The Reach–Ownership–Friction Model: A mental framework for the post-search era
Summary: Search used to give publishers reach with very little friction, even if they didn’t…
The Reach–Ownership–Friction Model: A mental framework for the post-search era
Summary: Search used to give publishers reach with very little friction, even if they didn’t own the audience. Today every channel involves a trade-off between reach, ownership, and user friction, and understanding that three-way balance can help you design a smarter publishing strategy. For years, publishers could rely on search engines to deliver reach with…
AI is not “just predicting the next word”
Summary: AI is not a mind that thinks like a human, but it’s also far more than a simple autocomplete engine predicting the next word. Its outputs come from layers of statistical processes, pattern recognition, and structured systems that make the results surprisingly sophisticated — even though the underlying mechanism is still just math. Social…
What Happened When I Rewrote My Own Book by Hand
Summary: When I rewrote part of my own book by hand, the slower process forced me to focus on the core ideas and sharpen the argument. At a time when AI can generate text instantly, the secret to more compelling writing may simply be slowing down and picking up a pen. Why do we Americans…
AI Has Made ‘Good Enough’ Free. Here’s What You Do Now
Thirty years ago a mediocre article quietly died on an editor’s desk. Today it goes straight to Substack. The internet was built on this strategy: spend 20 percent of your effort to get something to 80 percent (“good enough”) and hit publish. Sometimes it gets lost in the noise, but occasionally a piece catches fire….
The coming collapse of authoritative content
Bo Sacks recently highlighted a problem we’re going to have to face in the near future: AI feeding on itself. If AI is trained on content from the internet then as AI displaces human authors, AI will be training on AI-created content. It’s not quite Ouroboros – the mythical snake eating its own tail –…
It’s time to start planning for AI job losses
I’m frustrated. If you weren’t already aware of the AI-powered calamity in our near future, Matt Shumer gave it a good intro in “Something Big is Coming.” We’ve been warned, but we’re not taking the warning seriously. AI is already causing mass layoffs, and reports estimate anywhere from 10 to 50% of jobs could be…
Defining a “Publisher” in the Age of AI
Publishing is under threat from many angles, but that begs a question: what do we mean by “publishing” and “publishers”? Are you a publisher if you have a blog, or a podcast? Is AI a publisher? Will it become one? Maybe, to all those questions, but I think a more rigorous definition is in order….
“Write Once, Sell Many Times?” AI May Be Ending the Most Profitable Idea in Publishing
Summary: The publishing industry has historically relied on the “write once, sell many times” model, incurring high fixed costs for creation but recovering them through low-marginal-cost distribution — a system amplified by digital media like podcasts and videos. AI disrupts this by enabling personalized content generation for each user, but this new model contradicts the…
Why AI isn’t just another tech disruption
In this interview with Paul Gewuerz, we speak about the accelerating disruption AI poses to publishing, local media, and the broader economy. I share my insights from my decades long career in B2B publishing and my current work helping publishers bridge the gap between technology and strategy. We talk about why AI may not be…
When “Good Enough” Isn’t Good Enough for Your Tech Stack
I’m a big advocate of “good enough” for many things, but there are times when “good enough” is a bad bargain, and technology is a prime example. Q: How is your IT department like the D.C. Metro? A: Both of them have huge incentives to put off essential upgrades and improvements until you have a…
Guidelines for the use of AI in a law firm
This is a quick summary of how to use and not use AI in a small law firm. You may find it applicable to your business as well. Executive Summary Warning: Before you post anything to an AI system ask yourself if you would say it out loud in a room full of strangers. Opportunity:…
Are you accidentally violating client confidentiality?
Are you unintentionally sharing your own or your client’s confidential information with AI? Some AI features are on by default. Just today I was looking at a Google doc and noticed the summary on the side. In order to make that summary, Gemini had to read that document. You should check that, and you might…
The hamburger machine: A modern fable about artificial intelligence, universal basic income, and the end of humanity
Once upon a time, clever businessmen learned how to make a hamburger, soda, and fries for $6 — by optimizing every step of the process. Families came from everywhere to buy these burgers. It was a happy place. Then Alan Mink had an idea. “What if I replace all the workers with robots? That would…
Has AI become the new scapegoat?
Merrian-Webster has coined “slop” as the word of the year. They define slop as … “Digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence.” Fair enough. Bad AI content comes in many varieties. On the content side we speak of the “tsunamic of bullshit.” On the image side,…
An open letter to Congress about AI
Every major technological revolution in American history displaced workers, but none threatened to eliminate entire categories of cognitive and manual labor at the same time. That’s what artificial intelligence threatens to do, and that’s why it’s different than previous tech revolutions. The loom displaced jobs in the textile industry, but it created wealth that made…
