CPG Activity: The snack aisle is buzzing. Earlier this month, I reported that Morning Brew had acquired Express Checkout, a creator-led outlet reporting on the CPG space. Then last week, Feed Me reported that Taste had launched Eye Level, its second podcast, to cover the packaged food industry. And today, Inc. launched Packaged Goods, a CPG newsletter on beehiiv that will publish three times a week. Personally, I see no obvious explanation for the trend. If anything, with the rise of GLP-1s, analysts have spent most of the last year forecasting declines in the snack space. Perhaps that same existential threat has spurred a wave of innovation in the industry, prompting an uptick in interest? My personal theory is that, as business-to-business media remains viable while consumer media crumbles, enterprise reporting that also appeals to a broad consumer base—like snack trends, movie sales, the business of sports, etc.—could prove a durable blend of the two categories.
Podletters: Last week, I reported that Substack was piloting a program that would enable its podcasters to more easily monetize their shows with programmatic advertising. On Tuesday, beehiiv announced the exact same functionality. That both platforms—previously newsletter operations that now focus on holistic creator monetization—are incentivizing their users to make and monetize podcasts is instructive. It increasingly appears that no newsletter is complete without a podcast, and vice versa: On Wednesday, in fact, Vox Media podcast Pivot announced its plan to launch a Pivot newsletter on Nov. 2, called Pivot Post. I have written this before, but the products once seen as add-ons to existing media businesses—newsletters, podcasts, events in some instances—are now considered Step 1 in launching a new media venture.
App Attack: The decline of the open web continues to push publishers to stand up mobile apps. Vox launched its first mobile app on Wednesday, while The Atlantic announced a slew of updates to its offering on Tuesday. Even more interesting: Reddit itself is now pushing users to move off the web and download its app, according to new data from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower. In a report released Wednesday, the firm found that downloads of the Reddit mobile app grew six percentage points in the third quarter, the highest growth of any social media platform in the last year. The trend is no accident: Reddit is actively restricting its mobile web experience, prompting users to download the app to access content, per Sensor Tower. Nearly one-third (32%) of Reddit iOs reviews mentioned being prompted to use the app, up from 2% in the same quarter a year ago.
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Rachel Karten is the creator of Link in Bio, a Substack newsletter about social media strategy for brands and publishers with over 120,000 subscribers. Before she went independent, Karten was also a member of the social media team behind the famous Bon Appétit Test Kitchen. I had called Karten to get her perspective on the episodic social video format that People Inc. has rolled out across a handful of its brands, a story you can read here.
But on Monday, when we spoke, Instagram had just announced that it was unveiling a series of new features, including a hub for long-form video and series, as well as new ways to discover longer videos and livestreams in Reels. In our conversation, I asked Karten what she thought about the new formats, why serialized video works so well on the platform, and what publishers can learn from InStyle.
