there, and so once there's a few big players,
the investment is going to definitely poor. In Malcolm Gladwell,
for instance, a couple episodes back talking about his pivot
into audio books and creating for the audio medium, you
can't buy ads and books, but can you buy ads
and audio books. It starts to create entirely new revenue
(27:03):
streams for certainly the platforms, but also the creators. Totally
quick take, what are your thoughts on social audio? Where
is it going? I'm not talking about a specific brand.
There are a lot of people getting into the space
and have gotten into this space. What's next for social
audio in this kind of prediction of of audio expansion
(27:26):
and consolidation. There's two ways to think about social audio.
One is live and the other is asynchronous, which is
you send someone VI an audio note. And I watched
way too many to talks you wouldn't even believe. But
one viral audio trend right now is a synchronous audio
where people on their Hinge profile can record a message
(27:50):
and it can go viral, and I think both are
really interesting to watch. We often are only talking about live,
but we should be thinking about asynchronous as well. In
the live space, I think we saw during the lockdowns
that people definitely were craving community, and so that's why
it exploded. But once lockdowns ease, and people don't want
(28:13):
to spend hours, you know, just kind of listening in
on chats, they want to be in on person. I
think the future of life audio is gonna shift a
little bit, and what it's gonna be is it's gonna
be a manifestation of what's happening in real life a
little bit more so. Can you picture you're at a
small meeting in your office and you don't want to
(28:34):
have to go to this entire video. You don't have
to set up and make it formal. You just all
doing an audio chat and you just start talking. But
you can put twenty people in there. You can raise
your hand and the functionality is so good. I think
that kind of can become the future of audio or
can be with your friends, like, hey, we need to
figure out where we're going at tonight. Let's all just
hop on a live Like let's just all hop out
a club to house chat and just talk it through.
(28:55):
I mean, I think that's gonna be a bigger part
of it. It's gonna become less um of the more
passive entertainment kind of pasttime with like it wasn't a
pandemically listened to a bunch of rooms. It's become going
to become a much more active thing that you take
pardon as a function for your life. And I actually
think there's a enormous opportunity as it shifts into that role. Yeah,
(29:18):
I agree. I I kind of look at it is
like a radio frequency, right, Like you shift to a
different radio frequency. There's going to be a time for
live specifically um, and a time for asynchronous rather than
maybe the kind of mean platform. But I think the
main platform and the functionality and features will get sucked
(29:39):
into something that's you know, that's a broader, uh set
of communication tools. Because you're talking, I'm just reminiscing about
having my room line in the nineties and just calling
you both three ways on three way. Everything old is
new again. It just happens to be in an app
versus h picking up the room phone to Sarah before
(29:59):
we let you go, I'm gonna say a word. Tell
us the first thing it comes to your mind is
that cool. Let's see what happens metaverse, metaverse, Facebook, Oh
good Web three deed bicker, Oh God, I paid you
for that? He paid you for that. CMO data, Amazon
(30:22):
was interesting, n f T. Google ants one fun thing? Travel? Yes,
all right, yes, and we have to play the game
Sarah Bye, bye bye. What is Sara Fisher in two
saying goodbye to? What are you buying? And what are
you doing yourself that you're not already doing? In two?
(30:46):
I am saying goodbye to a lot of the conferences
I used to go to. It has become obvious in
the past two years that I think we all were
traveling uh, not in a smart way. Yeah, you were
not being as strategic about our time. And now that
we figured out healthier lifestyles, so we're not running around
(31:08):
so much. I think people are going to be much
to take care about which ones they actually attend versus
which ones they participate in virtually. Yeah, I totally agree
with that. I'm all in for that. What are you buying?
You know? I think the idea of the metaverse and
blockchain and n f T S and all that is
real now, it didn't feel as real to me. I
(31:28):
wasn't investing in crypto. I mean, I actually can't buy
crypto or or those I can't buy individual stocks, but
I wasn't thinking about it as a consumer in a
really real way. Now I am. This is the year
where I think most people are going to start to
take this stuff seriously, you know, getting into having a
digital wallet, trying to experiment with bitcoin and digital currencies, etcetera.
(31:48):
What do you think is gonna flip the masses towards
web three or n f T or having a wallet,
Like do you think that there's something that has to
happen for you know, my mom to start talking about
n f T S and buying n f T s Yeah.
