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The April installment of The Hobson & Holtz Report includes reports on these stories:

• Reuters’ website goes behind a paywall
• NFTs are still hot as problems (and possible solutions) emerge
• Advertisers like podcasts but want better measurement
• CEOs and brands are pushing COVID-19 vaccinations
• Volkswagen tarnished its already dicey reputation with an ill-conceived April Fool’s prank
• Is Clubhouse cooling off already?
• Dan York reports on Unsplash’s acquisition by Getty Images, Wix’s challenge to WordPress, TikTok, Clubhouse, and Substack facing competition, Google’s revamp of Feedburner, Core Web Vitals’ change to Google search ranking, and Instagram Lite.

Our FIR recording sessions are now being streamed live, because why not? We already stream it in order to capture a backup recording on YouTube; we’ve just been making these restricted streams. We have decided to make them public so you can watch and comment. Our next recording is Saturday, April 17 at noon ET. You’ll see our pre-recording conversation as well as seeing how the sausage gets made. Watch live here.

(You can watch the video of the making of this episode, though it’s clearly too late to share comments we can read right into the show.)

We are hosting an FIR Communicators Zoom Chat each Thursday during the stay-at-home period at 1 p.m. ET. For credentials needed to participate, contact Shel or Neville directly or request the credentials in our Facebook group or send an email to fircomments@gmail.com. Spread the word to your communications community.

Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music.

You can find the stories from which Shel’s FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog. Neville’s link blog, Outbox, is available, as well.

Links from This Month’s Episode

• Reuters website goes behind paywall in new strategy
• Reuters finally decides to charge you for its online news stories with a paywall
• Topps debuts its first NFT baseball card collection
• NFTs Arrive in the Watch World
• WWE dropping a set of NFTs ahead of WrestleMania
• Tom Brady is launching an NFT company
• Do You Really Own Your NFT? Chances Are, You Don’t
• People’s Expensive NFTs Keep Vanishing. This Is Why
• Time magazine is selling NFTs and will begin accepting cryptocurrencies for digital subscriptions within 30 days
• NFT prices are plummeting. What could this mean for the art world?
• Advertisers Say Podcasts Of Growing Importance, Though Measurement Problematic
• Why There Really Aren’t 2 Million Podcasts
• A Crucial Metric of Podcasting’s Health
• Budweiser and other brands are urging people to get the Covid vaccine so we can return to normal
• CEOs Become Vaccine Activists as Back-to-Office Push Grows
• Volkswagen pranks its tarnished reputation on April Fool’s Day
• Volkswagen says it plans name change, later pulls back, reports say
• No, Volkswagen Isn’t Rebranding Itself Voltswagen
• David Shepardson tweet on VW’s stock price rising on word of name change
• An unwelcome prank: Volkswagen purposely hoodwinks reporters
• Volkswagen lied about Voltswagen, and it shouldn’t have
• Can Clubhouse Keep the Party Going?
• Why Brands Are About to Drop Into Streaming Audio in a Big Way
• How to Advertise on Clubhouse
• Clubhouse App for Business: What Marketers Need to Know
• Joe Jaffe’s Corona TV

Links from Dan York’s Tech Report

• The Wrong Kind of Splash
• Wix and Their Dirty Tricks
• Snapchat Is Working on a Remix Feature to Rival TikTok Duets
• Instagram officially launches Remix on Reels, a TikTok Duets-like feature
• Clubhouse defined a format — now it has to defend it
• TYDR 407: More Social Audio from Discord, Spotify, Telegram, and…LinkedIn?
• What Facebook sees in newsletters
• Introducing Substack Local, for a new generation of local news
• Google updating FeedBurner infrastructure, email subscriptions going away
• Upcoming changes to FeedBurner
• FIR on Technology #006: Understanding Core Web Vitals, a New Google Search Ranking Factor in May 2021
• Bringing Instagram Lite to More Than 170 Countries

About Shel Holtz

Shel Holtz, ABC (Accredited Business Communicator), is director of Internal Communications at Webcor, a commercial general contractor headquartered in San Francisco. Before joining Webcor, Shel spent 21 years as principal of Holtz Communication + Technology. In addition to integrating technology into communications strategies, his expertise includes strategic communications planning, change management, organizational culture, business initiatives and communications research. Full bio

About Neville Hobson

Neville Hobson is a communicator, social strategist, consultant, digital change agent, writer, and podcaster. He is co-founder and co-host of the 'For Immediate Release' podcast. Since 2000, his career has focused on working with organisations globally to help them leverage his experiences, knowledge and subject-matter expertise of social networks, social media marketing, analytics and insights reporting, to create and build foundations for authentic engagement and to expand online reach and influence. Full bio