welcome to the ntv newsletter

Internet-native media is creating fundamentally new businesses and experiences.

As the evolution of technology accelerates and new products break into our lives – from ChatGPT to crypto wallets to spatial hardware – why would we expect business to stay the same?

Marshall McLuhan famously said “the medium is the message,” and while we quote him regularly, we rarely take this message to heart. What is the message of this new technology? How is media – broadly defined – changing our lives in seen and unseen ways?

The internet is the fundamental paradigm shift that has led to a slew of new developments, the most important of which have only broke into the mainstream in the last few years.

What does truly internet-native media look like?

How are the changes that we see creating changes that we can’t yet see?

How do we build businesses around these new realities?

The purpose of this newsletter is to (attempt to) answer those questions.

One of my goals for this year was to write every single day about what I’m learning and working on, forcing myself to flesh out my thoughts and get them on paper. That manifested in daily blog posts and tweets, but not every idea is meant for that medium. The most interesting ideas need time to ruminate.

So in the spirit of Scott Belsky’s Implications, I’ll be working on this newsletter every day and publishing it 1-2 times a month. Every edition will contain analysis and commentary on technology’s impact on media, how media businesses are evolving, and the impact on founders and creators.

Oftentimes, it’ll be a collection of open-ended blog posts designed to spark conversation. Other times, it’ll be a fleshed out essay. And still other times, it will be very curation heavy. What I can guarantee is that this newsletter will encompass the most interesting ideas, analysis, and insights that arise through my work.

What is ntv?

ntv is a luxury media studio: we work with founders and creators who are embracing the new realities of internet-native media and building sustainable businesses around them. We learn a lot getting into the weeds with folks building brands and publications that embrace the new internet. Those learnings end up in this newsletter.

Who’s writing this?

I’m Jihad. I’ve co-founded an agency (acq. by Jellysmack) that helped big (500k-10M subscribers) YouTubers grow their brands and businesses, worked at companies exploring how the internet could disrupt traditional investing and media, and am currently obsessed with helping creators and founders build for a luxury media future.