Online publishing has almost completely replaced physical magazines and newspapers, but now it may be in danger of being replaced itself. A more accurate way to describe it is that the current form of online publishing, which involves companies publishing their articles to their own websites, may be in the process of changing dramatically. Facebook and Twitter been directing users to these news websites for years, but with the way things are going now, they may soon come to replace the websites entirely by having articles posted directly to their own services, rather than linking to them.
Publishers are in danger of becoming dumb content in the smart pipes of platforms like Facebook and Twitter. The quest for smoother user experience seems to pose actually visiting a publisher’s site as friction. With content consumption being redfined, there’s plenty of eyeballs out there, but it’s getting tougher to win the hearts of readers. Previously, the platforms were willing to pass people on to a publisher’s website where they could show ads, promote their other posts, and forge a relationship worthy of a subscription fee or frequent repeat visits. The platform just wanted to be a gateway, and run ads between these chances for discovery. Now, the platforms want to absorb the Internet, becoming the destination — a sit-down restaurant, not a take-out counter. Rather than hoping users come back to discover more content after they consume it elsewhere, platforms don’t want people to ever leave. They hope this full-service experience will make content consumption more convenient for readers. The latest example of this is how Twitter’s newspapery Moments feature assimilates the content of tweets it aggregates on mobile, but hides the vital link back to the publisher’s website without users even knowing. Should publishers give up the milk if Twitter doesn’t want the cow?