I think we just need better regulatory and safety and
security infrastructure. I think the reason people are parishes because
(32:09):
they talked to our financial planners about it and they're like,
don't put your money in there. It could get stolen,
right like crypto dot com alt trading the other day
because money was getting taken out and they couldn't figure
out why. I think once we have figured out better
guard rails for this, it's going to become instream. Sarah,
what are you doing yourself why? I'm going to be
thinking a lot more about service in two In the
(32:33):
past five years, I've been thinking about Axios and my
brand and what I'm doing for my career. And if
anything has become obvious to me in the past two years,
it's that I actually can grow home my company's brand,
mine better if I'm thinking about the broader landscape of
journalism and how I contribute to public service, and that's
(32:55):
a huge mission of mine. I just um started mentoring
a young journalist this year who's in college, and I
think we're all going to be more enriched if we're
thinking about giving back, because God knows as a society
that's like the only way we're going to survive it.
Hey love that, and I thank you as a mentor.
You've mentored us actually and in a lot of ways,
(33:17):
kind of informally, but you as a mentor, that is
a lucky, lucky person. If you ever get a chance
to see Sarah Fisher interview live, it is a master
class for how to conduct an interview. And so when
Alexas says you mentor us, I I wholeheartedly say, like,
I've learned a lot from watching you in action. Be
(33:39):
sure to follow her. Also, Sarah your Twitter handle, My
Twitter handle is just Sarafish. I think I think it
is laughing because I swore I thought what you were
just going to say was if you ever see Sarafus
you're on the conference circuit. She is like the best
person at the bar. Shod um. But thank you guys
(34:03):
so much. The feeling is mutual. I learned from you
all the time. I love this podcast and UM tell
any of your listeners like, feel free to reach out.
I'm just Sarah at Access dot com with new take
that invite for anyone who is listening. You will be
better for it. Sara Fisher, thank you. We can't wait
to see you in person. Thanks Sarah, Thanks guy, So Laura,
(34:28):
I can't believe that we had Sara Fisher on five
years ago. It feels like yesterday. Amazing right. We wish
Sarah so much success as media. Newsletter is truly truly
my every Tuesday read. If I read nothing else in
the week in the business, that's the newsletter that I read.
(34:49):
And if you don't read it already, you should be Atlantia.
We'll be back in two weeks. Laura hit it with
the list of all of our friends and family I
heart who have been so good to us and helped
us get back on air. Big thank you to Bob Conall, Carter, Andy,
Eric Gayle Val, Michael Jen We appreciate you. Thank you
so much for this opportunity. We'll see you in two weeks.
I'm off my game today. No, you're not. People are
going to have to start making better content. I think
we're gonna be talking about this for a long time.
When you program for everyone, you program for no one.
I think it's at we're purpose driven platform, like we're
trying to get to substance. How was that? Are you
happy with that? This is marketing therapy right now? It
really is. What's up up? Laura Currency and I'm Alexa Kristen.
(00:28):
Welcome back at Lantia. Today on the show, we have
Sarah Fisher, one of our favorites from Axios Media newsletter.
Sarah's going to walk us through what she sees for
two and what you should be looking out for as
a marketer. Atlantia. We are back on the mic with
(00:49):
media reporter Sarah Fisher is in the building. Sarah, welcome
back to Atlantia. We missed you. How are you hi?
