Keep Your Friends Close
Media brands like Eater are launching a slew of new products and events to increase reader loyalty.
Getting folks to fire up an app is a chore, especially if you’re a media company. If you don’t offer something truly unique and worth the friction of downloading an app, it’s easier to have users access your content through the web.
Plenty of publishers learned that the hard way. During the Aughts, it seemed like every magazine and media brand had an app. Most offered little more than PDF versions of their print projects. If they did include more, it was often silly things like Esquire’s augmented reality covers or a bit of video as a supplement to a text story. The result: Most publishers closed their apps when few subscribers bothered to even download them.
But Vox Media thinks things have changed enough that they’ve dipped their toes into the App Store. Last week, the publisher launched the iOS-only Eater app, the latest in a series of brand extensions that have included cookbooks, cookware, and even a wine club. The key to the app is that it doesn’t just content. Instead, it’s leveraging Eater’s 10,000-plus maps of restaurants in more than 100 cities around the globe. That includes everything from location-based maps that help you search for a taco place nearby to more curated offerings like its heat maps of a city’s trendiest cocktail spots or its Essential 38 maps of editor-approved key eats in an area. Once you’ve found the perfect place, the Eater app will also help you make a reservation, ensuring you can get a table at your new favorite spot.
The app, of course, puts Eater in direct competition with stalwarts like Yelp, Google, and Apple’s Maps app. Eater is betting on its expertise and the loyalty of its audience—and Eater fans are loyal—to not only justify the app but also bring in revenue. For the moment, the app is advertising-dependent, with Capital One Dining and reservation service SevenRooms sponsoring it, though these days premium subscriptions always seem to be just around the corner.
What’s more interesting is how the Eater app seems to be the latest salvo in a growing trend in publishing: product expansion. With Google returning less traffic to publishers and social media’s break-up with news, traffic is down. Sure, they’ve leaned into newsletters even more, and some have seen success. They engage active users and build brand loyalty, but they don’t often boost the bottom line much.
To make up for that lost revenue, media companies are expanding their offerings. Some, like Outside Interactive, the parent company of Outside magazine, are buying up apps like MapMyFitness that both fit with the portfolio and create a bit of cross-brand synergy. Others like Apartment Therapy Media have launched a slew of new tools to help folks plan their remodels—and hopefully increase loyalty and retention across its brands. Still others like Food & Wine have expanded on reliable events like the annual Aspen-based Food & Wine Classic, recreating it this past September in southern foodie haven Charleston, South Carolina. Even Forbes is getting into the mix, launching Creator Upfronts, which partners brands with the key influencers from its Top Creators List for two days of learning and deals. The key to all these things is that they aren’t necessarily designed to pull in new users. It’s all about maximizing those who already love your brand—and the Eater app is the same thing.
“Launching an app has been the number one request we get from our readers,” editor-in-chief Stephanie Wu told Adweek.
Hopefully, giving them what they want will keep them coming back.
One Night Stand
Another brand has launched a magazine as a prestige play. Feeld, the dating app for those looking for a bit of kink in their lives, just released AFM, short for Another Fucking Magazine, which the company says celebrates “the many dimensions of desire, humanity, sexuality, and relationships that shape the lived experiences within and around the Feeld community.”
Feeld isn’t playing around, though. The book is thick and features heavyweights like author Daphne Merkin, poet Hanif Abdurraqib, underground film director Bruce LaBruce, and even New York mag writer Allison P. Davis (check out her great piece for The Cut on her relationship with Tinder). And there was, of course, a saucy launch party last week that leaned into Feeld’s naughty reputation. Considering the fact that Feeld already launched and closed another prestige magazine, the London-based Mal, AFM might not last that long. But like the trysts Feeld helps facilitate, longevity is probably not the point. Instead, it’s a risqué good time right now, the future be damned.
Read of the Week
The Verge is reliving peak Aughts. The website has created a special page dedicated to 2004, the year that changed us all. It saw the launch of Gmail, the creation of podcasts, and Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction. It’s enough to make you want to buy an iPod off eBay, or at least long for the sick web design of the early web.
