5️⃣Five Things
Back on that whole thing again: Context Collapse #218
In this issue: Gen AI’s limits, IRL events in the work-from-home age, Twitter users going to LinkedIn, YouTube as OMG success story, new podcast announcement.
Hi. Welcome to Context Collapse, the world’s best comms newsletter. I’m Neal Ungerleider. I run Ungerleider Works and used to work as a reporter for Fast Company, write op-eds for the LA Times, and work as a senior copywriter for R/GA. This newsletter helps readers navigate the weird new world of media and gleefully ignores all the conventional wisdom about marketing, public relations, advertising, and marketing.
So I was in NYC this weekend for family stuff, had an afternoon flight back to Chicago, had the flight canceled because of bad weather after a 5 hour delay, and finally (and luckily!!! damn!!!) found an 11pm flight back with an open seat. Finally made it back home at 2am complete with that hangover feeling from sitting inside LaGuardia all day. BUT I MADE IT. Beautiful.
Anyway, we’re officially ending the Context Collapse June Sabbatical a few days early. Welcome back.
For today, five things:
1: Marketing, advertising & PR folks hitting the end of the honeymoon phase with Generative AI. Without getting too in the weeds, I’ve heard a lot from clients who are quickly learning that Generative AI (Including everything from ChatGPT to Bard to Midjourney to DALL-E) isn’t a one-stop shop for automating everything and magically having one employee do the job of 20 employees.
Gen AI is crazy helpful and is the most momentous mass market tech development since the smartphone, but it’s no Skynet. It’s what Alexa was supposed to be, it’s what Google Search pretended to be, it’s a talented artist who needs extreme amounts of handholding, it’s an intern with an obscenely strong work ethic who does everything over-literally. Sci-fi days are here, and they work just well enough.
2: IRL events just work differently now.
Over on LinkedIn, I wrote a little about how marketers can get people to IRL events when everyone’s happy doing hybrid or work from home:
3: We’re hitting another social media diaspora point.
A long time ago, Facebook was the big online social media platform with the most signal and the least noise. Then everyone’s creepy ex-neighbor and high school friend with questionable impulse control went on Facebook and the experience degraded.
Now we’re at a point where Twitter’s new management is underinvesting in site resources leading to frequent tech errors, where corporate leadership’s erratic public behavior is scaring advertising revenue away, and where there’s increasingly more noise with way less signal.
I’m seeing a lot of my clients—largely financially comfortable people in office jobs with limited free time—spending more and more time on LinkedIn. I’m seeing friends into weird esoteric shit spending more and more time on private Discord and Slack settings.
Meanwhile, Reddit is having some chaos of their own… If I was sarcastic I would question why a longlasting social media network with extremely strong online norms in its niche communities is systematically alienating the power users responsible for the whole service’s considerable network effects… but nah I’m not gonna go there. Find another commentator for that.
4: Don’t sleep on YouTube.
Speaking of network effects, YouTube had less technical and creator tools than its competitors until relatively recently. Other competitors had more creator-friendly UI/X/revshare, other competitors had better code and better mobile apps. But YouTube had one thing its competitors didn’t: A truly massive community. YouTube has become the world’s teacher for everything from home repair DIY to gaming tutorials to high school math tutoring to gardening. YouTube has become one of the world’s top entertainment destinations. YouTube delivers viewers a seamless experience across platforms that is as intuitive for baby boomers raised on TV as it is for TikTok-hooked Gen Z’ers. Don’t sleep on YouTUbe.
5: New project announcement - AccelPro IP Law.
AccelPro: IP Law is a new career development product focusing on intellectual property law. AccelPro: IP Law is part of the Kaplan Inc. portfolio that features original content along with peer-to-peer career products.
I'm hosting AccelPro's flagship IP podcast which covers copyright, patent, trademarks, and more. We cover everything from Generative AI to Biotech to Digital Content Creation. Sign up is currently free, and I hope you'll get the chance to listen.
Given, err, current news-y things, IP law is part of the zeitgeist quite a bit at this moment. Check it out.