Summary: The article discusses the conflict between The New York Times and OpenAI, focusing on copyright issues. Publishers, including The New York Times, made their content freely available online, inadvertently providing their copyrighted material to people who would misuse it. OpenAI is accused of exploiting this by using the Times’ content to develop competing services….
Watch here Summary: The article discusses how publishers use AI-driven propensity models to predict customer behaviors, like subscription renewal, based on data like site engagement and demographics. These models vary across businesses and are used for identifying potential customer churn, optimizing lead sales, segmenting customers based on their acquisition source, and encouraging behaviors linked to…
Listen here Summary: The article discusses challenges in creating a subscriber-only podcast due to the podcast ecosystem’s preference for open, ad-supported content. Platforms like Apple and Spotify support this model, and while options like Patreon or platform-based subscriptions exist, they allow the platform to control subscriber information. The author suggests using a paywall for podcasts,…
Summary: The article discusses the complexities of online personalization. It emphasizes the need for consent and transparency in using personal data like browsing history for customization. The author advises considering whether personalization is more beneficial to the business or the customer, warning against intrusiveness and the creation of echo chambers. The article also distinguishes between…
Summary: The article discusses the importance of granular data analysis over aggregated data in various contexts. This idea extends to different scenarios like social media, television viewership, and book readership. The author emphasizes the value of detailed feedback, such as pinpointing a specific social media post causing unfollows or identifying the exact moment viewers stop…
Summary: The article discusses how reading on paper often leads to better comprehension and retention than digital reading, citing fewer distractions and engagement of more senses as key factors. It suggests enhancing digital reading by reducing distractions, such as intrusive ads, and incorporating features like text-to-speech, note-taking, and providing contextual elements like unique typefaces and…
Summary: The strategic imperative for publishers right now is not to get money out of Google, but to change the terms of the deal. They say that one sign of colonization is that the people colonized start to believe and repeat the rhetoric of their colonizers. Sometimes that seems to apply to publishers and Big…
Summary: The article discusses the value of questions in social media and AI interaction. The author shares experiences with ChatGPT, both its capabilities and limitations, and reflects on an essay by unCharles about the hierarchy of social media engagement—likes, comments, and questions, with questions ranked highest due to their interactive nature. Questions reveal much about…
Summary: This article discusses the low trust in media, identifying the root problem as not solely related to AI, but because of a lack of viewpoint diversity at media companies. The article concludes that media outlets knowingly cater to audience biases, meaning the problem isn’t just a lack of trust, but also a market-driven preference…
The image for this post — and the strange words — was created by Dall-E Summary: The article discusses Robbie Kellman Baxter’s “Customer Retention Metrics Kit,” focusing on the challenge of retaining customers in a fragmented media landscape. It explores the evolving definitions of ‘customer’ and ‘subscriber’ in the context of diverse media platforms, stressing…
Summary: In his article on A/B testing, Sascha Bossen emphasizes monitoring the novelty effect, ensuring statistical significance in test groups, focusing on one KPI per test, and using usability testing when traffic is low. Additional advice includes avoiding prolonged tests, not getting overwhelmed by uncontrollable variables, and mimicking successful companies like Amazon. A/B testing can…
Summary: The article reflects on the ethics of customer engagement, contrasting legitimate service with addictive tactics. The author compares the straightforward transaction of buying coffee with the manipulative practices in social media and some online content, where engagement aims to addict users for ad revenue and data collection. This is likened to drug dealer behavior…
Summary: The print to digital transformation in publishing led to a decline in the quality of content as publishers pursued reach and traffic. AI threatens to accelerate that decline. Publishers need to stop and think about the future of their industry and how to arrest this decline in quality. Bo Sacks visits my inbox every…
Summary: The article discusses the challenges facing the publishing industry, emphasizing the need for long-term, strategic thinking. It references Dominic Young’s ideas on revitalizing publishing through casual sales, akin to buying a newspaper without the hassle of subscriptions or giving personal information. The concept is compared to micro-payments, which haven’t been widely successful due to…
Summary: The article discusses the challenges publishers face in a rapidly evolving content landscape. With diverse formats, platforms, and audience preferences, creators must adapt to text, video, audio, quizzes, and more across various devices and social media. The complexity includes the personality traits of the reader, payment options, and location. To navigate this chaos, the…