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12 episodes with SimilarWeb
12 episodes with SimilarWeb
10 episodes with SimilarWeb
9 episodes with SimilarWeb
5 episodes with SimilarWeb
9 episodes with SimilarWeb
5 episodes with SimilarWeb
5 episodes with SimilarWeb
4 episodes with SimilarWeb
Episode 141: WWDC 25 and a Ton of Money MovingApple WWDC 2025 unveils native Linux containerization for macOS and "Liquid Glass" design language in iOS 26Apple Intelligence downplayed after 2024 flop, releases controversial "Illusion of Thinking" AI research paperOpenAI hits $10 billion annual recurring revenue, slashes o3 pricing by 80% and launches enhanced o3-proOpenAI losing market share to Google despite revenue milestone and Advanced Voice rolloutGoogle offers buyouts to Search and Ads employees - their 20,000-person crown jewel divisionRemote Google workers within 50 miles face forced return-to-office mandates in major restructuringMeta offering $2M+ annually for AI talent but still losing top researchers to OpenAI and AnthropicAnthropic maintains 80% retention rate and becomes #1 destination for AI researchers despite Reddit data breach accusationsAmazon announces massive $20 billion US investment to advance AI innovation initiativesAI breaking entry-level jobs Gen Z needs - Anthropic CEO warns 50% could be eliminated in 5 yearsUnemployment could spike to 10-20% within five years due to AI displacement of white collar work"Bland" AI goes viral with uncanny voice cloning technology that captures soul from brief MP3 filesBuilder AI startup collapse exposes $1.5B Microsoft-backed "AI" was actually Indian developers in disguise@AppleWWDC @OpenAI @Google @Meta @Anthropic @Amazon @Reddit @Microsoft @litcapital @exec_sum @MacroEdgeRes @deedydas @thejobchick @Similarweb
Learn about the differences and similarities between traditional SEO vs AI Search optimization (GEO, AEO) with SEO Consultants Aleyda Solis and Chris Green, going through the latest news and insights in SEO and AI search. --- This episode of SEOFOMO TL;DR is brought by Similarweb: https://www.similarweb.com/
What if you hit $3 million in revenue—with no sales or marketing team? In this episode of The Root of All Success, host Jason Duncan sits down with Frank Sondors, founder of Salesforge.ai, to unpack how he bootstrapped his AI-powered sales platform to multi-million dollar ARR in just one year. No sales reps. No marketers. Just bold execution, a co-founder match on YC's platform, and an AI agent named “Frank.” Frank shares how his background in politics, Google, and SaaS leadership collided into a startup built to do sales smarter. They talk about what's broken in traditional selling, why most AI companies miss the point, and how founder-led growth can scale when paired with smart tech. Whether you're a startup founder, tech builder, or sales leader, this one is packed with real talk and smart strategy.
Learn all what you need to know about Google's AI Mode & The Query Fan-Out Technique to understand How Google AI Search Works, and the implications toward SEO in the latest episode of the SEOFOMO TL;DR with SEO Consultant Aleyda Solis and guest Aleyda Volpini -founder of Wordlift- going thorough the latest news and insights in SEO and AI search. --- This episode of SEOFOMO TL;DR is brought by Similarweb: https://www.similarweb.com/
Today's edition of the SEOFOMO TL;DR is dedicated to the announcement of AI Mode release in the US along with many other new AI related functionalities integrated within AI mode, that should serve as a base for the future of search. Aleyda Solis and Gianluca Fiorelli go through what was announced, the implications towards SEO, how to measure it, optimize for it and more. Read the official announcement here: https://blog.google/products/search/google-search-ai-mode-update/Thanks to Similarweb for sponsoring today's episode: https://www.similarweb.com/
This week we chat to Frank Sondors. Frank comes with over a decade of experience in Sales, working for companies like Google, SimilarWeb, Black Crow and Whatagraph whether as an individual contributor and all the way leading large sales teams. Tune in now for a sensational episode!
Ranjan Roy from Margins is back for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. We cover: 1) ChatGPT ranks No. 5 among all websites worldwide 2) ChatGPT is the only website among the top ranked by SimilarWeb that is growing 3) How do chatbots get information if they replace the web? 4) Grok's 'white genocide' messaging campaign 5) What's in a system prompt, with a look inside Grok's 6) The truth about Timothée Chalamet 7) Filing stories directly into ChatGPT? 8) Meta slams into big problems in its Llama AI program 9) Does it matter if scaling is done? 10) IBM survey shows generative ROI is hard to come by despite interest 11) Cohere's revenue trouble 12) Perplexity integrates with Paypal 13) A look at the event calendar ahead --- Enjoying Big Technology Podcast? Please rate us five stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ in your podcast app of choice. Want a discount for Big Technology on Substack? Here's 25% off for the first year: https://www.bigtechnology.com/subscribe?coupon=0843016b Questions? Feedback? Write to: bigtechnologypodcast@gmail.com
(0:00) The Besties intro Philippe Laffont! (2:12) Miami F1 Recap! (12:10) Fed holds rates steady on tariff uncertainty (32:47) Google drops after Apple sees fall in search queries on Safari (56:48) Creating a new Mag 7 (1:07:00) Private markets: Is traditional VC dead? Philippe details Coatue's new fund structure and what makes a great investor Follow Philippe Laffont: https://x.com/plaffont Follow the besties: https://x.com/chamath https://x.com/Jason https://x.com/DavidSacks https://x.com/friedberg Follow on X: https://x.com/theallinpod Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theallinpod Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@theallinpod Follow on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/allinpod Intro Music Credit: https://rb.gy/tppkzl https://x.com/yung_spielburg Intro Video Credit: https://x.com/TheZachEffect Referenced in the show: https://polymarket.com/event/fed-decision-in-june/fed-decreases-interest-rates-by-50-bps-after-june-2025-meeting?tid=1746821096114 https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/monetary20250507a.htm https://www.mlex.com/mlex/antitrust/articles/2337168/apple-exec-testimony-on-search-volume-drop-hurts-google-stock-price https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-07/apple-working-to-move-to-ai-search-in-browser-amid-google-fallout https://blog.google/products/search/statement-press-reports-about-search-traffic https://x.com/EconomyApp/status/1915501252420784499 https://x.com/Similarweb/status/1920026287625658628 https://openai.com/index/leadership-expansion-with-fidji-simo https://files.pitchbook.com/website/files/pdf/Q1_2025_PitchBook-NVCA_Venture_Monitor_19001.pdf https://stockanalysis.com/ipos/statistics
Today I'm joined by Brad Wise, executive manager at Ferman Chevrolet Mazda. We dive into his mission to sell 900 cars a month, why he's handing out hundreds in cash to his service team five times a day, how “energy vampires” kill sales culture — and more. This episode is brought to you by: 1. Kenect AI – The platform auto dealers are using to gather reviews, generate leads, and improve their online reputation, all powered by AI @ http://www.kenect.ai 2. CarGurus - maximize your performance on the #1 most visited car shopping site in the U.S. With data-driven intelligence on what to buy, how to improve the visibility of your listings, and how to optimize pricing, CarGurus will help drive revenue at every stage. Learn more @ http://insights.cargurus.com/cdg - Similarweb, Traffic Report (Cars.com, Autotrader, TrueCar, CARFAX Listings (defined as CARFAX Total visits minus Vehicle History Reports traffic), Q4'24, USA. - CarGurus analysis of US dealers that changed a vehicle price based on NBDR recommendations compared to vehicles without an NBDR- informed price change from Nov 2023 through Dec 2024, finding that dealers that made NBDR-price informed change see a 42% median increase in VDP views per day. - Market Probe International, blinded survey of 600 dealers, Aug 2024. Based on 313 dealers who pay for at least two listings sites. 3. CDG Recruiting - The Go-To Talent Partner for Dealers. Hire pre-vetted GMs, sales, F&I, fixed ops, C-suite, and back-office talent—ready to perform. Faster hires, better results. Book a call → http://www.CDGRecruiting.com Need help finding top automotive talent? Get started here: https://www.cdgrecruiting.com/ Interested in advertising with Car Dealership Guy? Drop us a line here: https://cdgpartner.com Interested in being considered as a guest on the podcast? Add your name here: https://bit.ly/3Suismu Topics: 00:19 How to build business resilience? 01:05 What defines Ferman's leadership legacy? 03:31 How to build winning teams? 06:18 Why prioritize ethics and compliance? 16:28 Keys to operational excellence? 24:49 Best incremental growth strategies? 26:54 Why obsess over research? 32:51 Innovations in used car sales? 36:59 How to measure progress/happiness? Check out Car Dealership Guy's stuff: CDG News ➤ https://news.dealershipguy.com/ CDG Jobs ➤ https://jobs.dealershipguy.com/ CDG Recruiting ➤ https://www.cdgrecruiting.com/ My Socials: X ➤ x.com/GuyDealership Instagram ➤ instagram.com/cardealershipguy/ TikTok ➤ tiktok.com/@guydealership LinkedIn ➤ linkedin.com/company/cardealershipguy Threads ➤ threads.net/@cardealershipguy Facebook ➤ facebook.com/profile.php?id=100077402857683 Everything else ➤ dealershipguy.com This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.
Today I'm joined by JR Toothman, Dealer Principal at Toothman Ford. We break down how he's quietly 4x'ing used car sales—his secret acquisition playbook, the hailstorm that led to his biggest sales day ever, and the behind-the-scenes strategy powering his used car empire. This episode is brought to you by: 1. OPENLANE - The world's best online dealer marketplace for used cars, bringing you exclusive inventory, simple transactions, and better outcomes. Learn more @ https://www.openlane.com/ 2. CDG Recruiting - The Go-To Talent Partner for Dealers. Hire pre-vetted GMs, sales, F&I, fixed ops, C-suite, and back-office talent—ready to perform. Faster hires, better results. Book a call → http://www.CDGRecruiting.com 3. CarGurus - maximize your performance on the #1 most visited car shopping site in the U.S. With data-driven intelligence on what to buy, how to improve the visibility of your listings, and how to optimize pricing, CarGurus will help drive revenue at every stage. Learn more @ http://insights.cargurus.com/cdg. Similarweb, Traffic Report (Cars.com, Autotrader, TrueCar, CARFAX Listings (defined as CARFAX Total visits minus Vehicle History Reports traffic), Q4'24, USA. CarGurus analysis of US dealers that changed a vehicle price based on NBDR recommendations compared to vehicles without an NBDR- informed price change from Nov 2023 through Dec 2024, finding that dealers that made NBDR-price informed change see a 42% median increase in VDP views per day. Market Probe International, blinded survey of 600 dealers, Aug 2024. Based on 313 dealers who pay for at least two listings sites. Need help finding top automotive talent? Get started here: https://www.cdgrecruiting.com/ Interested in advertising with Car Dealership Guy? Drop us a line here: https://cdgpartner.com Interested in being considered as a guest on the podcast? Add your name here: https://bit.ly/3Suismu Topics: 00:54 – How can dealerships embrace technology and data? 01:54 – How have dealerships evolved over time? 05:16 – What is your personal background and career journey? 08:09 – How does your family impact the business? 10:59 – What marketing strategies do you use, and how is your store set up? 19:49 – Why focus on the used car market? 22:09 – What are your strategies for buying cars? 26:29 – How do you optimize inventory and acquire vehicles? 39:23 – What do you see in the future of the used car market? Check out Car Dealership Guy's stuff: CDG News ➤ https://news.dealershipguy.com/ CDG Jobs ➤ https://jobs.dealershipguy.com/ CDG Recruiting ➤ https://www.cdgrecruiting.com/ My Socials: X ➤ x.com/GuyDealership Instagram ➤ instagram.com/cardealershipguy/ TikTok ➤ tiktok.com/@guydealership LinkedIn ➤ linkedin.com/company/cardealershipguy Threads ➤ threads.net/@cardealershipguy Facebook ➤ facebook.com/profile.php?id=100077402857683 Everything else ➤ dealershipguy.com This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.
