>> Sam Whitmore

“Listen!” Says The NYT

April 4, 2024 7:20 am

The NYT soon will add an automated voice to the majority of its articles, reports Axios. When that day comes, can we really call the

How Frustrating, Right? All That Work…

March 25, 2024 3:19 pm

Fortune editorial fellow Rachyl Jones wrote this 1,300-word feature that mentioned Neutrogena 29 times. An exec from Neutrogena’s parent company was quoted four times. Fortune ran

OpenAI’s Forthcoming Voice Engine

March 25, 2024 7:34 am

Here is the application to the U.S. patent office. You can already talk to OpenAI’s ChatGPT app. That was only the beginning.

‘BloombergGPT’ Is MIA. Is This Why?

March 25, 2024 7:30 am

Bloomberg last year announced its own AI technology, BloombergGPT, designed to help investors make decisions. BloombergGPT was built to draw from the treasure trove of

Investigation From The ‘New’ TechCrunch

March 21, 2024 7:35 am

Kyle Wiggers filed this powerful investigative piece on all the dreck you can find in OpenAI’s GPT store. Expect more digging like this from multiple

Are ‘CMOs’ Going Away?

March 19, 2024 11:38 am

Fortune and Adweek have said as much. Foundry/IDG closed its CMO publication last year. Marketing Week columnist Mark Ritson has a hilarious response to all

The Associated Press Gets Into Ecommerce

March 13, 2024 3:44 pm

The site AP Buyline launches Mar. 18, according to Axios. The AP wants to recommend some products and services to you. Even the newswires are

Microsoft Now Powering Semafor With AI

March 5, 2024 9:36 am

Visit Semafor and you’ll see lots of headlines with blue stars next to them. Semafor reporters write these articles, which then are extended by ChatGPT

Meet Max Tani, The Bearer of Layoff News

March 4, 2024 10:32 am

Here’s Slate’s profile of Semafor’s Max Tani, who covers media layoffs.

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.

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.