⏰Weekend Links 1/16
New year, old structural failures: The Neal Ungerleider Newsletter #71
I’m doing a low carb, no-alcohol diet this week. No work and no play make Neal something something. I mean… this week of all weeks a beer would be nice! Or some pizza. Or things being a bit more “normal,” whatever that means in 2021.
Now… onto the links.
New Futures:
USA’S $2 TRILLION COVID RELIEF PACKAGE: President Elect Joe Biden called for nearly $2 trillion in COVID-19 related relief in a speech this week, including $400 billion towards immunization and healthcare efforts, $1 trillion in direct relief to families and individuals and another $440 billion to assist impacted businesses and communities.
Neal’s takeaway: $2 trillion sounds f**king amazing, but the federal government’s current deep dysfunction makes this pretty unlikely.HOTEL INDUSTRY PREPARING FOR A TERRIBLE 2021: Chicago hotel operators expect a nightmarish 2021 thanks to the collapse of the convention and trade show industry and unclear guidance around vaccination progress.
Neal’s takeaway: Hotels with large corporate parents offering cash reserves are in a much better place than small hotel owners, who are stuck between a rock and a hard place.THE VACCINE ROLLOUT’S KNOWN KNOWNS: Zeynep Tufecki has a smart take on the problem of deciding who to immunize first, and how challenges facing politicians and public health departments spiral into delayed immunizations and confusing rollouts.
Neal’s takeaway: Do we prioritize immunizing older and high-health risk community members at a much higher risk of dying from COVID who mostly stay at home or immunizing essential workers who are at a much higher risk of infecting others with COVID?
Advertising/Marketing/PR:
THE CIA’S BRAND REVAMP: Ezra Marcus at the New York Times goes inside the CIA’s new brand identity.
Neal’s takeaway: Much like multinational corporations, intelligence agencies need brand revamps every so often.GM UNVEILS NEW LOGO: Speaking of that, GM unveiled their new logo!
Neal’s takeaway: The previous GM logo lasted more than fifty years, creating a brand identity challenge for any replacement logo.AMAZON’S AD BUSINESS ON TRACK FOR GREAT 2021: A new Cowen survey of ad buyers report that Amazon is expected to be the largest share gainer among digital ad companies for 2021 and 2022.
Neal’s takeaway: Amazon’s DNA favors logistics, web services and retail platforms; not selling advertising inventory. This creates challenges and opportunities for the industry ecosystem.THE PROBLEM WITH ADTECH: Moz founder and SparkToro CEO Rand Fishkin argues that the current adtech ecosystem is fundamentally flawed and that both adtech providers and platforms have structural incentives to tolerate ad fraud and non-fuctional products.
Neal’s takeaway: Adtech is the classic industry where all sorts of shenanigans take place because the goings-on of products and vendors are almost impossible to understand by outstiders.
Media:
HOW NEW YORK TIMES COOKING CONQUERED THE FOOD WORLD: Mark Sternberg explains why the New York Times Cooking app has more subscribers than most newspapers in the U.S. and how Times Cooking succeeded through a two-pronged strategy of hiring away the competition and a relentless UI/UX focus.
Neal’s takeaway: LOL it just turns out serious news coverage is underwritten by keto recipes.SPOTIFY’S WHITE NOISE CASH COW: Peter Slattery at OneZero looks at how entrepreneurs manipulate SEO on Spotify for white noise tracks, with top dogs making ~$1 million a year repackaging computer-generated ambient noise.
Neal’s takeaway: I mean, there’s a monetization loophole in every platform.REMOTE CONTROL POWER STRUGGLE: Protocol’s Janko Roettgers dives deep into branded buttons on television remote controls and how players like Netflix and Prime Video use them to bolster market share and stifle competition.
Neal’s takeaway: Paying television manufacturers for physical real estate isn’t going away anytime soon.CONDE NAST PODCAST CRASH & BURN: A new expose from The Verge’s Ashley Carman finds that Conde Nast’s extensive podcast plans are on indefinite hold due to a mixture of mismanagement and internal politics.
Neal’s takeaway: Mismanagement and a lack of communication between media companies and contractors? THAT NEVER HAPPENS!AXIOS LAUNCHING NEWSLETTER MAKER: Newsletter journalism outlet Axios is launching AxiosHQ, a CMS with prices starting at $10,000/year for organizations to create their own Axios-style newsletters.
Neal’s takeaway: Axios’ secret sauce isn’t their format; it’s the talented journalists who work there. This product launch doesn’t leverage that in-house advantage enough.MEDIUM ACQUIRING GLOSE: Medium is purchasing social bookreading startup Glose for an undisclosed amount. Glose is one of the more popular of a number of startups targeting the Goodreads-y book community space.