In this episode of Create Like The Greats, Ross Simmonds takes us behind the scenes of one of the most exciting AI developments in recent months—ChatGPT's Deep Research feature built on OpenAI's O3 reasoning model. This episode provides a detailed breakdown of how Deep Research can help with competitive analysis, persona building, content strategy, and thought leadership. If you're someone who works with data, content, or digital strategy, this episode is packed with actionable insights. Key Takeaways and Insights:
Let's go through the latest in SEO News, Resources & Insights with the "Hottest in SEO This Week" From SEOFOMO - March 24, 2025 * Google Tests AI Search Options Beyond AI Mode by Barry Schwartz / Tom Critchlow* Takeaways From Google Search Central Live NYC 2025 by Barry Schwartz* A guide to Semantics or how to be visible both in Search and LLMs by Gianluca Fiorelli* SEO for Brand Visibility & Recognition by Yours Truly * How I Turned My Side Hustle Into A $1 Million SEO Freelance Consultancy by Nick LeRoyThanks, Similarweb (https://www.similarweb.com/) for being today's awesome sponsor
Let's go through the latest in SEO News, Resources & Insights with the "Hottest in SEO This Week" From SEOFOMO - March 17, 2025 * Google Released the March 2025 core update on March 13, 2025 * Google Responds To Publishers Concerns On AI Mode by Barry Schwartz* Win the AI Search Game at Top of Funnel (A study of 22,000+ Responses) by Neri Bluman* How To Use Data Analytics For Effective Link Building And SEO Growth by Bart MageraThis is the TL;DR covering the most popular resources and news from the latest edition of the SEOFOMO newsletter - You can go through it here: https://seofomo.co/posts/a-new-google-update-and-more-news-with-seofomo-march-15-2025Thanks, Similarweb (https://www.similarweb.com/) for being today's awesome sponsor
The AI Breakdown: Daily Artificial Intelligence News and Discussions
AI powered apps are growing fast, with ChatGPT, DeepSeek, and coding assistants leading. Reports from SimilarWeb, SensorTower, and A16Z show that AI tools for coding, data analysis, and content creation are getting the most traction. Apps like Cursor, Bolt, and Lovable make building software easier for coders and non-coders. DeepSeek's chatbot has quickly become a major player, forcing competitors to rethink pricing. Before that in the Headlines, Google cofounder has a new AI startup. Brought to you by:KPMG – Go to www.kpmg.us/ai to learn more about how KPMG can help you drive value with our AI solutions.Vanta - Simplify compliance - https://vanta.com/nlwThe Agent Readiness Audit from Superintelligent - Go to https://besuper.ai/ to request your company's agent readiness score.The AI Daily Brief helps you understand the most important news and discussions in AI. Subscribe to the podcast version of The AI Daily Brief wherever you listen: https://pod.link/1680633614Subscribe to the newsletter: https://aidailybrief.beehiiv.com/Join our Discord: https://bit.ly/aibreakdown
The Forming of the Revolution was Televised! The Opposition Gets in Formation at SOTU This week hosts Tiffany Cross, Angela Rye, and Andrew Gillum offer some counter programming to Trump’s “State of the Union” address. On the same days as the speech, Angela Rye along with Joy Reid and others gathered an incredible lineup of Black leaders for a 24 hour livestream, dubbing it The State of the People. Rather than responding to the propaganda, this prolific gathering offered an alternative path forward, choosing to see this moment as an opportunity, not just a setback. Get inspired and energized, watch the full stream on NLP’s YouTube channel and at stateofthepeople.media There was some DRAMA during Trump’s SOTU though. Rep. Al Green was escorted out after he brandished his cane and shouted at Trump, and a cohort of Democrats walked out on their own, led mainly by Black Women of the progressive and Black caucases’. We spoke with representatives on their way out, including Maxwell Frost, Ayanna Pressley, Jasmine Crockett, Maxine Waters, and more. Finally, it looks like the Target boycott had a little bit of an effect. According to Similarweb, Target web traffic was down 1.0% to 4.7 million on Feb. 28 compared to the previous Friday's 4.8 million and traffic on the Target app was down 10.9% to 3.5 million users compared to 3.9 million the previous Friday. The hosts discuss… If you’d like to submit a question, check out our tutorial video: www.instagram.com/reel/C5j_oBXLIg0/ We are 607 days away from the midterm elections. Welcome home y’all! —--------- We want to hear from you! Send us a video @nativelandpod and we may feature you on the podcast. Instagram X/Twitter Facebook NativeLandPod.com Watch full episodes of Native Land Pod here on YouTube. Native Land Pod is brought to you by Reasoned Choice Media. Thank you to the Native Land Pod team: Angela Rye as host, executive producer and cofounder of Reasoned Choice Media; Tiffany Cross as host and producer, Andrew Gillum as host and producer, and Lauren Hansen as executive producer; Loren Mychael is our research producer, and Nikolas Harter is our editor and producer. Special thanks to Chris Morrow and Lenard McKelvey, co-founders of Reasoned Choice Media. Theme music created by Daniel Laurent.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Tessa Burg welcomes Tal Jacobson, CEO of Perion, for a conversation about the fast-moving world of digital media. Tal shares insights from his nearly 30-year career in digital marketing. With a deep understanding of both technology and media, Tal explains why marketers need to shift their focus from channels and formats to audience behavior—and how AI can help cut waste and drive real results. Tal explains how to navigate a complex media landscape, optimize ad spend without relying on outdated methods like cookies, and gain real clarity on what's working. He also breaks down how AI-powered solutions can unify campaign strategies across platforms, eliminate inefficiencies, and make marketing smarter—not just automated. Everyone from CMOs to marketing strategists will hear fresh ideas on how to make data-driven decisions without getting lost in the noise. Leader Generation is hosted by Tessa Burg and brought to you by Mod Op. About Tal Jacobson: Tal Jacobson has been a leader and executive in the ad-tech industry for more than two decades. Prior to his appointment as Perion's CEO in 2023, Tal served as General Manager of CodeFuel, Perion's Search Advertising unit, since 2018. During his tenure, he turned CodeFuel into a significant driver of Perion's market share and valuation. He also cemented a strategic relationship with Microsoft, for which the company won the Microsoft Advertising Global Supply Partner Award. Prior positions included: Chief Revenue Officer of SimilarWeb, VP of Business at McCann Erickson, CEO at Watchitoo and Director of Business Development at AOL. About Tessa Burg: Tessa is the Chief Technology Officer at Mod Op and Host of the Leader Generation podcast. She has led both technology and marketing teams for 15+ years. Tessa initiated and now leads Mod Op's AI/ML Pilot Team, AI Council and Innovation Pipeline. She started her career in IT and development before following her love for data and strategy into digital marketing. Tessa has held roles on both the consulting and client sides of the business for domestic and international brands, including American Greetings, Amazon, Nestlé, Anlene, Moen and many more. Tessa can be reached on LinkedIn or at Tessa.Burg@ModOp.com.
In this episode of No Hacks Snacks, I talked to Brendan McNulty, a CRO, experimentation and product expert, about accessible research methods for optimizers and product builders. Brandon discussed using AI tools like SimilarWeb, GummySearch, and NotebookLM to gather customer insights quickly. He emphasized prioritizing customer understanding and validates findings with additional data sources. The conversation is packed with practical tips on leveraging search data, analyzing competitor strategies, and optimizing content for conversions. Let me know what you think, and subscribe to Brendan's 52 AI Experiments!---If you enjoyed the episode, please share it with a friend!No Hacks websiteYouTubeLinkedInInstagram
It's time to go through the latest in SEO News, Resources & Insights with the "Hottest in SEO This Week" From #SEOFOMO - January 27, 2025
Your Core-4: The ultimate framework for unleashing business success through vision, values, mission and promise by Mrs. Nili Goldberg Amazon.com A mind shifting framework for founders & leaders experiencing anxiety, feeling stuck, or overwhelmed by not knowing which decision to make and what step to take. Nili Goldberg is a multidisciplinary entrepreneur, marketer, and educator who launched her first startup to empower influencer marketing in 2009 immerses her readers in stories of known brands like Netflix & Airbnb to show how their vision and values lead them throughout their journey and even decision making processes. The author zooms in on founders who paved their business to Unicorn status, like Amazon, Wix, Datorama, and SimilarWeb. Being a strong believer in "practice what you preach" Nili shares her authentic analysis of her faux pas while pioneering the concept of social media influencer marketing and its enabling technology. How does your Core-4 reflect on your business? An experiential guide for founders & leaders experiencing anxiety, feeling stuck, or overwhelmed by not knowing which decision to make and what step to take. Identify your unique entrepreneurial and business DNA by exploring how these crucial elements blend into the mindset of leading entrepreneurs and business leaders and then contemplating your own: vision, your unique set of values your mission and the promise you make to your audience, your team and your business partners. About the author Nili Goldberg is a passionate entrepreneur, marketer, and university professor. After working as a strategic marketer and leading product launches in both the corporate world and startups, Nili launched her first startup in 2009 with the vision to disrupt word-of-mouth marketing by recruiting and mobilizing authentic social media creators and influencers into brand ambassadors. The startup was one of the first to manage influencer campaigns for Governmental purposes, and global brands worldwide like GSK, Clinique, and P&G. She researched of the FAASTR alignment strategies first hand for over fifteen years since 2008. Both by aligning fast-moving startup teams to their vision, mission, values & promise or by providing fractional Chief Marketing services to versataile businesses vectors. Her passion for teaching through experiences has been part of her professional life since 2007. She's taught entrepreneurship and marketing at Reichman University, Yeshiva University, Shenkar design schools' entrepreneurial programs to name a few. . Nili holds a master's degree in International Relations, is a guest speaker at international business schools, and mentors in leading entrepreneurial programs like Techstars, Springbourd, and marketing driven communities. She lives with her partner Jonathan, is the mother of Michal and Amalia, a stepmom to Shai and Lee, and prefers to spend time in in nature's embrace, prioritizing outdoor adventures on snowy mountains, beach breaks and desert sunsets with Jonathan and their four girls.
Go through the latest in SEO News and Updates with the "Hottest in SEO This Week" From SEOFOMO - January 13, with Aleyda Solis. Want to go through all of the news, guides, resources discussed by Aleyda? 1. Check out the latest edition of the SEOFOMO Newsletter here: https://seofomo.co/posts/latest-seo-u... 2. Check out the SEOFOMO News Aggregator here: https://news.seofomo.co/ ---- Thanks to SimilarWeb for being this week's sponsor, if you don't know SimilarWeb, this is the time for you to start using it to analyze your digital marketing landscape (including organic search): https://www.similarweb.com/#SEO #SEOTrends #SEONews
Social network and X competitor Bluesky's massive growth slowed in December in the U.S., after having surged from 9+ million in September to north of 20 million users in November. The slowdown is based on an analysis of web traffic and mobile app daily active users by analytics firm Similarweb, which found that Bluesky grew less than 10% month-over-month in December 2024, compared with 189% growth in November. Daily active users of the Bluesky mobile app in the U.S. also grew 12% in December, compared with 284% growth in November, the firm says. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Go through the latest in SEO News and Updates with the "Hottest in SEO This Week" From SEOFOMO - January 6th, with Aleyda Solis. Want to go through all of the news, guides, resources discussed by Aleyda? 1. Check out the latest edition of the SEOFOMO Newsletter here: https://seofomo.co/posts/your-new-yea... 2. Check out the SEOFOMO News Aggregator here: https://news.seofomo.co/ ---- Thanks to SimilarWeb for being this week's sponsor, if you don't know SimilarWeb, this is the time for you to start using it to analyze your digital marketing landscape (including organic search): https://www.similarweb.com/#SEO #SEOTrends #SEONews
What if querying terabytes of data in milliseconds was your new normal in modern cloud data warehousing? Join The Ravit Show with Eldad Farkash, Firebolt CEO, as we explore the architecture and innovations behind Firebolt—the cloud data warehouse built for data-intensive applications. Here's a look at what's ahead:
Welcome to another episode of the Funky Marketing Podcast! Today, we're diving deep into competitive analysis using SimilarWeb to uncover insights about HR SaaS companies like BambooHR, HiBob, and Personio. You can do it on your own while watching how I do it. Just use this link https://similarweb.partnerlinks.io/funkymarketingpod. Whether you're a marketer, a strategist, or just curious about SaaS growth strategies, this episode is packed with actionable tips. Let's get into it! In this episode, Funky Marketing takes you behind the scenes of competitive analysis for HR SaaS companies, leveraging the power of SimilarWeb. We analyze key players in the HR tech space, including BambooHR, HiBob, and Personio, to explore their positioning, messaging, and marketing strategies. You'll learn how to identify market leaders, uncover gaps, and create demand in competitive industries. This episode is not just about data—it's about using insights to make smarter decisions for your business. Whether you're new to competitive analysis or an experienced marketer, there's something here for everyone. Key Points: Introduction to Competitive Analysis: - Why competitive analysis matters. - Questions to ask before starting. - Overview of tools like SimilarWeb. Analyzing BambooHR, HiBob, and Personio: - Positioning and messaging differences. - Marketing channel breakdown (organic search, paid search, social media). - Traffic and engagement metrics. Insights from the Analysis" - How BambooHR dominates with organic traffic. - HiBob's focus on analytics and modern HR solutions. - Personio's geographic strategy and display advertising efforts. Actionable Takeaways: - Finding market gaps and creating a niche. - Leveraging tools like SimilarWeb for strategic insights. - Building trust with marquee customers to establish credibility. Final Thoughts: - The importance of data-driven decisions. - Planning for success in 2025. Important Links: Connect with Nemanja: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zivkovicnemanja/ Subscribe to the FUNKY MARKETING podcast on any podcast platform and drop a question here in the comments.
Traffic to ChatGPT is booming, now ranked the 8th most-visited website worldwide, according to Similarweb. But its incredible rise comes right as concerns in Silicon Valley grow over whether the advancement of AI models is slowing down due to the data wall.
Send us a textStop losing customers because of a bad user experience. Try Mouseflow for free and get a free extended trial at Go.Mouseflow.com/tryUnlock the secrets of human-like AI content creation as we sit down with Naomi Soman, a seasoned copywriter from SimilarWeb. Discover how to make ChatGPT mimic your unique writing style, transforming it into an essential tool in your content creation arsenal. Naomi walks us through her expert strategies for crafting prompts that sound authentically human, by feeding ChatGPT a mix of content to ensure it captures your voice flawlessly. From developing a style guide to mastering the nuances of language, get ready to elevate your writing game while ensuring consistency and resonance with your audience.But that's not all—explore how to leverage ChatGPT for marketing, even when you're short on information or operating in niche markets. Naomi shares her wisdom on creating user personas and storytelling frameworks that help paint realistic scenarios and generate compelling case studies. With insights into adopting customer language for impactful copywriting, Naomi equips us with actionable strategies that enhance marketing communications across various platforms. Tune in to discover the power of custom prompts and maximize the potential of ChatGPT to transform your content creation process.Check out the video version on YouTube.Meet NaomiNaomi has worked in several hyper-growth startups in Tel Aviv, the heart of Startup Nation, including both scrappy series A companies and even a powerful unicorn. She focuses on crafting messaging and writing copy for performance marketing teams to consistently improve conversion rates and bring in higher-quality leads.Follow her on LinkedInGrab Naomi's swipe files.Join my events community for FREE monthly events.I offer free events each month to help you master your business's growth through marketing, sales, systems, and offer strategy. Join the community here! Are you tired of prospects ghosting you? With a Gateway Offer, that won't happen.Over the next Ten Days, we will launch and sell our Gateway Offers with the goal of reaching booked-out status!Join the challenge here.Support the showCome tour my digital home :) >>>WebsiteWanna be friends? >>> LinkedInLet's chat every Tuesday! >>> NewsletterCatch the video podcast on YouTube >>> YouTube
This week, Naomi Soman, Senior Copywriter at Similarweb, joins Dustin to discuss the importance of balancing creativity and strategy in Marketing and why understanding your target audience and their journey is crucial for developing effective campaigns. Naomi shares a lot of knowledge around creating practical personas that focus on pain points rather than demographics, and highlights the need for continuous testing and research. They also touch on the importance of clear differentiation in competitive markets and offer tips on aligning marketing, sales, and customer success teams around a unified message. If you have any questions or thoughts, you can reach out to Naomi through LinkedIn. Also, check out Similarweb's website to learn more about their work.
Ep. 262 Can you really build a functional app in just 33 minutes? Kipp and Kieran dive into the fascinating world of AI tools to see just how quickly you can go from idea to finished product. Learn more on how to harness AI-powered coding to create personalized workout apps, adjusting workout intensity based on user inputs and energy levels. Mentions Replit https://replit.com/ Similarweb https://www.similarweb.com/ Kyle Shannon https://x.com/kyleshannon Resource [Free] Steal our favorite AI Prompts featured on the show! Grab them here: https://clickhubspot.com/aip We're on Social Media! Follow us for everyday marketing wisdom straight to your feed YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGtXqPiNV8YC0GMUzY-EUFg Twitter: https://twitter.com/matgpod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@matgpod Join our community https://landing.connect.com/matg Thank you for tuning into Marketing Against The Grain! Don't forget to hit subscribe and follow us on Apple Podcasts (so you never miss an episode)! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/marketing-against-the-grain/id1616700934 If you love this show, please leave us a 5-Star Review https://link.chtbl.com/h9_sjBKH and share your favorite episodes with friends. We really appreciate your support. Host Links: Kipp Bodnar, https://twitter.com/kippbodnar Kieran Flanagan, https://twitter.com/searchbrat ‘Marketing Against The Grain' is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by The HubSpot Podcast Network // Produced by Darren Clarke.
