Being in your forties, my friends, is weird. A good weird. You’re still working on all the crazy creative shit you did in your twenties and playing with a million ideas in your head at any given time and figuring out which need to be played out in reality, but…
a) You (hopefully!) have a bit of wisdom and insight into what works and what doesn’t.
b) You have more responsibilities than you did when you were 25 and, therefore, less time to do all the damn things.
Solution: Square the circle.
This week’s links after the jump.
What I’m Thinking About Right Now:
🤖Mark Hurst on why customers don’t want chatbots:
A chat bot can handle expected, middle-of-the-road queries (as in, for a bank, “what’s my balance” and so on) – but customers can get those answers already from the app or website.
Instead, the reason people go to customer service is because of a question that’s so specific, or complicated, or gnarly in some respect, that there’s no way the app will have the answer: you need a human.
🗞️Bob Lefsetz on The New York Times’ staying power:
New players were supposed to come along, disrupt the the staid Grey Lady and leave it in the dust. But just the opposite is happening. Vice and BuzzFeed news failed. And in a world of too many messages, too many unresearched and false, the “Times” has more impact than it ever has. You may hate it, but it’s affecting your life even if you avoid it, because the “Times” sets the agenda for the whole world, the right needs something to rebel against, there’s not an equivalent right wing newsgathering source, mostly there’s opinion, and at the end of the day people want facts.
🧠Tyler Wade at Descript with 100+ ChatGPT prompts for creators:
Prompt: “[paste YouTube transcript] What can you tell me about [guest] from this show?”
Followup: Elissa Lorello on how writers can productively use ChatGPT.
📶Will Feuer at the Wall Street Journal on AT&T going all in on fiber internet:
The telecommunications company is expanding its network of fiber-optic cables to deliver fast internet speeds for customers, including those in places where it doesn’t already provide broadband.
The plan doesn’t come cheap. It will cost billions of dollars over the next several years, a price tag that the company—whose debt load outstrips its annual revenue—doesn’t want to carry alone.
💾Nathan Proctor on the death of ownership:
Businesses use a slew of tactics to keep customers on the hook after they've purchased a product. One tactic is to use technical sensors to prevent unauthorized changes to the product. Take the experience of America's farmers: Newer equipment like tractors and combines often require special tools that manufacturers offer exclusively to authorized dealers. Along with highly technical computer systems, this makes it nearly impossible for farmers to fix their own vehicles.
📻Congressional Democrats and Republicans are teaming up to prevent car companies from phasing out AM car radios:
Some manufacturers are eliminating AM radio from their electric vehicles (EVs) because of interference from the electric motors that results in annoying buzzing noises and faded signals. They argue that car owners can still access AM radio content through digital streaming packages or smartphone apps (though such services sometimes require a subscription). While AM might seem like a relic of the past, nearly 50 million people still listen to it.
This post is sponsored by Ungerleider Works.
This is Neal Ungerleider’s newsletter. Neal runs Ungerleider Works. Ungerleider Works helps clients with podcasts, email newsletters, ebooks, video scripts and more.
Click on the link below to schedule a free consultation:
Ungerleider Works runs on Notion. Use our link for a Notion discount.
Ungerleider Works uses The Futur’s Operating System to manage projects, clients, and sales. Get Operating System here.
What I’m Loving:
🍸Agency world speaks on day drinking.
⚔️Tears of the Kingdom YouTube.
For 11 years, the Arrowverse tied together one show, then two shows, then three shows, then four, five, sometimes six, then—once the multiverse was introduced in the Crisis On Infinite Earths crossover event—the entirety of all live-action DC superhero shows and movies that have ever been made. Michael Keaton’s Batman movie happened in the Arrowverse. The ’60s Batman show happened in the Arrowverse. Titans, Superman Returns, the 2002 Birds Of Prey show, NBC’s short-lived Constantine, Fox’s Lucifer, and Smallville all happened in the Arrowverse (at least on some level of its vast multiverse).
🦉The joys of competitive Duolingo:
Was this a good use of my time? Yes. Am I stopping the instant that I got the final achievement for streak length, 365 days? Also yes. I can pointedly stop now, or I can commit to doing this forever even though my enthusiasm was already starting to flag and my weekly XP average was dipping from a 0.1% level to like, a mere 0.2% level. I am choosing to burn my streak and go out in a blaze of glory. I completed several courses in that year, and most people never complete one. I have duo'd all the lingos. The owl has no power over me.
🛹Never forget the Doug game:
🌆Deciphering that Succession episode with Jeremy Strong & Alexander Skarsgard.
That’s it for this today. NOW DO AWESOME STUFF.