I've missed you so much and I'm so grateful to
be back. This is my favorite podcast. Oh my gosh,
that's saying a lot. We appreciate that. So, Sarah, five
years in, I think you were one of our first
(01:10):
guests on Atlantia, dating back to can you believe it's
been that long before we hear you jam on everything
happening in the industry. Would be great to get your
perspective reading within it. Wow, I can't believe it's been
five years since that first podcast. You guys, it's wild. Well,
i'd say before I joined actually as I had uh,
you know, jobs in a bunch of different companies and
(01:31):
both in the business and edit sides. And when I
was at CNN and two thirteen, I wrote a newsletter,
a daily newsletter for politics. And so when I think
about the evolution of creators and journalists in the news especially,
I think about that experience almost ten years ago compared today,
and what it looked like was the star journalists didn't
(01:54):
have newsletters. They didn't have their own and operated channels
to communicate with their guts. That was rare. And if
they did have newsletters, they weren't personality driven. You weren't
you know, getting my insights as an analyst. I was
just you know, delivering information to via email from CNN
servers and from CNNs brand. But you weren't tuning in
(02:16):
because of me. And to that end, you didn't have
some stack and all these other outlets for journalists to
create their own brands. Fast forward almost ten years later,
it's the complete opposite. Now you're seeing news companies intentionally
launching newsletters and oh no, products like podcasts, et cetera,
with journalists and their brands at the forefront. And that
(02:40):
pivot has empowered journalists want to make more money. You know,
you were a much more valuable commodity as a brand
than you ever were, but to its empowered journalists to
really dive in two niches. And that's powerful and important
because we're human beings. You can't be an expert in everything,
but if you can be an expert in something, you
(03:02):
are able to command a really strong audience. It's part
of the reason why I love Atlantia, because you've become
the authority in advertising and marketing, and that focus makes
you valuable to me professionally and in many cases personally,
I'm getting closen to voices of people who would want
to mentor me. So that's been the biggest shift as
a creator, and it's a very positive one at least
(03:23):
the way I see it. You know, we have more opportunity,
Like I said, there's more opportunity to make money, and
there's more opportunity to become an expertence something, and the
tools become so easy and so prevalent that you can
see yourself expanding. Sarah Fisher right, the brand, the journalists,
the point of view, um into lots of different areas.
(03:47):
In the future. Well, I have no plans to leave Accio,
so it for now, my brand extension is helping to
grow the media coverage for my company. And that's important
because is once we start launching subscription products in particular,
I am going to play a large role in helping
to drive sign ups for them. And so it's like
(04:08):
I'm expanding my brand doing TV hits, doing podcasts like this,
doing events, getting out there in kind of people in
order to expand the axiest brand. That's my goal for
the short, mid and potentially long term. I planned to
be here for a while in the very very very
long term if I ever wanted to do something else.
To your point, there's a million opportunities that didn't exist before.
(04:29):
You know, you can easily start your own news letter,
you can easily start your own podcast, you can easily
start your own cable network. These days, it's crazy to
see all these little networks pop up It's not in
my short term plans at all, because I love where
I'm at, But I do feel like it's possible. And
I will say ten years ago it didn't feel possible.
You've got on the job at a big media company
or local news company and that was it. There was
(04:50):
no opportunity to start your own thing unless you were
a really serious entrepreneur with big backing. And today there's
a lot more, you know, opportunity to be entrepreneurial. Are
you also looking at and reading what I would call
more amateur you know, editorial and journalists more because of
the sub stacks we are truly at the giant rise
(05:12):
of the blogger. Yes, for very specific things, I do
go to very niche content creators because I know they're
focusing on it better than anyone, even if they're not
a massive media company. So, for example, Jacob Donnelly has
his Media Operator newsletter that also comes out on Tuesdays,
and he works the morning grew. He's not trying to
(05:34):
be a media drinalist. He's just executive in the industry
who puts out this newsletter. And I find it very
smart and has great insights, and so I read it,
you know, Another great example is Judge Lagoon. He is
a subspect reporter. He focuses on the intersection of influence
and power, and he does it so you know, well,
(05:55):
and it's just a niche that he's the authority in
that that I'm reading, So you know, they're are definitely
independent voices that I'm paying intention too much more now
than I ever did. What's the trade off, Sarah and
going the independent route versus having the backing and infrastructure
of a media platform like Axios. And the biggest thing
(06:16):
is legal protections For me at least, I think having
a big news institution with lawyers is massively important because
there's so many legal liabilities when you're covering things, whether
their lawsuits or their allegations, etcetera. And then the other
thing is having the expertise of colleagues and other issue
areas to tap into. So, for example, and put a
(06:37):
story up on the website about the um Chicago sometimes
being acquired by Chicago's Poth media nonprofit. I worked with
our Axist local reporter in Chicago on the ground who
has worked at both of those outlets to put that
out there. That is a very unique opportunity to dive
into that expertise. Another example is we've been trying to
(07:00):
study a lot of the psychology around this information and
trying to understand how it's become a bigger media problem.
I'll team with our science to do those stories. That's
a lot harder to do when you're just looking in aheadible.
How do you keep your competitive edge? And this may
be getting into a bit of the sarifici or secret sauce.
