Summary: The article explores the evolution of content recommendations from “related articles” to sophisticated methods tailored to user preferences and behavior. The author debates the balance between editorial and algorithmic curation, and the varying objectives behind recommendations, such as enhancing user experience or maximizing ad revenue, emphasizing the importance of aligning recommendation strategies with business…
Summary: This article highlights the cautionary tales about artificial intelligence (AI) in popular science fiction, including “Dune,” “Star Trek,” “Battlestar Galactica,” and “I Robot,” which all warn against the potential dangers of AI rebellion. It emphasizes the importance of balancing the drive for innovation with the need for caution. While recognizing the divergent views on…
Summary: Uploading customer data to a Customer Data Platform (CDP) doesn’t automatically link it to web behavior. Despite having detailed offline data, online interactions remain anonymous until identified through common identifiers like email. Strategies to link these include personalized emails, sign-up incentives, and registration requirements, which help unify customer profiles for customized web experiences. I’ve…
Summary: Magazines will occupy a shrinking place in the public’s reading habits, but there are still opportunities. This article outlines how to find those niches. Bo Sacks distributed an article about how magazines could thrive in the digital age, which got me thinking about that subject. I have some clients who publish magazines, so it’s…
I’ve been preparing a workshop on how to develop use cases, and I was taking some notes over the weekend. I started with obvious things like quick wins and bang for the buck, but a few things I read reminded me that there are often other considerations. There are any number of things you can…
Summary: Giving direct advice is often resented and may undermine personal achievement, suggesting a more subtle approach like asking open-ended questions or guiding discovery is preferable. This method encourages autonomy and ensures individuals take ownership of their successes, making it a valuable strategy in both management and consulting contexts. Most people resent getting advice, so…
Introduction In this 4-part series I’m going to try to give some perspective on how the publishing industry got into its current mess with artificial intelligence. Part 1 covers some background information about copyright. In Part 2 I’ll discuss the search bargain – why publishers allowed tech giants to crawl and index their content. In…
Summary: Two-thirds of PR and marketing professionals struggle to demonstrate the impact of their work, suggesting a need for better utilization of measurement tools. However, it’s hard to quantify the effect of some marketing, like brand presence at industry events. The article warns against the potential pitfalls of relying solely on measurable outcomes, advocating for…
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…