Amy Kean, the CEO and Creative Director of Good Shout, says that if you want to differentiate your media business, you should hire more weirdos. Media is a small, fairly tight-knit community, and most people want to fit in. But that can stifle creativity. There’s been an influx of “really average people,” Amy says, and…
On a recent “people vs. algorithms” podcast, the boys talk about “dark patterns.” I’m not sure where that phrase came from, but it refers to the tricks companies use to manipulate consumers to do something the company wants them to do. An example from the publishing world would be a very low introductory rate that…
Are you tired of changing your business because some programmer has tinkered with an algorithm? They say it’s for the sake of the users, but we all know it’s to increase their ad revenue. LinkedIn recently changed how they promote content on their site. They say they want to make our feeds more relevant and…
Bo Sacks distributed an article by Peter Bale titled, “New book by Jeff Jarvis uses lessons from media’s print history to frame the digital future.” It reminded me of a rather cynical communist I used to work with who said, “Freedom of the press, for everyone who can afford a press.” Jarvis says the era…
As the AI wave threatens to reshape industries and disrupt the publishing business, publishers can gain a competitive edge by training their own large language model (LLM) with a distinctive voice and point of view. This article explains why this is a crucial strategic choice to make right now, explores the merits of this strategy,…
Should we always defer to the lawyers when writing terms and conditions? No. Sometimes their overprotectiveness ruins opportunities. (If you’d rather watch and listen, here’s a link to the podcast version.) I have a contact who wants to be on this show, so he wanted me to send him one of those links where you…