Generative AI Reshapes Digital Advertising and Tech
As always, it was fantastic to join Ben Thompson on the @stratechery podcast. We discussed the generative revolution in digital advertising, Meta’s communications challenges, the evolution of Google Search, Apple, AppLovin, and the components of a Prosperous Society.
Scene-Level Targeting Turns Context Into Optimization Signal
Streaming advertisers are moving beyond broad reach and into precision moments. In Episode 2 of From Show to Scene sponsored by @wurlctv , Emily Kennedy, EVP & Head of Marketplace @dentsu_global , joined AdTechGod and Jeremy Bloom 🌞 to share why...
Don't Kill Winning Ads After Short-Term Slumps
Stop turning ads off because of 1-2 days of poor performance. Especially if that ad has historical data. Things happen - Meta has issues. If you have a historical winning ad - don’t turn it off unless you have a very valid...
Condé Nast Settles $400K for Fired Protest Journalists
Pay as well it should. But Jake Lahut, the very good political writer fired from Wired, continues his case before the NLRB. Condé Nast Pays Over $400,000 to 3 Journalists Fired Over Protest https://t.co/YskK1x1hFa
Fans Question Wishbone Documentary Airing and NFL Network Blackout
TV Q&A: Will a documentary about cult classic @PBSKIDS show #Wishbone air locally? Why is @nflnetwork dark on @comcast @Xfinity ? Via @TribLIVE https://t.co/2saRNpiWO0 https://t.co/NVnAxewlao
Google Search Console Bug Skews Discover Clicks Data
Yet another Google Search Console reporting bug, this one with Discover reporting on May 21 leading to a drop in reported clicks and impressions https://www.seroundtable.com/google-discover-report-bug-41390.html #googlesearchconsole #googlediscover #google
15 Minutes Delivers a Week’s Business News
ATLANTIC CANADA- 15 minutes gets you the whole week of business news. Find it here on YouTube https://t.co/zzmYv0Og3z or any audio podcast player. https://t.co/Ys8f8Ajnqj
California AG Threatens to Block Paramount‑WBD Merger
scoop in this morning's DealBook: California's A.G. reveals his thinking on Paramount's deal for Warner Bros. Discovery. If he sues to block Paramount's acquisiton, he could disrupt the biggest media deal this year. https://t.co/63DHrzRF1A
Google App to Add Personalized Video Tab
Maybe joining the Images tab in the Google App -> The Google app could soon have a video tab with videos it thinks you'd like to watch "When it does go live, the feature could surface videos based on your...
Google AI Mode Blurs Ads with Organic Results
Google AI Mode ads with shopping card units, mixing ads with organic responses, etc (hard to tell what is new, it is all new) https://t.co/B5utK7m2C2 via @SachuPatel53124 @SERPalerts https://t.co/VSxJrchne6
Washington Post Set to Cut Iconic Bezos‑backed Headquarters
The Washington Post "is preparing to slash a significant portion of the very headquarters [Jeff] Bezos once championed as a symbol of the paper’s future," @nataliekorach reports.
Apple TV Chronicles 40 Years of UConn Dominance
Apple TV's "The Dynasty: UConn Huskies" documents 40 years of the most dominant program in college basketball history, featuring Paige Bueckers, Azzi Fudd, and coach Geno Auriemma. It premieres August 21. https://t.co/VWn1XYWMLl
Automate Perfect Ad Campaign Architecture Across All Platforms
I built a skill that designs paid ad campaigns — platform selection, campaign architecture, targeting, bidding strategy, conversion tracking, and optimization loops across Google, Meta, LinkedIn, and TikTok. You describe your goals and budget, and it recommends the right platforms, structures...
Creators Leverage Media to Build Affordable Housing Communities
Some creators aren't just building channels. They're building communities. 🏘️ These people are using YouTube and podcasting to empower people to develop affordable housing. 🎯 That's what happens when mission meets media. 🔥 https://t.co/GusktYXXjQ
Google's Search Decline Boosts Gemini, Threatening Publishers
In my debut contribution for the @DylanByers brilliant In The Room newsletter, I wrote about Google all but officially killing Search, Gemini seeing a 570% increase in y/y traffic that may have gone to publishers, and some solutions media and...
Free Press and Nation Depend on Each Other
"A free press depends on a free nation, and a free nation depends on a free press." - AG Sulzberger, making...
