Category: Commentary

Commentary

The economics of attention

This piece highlights the economics of attention across consumer media. This is curious for a few reasons, understanding what we as consumers get for free and what that’s worth, what consumers are willing to pay for content, the potential for up and coming media like TikTok, how scale and personalization impact the economics.We have broken it into two sections, different mediums and different platforms. And the dollar amount per hour the platform earns from our attention.  Revenue per hour (cents)Medium Cable67Linear… Continue reading

Ben Young

March 17, 2021

Commentary

The first time Apple built a Search Engine

Speculation has arisen again about the prospect of Apple launching a search engine. In July Apple updated its Applebot docs and the bot has since been observed crawling the internet more aggressively. So is now the time Apple launches a search engine? On HackerNews, an ex-Apple developer (jd20) shared how the first AppleBot was run. AppleBot being the program that goes out and builds an index of websites, captures metadata like topic,… Continue reading

Ben Young

March 17, 2021

This Week in Native Ads

Newsletter #318 – Crypto Community

One big thingReader David Berkowitz put me on to Rally.io, a way to create tokens for rewarding engagement in your community. The tokens are backed by the website. It’s early days so really what you can do with it is quite open. Users can be gifted tokens or buy/sell them.David mused on some of the things he’s thinking about here, I think if anything this helps community managers get better and more… Continue reading

Ben Young

March 9, 2021

This Week in Native Ads

Newsletter #317 – Creator Economy

This week, I’ve been listening in on a few Clubhouse chats. When there is a good moderator, a clear topic and duration, the experience is pretty good. When there’s not, well, it feels like those panels you leave early. If you’re on there, give me a follow @bwagy, or if you need an invite, I think we have a couple more. One big thing There’s been a bit of discourse on the creator economy, what is it? Why is it… Continue reading

Ben Young

February 26, 2021

This Week in Native Ads

Newsletter #316 – The Peoples Economy

One big thing At the Goldman Sachs Technology and Investor conference, Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey suggested they were exploring tipping tweeters. Thus providing a financial incentive to those who create the best content. Now, what does that sound like? Kind of like SnapChat’s Spotlight or TikTok’s Creator fund. If content creators are able to wrangle the cosmos to entertain, educate and draw attention they’ll be rewarded for it. Continue reading

Ben Young

February 19, 2021

This Week in Native Ads

Newsletter #315 – The Peoples Stimulus Part 2

One big thing You might have seen a few mentions of Snapchat Spotlight in the newsletter in the last few months. Spotlight is where any (and yes any) user can send in content to be featured. And if they get featured, they get a cut. In this Guardian piece, they shine the light on 19-year-old Jack, whose video of his dog scampering across a conservatory roof earned him $20k. I mean, this is great. Commentators have… Continue reading

Ben Young

February 12, 2021

This Week in Native Ads

Newsletter #314 – Does Google need us?

One big thing What happens when Google doesn’t need you anymore? It’s still a ways away but it kind of is the trajectory. The same way Uber was considering a world without drivers. Google is moving towards a world without click out search results. When you consider things like GPT3, an AI that can create copy to fulfill a result, having been trained off data. A search results page that fully caters to your needs is… Continue reading

Ben Young

February 5, 2021

This Week in Native Ads

Newsletter #313 – The Peoples Stimulus

One big thing With GameStop this week, we saw what can happen when collective action happens, the emergence of a subculture (WallStreetBets) clashing with another (traditional Wall Street). When I (and others) made the call of the roaring twenties at the start of last year, no one could have imagined that this would be the kind of thing that it could lead to. But what does this have to do with content… Continue reading

Ben Young

January 29, 2021

This Week in Native Ads

Newsletter #312 – Bill of rights

One big thing This week Axios shared the Axios Bill of Rights, their promise to readers. Check it out. I’m always a fan of a mission statement, or an outline of principles, the act of sharing it, itself tells something about the publication. With theirs, the very first one is: Every item will be written or produced by a real person with a real identity. There will be NO AI-written stories. NO bots. NO… Continue reading

Ben Young

January 22, 2021

This Week in Native Ads

Newsletter #311 – Welcome 2021

Happy New Year! Our first note of 2021. We’ve decided to not cover the suspension, Parler and related this week. We may in the future but felt like it clouded important stories, which would otherwise be overlooked. Of note is the M&A/deal activity since the last edit. One big thing I’ve said whether the Olympics go ahead or not may be the canary in the coal mine for the marketing and media industry this year. If they go ahead, it… Continue reading

Ben Young

January 15, 2021