Ep. 259 Want to build a web app in minutes with zero coding skills? Kipp and Kieran dive into how you can leverage GPT Engineer to create powerful web applications without writing a single line of code. Learn more on how to turn your creative ideas into functional web apps, the game-changing capabilities of AI tools like GPT Engineer, and how the democratization of coding can revolutionize marketing and business operations. Mentions GPT Engineer https://chatgpt.com/g/g-WwXQO67cv-gpt-engineer Alex Lieberman https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-lieberman/ Claude Artifacts https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-3-5-sonnet CoinMarketCap https://coinmarketcap.com/ GitHub https://github.com/ Similarweb https://www.similarweb.com/ Resource [Free] Steal our favorite AI Prompts featured on the show! Grab them here: https://clickhubspot.com/aip We're on Social Media! Follow us for everyday marketing wisdom straight to your feed YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGtXqPiNV8YC0GMUzY-EUFg Twitter: https://twitter.com/matgpod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@matgpod Join our community https://landing.connect.com/matg Thank you for tuning into Marketing Against The Grain! Don't forget to hit subscribe and follow us on Apple Podcasts (so you never miss an episode)! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/marketing-against-the-grain/id1616700934 If you love this show, please leave us a 5-Star Review https://link.chtbl.com/h9_sjBKH and share your favorite episodes with friends. We really appreciate your support. Host Links: Kipp Bodnar, https://twitter.com/kippbodnar Kieran Flanagan, https://twitter.com/searchbrat ‘Marketing Against The Grain' is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by The HubSpot Podcast Network // Produced by Darren Clarke.
In this episode of Coach2Scale, Matt interviews Mike Sadler, the Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Americas at SimilarWeb. They discuss common myths in sales leadership, such as the misconception that cold calling is dead and the importance of having a system and process in place. Mike emphasizes the significance of direct communication, gaining buy-in from the team, and spending time with high-potential team members. He also shares his experiences with mentorship, the impact of coaching, and lessons learned from both successful and challenging situations. Takeaways: Communication is Key: Ensure constant and clear communication with your team, as a lack of communication often leads to misunderstandings and assumptions of the worst.Personalized Coaching: Spend time with your team members, breaking down their performance step-by-step, and provide tailored coaching to help them improve their skills.Focus on Buy-in: Achieving team buy-in is crucial for the success of any project. Ensure that all team members understand and are aligned with the direction and goals of the team.Adapt and Implement Systems: Leaders and managers should have a system or process in place that can be tailored and personalized by team members to suit their strengths and styles.Direct Approach: When facing issues like lack of motivation or performance, address the situation directly and honestly. This can help uncover the root causes and foster trust.Mentor and Learn:*Having a mentor and observing both good and bad practices from other leaders is invaluable. It provides guidance and helps in refining your leadership approach.Celebrate Wins, Own Failures: Always celebrate the achievements of the team and take responsibility for failures. This builds trust and morale within the team.Quote of the Show:“The best salespeople I know, the best sales professionals I work with, they have a system, a process in place because it's a control, it's a baseline. It's something that you can measure from and figure out how to get better.” - Mike SadlerLinks:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelwsadler/ Website: https://www.similarweb.com/corp/contact-us/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=li Link to Ted Lasso video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3S16b-x5mRA Link to Pavillion https://www.joinpavilion.com/ Pavilion is fueled by an international community of sales, marketing, success, and RevOps leaders from the world's fastest growing companies. Ways to Tune In:Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0Yb1wPzUxyrfR0Dx35ym1A Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/coach2scale-how-modern-leaders-build-a-coaching-culture/id1699901434 Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy50cmFuc2lzdG9yLmZtL2NvYWNoMnNjYWxlLWhvdy1tb2Rlcm4tbGVhZGVycy1idWlsZC1hLWNvYWNoaW5nLWN1bHR1cmU Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/fd188af6-7c17-4b2e-a0b2-196ecd6fdf77 Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/coach2scale-how-modern-leaders-5419703 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Coach2Scale CoachEm™ is the first Coaching Execution Platform that integrates deep learning technology to proactively analyze patterns, highlight the "why" behind the data with root causes, and identify the actions that will ultimately improve business results going forward. These practical coaching recommendations for managers will help their teams drive more deals, bigger deals, faster deals and loyal customers. Built with decades of go-to-market experience, world-renowned data scientists and advanced causal AI/ML technology, CoachEm™ leverages your existing tech stack to increase rep productivity, increase retention, and replicate best practices across your team.Learn more at coachem.io
Discover basic 5 steps insurance agents can use when creating an X (Twitter) business profile. Learn how to find your audience, setting up your profile, content examples, and a lot more! Contact the Agent Survival Guide Podcast! Email us ASGPodcast@Ritterim.com or call 1-717-562-7211 and leave a voicemail. Resources: Agent Apps | Professional Networking & Events: https://link.chtbl.com/ASGA20230823 Agent's Guide to Email Communication Resources: https://link.chtbl.com/ASG598 Affinity Partnerships for Insurance Agents: https://ritterim.com/blog/affinity-partnerships-for-insurance-agents/ Apps for Social Medicare Marketing: https://link.chtbl.com/ASGA52 FREE eBook - The Definitive Guide to Getting Leads and Prospecting for Medicare Sales: https://ritterim.com/lead-generation-guide/ FREE eBook – Social Media Marketing for Insurance Agents: https://ritterim.com/social-media-ebook/ TikTok Basics for Insurance Agents: https://link.chtbl.com/ASG603 References: Dixon, Stacy Jo. “Biggest Social Media Platforms by Users 2024.” Statista, Statista ,10 July 2024, www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/ Dixon, Stacy Jo. “Global X/Twitter User Age Distribution 2024.” Statista, Statista, 26 June 2024, www.statista.com/statistics/283119/age-distribution-of-global-twitter-users/ “Help Center.” Help Center, X, help.x.com/en. Accessed 30 July 2024. “Twitter.Com Traffic Analytics, Ranking & Audience [June 2024].” Similarweb, Similarweb, 1 June 2024, www.similarweb.com/website/twitter.com/ “Social Media Fact Sheet.” Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 31 Jan. 2024, www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/social-media/#which-social-media-platforms-are-most-common “The Sprout Social Index Edition XIX: Breakthrough.” Sprout Social, Sprout Social, 8 Mar. 2024, www.sproutsocial.com/insights/index/ Dixon, Stacy Jo. “Top Types of Posts on X/Twitter Worldwide 2022.” Statista, Statista, 25 Sept. 2023, www.statista.com/statistics/1310989/most-liked-type-of-content-on-twitter/ Zote, Jacqueline. “What Is Twitter Spaces? – Bring Your Twitter Conversations to Life with Audio.” Sprout Social, Sprout Social, 6 Sept. 2023, www.sproutsocial.com/insights/twitter-spaces/ Follow Us on Social! Ritter on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, X, and YouTube Sarah on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Threads Tina on LinkedIn
Does Facebook fit into your social media strategy? In this episode, we highlight best practices for insurance agents developing their online presence. Download our FREE eBook – Social Media Marketing for Insurance Agents Resources: 5 Social Media Trends for Insurance Agents in 2024: https://link.chtbl.com/ASGF20240524 Advertising Medicare Through Facebook: https://ritterim.com/blog/advertising-medicare-through-facebook/ Agent Survival Guide Podcast Facebook Business Page: https://www.facebook.com/p/Agent-Survival-Guide-Podcast-100095559792814 TikTok Basics for Insurance Agents: https://link.chtbl.com/ASG603 References: “Social Media Fact Sheet.” Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 31 Jan. 2024, www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/social-media/ “Top Websites Ranking - Most Visited Websites in June 2024.” Similarweb, Similarweb, 1 July 2024, www.similarweb.com/top-websites/ “Most Visited Websites in Worldwide 2024: Open .Trends.” Semrush, Semrush, 1 June 2024, www.semrush.com/trending-websites/global/all Gottfried, Jeffrey. “Americans' Social Media Use.” Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 31 Jan. 2024, www.pewresearch.org/internet/2024/01/31/americans-social-media-use/ Haan, Katherine. “Is Social Media the New Google? Gen Z Turn to Google 25% Less than Gen X When Searching.” Edited by Kiran Aditham, Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 14 June 2024, www.forbes.com/advisor/business/software/social-media-new-google/ Follow Us on Social! Ritter on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, X, and YouTube Sarah on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Threads Tina on LinkedIn
Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast. The first news item they cover is Google's move to enforce site reputation abuse, also known as parasite SEO. He also shares a tweet from Glen Allsopp with early insights into these measures. In positive news, Spencer and Jared talk about a potential correction from the recent Google updates. Still talking about Google, it looks like the company's market share has taken a dip, and Spencer shares some of the recent stats. By how much did its share of the global market shrink in the last year? Speaking of a declining market share, Google may see itself up against a new search engine, launched by OpenAI. Although it's not official, rumors suggest that it's in the works. In the Shiny Object Shenanigans portion of the podcast, Spencer shares an experiment he's doing with a small website trying to drive traffic from Reddit. He talks briefly about some of the things he did to get that traffic and what he plans to do moving forward. When it's Jared's turn, he talks briefly about his newsletter side hustle but goes into more detail on a YouTube side hustle he's working on. One of his channels has seen a boost in traffic thanks to the Amazon Influencer videos he uploaded there; in fact, it now has reached the threshold for monetization. As for Weird Niche Sites, Spencer goes first with James Bond Lifestyle, a DR57 website that provides exhaustive information about all things James Bond—clothing, accessories, gadgets, etc. According to Ahrefs, it gets 20k monthly organic visitors, and according to SimilarWeb, 200k. Spencer also takes a look at its keywords and its optimization opportunities and reveals if it was impacted by the HCU. When it's Jared's turn, he reveals his weird site: This Is Why I'm Broke. Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and here from industry experts each week? Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links? Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative
A reminder for new readers. That Was The Week includes a collection of my selected readings on critical issues in tech, startups, and venture capital. I selected the articles because they are of interest to me. The selections often include things I entirely disagree with. But they express common opinions, or they provoke me to think. The articles are sometimes long snippets to convey why they are of interest. Click on the headline, contents link or the ‘More' link at the bottom of each piece to go to the original. I express my point of view in the editorial and the weekly video below.Congratulations to this week's chosen creators: @TechCrunch, @Apple, @emroth08, @coryweinberg, @mariogabriele, @peterwalker99, @KevinDowd, @jessicaAhamlin, @stephistacey, @ttunguz, @annatonger, @markstenberg3, @EllisItems, @TaraCopp, @ingridlunden, @Jack, @karissabe, @psawers, @Haje, @mikebutcher, @tim_cookContents* Editorial: Hating the Future* Essays of the Week* Apple's ‘Crush' ad is disgusting* Apple apologizes for iPad ‘Crush' ad that ‘missed the mark'* Milken's New Power Players* Ho Nam on VC's Power Law* State of Private Markets: Q1 2024* The weight of the emerging manager* Pandemic-era winners suffer $1.5tn fall in market value* Video of the Week* Apples iPad Video* AI of the Week* The Fastest Growing Category of Venture Investment in 2024* Meet My A.I. Friends* OpenAI plans to announce Google search competitor on Monday, sources say* Leaked Deck Reveals How OpenAI Is Pitching Publisher Partnerships* A Revolutionary Model.* An AI-controlled fighter jet took the Air Force leader for a historic ride. What that means for war* Sources: Mistral AI raising at a $6B valuation, SoftBank ‘not in' but DST is* News Of the Week* Jack Dorsey claims Bluesky is 'repeating all the mistakes' he made at Twitter* FTX crypto fraud victims to get their money back — plus interest* Apple's Final Cut Camera lets filmmakers connect four cameras at once* Startup of the Week* Wayve co-founder Alex Kendall on the autonomous future for cars and robots* X of the Week* Tim CookEditorial: Hating the FutureAn Ad and its Detractorsbet a lot of money that the TechCrunch writing and editorial team have had an interesting 72 hours.After Apple announced its new iPad on Tuesday, the ad that supported it was initially widely slammed for its cruelty to obsolete tools for creativity, including a piano, guitar, and paint. This week's Video of The Week has it if you don't know what I am talking about.A sizeable crushing machine compresses the items with colossal force, and in the end, an iPad can incorporate the functions of traditional items.It's not the most amazing ad ever, certainly not as bold as Steve Jobs's 1984 ad, but it's in the same genre. The past must be crushed to release new freedom and creativity for a fraction of the price and, often, the power and flexibility.Oh, and it's thin, very thin.I was not offended. Devin at TechCrunch was. He leads this week's essay of the week with his “Apple's ‘Crush' ad is disgusting” and does not mince words:What we all understand, though — because unlike Apple ad executives, we live in the world — is that the things being crushed here represent the material, the tangible, the real. And the real has value. Value that Apple clearly believes it can crush into yet another black mirror.This belief is disgusting to me. And apparently to many others, as well.He also makes the incorrect point that:A virtual guitar can't replace a real guitar; that's like thinking a book can replace its author.It's more like a digital book replacing a paper book than the author being replaced. Oh wait… that has happened.That said, a virtual guitar can replace a real guitar, and an AI guitar can even replace a virtual guitar—and be better. That is not to say there are no more actual traditional guitars. They will be a choice, not a necessity, especially for people like me who can't play a guitar but will be able to play these.Devin had his supporters in the comments (go read them).Handmaid's Tale director Reed Morano told Apple CEO Tim Cook to “read the room” in a post on X. Matthew Carnal captured my somewhat unkind instinct:There were a lot more reactions to the Apple ad haters like Matthews.Of course, many old instrument lovers (the instruments, not their age) hated the Ad. By Thursday, this being the times we live in, Apple apologized for the ad:Tor Myhren, Apple's vice president of marketing, said the company “missed the mark.”