There’s a new consensus about the media business that is emerging. The past is not coming back, that much is for certain. The challenges are well known, and the bright spots — and they exist — tend to be smaller and harder to scale.

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Mass media’s extinction event has come first for text content. Text is increasingly being "pushed down the stack" and commoditized due to AI's ability to generate, manipulate, and reformat text content. This shift is forcing media companies that primarily deal in text to adapt or risk becoming obsolete. While text isn't disappearing entirely, its role is changing. It's becoming more of an input for other forms of media rather than the primary output. Meanwhile, other parts of media are gaining in influence. This will turn out to be the podcast election, as Kamala Harris prepares to make her closing case to… Joe Rogan while continuing to snub mass media like Time and the New York Times. We also discuss the power of Fortnite, which points to a future of media where content is a means to an ends. In the case of Fortnite, that ends is a combination of a place to hang out, a hub for commercial events like virtual concerts, a competitive environment premised on participation rather than inert consumption, and a communication medium. Plus: Bill Gates is apparently a good product.

• Cabel Sasser, Panic - XOXO Festival (2024)
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This week, we take a look at making bets that go wrong, and how it’s often difficult to tell if a bet is a bad one in the short term. Was Meta’s bet on VR a bad bet? Maybe in the short term, but perhaps not in the long term. Media companies have made their fair share of bad bets over the years, although there weren’t many options available. Will the parade of AI deals join the pile of bad bets? Plus… Good Product with a VERY special guest Steve Katelman.

• Donald Trump says he’s ‘basically a truthful person’
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• Troy Young's People vs Algorithms newsletter
• Brian Morrissey's The Rebooting newsletter
• Alex Schleifer's Human Computer
• Follow Alex, Brian and Troy on Twitter