April 26, 2016

Three Awesome Paragraphs — And Only You Can Decide Which Is the Awesomest of All

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While we wait for polls to close on Super Tuesday 4 (seriously), I’ve been catching up on news in the tech biz. And I need your help. Which of these is the greatest paragraph of the day? You have three choices.

The first one, from Michael Hiltzik of the LA Times, is part of an interview with Michael Ferro, chairman of the company that owns the LA Times, about how they plan to supercharge the LA Times:

The strategic plan also includes a “content monetization engine” that will use artificial intelligence to redistribute Tribune Publishing content to multiple destinations and market the content in a way “we think will revolutionize our content strategy,” Ferro said. “We think it’ll be a rock-star business” that can “create more revenue … than you’ve ever seen.” That module will also be unveiled May 4, he said.

A content monetization engine! That is so awesome. And it will create more revenue “than you’ve ever seen.” I’ve heard plenty of hyperbole from tech evangelists before, but nothing quite like that. Next up is Twitter:

The increase in users, which reversed a decline in the previous quarter, was a rare positive for the ailing company….The company reported 310 million monthly active users, up from 305 million the previous quarter….For the first three months of the year, the company reported $595 million in revenue, missing the $608 million Wall Street had expected….Overall, Twitter said it saw a net loss of $80 million, or 12 cents a share, which was a bit better than analysts had forecast.

This is not an awesome paragraph per se, especially since it’s only a paragraph in the first place by virtue of my ellipses. But think about this. Twitter has 310 million users. 310 million! It generates revenues of about $2 billion per year. And yet, it’s an “ailing” company that’s still losing a ton of money. How tough is the social networking market when 310 million users isn’t enough to turn a profit? And how does a company that basically runs a server farm manage to rack up more than $2 billion in operating costs annually? Beats me.

Finally, we have this contender from a piece about Apple’s first revenue decline in 13 years:

Analysts do expect that iPhone sales will recover after the company introduces this year’s expected model of the iPhone….Reports based on apparent weak links in Apple’s supply chain indicate that the new phone could have a new kind of headphone port, be dust-proof and waterproof and may even sport a totally redesigned home button.

OMG. A totally redesigned home button! What will the geniuses at Apple think of next? A totally redesigned on/off button? A totally redesigned microphone? A totally redesigned headphone port? Oh wait….

Anyway, those are your choices. My heart is with #1, which is truly as awesome a paragraph as I’ve read lately. I can’t wait for May 4th.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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