>> THE LATEST
Marker Collective Bets on Software
Cheat Sheet: Leadership Podcasts
Cheat Sheet: ‘Predictions 2025’ From Substack Newsletters and Podcasts
Cheat Sheet: Predictions 2025
Cheat Sheet: Creator Targets
Cheat Sheet: Luxury Gift Guides
Cheat Sheet: Design Targets
Cheat Sheet: Design Podcasts
Cheat Sheet: Reporters Who Cover Rural Healthcare
SWMS Q&A: Brendan Vaughan, Editor-in-Chief, Fast Company
SWMS Q&A: Jon Fortt, CNBC
Q&A: Jim Aley, Deputy Editor, Bloomberg Businessweek
Q&A: Timothy B. Lee, ‘Understanding AI’
>> STRATEGIES
Gen AI Sizes Up Fortune’s Allie Garfinkle
Marker Collective Bets on Software
SDxCentral Blends AI, Freelancers To Create a New Kind of Publication
Updated Cheat Sheet: Observability Targets
Cheat Sheet: NYT’s San Francisco Bureau
Updated Cheat Sheet: CEO Profiles
YOUR ACCOUNT
FRIDGE NOTES
Introducing ‘SWMS Sound Thinking’
Should PR pros stop visiting X, with all its lies and hate? It’s only going to get worse. Or are tidbits from targets too important to walk away from? Click here to watch tech edit vet David Strom and I disagree (at high speed) about this, as one compelling visual after another pops up on your screen. In 2025, SWMS will officially launch “SWMS Sound Thinking,” designed to be “argumentative insight in six minutes or less.” Each segment will explore a timely and controversial topic of interest to tech comms pros. This prototype runs 5:25. Hope you enjoy it — feedback vital and welcome! –Sam
Business Insider Reporters Starting to Go on Camera
New EIC Jamie Heller has asked her reporters to start going on camera — for the BI TikTok channel — to explain the big, deep-divey story they just published. Other publications do this — especially archival Fortune. BI is now on that too. Game on.
The ‘AI Fantasy Draft’ From Eric Newcomer
At this time last year, Eric Newcomer and his two podcast co-hosts — Max Child and James Wilsterman — each formed an “AI startup fantasy team” and picked five AI startups to seed their rosters. We’re now in year 2 and it’s time to draft again. The podcasters wonder… which startups do they dump? Which do they add? The player whose startups accumulate the most total value by Nov. 1, 2028 is the winner, so there’s plenty of time to make adjustments. Here’s a link to the AI fantasy team podcast — you may need a password. Not sure.
How Do We Read?
This timeless explainer — a powerful blend of visuals and text — will explain the psychology of how we read, as in, how does the mind actually work? Hats off to Message Labs, the producer.
How NYT Uses Gen AI
Ars Technica recently filed this revealing piece on how the NYT uses gen AI to analyze gargantuan transcripts, ones that would overwhelm mere mortals. The results still need to be reviewed by humans, but the grunt analysis is done by the LLM. Investigative reporting becomes easier. Journalism is served.
TechTarget Shareholders to Vote on Merger With Informa
It was announced long ago, but on Nov, 26 we learn whether TechTarget stockholders want to join forces with Informa and its legion of IT media brands, not least of which is Industry Dive. It will be hard to imagine a rival of equal power, with IDG/Foundry now a shadow of its former self. IDG/Foundry’s lack of investment and focus on cost-cutting will look unwise if TechTarget and Informa do merge.