Monday, May 8, 2023 |
| “If you want it to show personality, you really have to push it, at times, to a personality that’s not akin to Michael Scott from ‘The Office.’” By Sophie Culpepper. |
Get amped up for this piece on the twisted journey of Google’s AMP, its ersatz savior of news on phones What We’re ReadingBusiness Insider / Ed Zitron
R.I.P. Metaverse, 2021–2023 →“The consulting firm Gartner claimed that 25% of people would spend at least one hour a day in the Metaverse by 2026. The Wall Street Journal said the Metaverse would change the way we work forever. The global consulting firm McKinsey predicted that the Metaverse could generate up to ‘$5 trillion in value,’ adding that around 95% of business leaders expected the Metaverse to “positively impact their industry” within five to 10 years.”The Washington Post / Will Oremus
He wrote a book on a rare subject. Then a ChatGPT replica appeared on Amazon. →“‘My first thought was: bummer,’ Cowell said. ‘My second thought was: You know what, that’s an awfully long and specific and cumbersome title to have randomly been picked.'”The Wall Street Journal / Megan Graham, Katie Deighton, and Patrick Coffee
Digital video publishers tout AI and new metrics at NewFronts sales events →“As Writers Guild members marched outside of Peacock’s presentation, in part protesting studios’ reluctance to regulate AI-generated material in television and movies, media executives sold AI as a technology to elevate buyers’ advertising deals.”Mashable / Matt Binder
More than half of Twitter Blue’s earliest subscribers are no longer subscribed →“Out of about 150,000 early subscribers to Twitter Blue, just around 68,157 have stuck around and maintained a paid subscription as of April 30…When looking just at the Twitter Blue subscribers who’ve maintained subscriptions since November, around 1,951 of them have fewer than 10 followers.”The Verge / Elizabeth Lopatto
Please stop inviting heads of state to Bluesky →“Hi! We appreciate everyone’s enthusiasm in sending invitations, but our current policy is that we cannot accommodate heads of state to join us in our beta yet. This applies to recent/prominent heads of state as well. We appreciate notice before you invite prominent figures at support@bsky.app.”The Verge / Jess Weatherbed
OpenAI’s regulatory woes have barely started →“Italy was the first country to make a move. On March 31, it highlighted four ways it believed OpenAI was breaking GDPR: allowing ChatGPT to provide inaccurate or misleading information, failing to notify users of its data collection practices, failing to meet any of the six possible legal justifications for processing personal data, and failing to adequately prevent children under 13 years old using the service.”Press Gazette / Aisha Majid
98% of Facebook traffic to small news publishers has vanished since 2018 →Since January 2018, Facebook referrals to large news sites (100,000+ daily pageviews) are down 24%. For medium sites (10,000-100,000), they’re down 46%. But for small news sites (fewer than 10,000 daily pageviews), Facebook referrals are down a whopping 98%.The Guardian / Ysabel Gerrard
Why are new social media apps like BeReal doomed to fail? →“In the race to create the new Instagram, rivals morph into each other, losing what makes them special in the first place.”The New York Times / Jeremy W. Peters and Benjamin Mullin
Tucker Carlson wants to return to tv before 2025. Will Fox let him? →“Since Mr. Carlson was taken off the air by Fox News last week, his lawyers have been in touch with Fox to negotiate an agreement to set the terms of his departure. And he has been the subject of unofficial courting by right-wing media outlets who’ve let it be known they would hire him if they could.”Semafor / Max Tani
Some top podcasts are struggling to fill their ad slots →“The New York Times has shipped episodes of the paper’s flagship show The Daily in recent months without a full slate of paid advertisements…The podcast industry is in the midst of a deep transformation, away from expensive brand-name programming and back toward its roots in a wider array of, mostly, talk shows.”The Guardian / Dan Milmo
Vice is close to a sale out of bankruptcy that will wipe out existing shareholders →“A source familiar with the situation confirmed the WSJ report, which put a valuation of $400 million on the business, although $300-$350 million is seen by some parties as a more realistic number…The company, whose assets include Vice News, Motherboard, Refinery29, and Vice TV, was once valued at nearly $6 billion thanks to its attraction to millennial audiences.”Lowpass / Janko Roettgers
Will you soon watch ad-supported streaming on an ad-supported TV? →“Teevee Corporation, as [Pluto TV co-founder Ilya] Pozin’s new company is called, has been building a new kind of TV set that includes a persistent second screen for advertising as well as informational widgets. The goal of the company is to give the TV away for free, and monetize it through ads on that second screen.”The Wall Street Journal / Jessica Toonkel and Alexandra Bruell
Shaq, 50 Cent, and Kenya Barris are trying to buy BET →“Other celebrities are looking to bid on BET Media Group, which includes the VH1 and BET cable networks and BET+ streaming service. Actor-producer Tyler Perry has joined with private-equity firm Ariel Alternatives…investment firm HarbourView Equity Partners has joined with music icon Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs and his company, Revolt, to explore a bid…”The New York Times / Benjamin Mullin
Twitter criticized for allowing Texas shooting images to spread →“Though gruesome images have become common on social media, where a cellphone camera and an internet connection make everyone a publisher, the unusually graphic nature of the images drew sustained outcry from users.”BuzzFeed News / Emerson Malone
Why we need to abolish the “exonerative tense” in headlines →“Mistakes were made.” “Officer-involved shooting.” And more.
Nieman Lab / Fuego
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