Into the indieverse

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Reminder: Last chance this week to upgrade to a TRB Pro membership for a 20% discount. With a membership, you get full access to all content, invites to member events like our upcoming live podcast at Gannett and soon a texting community. 

Interestingly, I got several notes about my small point about Advertising Week. My theory on events is that while the desire for in-person connectivity has never been higher, the existing B2B events formats leave a lot to be desired.

For one, they are too long. There is no industry event that should last a week, other than Cannes, and that’s only because it’s in the South of France – and the sensible only stay three days anyway. Another issue is how atomized these big events are. There are too many side events. And finally, the events themselves are front for sales meetings, so they deliver thin value in terms of actual insights. 

As we head into 2025, I’m thinking more about where The Rebooting goes with in-person gatherings. My inclination is to stick with smaller, more focused events that deliver more value and are centered on real conversation rather than panels. Our plans for 2025 are to continue our dinner series, while adding breakfast salons, and topic forums along the lines of the Media Product Forum.

As part of The Rebooting’s State of Sustainable News Businesses report, we asked news publishers to rate their confidence in the sustainability of their models. Get the full report.

On The Rebooting Show, I was joined by Reid DeRamus to discuss the strategic and tactical decisions that go into building an independent media business. We discuss everything from choosing a business model, using the leverage of individual reputation, the value of consistency and authenticity, the mistake of over-reliance on optimization techniques, and the challenge of growth as tried-and-true methods wane in efficacy.

Listen on Apple | Spotify | other podcast platforms

An oddity of the media apocalypse is that pain is unevenly distributed. While legacy publishers deal with declining traffic, the specter of AI search and ad dollars flooding to performance marketing, it’s a boom time for the indieverse, the emerging class of independent, small scale and often personal publishers that stretches from OnlyFans to YouTube to TikTok to Substack. 

The indieverse is what’s left after mass media’s slow-motion fracturing after the end of the analog era. It is slowly and chaotically emerging as a power center within the Information Space, although its decentralized nature means it’s disorganized by design. The indieverse is an unwieldy coalition, with a large group of algorithmic gig workers and an emerging professional class of independents that are forging new paths with lightweight models.

The power of the indieverse is undeniable. Both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris might appear on Joe Rogan’s podcast in the final weeks of the presidential campaign. These campaigns do not agree on much, but they are in accord on recognizing the declining power of the packaged news media. While Harris negotiates with Rogan, she snubbed Time and most of the packaged news media. This makes sense. Presidential campaigns are increasingly about narrow segments. Rogan is a way to reach young males who are overwhelmingly behind Trump. A Time cover piece is for a mass audience that no longer exists.

Unlike traditional media, the indieverse is vast. Never before have so many people been famous that you have never heard of. The recent sweaty Hollywood Reporter listicle of the top creators of the moment registered a personal 19% for recognition. Most of the podcasts Trump pops up on I’ve never heard of in my life. 

Podcasting itself is critical to the indieverse, only because it’s been somehow neglected for so long by mass media. That allowed podcasting to spawn its own stars. The conversational nature of the medium appeals to influential people who have long felt burned by the typical “seduce and betray” profile. There’s something to be said for a long conversation to get a measure of a person. 

YouTube has emerged as the one good platform because it is a capital of the indieverse. The irony of YouTube is it took off thanks to turning a blind eye to “Lazy Sunday” SNL clips but truly delivered on being an imperfect platform for independent creators. Google gets a lot of grief these days; it deserves more than a golf clap for its stewardship of YouTube. It is imperfect but the one platform that strikes the impossible tradeoffs the best. 

The power of the indieverse is leading to more interesting views of the candidates. I don’t think a sit down with Jake Tapper would yield more than what Theo Vonn got. The fractured media will force candidates to present themselves to a more diverse set of discussions than the obsessions of the Acela class.

The power of the indieverse is it doesn’t require accreditation. That comes with downsides. There are all kinds of wackos. Cue the hysteria about disinformation and misinformation. I find the panic overwrought. After all, I remember how deep fakes have been heralded as the end of humanity for some time now. Society has persevered. 

Blogging died so the indieverse can live. Blogging was the right idea only without the necessary pieces to be sustainable. Maybe if RSS wasn’t screwed up and Feedburner figured it out. Instead we got a VC-addled Mashable masquerading as a tech company and renting Grumpy Cat. 

The difference this time is Stripe. Taking payments is very easy now. The original sin of the web was not baking in payments, I’m reminded often by my PvA podcast partner Alex. Add in the matured content monetization systems you have a broad pool that winnow into those that build indieverse companies like The Free Press. 

The counter to all of this is that the creator stuff is a fad. Fast forward five years and amid a bunch of AI dreck, people will enact a flight to quality with trusted brands that have stood the test of time and adhere to professional standards. Maybe? I don’t know if I’d take a 50/50 bet on that. The creator economy was overhyped as as a get-rich-quick tech scheme, but it was probably underhyped as a power shift in media.

And there will be plenty of alliances. Look at what Vox is doing with its podcast studio. It is making deals with indieverse members. This is one of the underrated BuzzFeed screwups: it had the makings of a creator network. 

My assumption is that the shift from institutions to individuals is a structural change. It’s a fundamental shift in power, influence and money. And that’s for a simple reason: tech platforms want an indieverse to be a counterweight to a traditional media industry that’s proven annoying subjects.

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