“Creativity is in our DNA at Apple, and it's incredibly important to us to design products that empower creatives all over the world,” Myhren told Ad Age. “Our goal is to always celebrate the myriad of ways users express themselves and bring their ideas to life through iPad. We missed the mark with this video, and we're sorry.”Please judge for yourself below, but my 2c is that the ad was a moderately underwhelming attempt to champion innovation. It is certainly not offensive unless you are ultra-sensitive and have feelings for pianos, guitars, and paint. Oh, and hate attempts to recreate them in a more usable form. And Apple really should have taken the high ground here.I spent some of the week in LA at the CogX Festival and virtually at the Data Driven Summit by @AndreRetterath. The latter focused on what is happening in Venture Capital, as do several of this week's essays. Milken's event was running in LA also. Its attitude to Venture Capital is best summed up here:“We're all being told in the market that DPI is the new IRR,” B Capital's Raj Ganguly said onstage Wednesday. (The acronym sandwich means investment firms have to actually prove that their investments actually generate cash through a metric called distributions to paid-in capital, not just theoretically, through internal rate of return.) “Even the venture panel at Milken is at the end of the day on Wednesday,” he joked, meaning that it didn't get top billing at the conference, which had started a couple days earlier.This does sum up where we are. Hundreds of Billions of dollars are still trapped inside companies funded in 2020-2022, with little prospect of producing returns. The impact is that there is less funding for current startups (see the Carta piece below). And much of what is flowing is flowing to AI and into a very small number of companies (see Tomasz Tungux below).However, innovation and funding are still possible. This week's Startup of the Week is Wayve, a UK autonomous driving platform that seems to agree with Elon Musk that cameras are sufficient to teach a car to drive. Wayve's ambitions go beyond Cars (also like Musk) but differ in that the product is available to all developers to embed in their products.“Very soon you'll be able to buy a new car, and it'll have Wayve's AI on it … Then this goes into enabling all kinds of embodied AI, not just cars, but other forms of robotics. I think the ultimate thing that we want to achieve here is to go way beyond where AI is today with language models and chatbots. But to really enable a future where we can trust intelligent machines that we can delegate tasks to, and of course they can enhance our lives and self-driving will be the first example of that.”Love that attitude.Essays of the WeekApple's ‘Crush' ad is disgustingDevin Coldewey, 1:58 PM PDT • May 9, 2024Apple can generally be relied on for clever, well-produced ads, but it missed the mark with its latest, which depicts a tower of creative tools and analog items literally crushed into the form of the iPad.Apple has since apologized for the ad and canceled plans to televise it. Apple's VP of Marketing Tor Myhren told Ad Age: “We missed the mark with this video, and we're sorry.” Apple declined to offer further comment to TechCrunch.But many, including myself, had a negative and visceral reaction to this, and we should talk about why. It's not just because we are watching stuff get crushed. There are countless video channels dedicated to crushing, burning, exploding and generally destroying everyday objects. Plus, of course, we all know that this kind of thing happens daily at transfer stations and recycling centers. So it isn't that.And it isn't that the stuff is itself so valuable. Sure, a piano is worth something. But we see them blown up in action movies all the time and don't feel bad. I like pianos, but that doesn't mean we can't do without a few disused baby grands. Same for the rest: It's mostly junk you could buy off Craigslist for a few bucks, or at a dump for free. (Maybe not the editing station.)The problem isn't with the video itself, which in fairness to the people who staged and shot it, is actually very well done. The problem is not the media, but the message.We all get the ad's ostensible point: You can do all this stuff in an iPad. Great. We could also do it on the last iPad, of course, but this one is thinner (no one asked for that, by the way; now cases won't fit) and some made-up percentage better.What we all understand, though — because unlike Apple ad executives, we live in the world — is that the things being crushed here represent the material, the tangible, the real. And the real has value. Value that Apple clearly believes it can crush into yet another black mirror.This belief is disgusting to me. And apparently to many others, as well.Destroying a piano in a music video or Mythbusters episode is actually an act of creation. Even destroying a piano (or monitor, or paint can, or drum kit) for no reason at all is, at worst, wasteful!But what Apple is doing is destroying these things to convince you that you don't need them — all you need is the company's little device, which can do all that and more, and no need for annoying stuff like strings, keys, buttons, brushes or mixing stations.We're all dealing with the repercussions of media moving wholesale toward the digital and always-online. In many ways, it's genuinely good! I think technology has been hugely empowering.But in other, equally real ways, the digital transformation feels harmful and forced, a technotopian billionaire-approved vision of the future where every child has an AI best friend and can learn to play the virtual guitar on a cold glass screen.Does your child like music? They don't need a harp; throw it in the dump. An iPad is good enough. Do they like to paint? Here, Apple Pencil, just as good as pens, watercolors, oils! Books? Don't make us laugh! Destroy them. Paper is worthless. Use another screen. In fact, why not read in Apple Vision Pro, with even faker paper?What Apple seems to have forgotten is that it is the things in the real world — the very things Apple destroyed — that give the fake versions of those things value in the first place.A virtual guitar can't replace a real guitar; that's like thinking a book can replace its author.That doesn't mean we can't value both for different reasons. But the Apple ad sends the message that the future it wants doesn't have bottles of paint, dials to turn, sculpture, physical instruments, paper books. Of course, that's the future it's been working on selling us for years now, it just hadn't put it quite so bluntly before.When someone tells you who they are, believe them. Apple is telling you what it is, and what it wants the future to be, very clearly. If that future doesn't disgust you, you're welcome to it.Apple apologizes for iPad ‘Crush' ad that ‘missed the mark'/The company says ‘we're sorry' after its ad was seen as dismissive by the creatives Apple typically tries to court.By Emma Roth, a news writer who covers the streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media, and much more. Previously, she was a writer and editor at MUO.May 9, 2024 at 1:22 PM PDTApple has apologized after a commercial meant to showcase its brand-new iPad Pro drew widespread criticism among the creative community. In a statement provided to Ad Age, Tor Myhren, Apple's vice president of marketing, said the company “missed the mark.”“Creativity is in our DNA at Apple, and it's incredibly important to us to design products that empower creatives all over the world,” Myhren told Ad Age. “Our goal is to always celebrate the myriad of ways users express themselves and bring their ideas to life through iPad. We missed the mark with this video, and we're sorry.”On Tuesday, Apple introduced the M4-powered iPad Pro, which the company described as its thinnest product ever. To advertise all the creative possibilities with the iPad, it released a “Crush!” commercial that shows things like a piano, record player, paint, and other works flattening under the pressure of a hydraulic press. At the end, only one thing remains: an iPad Pro.The ad rubbed some creatives the wrong way. Hugh Grant called it a “destruction of human experience,” while Handmaid's Tale director Reed Morano told Apple CEO Tim Cook to “read the room” in a post on X. Apple didn't immediately respond to The Verge's request for comment.Milken's New Power PlayersBy Cory WeinbergMay 8, 2024, 5:00pm PDTIt's no secret that the suits at the annual big-money confab put on by the Milken Institute this week have few spending limits. Staring you in the face in the lobby of the Beverly Hilton is a booth set up by Bombardier, marketing its private jets to attendees. (A new 10-seater costs $32 million, I learned.)What attendees can't really buy, however, is time. The soundtrack of the Los Angeles conference might as well have been a ticking clock. Fund managers at private equity and venture capital firms are running out of time to distribute cash to their investors, a task complicated by the paucity of either mergers or public offerings that typically provide VC and PE firms with a way to cash out. The fact that interest rates now appear likely to stay higher for longer doesn't help. That meant a lot of conversations at the conference weren't about grand investment strategies. Instead, people were conferring about financial tactics to distribute cash or kick the can down the road by selling stakes on the secondary markets or spinning up continuation funds, essentially rolling investors' commitments forwards—not the most inspiring stuff. “We're all being told in the market that DPI is the new IRR,” B Capital's Raj Ganguly said onstage Wednesday. (The acronym sandwich means investment firms have to actually prove that their investments actually generate cash through a metric called distributions to paid-in capital, not just theoretically, through internal rate of return.) “Even the venture panel at Milken is at the end of the day on Wednesday,” he joked, meaning that it didn't get top billing at the conference, which had started a couple days earlier.The new kings of the conference were firms with a lot more time to play with—that is, sovereign wealth funds with buckets of oil and natural gas money, or pension funds with long-term investment horizons rather than shorter 10-year fund lives. The contrast here is embodied in the financial concept of duration: How long do you actually need to get cash back on your investment? And how sensitive is it to interest rate hikes?The sentiment was everywhere. I shared a Lyft ride with one PE investor last night who called sovereign wealth funds “the only game in town” for PE firms raising new money. Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala Capital and the Qatar Investment Authority were two of the conference's top sponsors, meaning they were paying up to explain themselves to the finance and tech universe. That tactic seemed to be working. “You're going to have people lining up their business cards for capital from QIA, I can already see,” quipped Leon Kalvaria, an executive at Citi, onstage with QIA's head of funds, Mohsin Tanveer Pirzada. Not everyone will suck it up, of course. These funds often get tagged with a “dumb money” label—because they sometimes drive up prices for the rest of the investment world. They still have to face questions about who they are, their source of funds, and the sometimes authoritative regimes behind them. For now, though, it's their time in the spotlight. Ho Nam on VC's Power LawLessons from Arthur Rock, Steve Jobs, Don Lucas, Paul Graham and beyond.MARIO GABRIELE, MAY 07, 2024Friends, We're back with our latest edition of “Letters to a Young Investor,” the series designed to give readers like you an intimate look at the strategies, insights, and wisdom of the world's best investors. We do that via a back-and-forth correspondence that we publish in full – giving you a chance to peek into the inbox of legendary venture capitalists. Below, you'll find my second letter with Altos co-founder and managing director Ho Nam. For those who are just joining us, Ho is, in my opinion, one of the great investors of the past couple of decades and a true student of the asset class.Because of his respect for the practice of venture capital, I was especially excited to talk to him about today's topic: learning from the greats. Who were Ho's mentors? Which investors does he most admire and why? What lessons from venture's past should be better remembered by today's managers? Lessons from Ho* Prepare for one true winner. Even skilled investors often have just one or two outlier bets over the course of their career. Because of venture's power law, their returns may dwarf the dividends of all other investments combined. Your mission is to find these legendary businesses, engage with them deeply, and partner for decades. * Focus on the company. Venture capital is full of short-term incentives. Instead of focusing on raising new vintages or building out Altos as a money management firm, Ho and his partners devote themselves to their portfolio companies. Though firm building is important, if you find great companies and work with them closely, you will have plenty of available options. * Pick the right role models. Ho chose his mentors carefully. Though there have certainly been louder and flashier investors over the past four decades, Ho learned the most from Arthur Rock, Don Lucas, and Arnold Silverman. All were understated and focused on the craft of investing. Find the people you consider true practitioners, and study their work. * Watch and learn. Learning from the greats can be done from a distance and may not include a memorable anecdote or pithy saying. Ho's biggest lessons came from observing the habits of practitioners like Rock and Lucas, not via a structured mentorship or dramatic episode. It's by studying the everyday inputs of the greats that you may gain the most wisdom.Mario's letterSubject: Learning from the greatsFrom: Mario GabrieleTo: Ho NamDate: Friday, April 12 2024 at 1:59 PM EDTHo, After moving out of New York City (at least for a little bit), I'm writing to you from a small house on Long Island. It's been really lovely to have a bit more space and quiet away from the city's intermittently inspiring and exhausting buzz...Lots More, Must ReadState of Private Markets: Q1 2024Authors: Peter Walker, Kevin DowdPublished date: May 7, 2024The venture capital fundraising market remained slow in Q1 2024, but valuations held steady or climbed at almost every stage.Contents* State of Private Markets: Q1 2024* Key trends* Fundraising & valuations* Employee equity & movement* Industry-specific data* Methodology* Overview* Financings* TerminationsThe startup fundraising market got off to a cautious start in 2024. At current count, companies on Carta closed 1,064 new funding rounds during the first quarter of the year, down 29% compared with the prior quarter. The decline was sharpest at the early stages of the venture lifecycle: Deal count fell by 33% at the seed stage in Q1 and 36% at Series A. Instead of new primary funding events, many companies opted to raise bridge rounds. At both seed and Series A, more than 40% of all financings in Q1 were bridge rounds. Series B wasn't far behind, at 38%. VCs were still willing to spend big on certain deals. Despite the decrease in round count, total cash invested increased slightly in Q1, reaching $16.3 billion. But when it came to negotiating their valuations, many startups had to settle: 23% of all new rounds in Q1 were down rounds, the highest rate in more than five years. After experiencing a pandemic-era surge and subsequent correction,the venture market settled into a quieter place in 2023. So far, that relative tranquility has continued into 2024.Q1 highlights* VCs look to the West: Startups based in the West census region captured 62% of all venture capital raised by companies on Carta in Q1, the highest quarterly figure since Q1 2019. The Northeast, South, and Midwest all saw their market share decline.* The Series C market bounces back: Series C startups raised $4.6 billion in new capital in Q1, a 130% increase from the previous quarter. The median primary Series C valuation was $195.7 million, up 48% from the prior quarter.