But for those who are out there thinking about going
(07:22):
out at the its side, hustle, main hustle, whatever the
case is, and starting to create, there's so much content
to consume, what's the edge? I think it's really important
to create shortcuts that work for you. For me, it
doesn't make sense to go to a coffee shop and
read tend print papers. For other people, I know Nora
o'donnald does this to read sort of physical print paper
(07:44):
with a highlighter and highlights it out. I'm somebody who
subscribes a lot too cloud source Wall Street blogs like
Motley Fool and seeking output because the alerts are really quick,
which is helpful for me, and I can get transcripts
of currents called that's a short cut For me, I
subscribe to a lot of rs S feed so I
can kind of customize my podcast listening. I try really
(08:06):
hard to create lists on Twitter so I can browse
through specific expertise at a specific moment. So for example,
when the Activision and Microsoft news came out, you know,
I'll go to a Twitter list of gaming experts. So
I've developed shortcuts that helped me cut through the noise
quick that worked for me. Those shortcuts aren't to be
(08:26):
the same for everyone, but I think it ordered to
be the top of your game. Everyone's got to figure
out their own shortcuts. Sarah, you touched on a few
things that we want to go a little deeper with
you on, one of which is Axios is big bet
and what I loved, by the way, when Jim Vanda
High wrote the Axios community saying we're getting into local
(08:47):
and we're really investing in this, it was seemingly so
honest about we're going to fumble, we're going to have mistakes.
But you already gave a major use case around like
the Chicago Sun, of how portant it is to have
local journalists and people who are in a community. And
right now, I think what's really interesting is that we've
(09:09):
got this kind of this kind of polar opposites happening
where local journalism, local media, local community is becoming dare
i say, even more localized, and we've got major changes
on the kind of global scene in media. India is
(09:31):
blowing up with opportunities around media and entertainment. China you
reported on and I think a few other people have
talked about the China's building their own entertainment and their
empire in Hollywood empire. What's happening? What do you see
in this Why are those two kind of polls so
important and are they equally as impactful? Absolutely, they're both
(09:53):
so important for us. Local was always a priority whose
day one. We have been following the you know, demise
of local newspapers due to economic constraints from the very beginning,
and it's something that we care about the Partner mission,
and to your point, Lexa, it does strengthen our national
journalism because we compare with people on the ground for
(10:13):
big stories. One of the ones that really stood out
to me was our report one of our reporters from
northwest Arkansas where a report about big tech talent coming
into that area of the country and recruiting and setting
up offices there, like who would have known? Yeah, I mean,
who would have known? You know, you have Walmart there,
but there's not otherwise a big tech talent cut there.
(10:34):
And so our national tech reporter saw that and included
it in her newsletter and expanded on it for our
national audience to say, pay attention to this story of
Silicon Prairie if you will move into the center of
the country. And so we find that it's going to
help our national reporters report better. And we also find
(10:55):
that it helps to serve local communities with stronger journalism
if they have for peace from you know, not just
the local communities, but the national communities they can tap
into as well, or experts on the global side. What
is so exciting to me is there are people who
are tackling it from a hyperlocal but global level. So
(11:15):
not just saying, Okay, I'm gonna cover Asia. They're saying, Okay,
I'm gonna set up micro bureros and Seoul in Taiwan,
and I'm going to figure out how I can cover
these massive places globally in a more local wise way.
And that to me is really powerful and important because
you know, We've had a few global newsrooms. I think
about the wires like AP and Lawyers, but we haven't
(11:37):
had so many news companies to really think about it
like that. I think Ben Smith and Justin Smith announcing
that they were going to create this global newsroom is
exciting if they're gonna go about it from that direction,
which it seems that they will. And increasingly when I
talked to some of the big newspapers here like the
New York Times, the Washington Pist, this is becoming a
bigger clarity for them to getting on the ground globally. Uh,
(12:00):
you've seen Netflix and Spotify and all these big texts
or streaming services start to think this way of entertainment.
But now we're starting to see what happened for me
is and it's really exciting. I actually think there's also
an opportunity for brand. One of my clients has explored
this idea of setting up brand bureaus globally, locally rooted
in perspective, and then obviously the aggregate then of that
(12:22):
content making up the broader global story. And so it's
interesting when brands start to think about perspective from the
ground and potentially participating in a similar model totally. And
I think about this was Superman a lot. Superman last
year changes logo or its slogan rather UM from truth
Justice in the American Way to truth justice and a
(12:45):
better Tomorrow. And the reason they did that is because
streaming and entertainment and content is increasingly being deliberate via
tech platforms and consumed in global markets. And so because
of that, you don't want to have this overly sort
of americanized roach that you're exporting. You want to have
hyperlocal content that can relate to people culturally, even with
(13:08):
their own language on the ground, because a better business.