CBS News Radio Ends After Nearly Century of Broadcasting
Good night and good luck and goodbye — CBS News Radio signs off after nearly 100 years https://t.co/NA79tgL3bx @latimes
Spotify Uses AI Pods to Sidestep Royalty Splits
This is less a "people want this" play than a business model play. Spotify pays ~70% to rights holders before running costs of biz. Labels block them from becoming a label themselves, so they moved into pods bigtime. AI pods...
Twitter Now Suppresses Tweets with Handles and Links
Actually, an unfortunate nuance here. Twitter changed its algorithm post-Elon so that tweets with user handles and/or links in them get very little visibility (suppressed). So the norm evolved. So authors/brands lose credit, links (context and value) gets cut off....
Threads Adds Web DMs, Fueling 30% Messaging Surge
ICYMI: Threads rolled out messaging on its web experience. Since the start of the year, users are sending 30% more messages per week, with an average of 350M DMs being sent weekly. The lack of desktop DMs has been a...
ENHA's Zero‑Spend Launch Sparks 375M‑Reach Global Games
Another proof point that, with virtually no marketing spend, $ENHA has managed to build a global sports brand at record speed. Our inaugural @enhanced_games this Sunday, May 24, are attracting a full house of the world’s most followed digital creators and...
Spotify, Universal License Fan Covers with Responsible AI
Spotify and Universal Music Announce Licensing Agreements for Fan-Made Covers and Remixes, Using ‘Responsible’ Generative AI Technology https://t.co/COc4aR3qLn via @variety
Spotify Leverages AI to Transform Into Interactive Multi‑Player Platform
Morning from @Spotify Investor Day 1 Big Thing so far: AI is tailwind to our business of *taste* 🤑Company says it'll get more profitable as it shifts from a passive, single media player to an interactive, multi-player platform 🤖It won't focus on building...
TikTok Launches AI‑driven Creator Search for Intent‑based Matching
TikTok announced Creator AI Search.🔎 The feature within TikTok One Creator Marketplace allows brands and agencies to find creators by entering a campaign brief and receiving a curated list of best-fit creators. This shift from filters to intent-based discovery aligns with...
Google Trials AI‑Mode Conversational Discovery and Answer Ads
Google testing conversational discovery ads and highlight answers ads within AI Mode https://www.seroundtable.com/google-conversational-discovery-ads-highlighted-answers-41352.html #googleads #google #gml #googleaimode
YouTube Shorts Racks 2 B Hours on TV Monthly
YouTube revealed that viewers now watch over 2 billion hours of YouTube Shorts on TV screens each month. 📺 The TV screen has been a major growth area for YouTube and long-form content, but this highlights how short-form viewing is expanding...
Most Google Ads Budgets Are Misallocated—And Hard to Detect
Google Ads Budget Misallocation Is More Common Than You Think – And Harder To Spot https://bit.ly/4nCy70i
Search Shifts to Hybrid Chatbots, Ending Static Queries
Google’s Gambit, Part 4: The end of Static Search The commercial opportunity as Search converges to a hybrid chatbot interface is fairly obvious: more queries (demonstrable, from Google’s disclosure), more ad exposures per Search session (given the conversational nature of chatbot...
Google Launches AI-Powered Conversational Search for YouTube Premium
I've covered this before since I had it available in Premium (testing). It's like AI Mode for YouTube -> Googleadds a conversational search feature to YouTube, initially for Premium users, and integrates Gemini Omni into YouTube Shorts Remix and...
Paramount Aims to Close Warner Bros. Discovery Deal by July
Scoop: Paramount is racing to complete its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery by July, I'm told by multiple sources.
Walmart Boosts Ad Relevance by Prioritizing Semantics over Clicks
How Walmart improved sponsored search by prioritizing semantic relevance over engagement Candidate retrieval in ad / RecSys systems often uses a user's historical engagement data as a proxy for relevance. But researchers at Walmart argue that this approach is incomplete in...
Gemini‑Enabled Supercomputer Gives Precise Control Over AI Video
Higgsfield Supercomputer just got plugged into Gemini. Now you can use it to create videos with cleaner text, sharper motion graphics, frame-level editing, and search backed by deep global knowledge. That means the model can understand more context before it generates. So instead...
Use Listicles, Contrarian Takes, and Data Breakdowns for Substack Growth
Substack Note formats that drive subscribers (not just likes): • Listicles with a specific takeaway • Contrarian takes that stop the scroll • Behind-the-scenes breakdowns with real numbers Avoid motivational quotes and vague musings.
