audience-development
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Advance Local knows where the story lives
The company behind AL.com, NJ.com and MLive is moving beyond the printed newspaper. Its next chapter pairs local reporting with software that helps businesses find their customers.
MGID makes the next click count
The recommendation beneath an article is a tiny piece of real estate with a complicated job. MGID turns it into a market for attention - and a test of what that attention is actually worth.
Static Media Knows What You’ll Read Next
A recommendation engine gave two engineers a view of the internet’s curiosity. They turned that view into a publishing business - and a growing collection of familiar names.
Reggie Renner Bet the Internet Could Tell Him What It Wanted
A cold email to Mark Cuban opened the door. A recommendation engine supplied the evidence. Reggie Renner used both to build an Indiana media company that now measures attention across 33 brands without pretending a spreadsheet can write the story.
The Three-Creator Rule: How Dopamine Studios Chose Depth Over Scale
Most talent agencies make money by adding names. Dopamine Studios has made a more awkward bet: give each manager only a few creators, then build careers that can outlast the feed.
The Art World's Most Useful Outsider Is an Insider
FITZ & CO does not sell art. It makes art legible to the people who fund it, cover it, visit it, and decide what matters - a quiet power built over 30 years.
The Small Agency That Found an Arena Inside a Community
The Round Table Group built its advantage in the distance between a demographic and a community. Its method is simple to describe, difficult to fake: listen locally, connect the channels, and give the audience a reason to recruit itself.
Next Steps Marketing knows an audience has somewhere else to be
From magazine subscriptions to ferry festivals, this San Francisco agency works on the awkward gap between getting a message out and getting a person to act.
Stephanie Fried Spent 20 Years Studying Attention. Now She Has to Earn Trust.
The marketer who learned to read audiences at NBCUniversal, Vevo, Discovery, Condé Nast and Fandom has taken on a trickier subject: what makes people feel safe online.
Jasmyn Rowley Turned Local Attention Into a Habit of Giving
At Village Media, Jasmyn Rowley has spent more than a decade proving that audience growth and community care can reinforce each other - one newsletter signup, one local partnership and one well-timed surprise at a time.
Paul Slavin
Paul Slavin is the CEO of Skillshare, the New York online-learning marketplace, a role he stepped into in August 2025. He arrived by an unusual route: 33 years at ABC News, where he ran worldwide newsgathering, executive-produced World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, and collected a dozen Emmys and a Peabody before pivoting fully into digital. He went on to lead web video at Everyday Health, run the digital book publisher Open Road Integrated Media to profitability, advise on media M&A at Oaklins DeSilva+Phillips, and now steers a 30,000-class platform for creative learners and teachers worldwide.