Summary: Following the lead of Troy Young in his latest email, the author discusses the evolution of the internet from a “seek” model to a “be served” model, characterized by AI-driven and personality-driven content delivery. It highlights the challenges content creators face in getting compensated, especially in the AI-driven model. The piece also reflects on…
The Audiencers has been collecting some good information on the correlation between renewal and engagement with an e-newsletter. That is, people who read an e-newsletter are less likely to churn. This becomes a chicken and egg question. In scenario 1, people who are loyal to the brand are more likely to sign up for and…
You may have heard that Google recently released a generative AI service called Gemini, and that it’s comically stupid. The people who programmed Gemini were apparently so worried about so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion that they made the most racist, absurd self-parody anybody could have imagined. It’s absolutely astonishing. I’m not going to go into…
Summary: This article emphasizes the importance of curation in creating a good product. It’s up to content creators to sift through the noise and present the most valuable and relevant content to their audience. The author encourages publishers to actively seek and incorporate granular, detailed customer feedback to improve their product. My friend Charles Benaiah…
Summary: 3rd party cookies are going away. They’re used for tracking behavior across multiple websites. 1st party cookies will remain. This article explains the difference between them. We keep hearing that cookies are going away, but that’s not quite true. Third party cookies are supposedly on their way out, although the process has taken longer…
Is it neesh or nitch? I take the majority view, but … which majority? I’ve been involved in niche media for almost my entire career. When I started out – back in the days when having a hard drive in your computer was a luxury reserved for the few – everybody said “nitch.” Then apparently…
Summary: Content consumption is broader than just web pages. Find ways to compete profitably in other mediums. The world of content consumption is much bigger than web pages, but some publishers seem to be stuck on the webpage. There’s a new type of dinosaur in the publishing world. The old dinosaur was the publisher who…
Summary: Start paying attention to different styles of art. It will help you with AI image creation. You can specify styles, artists, or settings when creating AI images. This can lead to more tailored and expressive results. I’ve never taken art history, and until recently I probably couldn’t have named very many artists, and certainly…
Summary: Email open rates, traditionally used to measure the effectiveness of email campaigns, are becoming less reliable due to technological changes, such as Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection and corporate email scanning, which inflate open rates by pre-opening emails. Despite this, open rates can still offer relative value for comparing campaign elements, like subject lines. To…
Summary: This article emphasizes the importance of ensuring email deliverability for subscription-based e-newsletters, highlighting strategies like using reliable email service providers, employing double opt-in mechanisms for subscriber verification, and maintaining clean email lists to enhance engagement and renewal rates. It discusses practical steps for addressing undeliverables and unopened emails, suggesting the use of secondary email…
Summary: Media struggles are the logical consequence of the tsunami of new content available online. The solution isn’t in business model innovation but in identifying and leveraging extraordinary talent, as only a few exceptionally talented individuals significantly impact the market. Here’s the bottom line to the crisis in media right now. The vast majority of…
Summary: A simple method to get out of your own assumptions, study a topic, gain insights on that topic, and then apply what you’ve learned to what you’re doing. “Eat your own cooking.” “The cobbler’s son has no shoes.” “Physician, heal thyself.” “Take your own medicine.” There are a lot of sayings that follow that…
Summary: There are perils in enlisting your employees in your social media strategy. Three main reservations: the potential conflict between an employee’s personal life and the company’s brand, the varying comfort levels and personalities of employees towards social media engagement, and the differences in social media proficiency among individuals. Use LinkedIn for professional posts, manage…
BoSacks makes some very good points about print magazines The whole “print is dead” mantra is misguided. I’ll include a link or two to some things I’ve written about that at the end of this article. We are clearly experiencing a transition from print to digital. The question is whether it will be a complete…
Summary: AI models can significantly assist content creators by analyzing customer preferences on a website catering to different audiences. By categorizing users and utilizing natural language processing to extract keywords and trends, AI can generate detailed reports or even write articles, offering personalized content based on current interests, while also introducing variety to avoid content…