YouTube Reaches 3 Billion Users, 37% of Humanity
Sundar Pichai at I/O says that YouTube is one of five Google products with more than three billion users, or about 37% of the global population.
Compensating Creators for AI Agents' Content Usage
I’ve been in the internet business for three decades. In that time, I’ve watched the web get built, break and rebuild itself around getting humans to pay attention. Ads, subscriptions, affiliate links — the whole economic infrastructure of the...
Customizable News Feed Launches via Terminal and API
We built out the best news feed from scratch. The amount of noise that every other provider gave us was not what we were looking for. So we built our own. It is now available in Terminal and API. You can filter...
LinkedIn Revives Immersive Video After Doubling Watch Time
LinkedIn is reopening its immersive video experience after previously rolling it back outside the U.S., beginning with Australia, the U.K., and Canada. 🎥 The company says improvements in video relevance have led to 2x more time spent watching videos from the...
Half Man Episode 5 Release Date Confirmed Soon
We're one episode away from what is sure to be an explosive finale. But when does Half Man episode 5 drop on HBO Max and BBC iPlayer? https://t.co/GUosJ6GJjN
AI Turns One Tool Into Full‑Scale Viral Content Agency
This is wild. Last month they let you generate AI influencers. Now they turned it into a full-blown viral content machine. > paste your website > Fastlane learns your product > generates endless TikToks/Reels/Shorts > clones viral formats automatically > schedules 30 days of content in seconds And...
Free Open‑Source Tool Turns Any EPUB Into Audiobook
Audible is cooked after this. A developer built an open-source tool that turns any EPUB into a full audiobook on your own laptop. It's called Audiblez. You drop in an ebook. It generates a proper .m4b audiobook. You listen in VLC, Apple Books, or any...
First-Price RTB Bidding Requires Joint Causal Value Learning
Can causal value be learned jointly with auction mechanics in a first-price RTB setting? A new paper from researchers at NYU and elsewhere argues that RTB bidding in first price auctions is fundamentally a causal inference problem, not simply an auction...
Journalist Georgia Fort Still Silenced After Arrest
NEW: I sat down with Georgia Fort, who was arrested in January while covering a protest at a St. Paul church. Months later, she says she is still being silenced. https://t.co/ghecg4GyYW
Metric‑Driven News Once Offered True Democratic Revenue
People don’t think fondly back on the “traffic” era of news media. But there was a certain democracy to it. If you executed on particular metrics (pageviews, etc), you could generate real revenue, without worrying about audience capture or taste...
Coach Embraces YouTube Long-Form Storytelling to Engage Youth
Brands like @Coach are taking notice of the massive opportunity to build deep, lasting connections on @youtube. They're shifting back to long-form storytelling and partnering with @youtubecreators in a way that's really resonating with people, especially younger generations. https://t.co/ToH7GWDIfG
HipHopDX's Closure Erases a Generation of Rap Writers
RIP HipHopDX. A lot of us (including me) got early bylines on that site. It's a shame how a generation of rap writing has been erased
China's AI‑driven Short Dramas Replace Actors, Crews
China’s short drama industry is fueled by bite-sized, melodramatic, and smutty shows built for smartphone scrolling. Now, many are being made entirely with AI: no actors, camera operators, cinematographers, or CGI specialists required.
AI Ads Match Human Performance—Unless Consumers Detect AI
AI-generated ads perform roughly as well as human-created ads, unless consumers suspect they were generated by AI. Researchers from the Technical University of Munich, Columbia Business School, Harvard Business School, and elsewhere analyzed more than 16 billion ad impressions and 116...
AI Democratizes Filmmaking, Sparking a New Creative Era
AI is starting to do to filmmaking what smartphones once did to photography and social media did to publishing. It lowers barriers, accelerates creation and enables entirely new forms of storytelling from smaller creators outside traditional systems. The debate around quality, originality...
Threads Gains Users, Meta Calls Data “False”
Is Threads growing or shrinking? Apptopia says it's the former — while Meta says that's "objectively false." I wrote about whether the Twitter clones are in trouble https://www.platformer.news/threads-bluesky-x-usage-utopia-twitter-clones/
NYT Dismisses Netanyahu Lawsuit Threat, Defends Independent Reporting
NEW: New York Times rejects Israeli Prime Minister @netanyahu’s threat of a lawsuit over @NickKristof piece, calling it, “part of a well-worn political playbook that aims to undermine independent reporting and stifle journalism that does not fit a specific narrative....