
AI Trends to Watch — Q4 2023
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SWMS agency subscribers increasingly ask us about tech news sites that look legit at a glance, yet there’s something fishy about them.
The B2B tech world has a new experience to explore — Constellation Insights from Constellation Research. Its newly hired EIC is Larry Dignan, best known as ZDNet’s former EIC, though he spent the past 17 months overseeing content at Celonis.
Readers have been asking, “What are publications doing with AI? Will AI start to impact my job [in tech PR]?” Based on our research, the answers are (a) they’re not sure yet and (b) not for a very long time.
Search platform TechNews last month introduced features that let users spot trends deep within tech editorial. Launched as IT Database in 2007, TechNews is widely used within tech PR to learn who is writing what.
“We sure miss Protocol,” enterprise tech PR pros often say. What they mean is, “We sure miss what Tom Krazit brought to the party.” They no longer have to, because last week the former Protocol enterprise editor founded Runtime.
What’s trending in cybersecurity? It’s a good time to know, with the 32nd annual RSA Conference just around the corner. According to newly revamped TechNews, in terms of volume, whats’s trending is the same old damn thing: cyberattacks described in multiple, similar terms.
Most PR pros categorize targets by beat, then by publication. There’s another way — by experience. The rookies are happy to be where they are. And quite often they are friendly toward PR, especially when you appear to know a little bit about them.
Now in its second month, new cloud publication Silverlinings has established itself. Should you approach? Let’s first address the mission.
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FRIDGE NOTES
This is majorly tl;dr, but recent research from FT Strategies and Reuters empirically uncovers every trend there is, when it comes to the health of the media business. In short, “the media” is barely breakeven, here and around the world. AI search may prove devastating.
The WSJ this week launched CEO Brief, a newsletter designed to inform readers, and to attract new members to the WSJ Leadership Institute. This organization is already a Dow Jones profit center, and a great example of how Tier 1 can lessen dependence on advertising. Former Fortune CEO Alan Murray runs the institute and is the nominal editor of CEO Brief — and promises to read every bit of reader mail — though he has delegated the writing of the newsletter to subordinates in the early going.
Fast Company’s Lydia Dishman has joined (SWMS subscriber) Method Communications as VP of content strategy. Lydia joins an already strong content team, which includes former NY Times reporter Tim Race and B2B tech edit vet John Foley.
“I’m leaving to build something new,” Alex posted on X today. He spent 12 years at Forbes as a reporter and a builder of databases and lists. It’s time he gets to keep the money.
Axios reported on Jan. 24 that private equity firm Blackstone will sell IDG/Foundry, publishers of InfoWorld, Computerworld and Network World (and owners of IDC) to another private equity firm called Regent, which bought streaming video channel Cheddar in 2023. Remains to be seen how the ownership change will affect IDG’s venerable IT titles, but it’s unlikely their budgets will go up.
Unionized writers have secured new protections governing the use of generative AI in member newsrooms, reports the Hollywood Reporter. The union — Writers Guild of America, East — represents Fast Company, Wired and many other prominent titles. The union won agreement that publications “will not lay off current staff employees due to the use of generative AI,” and also that “advance notice [must be given] if the company plans to make the use of generative AI systems a requirement of [editors’] jobs.”