A handful of links week 20
This is a translated version of my weekly newsletter with a handful of links that I’ve read during the last week. If you read Swedish, you can have it in your mail every Wednesday by subscribing here: En handfull länkar
Richard Yao poses four significant questions about the future of social media: can Meta overcome its Valley of Despair? Will Twitter eventually be replaced by something else? What happens if TikTok is banned in the US, and finally, how will generative AI (as we suddenly say now that Google’s Bard is live) impact social media? Thorough discussions of all four questions lead to the conclusion that, as marketers, it is important to keep an eye on these developments. (Source: https://medium.com/ipg-media-lab/social-media-in-flux-existential-threats-and-generative-ais-impact-e9af48cc727c)
Behavioral economics and marketing are hardly new, not just nudging, but broad and extremely interesting for many in communication. Madeleine Kelso and Brad Goodwin from Irrational Labs gathered ten cases they have worked on. There are many insights in all of these — give them time to sink in. (Source: https://irrationallabs.com/blog/10-years-applying-behavioral-science/)
Here are a series of links about Google’s future in the AI reality:
People vs. algorithms continues this week by looking at what happens to search (and SEO and SEM) when the web becomes intelligent with the help of AI. The conclusion is tough to swallow for many. (Source: https://open.substack.com/pub/troyyoung/p/how-new-search-changes-the-web)
Not Boring’s Packy McCormack also writes about Google and AI. His conclusion is based on positioning, and the text sheds light on what Google released at its developer conference, providing a more informative discussion between sustainable and disruptive innovations. It’s long but very interesting. (Source: https://open.substack.com/pub/notboring/p/the-unbearable-heaviness-of-being)
Forbes has conducted an extensive review of what Google presented at its developer conference — it’s highly recommended to read to get the whole picture and analyze how it affects Google as a company. (Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattnovak/2023/05/11/google-is-about-to-drop-a-nuclear-bomb-on-the-online-publishing-industry/)
Tomas Seo also writes about Google’s new AI and notes that now that we have a form of the oracle in Delphi, what purpose does a website serve? A great newsletter, by the way. (Source: https://open.substack.com/pub/dettaforandrarjuallt/p/seo-ar-dod-lange-leve-airo)
So, a must-read:
“In his book, Smith writes that the only way to adapt to the new reality is to start imitating a bot. I believe the only way to adapt to the new reality is to start imitating Maryam Mirzakhani. We need to take a breath and think. There’s no rush.” Mikael Pawlo writes a weekend column in Breakit worth reading about AI, hype curves, and slow mathematics. (Source: https://www.breakit.se/artikel/36682/fa-inte-panik-mordarrobotarna-ar-inte-har-an)
And a general reading recommendation:
Martin Palacios doesn’t write often, but usually very well on his blog Obrydd about strategies and storytelling. (Source: https://obrydd.com/obrydd-digest/)