But frankly and so I definitely agree with you, Laura.
I think brands are starting to make this adjustment as well,
and it's exciting. It is difficult. It requires mass infrastructure, right, yes,
infrastructure investment. And I think also like there has to
be a bit of like a logistics serve or founder
(13:31):
mindset around this because what's been done before hasn't worked
and there needs to be a bit of a rewrite.
We went to big national and global outlets for news
for a long time, and as the UM, local communities
(13:51):
kind of almost got stripped away of a real voice
point of view and that kind of community cohesion that
comes in with critical right information and journalism about what's
happening on the ground in your town where you live.
And so we went from having lots of local journalists
(14:14):
and lots of local newspapers and lots of all you know,
a lot of volume of people to the complete polar opposite.
I'm from Omaha, Nebraska, right Omaha World. Harald was where
it was at not only producing like some great journalists,
but it was the true beat of the city. And
(14:36):
so losing you know, so many towns, so many cities
in Middle America especially, and like as Sarah said on
the Prairie, what Silicon Prairie, I love that, like have
lost um the kind of critical information feed um that
is really speaking to what's happening. So what now we're
(14:57):
going back to write the focus on local, but I
think with better tools and maybe a different viewpoint of
how local really starts to feed into a bigger national
um point of view and information pipeline. It's just like
it just makes sense. It's a total different game when
(15:19):
you start thinking about national brands trying to move the
needle in a specific region or market coming in an
advertising for a season or a campaign and instead using
probably the same amount of money to support local journalism
from a longevity or equity building standpoint, Are you seeing
anything in that capacity? There are, absolutely, It's a huge one.
(15:41):
So let me give you three examples. We had Box
Media creates something called concert Local, which is sort of
a local programmatic advertising marketplace. They came up with Google
to do it in which they can have national brands
put out distinct messaging to local news companies. And the
reason they wanted to do that is because when technology
(16:05):
has made us more globalist, and so you've seen mom
and pop shops, small retailers get choked out by some
of these really big brands like you know, Amazon and Walmart.
But the challenge that Amazon and Walmart base is that
they don't have the direct relationships with the communities. And
they started to realize that they're going to struggle competitively
(16:25):
against the local retailers that are there because they have
a marketing problem, they have an outreach problem, they have
a community problem, and probably perceptual also, I would imagine, yes, absolutely.
I mean some of them are large employers in some
of these places, but a lot of times they're not.
And you know, Amazon has just perceived a sort of
the big looking man, and so they have found that
(16:46):
they want to message locally, but there's not a great
way to do it. I mean, Amazon is not going
to put direct sellers on the ground in every single
city in America. So these programmatic marketplaces like what Box
created became very compelling. And then you have Washington Post
created Derrek Dicker, who's a good friend and on the
show a lot created this with Zeus where they were
(17:06):
gonna bringing a lot of local papers starting with them
the class who changed in the Seattle Times, and they
were going to add into a marketplace. So national advertisers Compression,
then Mcclatchyannet teamed up and they said, we're going to
create the same thing because the demand was there and access.
That's the way we're thinking about it too. You know,
we definitely want to have vocal on the ground relationships
with communities and with advertisers, but we also see an
(17:30):
opportunity to bring some of our national brand partners to
the local level, and you're seeing them take advantage of it.
Facebook is running ads in our local newsletters. So I
think this is a massive, massive, trend. It's only going
to get bigger. And the thing I'm keen to see
is how do the big brands think about this from
a messaging perspective. Okay, so we solved the tech problem, right,
(17:52):
Plus I was going to ask, is that enough? They
will have to be smart about how they marry the
medium and the message. So we are getting there with
the media, we know how to deliver this for creating
smart technology solutions. To get there, the message is a
lot more nuanced. You're gonna have to invest in communities
learn about their needs in order to blanket them. So
(18:13):
right now, when you look at national as at the
local level, oftentimes they do seem a little bit impersonal.
What it's gonna have to start looking like is, hey,
you know, we know that you had a massive snowstorm
two days ago, and that communities are looking for water
and supplies. Buy one, get one, give one, and help
(18:34):
out your local community. But they're going to invest in
learning the community problems before they can message like that.