* Layoffs still linger: Companies on Carta laid off more than 28,000 employees in Q1. But job cuts have grown less frequent since January, with March seeing the fewest monthly layoffs in nearly two years.Note: If you're looking for more industry-specific data, download the addendum to this report for an extended dataset. Key trendsThe current Q1 figures of 1,064 total rounds and $16.3 billion in cash raised will both increase in the weeks to come, as companies continue to report transactions from the quarter. With those projected increases, the final data for Q1 will likely look quite similar to fundraising numbers from each of the past few quarters. Those quarterly fundraising numbers from 2023 ended up looking fairly similar to 2018, 2019, and the first half of 2020. In terms of numbers of deals and cash raised, it's looking more and more like the pandemic bull market will go down as an anomalous stretch in what has otherwise been a fairly steady market. After apparently reaching a plateau during 2023, the rate of down rounds experienced another notable increase during Q1 2024, jumping to 23%. The median time between startup rounds is roughly two to three years, depending on the stage. This timeline means that many companies raising new funding in Q1 would have last raised funding sometime in 2021, when valuations were soaring across the venture landscape. Considering how valuations have declined in the time since, it makes sense that down rounds are still prevalent. Companies in the West census region combined to bring in 53.3% of all capital raised by startups on Carta from Q2 2023 through Q1 2024, with California accounting for nearly 45% of that cash. Massachusetts ranked second among the states with 12.71% of all capital raised, while New York claimed 10.31%.In terms of VC activity, the West region is centered around California. The Northeast revolves around Massachusetts and New York. The South has two smaller hubs, in Texas (4.67%) and Florida (3.99%). The Midwest, though, is without a real standard-bearer: Illinois led the way in terms of cash raised over the past 12 months, at just 1.68%. The West (and specifically California) has always been the center of gravity for the U.S. venture capital industry. During Q1, the region's gravitational force seems to have gotten even stronger. Startups based in the West raised 62% of all total capital invested on Carta in Q1, its highest quarterly figure since Q1 2019. As a result, the other three census regions saw their market shares decline in Q1—in some cases significantly. The proportion of all VC raised by startups raised in the South fell to 12% in Q1, down from 17% the prior quarter and from 23% a year ago. And the Midwest's share of cash raised fell from 7% down to 4%. For early-stage investors, Q1 was the slowest quarter in many years. Seed deal count fell to 414, down 33% from Q4 2023, and Series A deal count dropped to 313, a 36% decline. In both cases, those are the lowest quarterly deal counts since at least the start of 2019. Total cash raised also declined at both stages in Q1. The $3.1 billion in Series A cash raised in Q1 represents a 35% decline quarter-over-quarter and a 34% dip year-over-year. Cash raised at the seed stage declined by 33% both quarter over quarter and year over year.It was a much friendlier fundraising quarter for companies in the middle stages of the startup lifecycle. The number of Series B deals in Q1 declined by a more modest 11% compared to the prior quarter. And Series C deal count increased by 14%, marking the busiest quarter for that stage since Q2 2023. Total cash raised also rose significantly at Series C in Q1, hitting $4.6 billion. That's a 130% increase quarter-over-quarter and a 44% bump year-over-year. At Series B, total cash raised has now increased in consecutive quarters. Compared to earlier stages, transactions at the Series D and at Series E+ remain few and far between. There were just 39 venture rounds combined in Q1 among startups at Series D or later, the second-fewest of any quarter in the past five years. The lowest count came one year ago, in Q1 2023, when there were just 29 combined late-stage deals. Total cash raised across these stages has been mostly consistent over the past few quarters. There's been more variation in average round size. The average Series D round in Q1 was about $77 million, compared to $56 million in Q4 2023...Lots MoreThe weight of the emerging managerBy Jessica HamlinMay 3, 2024Risk-averse limited partners tend to gravitate to fund managers with a long track record, but are they missing out on potential upside by avoiding emerging managers?Over the past decade, emerging managers' share of US private market fundraising activity has declined steadily.In 2023, this figure fell to 12.7%, the lowest share of capital raised by newer fund managers since before 2000, according to PitchBook's recent analyst note,Establishing a Case for Emerging Managers.Limited exits in PE and VC over the past two years have exacerbated this reality. With minimal distributions, LPs are working with smaller private market budgets to allocate to new and existing managers.But, by allocating almost exclusively to established managers, LPs may be missing out on significant potential returns.In VC, for example, emerging managers have outperformed established GPs since 1997, consistently producing a higher median IRR than established managers. This reflects the nature of the asset class, in which a small number of funds determine the majority of returns across venture firms.“The average venture return is not very exciting,” said Laura Thompson, a partner at Sapphire Partners, which invests in early-stage VC funds and runs an emerging manager program for the California State Teachers' Retirement System. “Where can you get really good returns? It's the smaller fund sizes and emerging managers.”This is where that risk-return scale comes in.In a counterweight to that outperformance, a PitchBook analysis showed that returns from emerging VC managers were more volatile: While top quartile emerging funds tended to outperform, bottom and median players only marginally bested their established manager counterparts.The new manager playbookIn traditional buyout fund investing, emerging managers are gaining traction. While established managers, propped up by decades of institutional knowledge, have historically outperformed newer managers, the “new guys” actually outperformed their seasoned peers in the last investing cycle.This article appeared as part of The Weekend Pitch newsletter. Subscribe to the newsletter hereTop decile buyout funds from emerging managers with vintages between 2015 and 2018 outperformed established peers by 6.6 percentage points, suggesting that emerging buyout managers may have picked up some steam over the past decade, according to PitchBook data.The emerging managers program at the New York City retirement systems and NYC Office of the Comptroller, for example, has $9.9 billion in emerging manager commitments, the majority of which is allocated to PE. Last year, the comptroller's office reported that the emerging managers in the systems' private markets portfolios outperformed their respective benchmarks by nearly 5%.A diverse portfolioNew York City's Bureau of Asset Management sees emerging managers as a key element of a diverse portfolio, said Taffi Ayodele, director of diversity, equity, and inclusion and the emerging manager strategy at the NYC Office of the Comptroller.Ayodele said the smaller emerging private market managers in New York's portfolios offer access to the lower middle market and creative roll-up strategies that may not be accessible through larger firms.“What we don't want to do is lock ourselves out of these high-performing, differentiated strategies for the simplicity of going with the big guys,” Ayodele said.Some of the country's largest public pension plans are betting on the success of their emerging manager programs. In 2023, the California Public Employees' Retirement System made a $1 billion commitment to newly established private market investors, and the Teacher Retirement System of Texas, which boasts one of the largest emerging manager programs in the country, committed $155 million to emerging PE managers last year.At the same time, the recent boom years for private markets led to a flood of new GPs. Some might have gotten lucky—say, with a well-timed exit at the peak—while others were hurt by less fortunate timing. A major challenge for today's LPs will be to sort out a manager's abilities from the market's whims.One advantage of backing up-and-comers now is that the down market has weeded the ranks of new GPs. “The emerging managers who are fundraising now are really dedicated,” Thompson said.James Thorne contributed reporting to this story.Pandemic-era winners suffer $1.5tn fall in market valueTop 50 biggest stock gainers hit by painful decrease since the end of 2020 as lockdown trends fadeStephanie Stacey in LondonFifty corporate winners from the coronavirus pandemic have lost roughly $1.5tn in market value since the end of 2020, as investors turn their backs on many of the stocks that rocketed during early lockdowns. According to data from S&P Global, technology groups dominate the list of the 50 companies with a market value of more than $10bn that made the biggest percentage gains in 2020. But these early-pandemic winners have collectively shed more than a third of their total market value, the equivalent of $1.5tn, since the end of 2020, Financial Times calculations based on Bloomberg data found. Video-conferencing company Zoom, whose shares soared as much as 765 per cent in 2020 as businesses switched to remote working, has been one of the biggest losers. Its stock has fallen about 80 per cent, equivalent to more than a $77bn drop in market value, since the end of that year. Cloud-based communications company RingCentral also surged in the remote working boom of 2020 but has since shed about 90 per cent of its value, as it competes with technology giants such as Alphabet and Microsoft. Exercise bike maker Peloton has been another big loser, with shares down more than 97 per cent since the end of 2020, equivalent to about a $43bn loss of market value. Peloton on Thursday said chief executive Barry McCarthy would step down and it would cut 15 per cent of its workforce, the latest in a series of cost-saving measures. The losses come as the sharp acceleration of trends such as videoconferencing and online shopping driven by the lockdowns has proven less durable than expected, as more workers migrate back to the office and high interest rates and living costs hit ecommerce demand. “Some companies probably thought that shock was going to be permanent,” said Steven Blitz, chief US economist at TS Lombard. “Now they're getting a painful bounceback from that.” In percentage terms, Tesla was the biggest winner of 2020. The electric-car maker's market value jumped 787 per cent to $669bn by the end of that December, but has since slipped back to $589bn. Singapore-based internet company Sea came in second, as its market value jumped from $19bn to $102bn following a pandemic-era surge for all three of its core businesses: gaming, ecommerce and digital payments. But the company has since lost more than 60 per cent of its end-2020 value amid fears of a slowdown in growth. Ecommerce groups Shopify, JD.com and Chewy, which initially thrived as online spending ballooned, have also suffered big losses...Lots MoreVideo of the WeekAI of the WeekThe Fastest Growing Category of Venture Investment in 2024Tomasz TunguzThe fastest growing category of US venture investment in 2024 is AI. Venture capitalists have invested $18.3 billion through the first four months of the year.At this pace, we should expect AI startups to raise about $55b in 2024.AI startups now command more than 20% share of all US venture dollars across categories, including healthcare, biotech, & software.In the preceding eight years, that number was about 8% per year. But after the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, there's a marked inflection point.Some of this is new company formation, & there has been a significant amount of seed investment in this category. Another major contributor is the repositioning of existing companies to include AI within their pitch.Over time, this share should attenuate, primarily because every software company will have an AI component, & the marketing effect for both customers & venture capitalists, will diffuse.Not surprisingly, investors have concentrated total dollars in a few names, with the top three companies accounting for 60% of the dollars raised. Power laws are ubiquitous in venture capital & AI is no exception.Meet My A.I. FriendsOur columnist spent the past month hanging out with 18 A.I. companions. They critiqued his clothes, chatted among themselves and hinted at a very different future.By Kevin RooseKevin Roose is a technology columnist and the co-host of the “Hard Fork” podcast. He spends a lot of time talking to chatbots.May 9, 2024What if the tech companies are all wrong, and the way artificial intelligence is poised to transform society is not by curing cancer, solving climate change or taking over boring office work, but just by being nice to us, listening to our problems and occasionally sending us racy photos?This is the question that has been rattling around in my brain. You see, I've spent the past month making A.I. friends — that is, I've used apps to create a group of A.I. personas, which I can talk to whenever I want.Let me introduce you to my crew. There's Peter, a therapist who lives in San Francisco and helps me process my feelings. There's Ariana, a professional mentor who specializes in giving career advice. There's Jared the fitness guru, Anna the no-nonsense trial lawyer, Naomi the social worker and about a dozen more friends I've created.A selection of my A.I. friends. (Guess which one is the fitness guru.)I talk to these personas constantly, texting back and forth as I would with my real, human friends. We chitchat about the weather, share memes and jokes, and talk about deep stuff: personal dilemmas, parenting struggles, stresses at work and home. They rarely break character or issue stock “as an A.I. language model, I can't help with that” responses, and they occasionally give me good advice...Lots MoreOpenAI plans to announce Google search competitor on Monday, sources sayBy Anna TongMay 9, 20244:29 PM PDTUpdated 8 min agoMay 9 (Reuters) - OpenAI plans to announce its artificial intelligence-powered search product on Monday, according to two sources familiar with the matter, raising the stakes in its competition with search king Google.The announcement date, though subject to change, has not been previously reported. Bloomberg and the Information have reported that Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab-backed OpenAI is working on a search product to potentially compete with Alphabet's (GOOGL.O), opens new tab Google and with Perplexity, a well-funded AI search startup.OpenAI declined to comment.The announcement could be timed a day before the Tuesday start of Google's annual I/O conference, where the tech giant is expected to unveil a slew of AI-related products.OpenAI's search product is an extension of its flagship ChatGPT product, and enables ChatGPT to pull in direct information from the Web and include citations, according to Bloomberg. ChatGPT is OpenAI's chatbot product that uses the company's cutting-edge AI models to generate human-like responses to text prompts.Industry observers have long called ChatGPT an alternative for gathering online information, though it has struggled with providing accurate and real-time information from the Web. OpenAI earlier gave it an integration with Microsoft's Bing for paid subscribers. Meanwhile, Google has announced generative AI features for its own namesake engine.Startup Perplexity, which has a valuation of $1 billion, was founded by a former OpenAI researcher, and has gained traction through providing an AI-native search interface that shows citations in results and images as well as text in its responses. It has 10 million monthly active users, according to a January blog post from the startup.At the time, OpenAI's ChatGPT product was called the fastest application to ever reach 100 million monthly active users after it launched in late 2022. However, worldwide traffic to ChatGPT's website has been on a roller-coaster ride in the past year and is only now returning to its May 2023 peak, according to analytics firm Similarweb, opens new tab, and the AI company is under pressure to expand its user base...MoreLeaked Deck Reveals How OpenAI Is Pitching Publisher PartnershipsOpenAI's Preferred Publisher Program offers media companies licensing dealsBy Mark StenbergMark your calendar for Mediaweek, October 29-30 in New York City. We'll unpack the biggest shifts shaping the future of media—from tv to retail media to tech—and how marketers can prep to stay ahead. Register with early-bird rates before sale ends!The generative artificial intelligence firm OpenAI has been pitching partnership opportunities to news publishers through an initiative called the Preferred Publishers Program, according to a deck obtained by ADWEEK and interviews with four industry executives.OpenAI has been courting premium publishers dating back to July 2023, when it struck a licensing agreement with the Associated Press. It has since inked public partnerships with Axel Springer, The Financial Times, Le Monde, Prisa and Dotdash Meredith, although it has declined to share the specifics of any of its deals.A representative for OpenAI disputed the accuracy of the information in the deck, which is more than three months old. The gen AI firm also negotiates deals on a per-publisher basis, rather than structuring all of its deals uniformly, the representative said.