Author: Sara Guaglione

This week’s Media Briefing explores how the “SaaS-pocalypse” is reaching publishers, as AI coding tools make it easier and cheaper for media companies to build their own apps and workflows — and entering into “build versus buy” discussions around paying for software vendors.

• Publishers are vibe coding their way into the “SaaS-pocalypse” debate
• The Economist is putting more reporters in front of the camera, New York Times exec changes in product, data and AI, and more.

Publishers are vibe coding their way into the ‘SaaS-pocalypse’ debate

The “SaaS-pocalypse” — the idea that AI makes it easier and cheaper to create custom software tools — has largely been framed as a threat to the tech industry. Now, the concept is creeping into “build versus buy” conversations happening within publishers.

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In 2020, Carson Roney was a college basketball and volleyball player recording dances on a fairly new app called TikTok. Six years later, Roney has 5 million followers on TikTok, nearly 700,000 followers on Instagram, and deals with brands including the NBA, Gatorade and Abercrombie.

Roney and her manager, Erin Convey from Wasserman, credit that growth to her ability to bridge genres. She may be a scholar athlete, but she’s also passionate about beauty and lifestyle, an increasingly common connection cropping up in sports that allows both creators and brands to diversify. It’s no longer just sports or the more traditionally sports-adjacent brands hiring creator athletes — now brands like e.l.f. cosmetics are sponsoring the Professional Women’s Hockey League.

Roney sits at that still-developing, but rather lucrative, intersection.

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