And so that's going to just take a few years exactly, Yes,
which is why having those connections on the ground really matters. So, Sarah,
(19:02):
we're talking about two You're hot on local you're hot
on at the same time global expansion. What else are
you focused on in two and what would you tell
our listeners? Here are the things that I'm going to
be looking at, or here are the things that I'm
putting bets on. Yeah. So we saw a lot of
consolidation in Discovery announcing that it would do a joint
(19:27):
venture with a T and T that just getting out
Warner Media to create a huge congomberant their Amazon acquiring
and d M and in the private level, you know,
Boxing Group nine coming together. I think you're gonna see
more consolidation, and I think in entertainment especially, there's so
much need for programming for streaming that you're going to
(19:50):
see more production houses get gobbled up. In the digital
media space, which is interesting. One of the areas where
we saw a lot of deal volume was digital audio,
which is super important because I think the audio space
is right for innovation. And then add tech and Martek.
You know, as the ad market grew, there are new
(20:10):
college industries going around it, like CTV or even just
add verification. You know, in the eighties or seventies and
before that, when we just had to measure whether or
not households viewed a television show. We didn't have companies
designed to authenticate that the people were sitting in front
of their TVs who just made those assumptions. With digital,
(20:33):
you can actually authenticate that. And so you have this
whole college industry of authentication and verification. Think about integral ads,
science going public, things about double Verify going public. So
that's a huge one. We have a college industry around
marketing and commerce that's taking off. Um you know, Tabula
made an eight hundred million dollar acquisition UH to get
(20:55):
into commerce last year, and so that whole idea of
ottage industries around brand, marketing and advertising taking off is
so big. Last year was the biggest year on record
for Ada and marchek ideas to give you a sense.
So I think all this consolidation will continue into two.
I think watch the entertainment digital audio, added martech sectors
(21:18):
specifically for continued consolidation. And the flip side of that
is what's to see how regulators respond. The f C
and the d J announced that if they're taking a
sort of calls for your review guidelines to change because
we're recognizing that, you know, anti trust and competition is
a bigger issue on century. So that would be the
(21:39):
flip side of while this consolidation is like, to what
extent do we actually allow it to happen? Like the
Microsoft Activision deal, Yes, seventy billion dollar deal. I mean
Microsoft went through the ringer with antitrust in the ninety
nineties and so as a result, they spent the next
two decades being very cautious and pandering to regulators, building
(22:00):
the big DC presence, and the result of that was
that a lot of their competitors were able to grow
bigger than them through acquisitions. Look at Google buying YouTube
and Basic buying Instagram. But what happened in the past
few years as Microsoft saw that the tune and change
and kind of turned and people began to look at
(22:21):
their competitors with the negative lens in terms of competition,
and they quietly came in and scooped up a lot
of stuff. You know, they bought the Does, the Games,
and a huge deal they bought LinkedIn for twice six
billion dollars. And so the announcement that they're buying Activism
those there's almost seventy billion dollars. This serves as a
pivotal moment actually for dealmaking forever. If regulators let this
(22:42):
one go, it will be a huge signal built to
Microsoft and big tech that they're not as serious about
climbing down on these types of mergers. But if they
take a hard look at it, you know, you can
expect technical giants, but also other corporate giants just start
to think differently about their organic versus inorganic and purchase
growth strategies because they might not be able to buy
(23:04):
their way to dominance forever. The more we consolidate, the
more it seems fewer bigger players will continue to dominate
the market. Is that the trend you're seeing that is
and that's the concern that lawmakers have. It is is
that good for consumer choice? You know, if you have
a few services that control the market, they can control pricing,
and they can control creativity. And so what you're starting
(23:26):
to see is smaller companies come out and push back
and say, look, we want to have to see at
the table because it's good for consumers. They have one,
you know brand I'll call out for doing this well
has been broken Brokeu's pushed back a lot, and Google's
dominance as a result. They're the number one smart TV
platform and think about the opportunity for brands. I mean,
Broku has it really big edge and connected TV advertising.
(23:50):
They bought part of Nielsen's Connected TV ad business last year.
That's an huge opportunity for brands to be able to
get into the CTV game in a meaningful way And
wouldn't have happened if it up start brand like Broku
didn't try to challenge the dominance of the existing incumbents.
And so I think that's a trend that's just going
to continue to happen across every industry. You know, an
(24:12):
audio you're going to have smaller upstart podcasting companies try
to challenge Apple and Spotify. And Spotify at one point
was that start company? Right, That's right, So it'll just
continue that. I want to go two seconds into audio.
