This week in brand publishing:
- Product management company Productboard is launching a new publication about lifestyle stories for “product people.”
- Netflix has launched a new content destination for Asian, Asian American and Pacific Island audiences, called “Netflix Golden.”
- Creators, meet a16z: How the VC’s publication is helping newsletter writers reach more audiences
Productboard is launching a publication
Fresh off a new funding round, product management software company Productboard is working on a new brand publication. According to a job post, the company is looking for a director of content for a soon-to-be-launched editorial property. The new publication will include journalism and lifestyle pieces targeted at people in “product” roles, the listing says.
Dragoneer and Tiger Global led a $125 million late stage round in Productboard last week, which valued the company at $1.73 billion. Its plan is to use the money to hire staff and expand products, per a news release.
It’s been interesting to watch software companies in the product management, task management, and work optimization arena go full steam ahead on editorial operations. Some of this, I suspect, has been pandemic-driven. As more people go remote, the need for tools that make work more seamless increases, in addition to content that can help people navigate new situations and setups.
The “great resignation” has also been responsible for growth – Productboard said in a statement that product leaders are now under more pressure, with a race for talent and a wave of resignations making institutional knowledge harder to come by. Elsewhere in the space, Atlassian/Jira has made good progress on the publishing front with WorkLife, an extension of an old company blog that is focused on highlighting interesting stories about how people get work done. Asana, another project-management tool, is also currently hiring for staff to “reimagine” its current blog and turn it into a robust publication.
We’re now curating new and notable job vacancies and roles from across the brand publishing world in one place with a new jobs resource on the Toolkits site. Our goal is to give Toolkits readers an easy, centralized place to uncover and connect with the best career opportunities out there. Jobs added this week include content roles at Ahrefs, Asana, First Round Capital, Blackberry and Boston Consulting Group.
Netflix launches ‘Golden’
Netflix has a new brand publication to add to its roster. The brand last week launched “Netflix Golden,” a dedicated content resource focused on the Asian, Asian American and Pacific Islander communities.
Golden is the latest audience-focused channel from the streaming service, joining Strong Black Lead, Con Todo and Most, as well as its genre-specific content publications like Geeked and Netflix is a Joke. The idea is that Golden will tell stories about Netflix’s Asian-oriented content, and will create its own original content that spotlights Netflix talent of Asian origin. Kicking things off is a new show featuring Emily in Paris actress Ashley Park, called “Spill the Boba Tea.” It joins fan website Tudum as another major content effort from Netflix since Michelle Lee joined the brand from Allure to run editorial. Separately, a piece in Business Insider last week went deep inside “Tudum,” and Netflix’s ability to lure reporters and editors to work for the company, which also publishes a glossy magazine, Queue.
Everyone’s joining a16z
…well, not exactly. But the venture fund’s publication Future has done a remarkable job at bringing in writing and content from a lot of independent content creators. One this week was a long essay on how to excel in tech without learning to code by Technically writer Justin Gage.
It’ another example of how brands may be able to act as a potentially powerful distribution channel for plenty of creators as they build their own audiences. If Future is able to continue to build its reach and audience, creators like Gage may be able to use it to expand their own audiences as well.
Regular publishers, of course, have been used as distribution channels by brands for years, because they’re able to offer audiences to those who need to reach them. But it’s particularly interesting to see brands now do the same with their own publications.
Other noteworthy reads
- Why Taylor Lorenz left the NYT for the Washington Post: ”Mainstream media organizations have kind of struggled to figure out how they deal with talent.”
- Pattern is an agency-turned-consumer-goods-brand holding company that makes nice frying pans and other goods. They’re publishing a 10-part series explaining the ins and outs of direct-to-consumer commerce.