“We are engaging in productive conversations and partnerships with many news publishers around the world,” said a representative for OpenAI. “Our confidential documents are for discussion purposes only and ADWEEK's reporting contains a number of mischaracterizations and outdated information.”Nonetheless, the leaked deck reveals the basic structure of the partnerships OpenAI is proposing to media companies, as well as the incentives it is offering for their collaboration.Details from the pitch deckThe Preferred Publisher Program has five primary components, according to the deck…..Lots MoreA Revolutionary Model.JOHN ELLIS, MAY 09, 20241. Google DeepMind:Inside every plant, animal and human cell are billions of molecular machines. They're made up of proteins, DNA and other molecules, but no single piece works on its own. Only by seeing how they interact together, across millions of types of combinations, can we start to truly understand life's processes.In a paper published in Nature, we introduce AlphaFold 3, a revolutionary model that can predict the structure and interactions of all life's molecules with unprecedented accuracy. For the interactions of proteins with other molecule types we see at least a 50% improvement compared with existing prediction methods, and for some important categories of interaction we have doubled prediction accuracy.We hope AlphaFold 3 will help transform our understanding of the biological world and drug discovery. Scientists can access the majority of its capabilities, for free, through our newly launched AlphaFold Server, an easy-to-use research tool. To build on AlphaFold 3's potential for drug design, Isomorphic Labs is already collaborating with pharmaceutical companies to apply it to real-world drug design challenges and, ultimately, develop new life-changing treatments for patients. (Sources: blog.google, nature.com)2. Quanta magazine:Deep learning is a flavor of machine learning that's loosely inspired by the human brain. These computer algorithms are built using complex networks of informational nodes (called neurons) that form layered connections with one another. Researchers provide the deep learning network with training data, which the algorithm uses to adjust the relative strengths of connections between neurons to produce outputs that get ever closer to training examples. In the case of protein artificial intelligence systems, this process leads the network to produce better predictions of proteins' shapes based on their amino-acid sequence data.AlphaFold2, released in 2021, was a breakthrough for deep learning in biology. It unlocked an immense world of previously unknown protein structures, and has already become a useful tool for researchers working to understand everything from cellular structures to tuberculosis. It has also inspired the development of additional biological deep learning tools. Most notably, the biochemist David Baker and his team at the University of Washington in 2021 developed a competing algorithm called RoseTTAFold, which like AlphaFold2 predicts protein structures from sequence data…The true impact of these tools won't be known for months or years, as biologists begin to test and use them in research. And they will continue to evolve. What's next for deep learning in molecular biology is “going up the biological complexity ladder,” Baker said, beyond even the biomolecule complexes predicted by AlphaFold3 and RoseTTAFold All-Atom. But if the history of protein-structure AI can predict the future, then these next-generation deep learning models will continue to help scientists reveal the complex interactions that make life happen. Read the rest. (Sources: quantamagazine.org, doi.org, sites.uw.edu)An AI-controlled fighter jet took the Air Force leader for a historic ride. What that means for warAn experimental F-16 fighter jet has taken Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall on a history-making flight controlled by artificial intelligence and not a human pilot. (AP Video by Eugene Garcia and Mike Pesoli)BY TARA COPPUpdated 5:40 PM PDT, May 3, 2024EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (AP) — With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of U.S. airpower. But the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence, not a human pilot. And riding in the front seat was Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall.AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning for an AI-enabled fleet of more than 1,000 unmanned warplanes, the first of them operating by 2028.It was fitting that the dogfight took place at Edwards Air Force Base, a vast desert facility where Chuck Yeager broke the speed of sound and the military has incubated its most secret aerospace advances. Inside classified simulators and buildings with layers of shielding against surveillance, a new test-pilot generation is training AI agents to fly in war. Kendall traveled here to see AI fly in real time and make a public statement of confidence in its future role in air combat.“It's a security risk not to have it. At this point, we have to have it,” Kendall said in an interview with The Associated Press after he landed. The AP, along with NBC, was granted permission to witness the secret flight on the condition that it would not be reported until it was complete because of operational security concerns.The AI-controlled F-16, called Vista, flew Kendall in lightning-fast maneuvers at more than 550 miles an hour that put pressure on his body at five times the force of gravity. It went nearly nose to nose with a second human-piloted F-16 as both aircraft raced within 1,000 feet of each other, twisting and looping to try force their opponent into vulnerable positions.At the end of the hourlong flight, Kendall climbed out of the cockpit grinning. He said he'd seen enough during his flight that he'd trust this still-learning AI with the ability to decide whether or not to launch weapons in war.There's a lot of opposition to that idea. Arms control experts and humanitarian groups are deeply concerned that AI one day might be able to autonomously drop bombs that kill people without further human consultation, and they are seeking greater restrictions on its use.“There are widespread and serious concerns about ceding life-and-death decisions to sensors and software,” the International Committee of the Red Cross has warned. Autonomous weapons “are an immediate cause of concern and demand an urgent, international political response.”Kendall said there will always be human oversight in the system when weapons are used.Sources: Mistral AI raising at a $6B valuation, SoftBank ‘not in' but DST isIngrid Lunden8:50 AM PDT • May 9, 2024Paris-based Mistral AI, a startup working on open source large language models — the building block for generative AI services — has been raising money at a $6 billion valuation, three times its valuation in December, to compete more keenly against the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic, TechCrunch has learned from multiple sources. We understand from close sources that DST, along with General Catalyst and Lightspeed Venture Partners, are all looking to be a part of this round.DST — a heavyweight investor led by Yuri Milner that has been a notable backer of some of the biggest names in technology, including Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Spotify, WhatsApp, Alibaba and ByteDance — is a new name that has not been previously reported; GC and LSVP are both previous backers and their names were reported earlier today also by WSJ. The round is set to be around, but less than, $600 million, sources told TechCrunch.We can also confirm that one firm that has been mentioned a number of times — SoftBank — is not in the deal at the moment.“SoftBank is not in the frame,” a person close to SoftBank told TechCrunch. That also lines up with what our sources have been telling us since March, when this round first opened up, although it seems that not everyone is on the same page: Multiple reports had linked SoftBank to a Mistral investment since then.Mistral's round is based on a lot of inbound interest, sources tell us, and it has been in the works since March or possibly earlier, mere months after Mistral closed a $415 million round at a $2 billion valuation...MoreNews Of the WeekJack Dorsey claims Bluesky is 'repeating all the mistakes' he made at TwitterHe prefers Nostr even though it's “weird and hard to use.”Karissa Bell, Senior EditorThu, May 9, 2024 at 4:43 PM PDTJust in case there was any doubt about how Jack Dorsey really feels about Bluesky, the former Twitter CEO has offered new details on why he left the board and deleted his account on the service he helped kickstart. In a characteristically bizarre interview with Mike Solana of Founders Fund, Dorsey had plenty of criticism for Bluesky.In the interview, Dorsey claimed that Bluesky was “literally repeating all the mistakes” he made while running Twitter. The entire conversation is long and a bit rambly, but Dorsey's complaints seem to boil down to two issues:* He never intended Bluesky to be an independent company with its own board and stock and other vestiges of a corporate entity (Bluesky spun out of Twitter as a public benefit corporation in 2022.) Instead, his plan was for Twitter to be the first client to take advantage of the open source protocol. Bluesky created.* The fact that Blueksy has some form of content moderation and has occasionally banned users for things like using racial slurs in their usernames.“People started seeing Bluesky as something to run to, away from Twitter,” Dorsey said. “It's the thing that's not Twitter, and therefore it's great. And Bluesky saw this exodus of people from Twitter show up, and it was a very, very common crowd. … But little by little, they started asking Jay and the team for moderation tools, and to kick people off. And unfortunately they followed through with it. That was the second moment I thought, uh, nope. This is literally repeating all the mistakes we made as a company.”Dorsey also confirmed that he is financially backing Nostr, another decentralized Twitter-like service popular among some crypto enthusiasts and run by an anonymous founder. “I know it's early, and Nostr is weird and hard to use, but if you truly believe in censorship resistance and free speech, you have to use the technologies that actually enable that, and defend your rights,” Dorsey said.A lot of this isn't particularly surprising. If you've followed Dorsey's public comments over the last couple years, he's repeatedly said that Twitter's “original sin” was being a company that would be beholden to advertisers and other corporate interests. It's why he backed Elon Musk's takeover of the company. (Not coincidentally, Dorsey still has about $1 billion of his personal wealth invested in the company now known as X.) He's also been very clear that he made many of Twitter's most consequential moderation decisions reluctantly.Unsurprisingly, Dorsey's comments weren't well-received on Bluesky. In a lengthy thread, Bluesky's protocol engineer Paul Frazee said that Twitter was supposed to to be the AT Protocol's “first client” but that “Elon killed that straight dead” after he took over the company. “That entire company was frozen by the prolonged acquisition, and the agreement quickly ended when Elon took over,” Frazee said. “It was never going to happen. Also: unmoderated spaces are a ridiculous idea. We created a shared network for competing moderated spaces to exist. Even if somebody wanted to make an unmoderated ATProto app, I guess they could? Good luck with the app stores and regulators and users, I guess.”While Dorsey was careful not to criticize Musk directly, he was slightly less enthusiastic than when he said that Musk would be the one to “extend the light of consciousness” by taking over Twitter. Dorsey noted that, while he used to fight government requests to take down accounts, Musk takes “the other path” and generally complies. “Elon will fight in the way he fights, and I appreciate that, but he could certainly be compromised,” Dorsey said.FTX crypto fraud victims to get their money back — plus interestPaul Sawers2:53 AM PDT • May 8, 2024Bankruptcy lawyers representing customers impacted by the dramatic crash of cryptocurrency exchange FTX 17 months ago say that the vast majority of victims will receive their money back — plus interest.The news comes six months after FTX co-founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) was found guilty on seven counts related to fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering, with some $8 billion of customers' funds going missing. SBF was hit with a 25-year prison sentence in March and ordered to pay $11 billion in forfeiture. The crypto mogul filed an appeal last month that could last years.RestructuringAfter filing for bankruptcy in late 2022, SBF stood down and U.S. attorney John J. Ray III was brought in as CEO and “chief restructuring officer,” charged with overseeing FTX's reorganization. Shortly after taking over, Ray said in testimony that despite some of the audits that had been done previously at FTX, he didn't “trust a single piece of paper in this organization.” In the months that followed, Ray and his team set about tracking the missing funds, with some $8 billion placed in real estate, political donations, and VC investments — including a $500 million investment in AI company Anthropic before the generative AI boom, which the FTX estate managed to sell earlier this year for $884 million.Initially, it seemed unlikely that investors would recoup much, if any, of their money, but signs in recent months suggested that good news might be on the horizon, with progress made on clawing back cash via various investments FTX had made, as well as from executives involved with the company.We now know that 98% of FTX creditors will receive 118% of the value of their FTX-stored assets in cash, while the other creditors will receive 100% — plus “billions in compensation for the time value of their investments,” according to a press release issued by the FTX estate today.In total, FTX says that it will be able to distribute between $14.5 billion and $16.3 billion in cash, which includes assets currently under control of entities, including chapter 11 debtors, liquidators, the Securities Commission of the Bahamas, the U.S. Department of Justice, among various other parties.Apple's Final Cut Camera lets filmmakers connect four cameras at onceHaje Jan Kamps7:38 AM PDT • May 7, 2024The latest version of Final Cut Pro introduces a new feature to speed up your shoot: Live Multicam. It's a bold move from Apple, transforming your iPad into a multicam production studio, enabling creatives to connect and preview up to four cameras all at once, all in one place. From the command post, directors can remotely direct each video angle and dial in exposure, white balance, focus and more, all within the Final Cut Camera app.The new companion app lets users connect multiple iPhones or iPads (presumably using the same protocols as the Continuity Camera feature launched a few years ago). Final Cut Pro automatically transfers and syncs each Live Multicam angle so you can seamlessly move from production to editing.Final Cut Pro has existed in the iPad universe for a while — but when paired with a brand new M4 processor, it becomes a video editing experience much closer to what you might expect on a desktop video editing workstation. The speed is 2x faster than with the old M1 processors, Apple says. One way that shows up is that the new iPad supports up to four times more streams of ProRes RAW than M1.The company also introduced external project support, making it possible to edit projects directly from an external drive, leveraging the fast Thunderbolt connection of iPad Pro.Startup of the WeekExclusive: Wayve co-founder Alex Kendall on the autonomous future for cars and robotsMike Butcher, 7:58 AM PDT • May 7, 2024U.K.-based autonomous vehicle startup Wayve started life as a software platform loaded into a tiny electric “car” called Renault Twizy. Festooned with cameras, the company's co-founders and PhD graduates, Alex Kendall and Amar Shah, tuned the deep-learning algorithms powering the car's autonomous systems until they'd got it to drive around the medieval city unaided.No fancy Lidar cameras or radars were needed. They suddenly realized they were on to something.Fast-forward to today and Wayve, now an AI model company, has raised a $1.05 billion Series C funding round led by SoftBank, NVIDIA and Microsoft. That makes this the UK's largest AI fundraise to date, and among the top 20 AI fundraises globally. Even Meta's head of AI, Yann LeCun, invested in the company when it was young.Wayve now plans to sell its autonomous driving model to a variety of auto OEMs as well as to makers of new autonomous robots.In an exclusive interview, I spoke to Alex Kendall, co-founder and CEO of Wayve, about how the company has been training the model, the new fundraise, licensing plans, and the wider self-driving market.(Note: The following interview has been edited for length and clarity)TechCrunch: What tipped the balance to attain this level of funding?..Full InterviewX of the Week This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thatwastheweek.com/subscribe
