It’s been over a year since The Messenger closed down and the lessons are even more stark today. The meltdown precipitated from a number of out-dated expectations. Social media algorithms are shunning general news content, Google has been re-calibrated to favor original, niche content and news consumption habits have changed considerably.

It’s kind of like running a restaurant on a busy street. If your goal is to touch as many consumers as possible (as The Messenger sought to do) the easiest way to achieve that is to make food quickly and throw it at passing cars hoping that people will 1.) have their window rolled down, 2.) will be hungry and 3.) will like what you’ve made. If your goal is to build an enduring business with a foundation of repeat customers your best bet is it invite them in, speak with them and hope they stay a while.

Mike Donoghue on LinkedIn

News articles are a no longer a commodity that is profitable at scale. The age of infinite personalization (via AI) is upon us. Publishers that understand Liquid Content, information that can be adapted to it’s consumer, will prevail. The new moat will be unique archives of well-formatted content, rich with meta-data stored in dynamic data structures that can re-combine on-demand to meet a specific need. Adaptability is key because in this new world it is impossible to know if your growth will come from text snippets, short-form vertical video, interactive graphical representations of data, or audio summaries translated to Chinese.

In this world, the inverted pyramid is but one way to present what you have.