So I made this prediction in I don't know October
to a group that I was advising that this year
(24:34):
we were going to see two We're going to see
an explosion of audio and audio innovation. Um, what are
you seeing specifically there? Is it related to podcasts, is
it related to more audio search and home devices? Tell
us what you're thinking. We're probably speaking MPR and Edison Edison,
(24:54):
being one of the premier resource firms to audio, put
out the study that they do every year, and they
found on that the share of ear meaning the amount
of listening time that's going to the spoken word being podcasts, audiobooks, etcetera,
has increased eight percentage points in the past eight years
from you know, taking away some of the dominance of music.
(25:17):
Now it doesn't mean that our music dies are shrinking,
they're actually growing bigger. It just means that the piece
of the pie that spoken word is taking is growing bigger.
And as a result, it creates a whole new economy
for audio that didn't exist before. You know, we had
spoken word being primarily consumed on radio eight years ago.
Now it's primarily consumed on digital, which means we can
(25:39):
serve much more targeted advertising that we can measure, etcetera.
And so part of that consolidation you're going to see
that you mentioned Colesa in the next year is going
to be consolidating the business side of audio to accommodate
this new reality. And you're starting to see it, you know,
Spotify acquiring Megaphone, et cetera. But it's going to continue
(26:01):
to get even bigger and right now, the podcast advertising
market specifically is still pretty small. It's only about a
billion dollars TBS like. But once we're able to create
more end to end audio platforms that you can create
a message, place and message, distribute a message, measure, measure
(26:22):
the impact of that message all in one place, similar
to like what Facebook the social media and what Google
Live research, it's going to bring a lot more dollars
into the audio advertising one escape. So I think Spotify
is definitely taking the leave right now and building that
end to and landscape. But you also have other competitors.
I HURT is getting in their serious XM is getting
(26:42):
in there, and so once there's a few big players,
the investment is going to definitely poor. In Malcolm Gladwell,
for instance, a couple episodes back talking about his pivot
into audio books and creating for the audio medium, you
can't buy ads and books, but can you buy ads
and audio books. It starts to create entirely new revenue
(27:03):
streams for certainly the platforms, but also the creators. Totally
quick take, what are your thoughts on social audio? Where
is it going? I'm not talking about a specific brand.
There are a lot of people getting into the space
and have gotten into this space. What's next for social
audio in this kind of prediction of of audio expansion
(27:26):
and consolidation. There's two ways to think about social audio.
One is live and the other is asynchronous, which is
you send someone VI an audio note. And I watched
way too many to talks you wouldn't even believe. But
one viral audio trend right now is a synchronous audio
where people on their Hinge profile can record a message
(27:50):
and it can go viral, and I think both are
really interesting to watch. We often are only talking about live,
but we should be thinking about asynchronous as well. In
the live space, I think we saw during the lockdowns
that people definitely were craving community, and so that's why
it exploded. But once lockdowns ease, and people don't want
(28:13):
to spend hours, you know, just kind of listening in
on chats, they want to be in on person. I
think the future of life audio is gonna shift a
little bit, and what it's gonna be is it's gonna
be a manifestation of what's happening in real life a
little bit more so. Can you picture you're at a
small meeting in your office and you don't want to
(28:34):
have to go to this entire video. You don't have
to set up and make it formal. You just all
doing an audio chat and you just start talking. But
you can put twenty people in there. You can raise
your hand and the functionality is so good. I think
that kind of can become the future of audio or
can be with your friends, like, hey, we need to
figure out where we're going at tonight. Let's all just
hop on a live Like let's just all hop out
a club to house chat and just talk it through.
(28:55):
I mean, I think that's gonna be a bigger part
of it. It's gonna become less um of the more
passive entertainment kind of pasttime with like it wasn't a
pandemically listened to a bunch of rooms. It's become going
to become a much more active thing that you take
pardon as a function for your life. And I actually
think there's a enormous opportunity as it shifts into that role. Yeah,
(29:18):
I agree. I I kind of look at it is
like a radio frequency, right, Like you shift to a
different radio frequency. There's going to be a time for
live specifically um, and a time for asynchronous rather than
maybe the kind of mean platform. But I think the
main platform and the functionality and features will get sucked
(29:39):
into something that's you know, that's a broader, uh set
of communication tools. Because you're talking, I'm just reminiscing about
having my room line in the nineties and just calling
you both three ways on three way. Everything old is
new again. It just happens to be in an app
versus h picking up the room phone to Sarah before
(29:59):
we let you go, I'm gonna say a word. Tell
us the first thing it comes to your mind is
that cool. Let's see what happens metaverse, metaverse, Facebook, Oh
good Web three deed bicker, Oh God, I paid you
for that? He paid you for that. CMO data, Amazon
(30:22):
was interesting, n f T. Google ants one fun thing? Travel? Yes,
all right, yes, and we have to play the game
Sarah Bye, bye bye. What is Sara Fisher in two
saying goodbye to? What are you buying? And what are
you doing yourself that you're not already doing? In two?