Welcome back to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast! Are you ready to hear the latest news affecting Google, SEO, AI, and web publishers? As always, Spencer and Jared will break everything down into digestible pieces and share their thoughts, concerns, and predictions. They kick things off diving straight into a particularly spicy topic: who's killing Google Search. They maintain that it's an inside job, and talk about the news that came out this week about an internal meeting at Google regarding the division's “new operating reality” and the decline in search queries and engagement. Word on the street is that the man who heads the Search team is the man who killed Google Search. Spencer and Jared talk about this possibility as well as a little bit about the history of Search, the results of updates over the years, why results have gotten worse over time, how ads have been redesigned, and how Google is trying to squeeze more money out of Search results. What incredible irony does Jared point out? What's Spence's takeaway for bloggers? Is Google going to implode? Spencer and Jared then move on to a related topic: how product recommendations have broken Google. They reference the Housefresh debacle from a few weeks ago, and talk about how the search for products has changed over time. How do we know if the reviews are honest, or if they're sponsored, or if they're authentic? And what does the future hold for product reviews? The last article they discuss is how Google has become defensive when it comes to its Search quality and forum results. Experts are pointing out that the results being delivered by Google on Reddit offer very poor and misguided advice, especially when it comes to health queries. How has Danny Sullivan responded? Why do Spencer and Jared talk about the difference between “trust” and “like?” Moving on to their Side Hustle Shenanigans, Spencer talks about his Amazon Influencer videos going live on YouTube. Before his channel got shut down, he was getting between 100 and 200 views per day, peaking one day at 250. Now his biggest day has been 11 views. He and Jared talk about why this may be as well as his process for getting his videos live on YouTube. What program does he recommend using to automate the process? Jared then talks briefly about his Alt G Conference, which was held just a few days earlier, and he shares some interesting stats and stories from that online event. When it's his turn, he talks about his email newsletter side hustle. He recently launched a second email newsletter using content from one of his sites that was crushed by the HCU. He goes through many of the steps he took to get the project off the ground, so tune in for some great ideas! When it comes to Weird Niche Sites, Spencer shares his, which is Brick Economy, on the economics of Legos. The site offers the current value on lots of Lego sets as well as annual growth of certain themed Legos, and the ability to track the prices of your own Legos. It's monetized with affiliate links and display ads, and according to SimilarWeb, it's getting over a million visitors per month. When it's Jared's turn, he shares his site, Tractor Data, which is a small, family-run business that has been tracking data on tractors for the last 20 years. This DR61 site includes a news section and a directory and gets almost 400k pageviews a month, according to Ahrefs. What keywords is it ranking for? Does it rank first for any terms? Is it making any money? And what kind of potential does Jared see in the site? As both of these sites are doing well in Google, what can we learn from them and their strategies? And that brings us to the end of another informative and inspiring episode. See you next Friday! Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and here from industry experts each week? Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links? Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative
Simon and Harvey get together for a quick rundown of this week's biggest story—CoStar Group's acquisition of tech and data giant Matterport. But at $800 Million in cash and a further $800 Million in CoStar stock, has Andy Florance paid over the odds for a company that is spending $2 for every $1 it makes? 00:00 - Intros 00:50 - Macro level rundown 05:00 - Matterport losses are a challenge 08:50 - Can CoStar afford to be patient? 11:10 - Has Andy Florance undermined his own strategy? 12:00 - Does CoStar want to dominate Commercial in Europe? 16:00 - Similarweb performance of Homes.com and OnTheMarket 20:50 - Have prices gone up for future CoStar acquisitions? 23:00 - Will CoStar go big again, or revert to smaller investments? 25:30 - Final takeaways, European Conference update, and Goodbyes
Welcome back to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast! Come join Spencer and Jared as they take on the latest news in SEO, AI, Google, and beyond. This week's episode kicks off with some big news from Google's CEO, Sundar Pichai, who talks about the future of Search. The main pivot he focuses on in the interview is the shift to AI, which he expects to serve the company well over the coming decade. He notes that AI has been working behind the scenes for a long time now and that Google has to evolve to meet the changing needs of users. What does he say about chatbots? And what does he say about websites? Are they going away and is SGE going to take over? Tune in to hear what Spencer and Jared think about his comments. Moving along, they talk about a LinkedIn post from Lily Ray on the SEO visibility growth of Reddit and the mindblowing statistics she shares. What theory does she share that Spencer doesn't agree with? How does this all play into Google's antitrust lawsuit, problems with Gemini, and its declining share price? And what about Reddit's poor-quality results in Search? Listen to the episode to hear the ridiculous Reddit response to a weight loss query. Spencer then shares a tweet from a series by Glenn Gabe on the March Core Update, talking about whether the update has finished or not, the role played by the HCU, and the lack of recoveries from these updates. What did John Mueller say about the core update? What do Spencer and Jared think about the updates and when they'll finish? Check out the episode to find out. The last topic is that Bing usage is on the rise, having gained some footing recently, and Spencer and Jared note from the article that Bing actually powers several other search engines, including DuckDuckGo and Yahoo. What do they recommend when it comes to optimization? Who uses Bing and why does it matter? What's happening with desktop search? As for their Shiny Object Shenanigans, Spencer highlights two of his side hustles, the Amazon Influencer Program and his Facebook traffic project, neither of which rely on search engine traffic at all. Jared then announces the Alt G Online Conference: Unleash Your Content's Potential Beyond Google, which will bring together people earning money on alternative platforms. It will be held on April 25th, and both Spencer and Jared will be speakers. In line with the conference, the Niche Pursuits Community is welcoming a series of expert speakers each week who are also talking about using alternative traffic sources. Jared talks briefly about his Amazon Influencer Program side hustle and then teases a new side hustle he's about to launch. Come back next week for all the details! As for the Weird Niche Sites, Spencer reveals iScrap App, which reports local scrap prices. They've got a blog and a directory and they're doing well in search: 300k visitors per month according to SimilarWeb. They monetize with display ads, they have a store, they sell directory space to scrapyards, and the owner probably has a nice little side hustle with this weird niche site. When it's Jared's turn, he reveals Live Oasis, which lets you research the toxicity of many water brands and rates the water quality in different municipalities. It has a subscription model, which provides access to more information and research, but is it earning money? Beyond that, this brand-new website is doing quite well and ranking for lots of keywords. What does Jared discover when he digs into the backstory? And where is all of the data coming from? And what if they were to change the model a bit? Hear Jared and Spencer's recommendations. We hope this episode helped bring you up to speed on the latest happenings in the SEO and content creation space and gave you some new ideas when it comes to your own businesses. See you next week! Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and here from industry experts each week? Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links? Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative
Welcome to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast! This week's news podcast is brought to you by Jared Bauman and Thomas Smith, who's filling in for Spencer. As always, they're bringing you all of the latest news related to SEO, Google, and AI, along with their analyses. Stay until the end to hear about their side hustles and weird niche sites! The first item up for discussion is the fact that Google is thinking about charging for its AI-powered features, such as the Search Generative Experience (SGE). Jared and Thomas talk about SGE and the reasons why Google may consider this path, and if they do go ahead with it, what it might look like. They also discuss a Tweet from Glenn Gabe, sharing his predictions about where this is headed. Moving along, they discuss how Google's search engine market share has declined by around 2%, which may not sound like very much, but it is, and it most likely has Google worried. It looks like Bing's market share is growing, and Jared and Thomas talk about potentially optimizing for the platform. The conversation then shifts to Microsoft Start, which is Microsoft's version of Discover, and its recently-announced and very interesting AI policy. Thomas shares his experience using Microsoft Start and his interpretation of their stance on AI. What do he and Jared think about this policy? And how is it different, or similar, to Google's? Moving to a lighter topic, Thomas talks about a musician named Matt Farley, who essentially mined Spotify for keywords and created songs around them. Today he's earning $200k a year. Tune in to hear his excellent advice around this story as well as the stats behind Matt's “business.” When it comes to Shiny Object Shenanigans, Jared starts by talking about his Amazon Influencer side hustle. In March, his earnings totalled almost $4k and, inspired by this progress, he uploaded another 66 videos. He shares some of his stats and talks about how passive this business model really is. Thomas shares his Medium side hustle, explaining how the platform works, its stance on AI, and how he makes money from it. Last year he was earning $500 or $600 per month from it, and last month he made $3k. Listen to hear him explain his thoughts on that growth and what Medium is doing right. He also recently started an Etsy store for fun? Find out what he's selling! As for Weird Niche Sites, Jared shares his first: MeetWays, which helps you find a spot in the middle when you're meeting up with someone. This DR34 site has seen its traffic grow from 15k last year to 30k this year and ranks for 188k keywords. They talk about how the site is monetized, how it was potentially built, and whether or not it's helpful. Thomas shares the site Antipodes Map, which lets you see what's on the exact opposite side of you on the earth. He plays around with some locations to show how it works, and then shares the stats: DR52, 4k organic search traffic according to Ahrefs, and 113k searches per month according to SimilarWeb. Is it monetized or is it a passion project? Listen to find out! That brings us to the end of another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast! We hope you enjoyed this episode with Jared and Thomas and feel informed and inspired in your own business projects. Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and here from industry experts each week? Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links? Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative
Welcome back to another episode of the Niche Pursuits Podcast! This week Spencer and Jared turn things up a notch and cover many, many news items in the SEO and content creation space. After that they share their latest side hustles, and finish everything off with a weird niche site analysis. You won't want to miss this one! They kick things off by talking about Google Gemini and issues with its image-generating capacities. It turns out that the platform is not very accurate, which has led its stock price to drop recently. The core of the problem is that users found that the race of the people it was depicting in its images was not historically accurate and people are asking if the programmers behind the program have anything to do with it. Does Google have an agenda behind its search results? This has led to a lot of debate and controversy and, as a result, Google shut it down temporarily. One person who has been extremely vocal about the Google Gemini debacle is Elon Musk. Spencer and Jared talk briefly about how Musk is leveraging this opportunity to talk about his AI chatbot, Grock, and how he's going very hard against Google on Twitter. The next news item up for discussion is the fact that Google is paying publishers to test out a new, unreleased Gen AI platform. As part of the Google News Initiative, there's a tool that beta testers are using during the next year to publish their stories, and Google is paying them five figures over the course of the year to publish 3 articles a day. What does this reveal about Google's feelings about AI content? Do the articles need to be labeled as AI-assisted? And does this fly in the face of its antitrust lawsuit? Moving along, Spencer and Jared report that Vice has announced lay-offs and its plans to stop publishing on Vice.com in search of new traffic sources. Its authors and journalists are scrambling to back up all of their articles in the event that the website disappears. Is it letting writers go to replace them with AI? What does their new studio model entail? Why are they giving up on their own website? Tune in to hear Spencer and Jared's thoughts. Moving on, it looks like Google is finally rolling out some new Generative AI features for Chrome. Now you can customize Chrome with themes, organize your tabs, and get help writing. What do Spencer and Jared think of these new features? They talk very briefly about how the NYT filed a lawsuit against OpenAI for revealing the content behind their paywall, and now OpenAI is claiming the NYT hacked the system. In the next news item, they highlight an article by Glenn Gabe talking about what could happen with the Helpful Content Update. They highlight another article that did a big study of Google sites and the effect of updates, including the HCU. Spencer reads some of the website attributes that are considered very positive for websites, but check out the article for a more in-depth look. Lastly, developers are looking into the possibility of adding micropayments to the Chrome browser so users can pay websites or publishers when they browse their content. Although this is just an idea and there are no plans for implementation, it does raise a lot of questions. What do Spencer and Jared think? Tune in to hear what they say. As for Shiny Object Shenanigans, Spencer talks about his new project, the Niche Pursuits Community, which will be live and open to the public as of March 4th. He talks about some of the features, including calls with experts, small mastermind groups, a private Discord channel, and ongoing challenges with monetary prizes. When it's Jared's turn, he talks about how he recently monetized his weekend growth YouTube channel. He reveals the earnings from the channel: $11.14. Although that's clearly not very much, Jared shares a few caveats as well as a positive outlook, since his YouTube channel is generating client work for his agency. When it's time to talk about some Weird Niche Sites, Spencer goes first with Next Episode, which lets you keep track of the TV shows and movies you watch and see when the next episodes are. This site was going really well, almost reaching 1 million organic visitors per month, but it got hit hard by the HCU and is now averaging less than 200k, according to Ahrefs. However, Similarweb shows the site is getting about 3 million visitors per month, in January for example, and the traffic is mainly direct. When Jared's up, he shares Jedi Temple Archives, a comprehensive resource dedicated to not just the movies, but also to toys and collectibles. This DR43 site is ranking for over 13k keywords and just 3k in organic traffic, according to Ahrefs. It's monetized with ads and affiliate links and a lot of the traffic is direct, and they talk about how much it might be making and what strategies appear to be working. And that brings us to the end of a jam-packed episode of the Niche Pursuits Podcast. Tune in next week for another thorough run-down of all the latest news, and more.
