In late 2017, The Players' Tribune scored a big hit when NFL MVP Cam Newton posted “Dear Chosen,” an open letter to his son, complete with a video shot shortly after the baby's delivery. Like many of the sports site's stories, the essay was quickly written up by other sites, including Bleacher Report and Essence, and the video drove more than 70% of the video views it had gotten that month. It was also the only story to really pop that month. The site's traffic also fell 30%, partly because of low editorial output, with just 40 posts published in January, according to one former employee. Read more below.

• The Players' Tribune struggled to generate enough hits to turn itself into a habit. That hampered more recent efforts to diversify into new things, including podcasts, documentaries and merchandise.
• American Express is preparing for a world without cookies by developing more identity-based media buying strategies.
• Login unions have formed between publishers in Switzerland, Finland, France, Portugal and Germany. Some of those alliances also extend to offering enhanced ad-targeting options to advertisers. But as can often be the case when competitors decide to collaborate, progress across the board has been relatively slow.
• Complex has a growing commerce business because of the popularity of its original shows and its in-house hosts. See why.