Neal’s takeaway: Amazon hasn’t invested much in Goodreads in recent years, creating space for investors to steal market share.YOUTUBE HIRES HEALTHCARE HEAD: YouTube is hiring former CVS Health chief community officer Dr. Garth Graham as director and global head of healthcare and public health partnerships. Graham is tasked with furthering “YouTube’s efforts to bring quality content from authoritative, evidence-based sources to be front-and-center on the platform.”
Neal’s takeaway: YouTube is one of the world’s top sources for medical information while hosting lots of incorrect medical information. How do you square that circle?WHITE HOUSE SOCIAL MEDIA TEAM ALLEGEDLY HAD ADVANCE KNOWLEDGE OF CAPITOL INVASION: An investigation by Atlantic Council visiting research fellow Jared Holt finds that Trump’s social media team was aware supporters and sympathziers would attempt to storm the US Capitol in advance.
Neal’s takeaway: Like a toxic pop star fandom, but for the most powerful person in the world.
Tech:
2021’S ZOMBIE CES: Codeword founding partner Kyle Monson argues that this year’s all-virtual CES isn’t really CES, while Protocol is asking industry figures what will rise above the hype at CES 2021.
Neal’s takeaway: CES is as much about the sensory overload and the schmoozing opportunities than it is about the actual consumer electronics. People will buy new laptops, wearables and novelty doodads on the Best Buy shelf regardless.BIG TECH COLLABORATING ON COVID-19 PASSPORTS: Cat Zakrzewski at the Washington Post has a must-read analysis on how Microsoft, Salesforce, Oracle and the Mayo Clinic are collaborating on the Vaccine Credential Initiative, which will develop secure digital and printable copies of vaccination records.
Neal’s takeaway: Identity verification in the United States has traditionally been the domain of federal and state governments who issue things like social security numbers and drivers licenses. But nature abhors a vacuum, so private corporations will issue more or less legally-binding identity records instead.HOW DANIEL EK RUNS SPOTIFY: Sriram Krishnan speaks with Spotify CEO Daniel Ek in detail about Ek’s approach to running Spotify.
Neal’s takeaway: Ek’s explanation of Spotify’s internal processes condenses an entire business school course into a single article.NEOFEUDALISM AND TECH: Cory Doctorow argues that large tech companies are wholeheartedly embracing a walled garden approach with uncanny resemblences to feudalism.
Neal’s takeaway: Err, yup.WEBER BUYS IOT STARTUP: Grill manufacturer Weber has purchased smart cooking startup June for an undisclosed sum. June will continue to sell its smart oven, which automatically cooks hundreds of different recipes.
Neal’s takeaway: Your barbecue grill probably doesn’t need to be connected to the internet, but history indicates customers will pay for the capability.DEVAL PATRICK JOINING TWILIO BOARD: Former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick is joining Twilio’s board of directors. Twilio’s products, which create the plumbing for app and website developers to help their clients text message, email and phone call customers, are used by many government and private sector organizations.
Neal’s takeaway: Twilio has made a lot of money selling picks and shovels in a gold rush and Patrick’s government experience serves them well.VISA ABANDONING PLAID ACQUISITION: Visa is calling off their planned acquisition of Plaid, a startup which makes it easier for companies to build fintech products. The acquisition was canceled due to regulatory pressure.
Neal’s takeaway: Plaid got rich selling picks and shovels also! This is a loss for Visa, but expect for Plaid to go public and do just fine.
Fun:
MONKEYS IMPROVING THEFT SKILL: Researchers find that macaques at Bali’s Uluwatu temple are learning to target items that humans are most likely to exchange for food, such as electronics, rather than less-treasured objects like hairpins or camera bags.
HOW TO CLEAN AN EGYPTIAN TEMPLE: Archaeologists are removing 2000 years of bird poo from an Egyptian temple as part of an ongoing restoration process.
EVIL AI SCRABBLE: Blabrecs is a variant of Scrabble where actual English words are forbidden, and the only playable words are made-up words that an AI thinks could potentially be English words.
THE MORALITY OF TED LASSO: David French on forgiveness and redemption in Ted Lasso, Jason Sudeikis’ amazing AppleTV+ series.
Things I’ve Enjoyed Lately:
Learning how to hack Twitter’s image cropping AI.
Deciphering the insane economics of credit card and frequent flier points.
Reading through an event planner’s analysis of security precautions at the Capitol.
Understanding how America exports its internal kulturkampf to other countries.
Checking out the most expensive home in Chicago.
That’s it for this issue. Email me here and please don’t hesitate to contact if I can be of assistance. Thank you for taking the time to read this damned thing.
Love and coffee,
Neal
About This Newsletter: Neal Ungerleider is a strategic communications consultant who works with individuals, brands and agencies. He writes this weekly newsletter about the media communications industrial complex and hopes you find it useful. Check out his bio, his portfolio, and current projects.
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