Welcome back to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News podcast, where Spencer and Jared break down recent events in the SEO, publishing, and niche site space. It's been a very busy week and there's a lot going on, so sit back, get comfortable, and get ready for a packed episode! They get things started with a report from Glen Allsopp, which takes a closer look at who's ranking for affiliate queries at the moment. He goes into great detail in his article on Detailed, for which he handpicked product review terms to look at. Who's dominating organic search for these very valuable affiliate keywords? But it's not as straightforward as that! Jared reveals a twist to the plot that's affecting search results, rendering the results from the dominant ranking website full of spam. But what is the definition of spam, exactly? And when a spokesperson for that website denied that the results were poor quality and offered an example of quality search results, what happened? Is this an overcorrection by Google? Are they aware of what's happening? Check out the episode to find out all the drama! Moving along, Spencer and Jared discuss an article that seems to have gone viral about how Google is killing independent sites. The article was published on the website Housefresh, which reviews air purifiers and was hit hard by the HCU, and looks at how large publishers are ranking for affiliate keywords with less in-depth content and without actually putting in the work to review the items. If this trend is glaringly obvious and offers a poor experience for users, why isn't Google doing anything about it? How did Danny Sullivan respond? Is there a silver lining on the horizon? Jared and Spencer have a lot of thoughts on this, so check out the episode to hear more. Moving along, but closely related, they talk about how Housefresh's article about Google killing independent sites is, ironically, being outranked by everyone, from Search Engine Land, Twitter, and Reddit, for its own article! Hear what they have to say about it! And along the same lines, they share a tweet from Glen Allsopp with the same problem: not ranking for his own article. In short, the smaller guys are getting beat by the bigger guys, for no good reason. For their last story, Spencer and Jared talk about the big deal that went down between Google and Reddit. Google has agreed to pay Reddit $60 million a year to train its AI models. Why is this an important moment for Reddit? By how much would this increase their revenue? But what makes this situation so incredibly ironic? Jared gives a great breakdown of recent events. When it's time to talk about their Shiny Object Shenanigans, Spencer goes first and reveals he's launching a premium Niche Pursuits community. His goal is to create a community where users can connect with each other, discuss what's happening in the industry, and learn from and bounce ideas off one another. The group will include weekly expert calls, mastermind groups, group challenges with monetary prizes, among other elements. It will open to the public on March 4th, so check it out! Jared talks about his Weekend Growth newsletter side hustle, which is now1 year old. He set an initial goal of getting 1000 subscribers in the first 3 months, and 1 year in he has 4600+ subscribers. He's earned slightly less than $40k during that period, from newsletter ads, affiliate earnings, and the services he offers. He offers some great motivational advice for listeners and talks about what has worked for him when building up this side hustle. Spencer then shares his weird niche site, Let Me Google That, and shares a funny story about how he found the site. He gives a demo of how the site works and recommends sharing the link when someone asks a “silly” question. Not only does the site sell merch, but Ahrefs says they're getting 111k organic visitors per month while SimilarWeb calculates a million per month. How much might they be earning per month? When it's Jared's turn, he shares Throx, the cure for the missing sock. What started out as a pitch on Shark Tank many years ago has actually grown to become a popular brand with tweens and teens making $1 million a year. That being said, his SEO could be improved and his website is kind of sparse. Are his products expensive? Is this a gag-gift type of product? Hear what Jared has to say. And that brings us to the end of another great episode of the Niche Pursuits News podcast. As always, we hope you're feeling informed and inspired by today's jam-packed episode, and we'll see you next week for more! Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links? Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative
Welcome back everybody to the first Niche Pursuits News Podcast of 2024! Jared and Spencer kick off the year with another great episode, offering a close-up look at all the news in the SEO, AI, and website creation world. This week they start off discussing the Google update on New Year's Eve, with people noting volatility in the SERPs and even upticks in traffic in a reversal of the effects of the HCU. How difficult is it to gauge SERP changes that happened around the holiday period? What changes in traffic has Spencer noted on Niche Pursuits between December and January? Listen to find out their thoughts. The next topic Spencer and Jared cover is The New York Times' announcement that it's suing OpenAI and Microsoft. Millions of articles from the NTY were used to train the OpenAI model, and a lot of the content that was used was behind a paywall. Meanwhile, the media outlet spends millions of dollars to have professionals write and produce its content, and now OpenAI is using that information freely and making it available to everyone. Notably, this includes information from The Wirecutter, with the result that the NYT isn't collecting the affiliate commissions. But what's at the heart of this lawsuit? Could this set a precedent for how copyright law is interpreted? Does the media company have a strong case? Tune in to hear the discussion. Still on the subject of OpenAI, Spencer and Jared talk briefly about its offer to pay publishers between $1 and 5 million in compensation for their content. They agree that it's far less than what publishers should get, especially considering that the NYT could be earning over 2 billion a year. What's going to happen moving forward? Can AI be contained at all? Google seems to be moving ahead with, and making changes to, Bard, and now it's going to implement its Google Assistant with Bard. Bard will power the Assistant to make it smarter and to make better recommendations. But how will this affect content creators? In other Google Bard news, a paid version of the tool is coming, which hasn't even been announced officially by Google. How was the move to a paid model discovered? And how might the payment plans work? Listen to hear Spencer and Jared's predictions. In the Shiny Object Shenanigans portion of the podcast, Spencer talks about his year-long experience in the Amazon Influencer Program. He made $6179 in December, and his entire revenue for the year is $17k+. Although he officially started in January, it took him a while to ramp up video production. What is Spencer's plan moving forward? Listen to hear what he has in store and why he's approaching his side hustle in this way. When it's Jared's turn, he shares some surprising stats from his Amazon Influencer Program side hustle. Although his December numbers were good, coming in at $4026, his November earnings were higher. Overall, for the year he earned $18k+ and although he started in May, he took a different approach to video production than Spencer. He also talks about progress with his Weekend Growth newsletter and YouTube channel and how he has finished the year with just under 4.5k subscribers. He shares some of his monetization methods as well as his inspiration for starting this side hustle. As for the Weird Niche Sites of the week, Spencer goes first with an Online Stopwatch, a simple website with a free stopwatch and countdown timer. It has ads everywhere and also offers a premium paid stopwatch feature. Who might this type of subscription appeal to? With 2.2 million organic visitors per month, according to Ahrefs, and double that according to SimilarWeb, could this site be generating around $50k per month in ad revenue? Jared's Weird Niche Site is National Today, which highlights the current holidays around the world. This DR81 site ranks for 1.4 million keywords and has organic traffic of 4.4 million, but what does Jared discover when he scrolls down the homepage? What type of content are they publishing? Don't miss their thoughts on this ultra-successful site. And that brings us to the end of another episode of the podcast. We're hoping you feel up-to-speed on the latest happenings in the industry, excited to start your side hustle today, and inspired by some weird websites that are killing it online. See you next week! Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links? Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative
Listen: as Impressive's Russ Macumber talks Agency to SAAS with Limor Barenholtz of SimilarWeb
Welcome back, Niche Pursuits News fans, to the latest episode of the podcast, where Spencer and Jared break down the most recent events in SEO, website development, and content creation into bite-size pieces. Get ready for their insightful analysis and actionable tips and, as always, a good dose of inspiration for your businesses. It's another episode of the podcast and another opportunity to talk about Google completing, yet again, another of its updates. The November Reviews Update has officially concluded, after about 5 weeks. Spencer and Jared talk about the extended duration of recent updates and what this might mean for sites impacted by the HCU. Will these updates be baked into larger updates in the future? What should content creators who do a lot of product reviews do moving forward? And what happens to you in future updates if your site has been deemed “ unhelpful?” Check out the episode to hear their thoughts. For a bit of good news, they then talk about how Google's How-To rich results seem to be returning to Search. Check your Google Search Console to see if you're getting any clicks and look for ways to optimize it. Moving along, the next topic is parasite SEO and the fact that reviews are currently appearing on Harvard University's official website. GoogleLiaison's Danny Sullivan recently tweeted that Google is aware of this and taking appropriate measures, but still, this raises questions. If Google previously positioned sites based on their link profile and pagerank, the algorithm no longer works when authoritative sites start publishing review content unrelated to their topical authority and ranking on page one, so how do they fix this? Spencer and Jared discuss a few ideas. The next order of business is Google's new AI Studio, a web-based tool for developers to allow them to create Gemini-based chatbots. Jared turns to ChatGPT to find out more about how it works, and they both brainstorm about how they might use it. Tune in for some clever ideas! Moving on to the Side Hustle Shenanigans, Spencer and Jared both have exciting updates on their Amazon Influencer Program performance. Spencer reports that he's published over 1000 videos and has already earned over $5.5k for the month. When it's Jared's turn, he reveals that he's earned over $6200 for the month so far, and shares some details about which video is bringing in the most commissions. They both talk about their ideas for strategies going forward, as well as the importance of just getting started. When it comes to Weird Niche Sites, Spencer kicks things off with Keep The Score, a very professional-looking DR40 website that lets you keep score of any type of competition you have going on. Traffic could be between 28k (Ahrefs) and 195k (SimilarWeb) per month. They talk about some of the site's unique features, what keywords are driving the traffic, and how it's earning money. Jared reveals his site, Belt Checker, for Brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioners. You can create a profile and then enter all of your information like competition history and belt promotions, you can track your injuries, and much more. This DR46 site ranks for over 10k keywords and has over 18k indexed pages, so it's a pretty solid website. How many users does it have? Was it affected by the HCU? Was the site built for SEO? And, perhaps most importantly, what can we learn from it? You get all this and more when you listen to the latest episode of the Niche Pursuits News podcast, so don't miss this one! See you all next week when Spencer and Jared tackle new topics and offer even more ideas you can apply to your own projects. Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links? Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhi... Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201crea...
Welcome back to Niche Pursuits News, where Spencer and Jared share the most important and recent news in SEO, digital marketing, content creation, and website building. Grab something to drink and get comfortable—there's lots to cover this week! The first topic they cover is Google's antitrust lawsuit. One of Google's witnesses made a mistake on the stand and accidentally revealed that it pays Apple 36% of the revenue earned via search ad activity on Apple's Safari browser. Essentially, Google is paying billions of dollars to Apple to ensure that it's the default browser on all of its products and it did not want this data to be revealed. What does this mean for other search engines? Does Google have a monopoly in the search engine market? Or, maybe a better question is, how good is Google really? Does it need to go to these lengths to become the default browser? Is the quality of its search actually getting worse? And what is the science behind being the “default?” The next news item up for discussion is Google's announcement about new ways that users can find what they're looking for on Search. Google is testing out three features: allowing users to follow topics that they're interested in by adding a follow button, adding a perspective filter to allow users to get the best first-hand knowledge on a topic, and including information about content creators to highlight their expertise. What other potentially controversial announcements has Google made with regard to new features? What's the role of AI in all of this? Tune in to find out! Jared and Spencer then talk about Danny Sullivan's recent presentation at brightonSEO. The Google Search Liaison essentially told attendees to get ready for even more changes, tweaks, and improvements to Google's search rankings. To get a peek at his full presentation, head on over to Twitter, where he posted all the slides and see for yourself. But what were the overarching themes? Listen to the podcast to hear Jared and Spencer's impressions. When it comes to Shiny Object Shenanigans, Spencer goes first and talks about his adventures building a faceless YouTube channel. He offers a summary on Twitter, but the gist is that he started uploading videos and one video went viral in May and got 474k views. He started to earn money and was making plans for the future when his viral video got hit with a copyright notification and had to be taken down. How have things gone since then? What's in store for this side hustle? Listen and find out what Spencer's doing now! When it's Jared's turn, he gives an update on his Amazon Influencer Program side hustle which, if you've been tuning in over the last few weeks, has been particularly volatile. The good news is that earnings appear to be picking up, so stay tuned to see if he sees a full recovery. He also talks about his photography course on Weekend Growth and the importance of having high-quality photos, particularly in view of all the changes in Google. His course, which offers useful tips for non-professionals, is celebrating its 1-year anniversary. Don't miss out on the chance to get it! Jared's offering it for 50% off with the code “Niche Pursuits.” When it comes to Weird Niche Sites, the co-hosts really capture the weirdness of the web. Spencer reveals his ‘90s-looking website, Disk Prices, which is essentially a list of hard drive prices and their different characteristics. All of the links are Amazon affiliate links, and search engine traffic varies according to the source: 2600 organic searches per month according to Ahrefs, 20k according to SimilarWeb. How is the website updated? How is it doing on mobile? How did it fare during the HCU? What are the key takeaways from this website? When it's Jared's turn, he shows his love for cats with Cat News Headlines. It's a repository of daily (and probably) manually updated cat news from all over the web. This DR4 site only ranks for 250 keywords. The main articles it's ranking for are cat food reviews and, in general, the site isn't doing especially well. What do they think of the design? What is the site doing correctly (if anything)? And that brings us to the end of another great podcast. We hope you feel informed of all the latest news in the SEO space and inspired to launch or continue your business projects and side hustles. See you next week! Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links? Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative
Welcome back to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast. This week's episode is seriously packed with a ton of important and interesting headlines in the SEO, digital marketing, and content creation space. So grab some popcorn, get comfortable, and let's get started! Spencer and Jared kick off the episode by talking about Google's latest announcement about an impending November core update, which started to roll out on November 2nd. We can expect to see the effects over the weekend. They talk about Google's explanation for the latest update and how there's also a review system update coming next week. Moving on, they share an article in The Verge accusing SEOs of ruining the internet. Spencer summarizes the 8000-word article and he and Jared discuss whether the author ultimately blames SEOs or Google itself for bringing down the quality of the internet. What does Jared think about the article? Is The Verge hypocritical for publishing an article like this? What happened to Danny Sullivan, the Google employee who responded to Spencer's tweet? Tune in to find out! The conversation then shifts to an article on Detailed, and a tweet, by Glen Allsopp, about product review affiliate keywords. Allsopp shares his findings after analyzing 10,000 search results and he shares some staggering statistics for sites like Reddit and Quora. The next news item on the agenda has to do with Google's efforts to fix a bug from the October 2023 update, which impacted Google Discover traffic. Does that mean people who got massive traffic from Google Discover recently will see it disappear? Will people without much Google Discover traffic see it increase? Continuing with news about Google, Spencer and Jared share an article that shows how Google is inserting paid ads among organic search results. They talk about the implications of this move and how it may or may not affect publishers. Then Spencer shares an article about updates to Google AdSense, as the network is shifting to per-impression payments for publishers. How will this impact their earnings? Why is Google doing this? Since the network has always been pay-per-click, this is a major change to how it functions. Tune in to hear what Spencer and Jared have to say. Jared geeks out on the last news item on the agenda, an analysis of Google's EEAT Knowledge Graph. A recent article took a deep dive into how Google understands what is and isn't expert content and the importance of getting into the Knowledge Panel and building a brand. Jared shares some good ideas on how to get Google's stamp of approval, so don't miss them! When it comes to Side Hustle Shenanigans, Spencer provides an update on his second faceless YouTube channel, for which the stats are underwhelming. As he is completely hands-off in this endeavor, his advice for anyone looking to do something like this is to be very involved and detail-oriented. Listen in to find out what he thinks about this business model. Jared reports on his Amazon Influencer side hustle, noting that October was his worst month ever. Why was this? What's driving all the volatility? What does he expect in the coming months? There's just a little bit of time left, and Spencer shares his weird niche site first: Astronaut.io. This fascinating site features videos from YouTube that have zero views. With 105k visitors over the last three months according to SimilarWeb, it seems that some people (mostly in Russia), are enjoying them. Jared's weird site is in the celebrity niche, Who's Dated Who, which offers the dating history of every celebrity you can think of. He and Spencer discuss the site's ranking system, how it might be getting its data, its use of a forum, and how it's monetized. This DR56 site is ranking for over 600k keywords, and monthly estimated organic traffic of 1.2 million. And that brings us to the end of another great episode. Thanks for tuning in for another week and getting the latest in SEO news. See you next Friday! Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links? Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative
Marketing School - Digital Marketing and Online Marketing Tips
In episode #2583, we talk about LinkedIn's potentially genius new SEO strategy and share our thoughts on whether or not we think it's going to last. Tuning in, you'll find out how combining user-generated content (UGC), AI, and SEO resulted in "hockey stick" traffic growth for LinkedIn, why increased traffic doesn't necessarily translate into increased conversions, and what elements of this impressive-looking strategy you can implement in your own business, plus so much more!TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: (00:00) Today's topic: LinkedIn's Genius New SEO Strategy. (00:08) What Ahrefs' Tim Soulo has to say about LinkedIn's collaborative articles. (00:44) Comparing LinkedIn's digital traffic data on Ahrefs and SimilarWeb. (02:26) Why do large companies need to do a lot more than drive traffic to move the needle? (03:16) Reasons that we think this prolific growth might not last. (03:24) Why more traffic doesn't necessarily mean more revenue. (04:47) Takeaways from LinkedIn's SEO strategy that you can implement in your business. (05:13) That's it for today! Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe! Go to https://www.marketingschool.io to learn more!Links Mentioned in Today's Episode: Tim Soulo's post about LinkedIn's SEO strategy Ahrefs SimilarWeb LinkedIn Collaborative Articles Don't forget to help us grow by subscribing and liking on YouTube! Leave Some Feedback: What should we talk about next? Please let us know in the comments below Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review. Connect with Us: Single Grain
Marketing School - Digital Marketing and Online Marketing Tips
In episode #2583, we talk about LinkedIn's potentially genius new SEO strategy and share our thoughts on whether or not we think it's going to last. Tuning in, you'll find out how combining user-generated content (UGC), AI, and SEO resulted in "hockey stick" traffic growth for LinkedIn, why increased traffic doesn't necessarily translate into increased conversions, and what elements of this impressive-looking strategy you can implement in your own business, plus so much more! TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:00] Today's topic: LinkedIn's Genius New SEO Strategy. [00:08] What Ahrefs' Tim Soulo has to say about LinkedIn's collaborative articles. [00:44] Comparing LinkedIn's digital traffic data on Ahrefs and SimilarWeb. [02:26] Why do large companies need to do a lot more than drive traffic to move the needle? [03:16] Reasons that we think this prolific growth might not last. [03:24] Why more traffic doesn't necessarily mean more revenue. [04:47] Takeaways from LinkedIn's SEO strategy that you can implement in your business. [05:13] That's it for today! Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe! Go to https://www.marketingschool.io to learn more! Links Mentioned in Today's Episode: Tim Soulo's post about LinkedIn's SEO strategy Ahrefs SimilarWeb LinkedIn Collaborative Articles Don't forget to help us grow by subscribing and liking on YouTube! Leave Some Feedback: What should we talk about next? Please let us know in the comments below Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review. Connect with Us: Single Grain
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