Is this me bitching about the always-in-my-face AI play right now? Yes. Am I aware of AI’s possibilities? Also, yes. But sometimes I just don’t want the AI version of the world, even if I helped design it specifically for me.
I had this term pop into my head this week: “Dopamine Industrial Complex” and prayed that somehow I would be first. Nope. Ah well. It did send me down the rabbit hole of people who have used the term, and I came to a realization that all of you have had, but I refuse to accept: there’s no way out.
I was asked to pull together my thoughts on publisher strategy, and I wrote this one line: “Rethink the website to work in a future where we win.” I’ll keep this short(ish) and sweet(ish) on why I like this line, and then what it gets wrong.
Lots of discussion this week in the publisher community about measurement companies. It was sparked by someone pointing out that they felt they had been judged poorly and there was little recourse.
Crunch, crunch, crunch. If you were a number cruncher before, with AI you’re now breaking down numbers to subatomic levels. If anything, you’re craving more data to smash together to see what you can learn. More, more, more. Crunch, crunch, crunch.
Our industry feels full of contradictions right now. We need to preserve what made us valuable without preserving every part of how we’ve always operated.
Read an AI summary of the Argentina–Cape Verde World Cup game and you’ll find that nearly everything that made it remarkable has been stripped away.
If you’re worried AI is coming for your job, you’re half right. Just not for the reason you think. It’s not that the machine is more efficient than you. It’s that efficiency was never what made you valuable.
Advertising is growing, but the growth hides the fact that some sectors are burning hot and others are ice cold. The problem is we can’t pit these sectors against each other like we are. Publishers need advertising, and advertising needs publishers. Let’s make sure publishers have a seat at the table.
I don’t care how low you are in the organization, but if you can get time with your CFO or someone at that level, learn what the vision is and then create your own models that you can share with them. Five year goals are met one impression at a time.