What we are thinking about.
Notes from running 8 publications and building tools for them. Restaurant SEO, local marketing, the boring parts that move the needle.
Google’s AI Overviews and the 2026 Policy Bomb: Publishers, Prepare to Bleed
Google’s AI Overviews have cannibalized up to 68% of publisher click-throughs since launch. The Q2 2026 content embedding policy just bludgeoned what’s left.
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Shopify’s AI Agency Fantasy: The DTC Platform’s Latest Bid to Keep Merchants on a Leash
Shopify’s new 'AI agency' pitch is just a fresh way to keep merchants dependent and agencies obsolete. Don’t fall for the ecosystem
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CMO on the Board? US Bank’s Michael Lacorazza Shows Why Most Marketers Still Can’t Hack It
US Bank's Michael Lacorazza isn't playing the usual CMO game—he’s rewriting it. If your marketing team can't speak the board’s language, you're
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AI “Leaders” Are Just Cowards in Hoodies—Real Leadership Requires a Spine, Not a Prompt
AI won’t save you from tough calls. The latest wave of 'AI leadership' talk is just an excuse for dodging real responsibility. Leaders need to lead—full
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Your Analytics Dashboard Is Lying—ChatGPT Closed the Deal Before You Even Loaded the Page
Your analytics are lying: ChatGPT is closing sales before your site even loads. If you’re not recommended by the bots, you don’t exist in
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Veo’s Video Gambit: Finally, a B2B Tech Brand That Remembers Humans Exist
Veo Technologies is trashing the B2B marketing rulebook by putting real people—employees and grassroots athletes—at the heart of its video
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Another Week, Another Parade of CMO Musical Chairs: Knix, Bayer, and the Marketing Industry’s Revolving Door
Knix, Bayer, and a handful of agencies are shuffling CMOs like trading cards, but the marketing industry’s real problem isn’t who gets the title—it’s the lack
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MS NOW Pulls Off Ratings Coup While Fox News Sleepwalks Through the Night Shift
MS NOW just leapfrogged Fox News in the late-night demo and posted growth across every daypart this week. The old cable pecking order is
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Google's HCU 2026: The Day Publisher Traffic Got Nuked in America
In May 2026, after Google's HCU update, major publishers like Dotdash and Condé Nast saw organic traffic drop 42% overnight. The AI content bros lied to you.
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US Brands Still Don’t Get It: Latin America’s World Cup Ad Magic Isn’t for Sale—It’s Cultural Muscle Memory
US brands keep missing the point—Latin America’s World Cup ads work because they’re soaked in local culture and daring humor, not generic
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Google’s 2026 Core AI Update Flattened Your Visits—Stop Crying Algorithm, Start Owning Your Site
As of May 2026, more than 64% of content sites lost at least 40% of organic traffic after Google's Core AI rollout. Let’s be clear: most of you did this to yourselves.
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ThredUp’s Half-Baked Peer-to-Peer Gambit: Poshmark Knockoff or Just Another Tuesday in Resale Land?
ThredUp’s new peer-to-peer selling option is a clumsy Poshmark imitation—dumping work on sellers without fixing the platform’s real
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AI Radio at Cannes: Another Empty Show of AI Snake Oil, Now with More Brand Synergy!
ADWEEK, Code and Theory, and ElevenLabs are hyping up an 'AI radio station' at Cannes Lions 2026. Spoiler: it's just AI reading press releases
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OpenAI’s Search API Is Eating Google’s Lunch—Stop Feeding the LLM Beast
On May 21, 2024, OpenAI dropped its Search API, scraping and summarizing the web like Google on amphetamines. Publishers: you’re now the unpaid R&D wing for Microsoft and Sam Altman.
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ADWEEK’s 2026 Experiential Awards: Another Self-Congratulatory Loop for Agency Navel-Gazers
ADWEEK’s 2026 Experiential Awards are open for entries—cue the usual agency back-patting. If you’re serious about impact, skip the
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The Trade Desk’s Revolving Door: CRO Anders Mortensen Axed After 7 Months—What’s Really Broken?
The Trade Desk just canned its CRO after only seven months. This isn’t a blip—it’s proof the company’s leadership circus is distracting from real
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Fox News Still King of Cable News, But Their Throne Is Cracking in the Summer Heat
Fox News topped cable news ratings in May 2026, but viewership is sliding and the whole industry is stuck in a nostalgia loop. Time to move
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Clarissa Ward in the Ebola Hot Zone: Why TV News Still Fails to Get Local Realities
Clarissa Ward’s Ebola reporting exposes the gap between public health fantasy and ground truth—where funeral traditions, not logistics, block progress.
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