Five insights for Friday
It’s time to re-evaluate LinkedIn, Google is about to transform itself with AI and why has the NYT suddenly got so self-obsessed?
It's Friday afternoon — at least at time of writing and in my part of the world. But it will be Friday afternoon for some of you, and may even be Friday evening for others. And all of them are great times to kick back with a nice cup of something warm and refreshing, and read some work-related articles. Go on, you know investing in your own knowledge of the shifting face of online publishing is worth some time, don't you? That's why you're subscribed to this newsletter…
Here's five things to read to round off your working week in insightful style.
Time to reconsider LinkedIn
LinkedIn is the oldest of the major social networks, dating back 20 years, as it does. It's no wonder people have written it off — and repeatedly so. And yet, they've been making lots of smart changes over there and, as this piece from David Tvrdon explains, it might be a great place to invest more time as Twitter grows even more shaky.
Change is coming to Google
The search behemoth is taking the rise of generative AI and ChatGPT very seriously indeed. The founders are back at the company, and at least one of them is actively involving himself in code reviews again. Google Search is about to go through one of its periodic wholesale transformations, when a lot of existing SEO wisdom becomes rapidly obsolete.
And it could be sooner than you expect…
WNIP
Should we follow Gen Z to the platforms?
A useful round-up from Colin at Flashes & Flames of The News Movement's acquistion of failing US video site The Recount. I remain sceptical that trying to exist primarily in a platform native way is a viable long-term strategy; it leaves you too exposed to the whims of the platform owners. But, that said, elements of their strategy make perfect sense.
AI-derived podcast searching
Now this is super-interesting. David Smith is using an AI-based tool to create transcripts of podcasts. Now, those transcripts aren't good enough for reading, without significant editing at least. But they are more than good enough to work as a keyword search engine for those podcasts.
And the best bit? The software is light enough that you can run it on your own Mac, if you have the technical skills. This idea bears developing.
The NYT loves reporting on the NYT
In my bleaker moments, I remember what one of the most talented editors I worked for once said about Press Gazette: “it's rubbish, because no journalist worth their salt wants to write about other journalists". And here I am writing a newsletter about online publishing, on a site I've been running for nearly 20 years…
That said, Mark was talking in a different age, when the digital revolution had yet to get underway, and the business of news was a much more stable, predictable and profitable game. Today's Press Gazette is a very different beast. It asks hard questions of journalists and publishers. And it doesn't do the sort of self-congratulatory incestuous reporting on itself the New York Times seems to have fallen into…
Jack Shafer
This “slightly more quickly assembled than normal” post brought to you by the train strike, which deprived me of the hour on the train I have most Fridays to prepare it…
Sign of the times
Have a good weekend!
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