It had low overheads, a very small staff and a very loyal audience. It also contained great writing, it was relatively cheap (50 bucks a year) and even had jokes. But the editor Jimmy Guterman says they must now find new investors or close on Friday.
This is what the editor posted on Sunday:
“I am sorry to report that Media Unspun will suspend publication Dec. 13, a week from Friday. That’s right: Our luck runs out on Friday the 13th.”
“Our team, which produced Media Grok for the Industry Standard, regrouped as Media Unspun back in January. We launched a subscription- and advertising-supported email newsletter about the technology business during an economic slowdown that is having a particularly violent effect on the publishing, technology, and advertising industries. Despite the high quality of the newsletter, as evidenced by the feedback we receive every day, we can’t fight a hurricane.”
My hunch is that it became too general. Just reviewing the big tech stories in the business pages is not really targeted enough. At the Standard, the Media Grok newsletter covered the tech industry exclusively. But then, that was during the boom when everything was more frenetic, there was more media to cover and more companies for the media to write about. These days there just ain’t much going on.
It’s interesting to see how many niche blogs have often taken over from where newsletters once reigned. With RSS syndication and RSS readers it’s now even easier to build an audience.