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.
Publishers Are Fumbling Deepfake Verification While AI Fakery Runs Wild
Deepfakes have shattered the trust publishers once took for granted, exposing lazy fact-checking and hollow AI defenses as the industry’s fatal weaknesses.
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WPP CFO Calls Out The Trade Desk’s Overstated Market Role Amid Holdco Skepticism
WPP’s CFO shatters the myth of The Trade Desk’s market dominance, signaling a shift as holdcos demand real proof of value from ad tech vendors instead of blind trust.
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CTV’s Pod Bidding Revolution: How Ad Tech Giants Are Weaponizing Live Sports Ads for 2026
Ad tech heavyweights like Comcast’s FreeWheel and The Trade Desk are pushing pod bidding to overhaul CTV’s programmatic auctions, gearing up for a flood of live sports ad inventory in 2026.
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Why Everyone’s Chasing Ad Measurement Tech—and Still Missing the Point
The ad industry’s M&A frenzy is chasing tech that promises to measure the unmeasurable: intuition. Spoiler alert—this isn’t the magic bullet everyone hopes for.
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Brands Throw Cash at Podcasts for World Cup Hype — Because Traditional Ads Are Dead
Brands are shifting audio ad dollars to podcasts and streaming ahead of the World Cup, recognizing that traditional sports radio is a fading relic. Engagement metrics prove podcasts deliver where generic ads fail.
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Marketers Ignoring CTOs in 2024: The Tech Blind Spot That Will Cost You
Only 4.6% of marketers prioritize their relationship with CTOs, a catastrophic oversight as AI and tech become marketing essentials. The disconnect is killing innovation.
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Krispy Kreme’s UK Brand Revival: Why Building Resilience Beats Marketing Gimmicks Amid Ad Restrictions
Krispy Kreme’s first UK brand campaign is a strategic move to build brand resilience amid stringent new advertising rules restricting sugary product depictions.
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Silicon Valley’s Power Struggle and Peloton’s Latest Misstep: The Week the Tech Titans Got Real
This week in tech exposes Silicon Valley’s messy power struggles and Peloton’s faltering strategy, revealing the harsh realities behind the hype.
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The Attention Economy’s Dirty Secret: Why 'Attention Formats' Are Killing Real Engagement
Marketing’s obsession with flashy attention-grabbing formats is backfiring, irritating audiences and delivering hollow metrics that mask real disengagement.
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Starbucks’ Loyalty Overhaul and ‘Energised Marketing’ Are Not Your Average Growth Hacks
Starbucks credits its revenue growth to a smart overhaul of its loyalty program and culturally attuned marketing — proof that real customer insight beats lazy agency hype.
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Stagwell’s Agent Cloud: Another Overhyped Marketing Toolkit Pretending to Solve SMB AI Woes
Stagwell’s new “Agent Cloud” toolkit for SMBs is just another overhyped SaaS play promising AI magic but delivering generic, fragmented solutions. SMBs deserve better.
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Paris Hilton and McCormick’s Millennial Seasoning Push: More Marketing Noise Than Flavor Innovation
Paris Hilton and McCormick’s new seasoning line is less about flavor and more about influencer marketing dressed up as innovation. Here’s why it’s just another product drop chasing millennials.
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Neutonic’s $6M Raise Exposes the Creator Economy’s Energy Drink Bubble
Neutonic’s recent $6 million raise highlights how creator-founded energy drink brands are riding hype, not innovation, in a saturated market dominated by industry giants.
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Supergoop’s Mass Appeal Gambit: Target and PGA Deals Signal Sunscreen Brand’s Pivot from Premium Niche to Mainstream
Supergoop’s new partnerships with Target and the PGA signal a deliberate pivot from niche skincare darling to mass-market contender, raising hard questions about brand identity and growth strategy.
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Dhar Mann’s Speed Dating Scheme: A Lazy Shortcut to Creator-Brand Collabs That Won’t Scale
Dhar Mann’s new speed dating events for brands and creators are a flashy, lazy workaround that risks making influencer matchmaking even more superficial and inefficient.
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Applebot-Extended Visibility Is a Ghost: Why You're Chasing Phantom Traffic with No Returns
Everyone’s hyping Applebot as the next big SEO jackpot, but spoiler alert: it’s a mirage. Here’s why your time and budget chasing Apple’s ghost crawler is a colossal waste.
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Structured Data for Google AI Overviews: Stop Wasting Time on Half-Baked Implementations
If your structured data is just slapped on with Yoast defaults or copied from some Rank Math tutorial, congratulations: you’re feeding Google’s AI a half-assed feast. Here’s why that’s killing your SEO and how to stop pissing your time away.
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Structured Data for Google AI Overviews: Stop Wasting Time on Half-Baked Implementations
If your structured data is just slapped on with Yoast defaults or copied from some Rank Math tutorial, congratulations: you’re feeding Google’s AI a half-assed feast. Here’s why that’s killing your SEO and how to stop pissing your time away.
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