Talk About An Awkward Interview…
October 22, 2024
9:24 am
Tomorrow at 1:05p PDT, Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas will be interviewed by WSJ reporter Deepa Seetharaman as part of this year’s WSJ Tech Live event.
>> Sam Whitmore
The Atlantic Goes Monthly Again in Print
October 15, 2024
5:30 am
The Atlantic soon will publish 12 print editions a year, up from ten. “The greatness of print and especially a print magazine is that it
‘Hyperbolic’ Press Releases
October 9, 2024
9:42 am
Here’s a true story. An Oct. 8 Adweek headline says, ‘Press Releases Have Become Way Too Hyperbolic.’ The deck says, ‘Experts Warn the Loss of
TechCrunch Redesigns
October 2, 2024
1:42 pm
TechCrunch redesigned this week. Still green, less clutter. Built for the phone. Events and newsletters rank higher in the home page scroll than startups, venture
Wired To Launch Awards Program
September 29, 2024
8:28 am
Adweek’s Mark Stenberg reports that Wired is getting into the awards business. The Wired 101 Awards will debut in October. Be on the lookout for
BI’s AI-based Paywall Increased Conversions by 75 Percent
September 25, 2024
6:29 am
BI’s publishing software knows what you’ve clicked on before and where you came from. Through Google Analytics, BI also knows how all readers react to
A Forbes Within Forbes
September 22, 2024
6:21 am
Fascinating piece from Lars Lofgren about how a Forbes subsidiary — under the Forbes name — has managed to dominate Google search results… …and now
Prepare for Axel Springer to Acquire Publications
September 22, 2024
5:20 am
Now that it has sold off its classifieds business, the owner of Politico and Business Insider will go shopping for more titles. Don’t be surprised
Follow Anthropic’s Steve Mnich For Guidance on Claude
September 9, 2024
10:01 am
Steve is a longtime friend of SWMS and worked at subscriber LaunchSquad before moving on to IBM, Salesforce and now Anthropic. Steve knows exactly how
Google Hoses Publishers
September 5, 2024
11:52 am
Press Gazette has a great story about Google reintroducing AI summaries into search results — less so in queries about breaking news, but definitely when
YOUR ACCOUNT
FRIDGE NOTES
Congress to Investigate the Omnicom-IPG Deal
December 20, 2024
Well, for now it’s Jim Jordan… but such news illustrates the kind of world we seem to be headed for. Adweek has the details, subscription required.
SWMS Predictions for 2025
December 10, 2024
No “predictions” post will appear on this site. That said, quite a number of subscribers have asked for a Zoom/MS Teams presentation on what 2025 will bring. A conversation is precisely the right tool for the job. After the election — and with AI transforming publishing and life — “2025” is best discussed among peers, not predicted. So if you’d like to have a confidential group exchange on what stands to unfold, and why, and how comms pros can come out on top in spite of it all, drop a line and we shall schedule something.
Talk About Confidentiality…
December 10, 2024
According to Adweek, Omnicom CEO John Wren and IPG CEO Philippe Krakowsky were in merger talks for eleven and a half months before the transaction was announced this week. Amazing that it didn’t leak.
Introducing ‘SWMS Sound Thinking’
November 22, 2024
Should PR pros stop visiting X, with all its lies and hate? It’s only going to get worse. Or are tidbits from targets too important to walk away from? Click here to watch tech edit vet David Strom and I disagree (at high speed) about this, as one compelling visual after another pops up on your screen. In 2025, SWMS will officially launch “SWMS Sound Thinking,” designed to be “argumentative insight in six minutes or less.” Each segment will explore a timely and controversial topic of interest to tech comms pros. This prototype runs 5:25. Hope you enjoy it — feedback vital and welcome! –Sam
Business Insider Reporters Starting to Go on Camera
November 19, 2024
New EIC Jamie Heller has asked her reporters to start going on camera — for the BI TikTok channel — to explain the big, deep-divey story they just published. Other publications do this — especially archival Fortune. BI is now on that too. Game on.
The ‘AI Fantasy Draft’ From Eric Newcomer
November 13, 2024
At this time last year, Eric Newcomer and his two podcast co-hosts — Max Child and James Wilsterman — each formed an “AI startup fantasy team” and picked five AI startups to seed their rosters. We’re now in year 2 and it’s time to draft again. The podcasters wonder… which startups do they dump? Which do they add? The player whose startups accumulate the most total value by Nov. 1, 2028 is the winner, so there’s plenty of time to make adjustments. Here’s a link to the AI fantasy team podcast — you may need a password. Not sure.