What made blogging different? Reflections on 25 years of digital media.
Out: SEO; In: GEO.
“LOLgislation,” or how memes become policy, and posting becomes praxis.
For many years, “shitposting” has been a staple of internet culture in which individuals riff on the moment using nonsense and irony, derailing threads for fun. In today’s influencer-driven attention economy, however, shitposting as a practice is now a meaningful comms and engagement strategy.
What rivalry?
Purdue Exponent students distributed 3,000 copies of a special “solidarity edition” newspaper in Bloomington after IU spanked their student paper for insubordinance, ending the IDS print edition and firing their director. The media landscape in Indiana is bleak, generally, after years of disinvestment, so student reporters fill a social and political gap that the free market left behind. Given those conditions, the wider community depends on student media, much like public radio, to fill the information gaps. Also, these campuses are situated in communities where it can be very socially uncomfortable to be a squeaky wheel. So. As alum, I’m proud of the Exponent for this brave and newsworthy show of heart. 💐
A difficult number for so many reasons.
The next big trend in AI that I’m watching is platform integration. First company to produce the interoperability required for a united platform experience wins.
RIP D’Angelo. And a good occasion to reread this excellent 2012 profile discussing fame, religion, and how his status as a sex symbol in his youth negatively impacted D’Angelo’s self-esteem - and ultimately his career.
What happens to college towns after they’re hit by the so-called enrollment cliff?
Choco Taco is back: the business and engineering behind the revival of a retro treat.
From Propublica, on how publicly-funded private school vouchers are funding a segregation academy dynamic.
Saving for later: The story of DOGE, as told by federal workers.
A lovely story about the restoration of prairie land undertaken by the nuns of Holy Wisdom, just outside of Madison, WI.
A pleasant surprise resulting from LLM acceleration in the IT landscape is the sudden opportunity for storytelling around other, more analog kinds of information technology and access models. Nostalgia abound (complimentary).
On the rise of faith tech.
Harvard Business Review offers this take on why it’s bad for business to automate our way out of staffing entry-level positions.
What do people actually use ChatGPT for? A snapshot.
This is incredible storytelling from propublica.org, on opioids, inequality, and the scope of drug-induced homicide charges brought against teens in Wisconsin.
Gap capitalized on the Sidney Sweeney “good genes” controversy by doing this collab with Katseye, the global pop group where each member is a different nationality. Each member of the pop group dances through in black and brown jeans.