Transforming the MIT, Reddit vs users, and SEO Radio - all in this week's Content Aware.
Is the monopoly axe finally swinging against Google's ad grip?
Google is an advertising company in search clothing. The EU's antitrust regulator Margrethe Vestager has now declared Google may have to divest some of its adtech business because a "behavioural remedy is unlikely to be effective at stopping the anti-competitive practices".
https://www.reuters.com/technology/eu-antitrust-regulators-charge-google-anti-competitive-adtech-practices-2023-06-14/
Corbidge comments... on Reddit's user-generated conundrum
The forum-based site is built on its users likes – so why have they fallen out so badly in recent days?
https://www.gpp.io/comment/siding-with-the-pitchfork-mob-ar6UM6a136DB
What is the future of SEO?
The king of publishing SEO cuts loose on AI in SEO, how some people beat the system, bad UX, and a whole bunch more, in the latest Media Voices Big Noises podcast series. Contains swearing.
https://voices.media/big-noises-barry-adams-on-why-ai-will-not-kill-seo/
Rise of the platforms
Reuters' annual digital news report is generally the opposite of a ray of sunshine. This year, the topline is around the rise in use of platforms such as TikTok, and, well, TikTok. Facebook is a "traditional" platform apparently, being generally available since the early middle-ages in 2006.
https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2023/dnr-executive-summary
Forward thinking
Is the way we categorise and recommend content in publishing outdated? Is, as Dietmar Schantin contends here, print "still the ghost in the digital machine"?
https://www.editorandpublisher.com/stories/newsroom-of-the-future-are-traditional-news-sections-obsolete,244113
Tag me not or tag me a lot?
Access to a database of advertising tags used by Microsoft's Xandr ad platform has revealed 650,000 ways you can be tagged. The complexity of the segmenting is a wonder to behold.
https://themarkup.org/privacy/2023/06/08/from-heavy-purchasers-of-pregnancy-tests-to-the-depression-prone-we-found-650000-ways-advertisers-label-you
Why AI will save the world
Ever heard of Baptists versus Bootleggers? A detailed read from the esteemed Marc Andreessen
giving a lucid counter-argument to some rather silly doomsday prophesying about AI.
https://a16z.com/2023/06/06/ai-will-save-the-world/
Advertising by the numbers
Some excellent graphic work from groupm on the global advertising market at mid-year. Of note is the fact that the top 25 global ad sellers enjoyed 75.3% of total ad revenue in 2023.
https://www.groupm.com/mid-year-advertising-forecast-2023/
Help Google fight spam
Google has released a new reporting tool for users to report a "Spammy, low quality or deceptive webpage". It is itself apparently "spam proofed" to prevent multiple reporting.
https://searchengineland.com/google-releases-new-search-spam-report-form-428285
How innovation came to a publication that writes about innovation
The MIT Technology Review is a premier publication in its field. Yet even in 2015, they scarcely knew what a CMS was. Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau explains how she brought it up to date.
https://www.fipp.com/news/lessons-from-mit-technology-reviews-digital-transformation/
Public Service Announcement
Google is enforcing its Consent Management Platform requirements for advertisers using Google AdSense, Ad Manager, or AdMob based in the EEA and UK. Those sites that don't comply with the stipulations by using a Google-certified CMP will see a reduced advertising service directed towards them.
https://support.google.com/admanager/answer/13554116
English rules the internet...
But who's next? The list of the most popular web languages might not be the order that you expect, and what is really shocking is how few have any traction at all.
https://restofworld.org/2023/internet-most-used-languages/
How NYT got so big: 3 lessons
“It’s not about smart ideas. It’s not about making it look perfect. It’s all about just testing and iterating and putting stuff out there.”
https://www.inma.org/blogs/reader-revenue/post.cfm/new-york-times-shares-3-keys-to-its-subscription-growth-success