(30:46):
I am saying goodbye to a lot of the conferences
I used to go to. It has become obvious in
the past two years that I think we all were
traveling uh, not in a smart way. Yeah, you were
not being as strategic about our time. And now that
we figured out healthier lifestyles, so we're not running around
(31:08):
so much. I think people are going to be much
to take care about which ones they actually attend versus
which ones they participate in virtually. Yeah, I totally agree
with that. I'm all in for that. What are you buying?
You know? I think the idea of the metaverse and
blockchain and n f T S and all that is
real now, it didn't feel as real to me. I
(31:28):
wasn't investing in crypto. I mean, I actually can't buy
crypto or or those I can't buy individual stocks, but
I wasn't thinking about it as a consumer in a
really real way. Now I am. This is the year
where I think most people are going to start to
take this stuff seriously, you know, getting into having a
digital wallet, trying to experiment with bitcoin and digital currencies, etcetera.
(31:48):
What do you think is gonna flip the masses towards
web three or n f T or having a wallet,
Like do you think that there's something that has to
happen for you know, my mom to start talking about
n f T S and buying n f T s Yeah.
I think we just need better regulatory and safety and
security infrastructure. I think the reason people are parishes because
(32:09):
they talked to our financial planners about it and they're like,
don't put your money in there. It could get stolen,
right like crypto dot com alt trading the other day
because money was getting taken out and they couldn't figure
out why. I think once we have figured out better
guard rails for this, it's going to become instream. Sarah,
what are you doing yourself why? I'm going to be
thinking a lot more about service in two In the
(32:33):
past five years, I've been thinking about Axios and my
brand and what I'm doing for my career. And if
anything has become obvious to me in the past two years,
it's that I actually can grow home my company's brand,
mine better if I'm thinking about the broader landscape of
journalism and how I contribute to public service, and that's
(32:55):
a huge mission of mine. I just um started mentoring
a young journalist this year who's in college, and I
think we're all going to be more enriched if we're
thinking about giving back, because God knows as a society
that's like the only way we're going to survive it.
Hey love that, and I thank you as a mentor.
You've mentored us actually and in a lot of ways,
(33:17):
kind of informally, but you as a mentor, that is
a lucky, lucky person. If you ever get a chance
to see Sarah Fisher interview live, it is a master
class for how to conduct an interview. And so when
Alexas says you mentor us, I I wholeheartedly say, like,
I've learned a lot from watching you in action. Be
(33:39):
sure to follow her. Also, Sarah your Twitter handle, My
Twitter handle is just Sarafish. I think I think it
is laughing because I swore I thought what you were
just going to say was if you ever see Sarafus
you're on the conference circuit. She is like the best
person at the bar. Shod um. But thank you guys
(34:03):
so much. The feeling is mutual. I learned from you
all the time. I love this podcast and UM tell
any of your listeners like, feel free to reach out.
I'm just Sarah at Access dot com with new take
that invite for anyone who is listening. You will be
better for it. Sara Fisher, thank you. We can't wait
to see you in person. Thanks Sarah, Thanks guy, So Laura,
(34:28):
I can't believe that we had Sara Fisher on five
years ago. It feels like yesterday. Amazing right. We wish
Sarah so much success as media. Newsletter is truly truly
my every Tuesday read. If I read nothing else in
the week in the business, that's the newsletter that I read.
(34:49):
And if you don't read it already, you should be Atlantia.
We'll be back in two weeks. Laura hit it with
the list of all of our friends and family I
heart who have been so good to us and helped
us get back on air. Big thank you to Bob Conall, Carter, Andy,
Eric Gayle Val, Michael Jen We appreciate you. Thank you
so much for this opportunity. We'll see you in two weeks.
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