Internships, Fellowships, and More
• Politico wants you for the summer. The news site is looking for both spring and summer interns for its New York, California, and Washington D.C. offices. You’ll clock 40 hours a week. You’ll write stories for the site, its newsletters, its magazine, and more. Pay is $23 an hour. All internships are on-site, so you’ll have to do some apartment shopping. The deadline to apply for all the positions is Nov. 15. Check them out here.
• Trill, a website written for and run by college students in the U.K. and U.S., is looking for new writers for its Young Writers Program. It’s a six-month program. You work remotely with editors while you create content for the site. You have to produce one story every two weeks or one video per month. The program is unpaid, though Trill promotes the idea that you can earn credit for the internship (which you can). For more info, check out this flier.
• Wall Street Journal wants a summer 2025 podcast intern. Geared toward college juniors, the program is designed to give students real-world newsroom experience. You need to have a prior internship and understand audio production and reporting. Being in New York is a requirement. Pay is $28.57 an hour. Get more info here.
• Business Insider is looking for a Life Editorial Fellow. The six-month position begins in January. You’ll work remotely writing content for several of Business Insider’s brands and partners. You’ll be paid $20 an hour and get a chance to work directly with BI’s senior editors and staff. Get more info and apply here. Interested in other Business Insider gigs? Check out this list which includes a Special Projects fellowship and a Graphic Design fellowship.
• The Minnesota Star Tribune is on the hunt for summer interns. There are multiple positions available, from photo/video gigs to food and culture internships. You can see the complete list here. The positions pay $850 a week, and you’ll be on the job for ten weeks. You’ll need to be in Minneapolis or St. Paul for the summer. Applications are due by Nov. 1. You can apply from the paper’s LinkedIn site.
• The McClatchy 2025 Summer Internship Program has positions available at its 30 news outlets across the country. The 10-week positions are paid variable hourly wages depending on the market. You can check general information about the internship program here, and you can see the complete list of positions here. Applications are due by Dec. 31, though considering the volume of applicants for these spots you might want to submit your materials sooner than later.
• The Dallas Morning News wants a full-time summer intern for 2025. You’ll be paid $18 an hour for 40 hours a week for 10 to 12 weeks of work. You’ll have to be in Dallas, of course, and it’s highly recommended you have a car to help you get around. Applications are due by Nov. 1. You can apply here.
• Be one of the first to apply for the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation summer 2025 communications internship. You’ll work on the non-profit’s magazine, help with its website, and maybe even end up working at its RAGBRAI booth. Pay is $15 an hour. You’ll work full-time. Applications aren’t due until Feb. 3, you can get a jump on it now here.
• American Public Media, the organization behind Marketplace and great podcasts like “How We Survive,” “This is Uncomfortable,” and “Don’t Ask Tig,” is looking for a spring Marketplace podcast intern. You’ll need to work hybrid in either Washington D.C., Los Angeles, or New York, but you will be working full-time and be paid $20 an hour. Don’t want to move? You can apply for the spring full-time Audio internship, which is fully remote. There’s also a remote Marketplace Digital internship, a Marketplace D.C. Bureau internship, and multiple St. Paul-based positions in brand solutions, radio reporting, and media production. All positions run from Jan. 6 – Jun 6. While there is no application deadline, they want positions filled by Dec. 6. Best to get your applications in sooner rather than later.
Heard some deliciously rapacious rumors?
Do you have some essential info or did you just snag the Times-Delphic’s third Best of SNO Award this semester like sophomore Sadie Jones (DMP, MMJ) did for her story “Drake Women’s Basketball Celebrates Golden Anniversary”? If so, then let JMM know by sending that juicy news on over to jeff.inman@drake.edu. JMM will treat it like this announcement from the new Vice President of Global SME of Mastercard Laura Kudia (Mags, ’09), and tell everyone about it.
Finally, how to win Halloween.