Hello and welcome everyone back to another episode of the Publisher Lab
I'm Tyler Bishop and very special guest today. Someone that uh to be honest
I'm, I'm excited just to trap in the room to talk about all things digital publishing because one of the people that I've learned the
most from and actually one of the people that uh you know, I still think gets the best insights has sort of like the best
outlook on our space. Uh Dwayne lafleur, Dwayne, welcome to the podcast
Thanks. Thanks for finally inviting me CEO of E Zoic. And uh obviously
that's where you and I have been working together for a long time. And yeah, the, the offer to join the show is always here
I'm sure that the audience would love it, but glad to trap you here towards the end of the year finally
Yeah, happy to be here. And um I think, you know, I mentioned last week on the podcast that one of my least favorite things
is like uh the week, the weeks, like over the holidays where you start getting all your podcasts or shows and everybody's on break
So you get the best of episodes. So we actually decided we were gonna do it differently
We saved our best content for those few weeks. So, yeah, we'll see
we'll see how it works out. I'm uh but uh yeah, I think
you know, this is something that we want to do for a minute. And uh since it's the end of the year
I thought we could basically go through some of the overarching topics or themes that I think sort of uh have been a vibration underneath
like all the other stories and things like that in digital publishing
And we've got some as always topical stuff from, you know, this week
past couple of weeks um that we can kind of like point to is
you know, maybe the most recent iteration of some of those uh things
How does that sound? Sounds great? Um Before we get started, maybe
um you know, I, I could give, you know, a background on sort of your experience in this space
but like maybe just a little bit of background on, on you, you zoic just sort of how you got here
Yeah, sure. Um So my, my, I've been in online advertising uh since the mid two thousands
Um Originally, my last company was a company called Cubic, which was the first uh ad company on Facebook
So back in the mid two thousands, Facebook opened up the platform to third party application developers
essentially publishers, most of the publishing there was games, there was a lot of content quizzes
that type of thing. Um And uh that cubic was the company that provided uh advertising for those uh developers
And that was before Facebook even had ads on the platform. Um So live through that before Facebook had any ads
right? It was the only ads on I remember those days. Yeah
Yeah. Um uh So that was a lot of fun. There was a lot of data there
Um And obviously massive volume lived through uh the downturn of 2007
2008 in that business. And then uh that really transitioned into virtual currency which now you see on mobile
Um And I left that uh that company virtual currency, you know
the kind that you use in a, in a game, right? Yeah. Farmville box stuff
Yeah. Not, not, not crypto. We weren't quite there yet. Um Yeah
And then uh that company was acquired um and spent a couple more years in the space and then started E Zoic uh a little
more than 10 years ago now. So, like uh the concept behind E Zoic
we really purchased a bunch of web properties, um became publishers ourselves and uh built out what we wanted um from a monetization
and user experience perspective to balance the two. So, and I, I think one of the things that is interesting about sort of like
you know, you think about the days of Facebook before ads and then you think about today
you know, the thing that I think is maybe, uh, I think a lot of attention gets put on sort of the platform changes over
that course of time. But, you know, those platform changes, either they mirror or they sort of reflect
I guess, pretty massive changes in content to digital content at least
Um, and you definitely saw how the advertising egos systems moved from digital advertising being something that was a nice to have to being the
majority of, um, I guess, like what sticks out to you the most in terms of
uh, I guess if you think about like the last 15 years of content and how it's evolved digitally like
is there anything that sticks out to you as being something you were like that
That is the biggest stark contrast I can draw between then and now
Um, I actually don't think it's that complicated. I think the ad money follows the eyeballs
So, so, um, the transitions are entirely driven by users, not, not by advertisers
not by publishers even really. Um, so back in the early days of Facebook
um, we were talking to ad agencies and they were going, oh, we need to try this social thing
We hear it's a big deal. Um, and you know, that, and when we
we used to have this chart about time spent on each medium and then the dollar spent on each medium and there was always a
massive disparity and we still haven't even leveled out digital versus non digital
Um, the amount of money spent on radio and newspapers even is still way above
So we're just seeing that happen again now, within digital, um, mobile hasn't caught up quite to usage yet
Um, and, uh, video hasn't caught up to time spent as well
So it's just kind of transitioning along as people switch what they do
Um, and it takes a long time. It takes 10 years probably
Yeah, we had, uh, John Cole on a couple weeks ago and I, you know, one of the things that I think
um, he's pointed out before is just, you know, tech moves really fast from a innovation standpoint and a lot of times e even
uh, as publishers you, you're pretty plugged into changes that affect you and your business
But user behavior, like the total bell curve of user behavior often is a pretty slow moving sort of chain of events
So, um, you know, I guess what does that lag look like
You know, I, it's easy to kind of look back in retrospect and be like, oh, that kind of happened really quickly
But, um, you know, are we talking, you know, years, are we talking a year longer
Yeah, a decade probably. Yeah. Yeah, I think, I think people focus on
oh, all the kids are using tiktok or anything like that. But
um, I don't know about you but if you called your mom, um and on tiktok and
and asked her, um, what she thinks of uh chat G BT or um I think you might get a blank stare
Uh Maybe, maybe not your mom, maybe you've talked to her about it. Yeah. My mom listens to the podcast
believe it or not. And is it makes shout out to mom
Um But she says she listens to it because she wants to hear my voice
which I don't know. She, she says that because I think she thinks I'll be excited about it
But it actually makes me kind of sad. So I'm glad you listen though, mom. Hi
But I, I do think that, uh, I mean, I think you're right about that. I think that, you know
the reference point that, um I think the average person has for a lot of the things that we talk about on the show
um, they've either never heard of it or they're just have a cursory awareness uh to some degree
My, I use my wife for example, um, she's not a layman by any stretch
She uses technology every day. But, you know, uh I asked her couple of weeks ago because I've mentioned it on the podcast
How often have you used Chad G BT? I was aware of one time and she's told me she's used it two or three
Maybe. There you go. You know. So it's, it's not quite there yet. Um
but that, that kind of leads us into our first topic, which is the rise of generative A
I, so I think if there's a banner sort of like topic for this year in publishing
it's probably, um, the impact of A I, and, you know, this
I, I wanna get into like, maybe a little bit more of a meta version or
I guess, dive down a little bit deeper into the topic because I think it, it's sort of where it started with
which is Chat G BT A chatbot, right? Um I don't know that and you might correct me
you know, more about sort of the uh A I environment. But was it expected that a chat bot would be the first sort of
like, like big Bang of A I that we, we got exposed to is
uh, I guess, uh human race. I don't know. Is it, this is the first time that
you know, a I has really been uh available in mass to people. So
um was a chat bot what we expected. Um Well, I think
I think A I has been everywhere. So it's the only version that we can see and interact with
Uh more than anything. I guess that and like voice assistants. So ultimately asking a question and getting an answer is what
we see. But A I has been driving things behind the scenes for a long time
Um So, you know, whether it's self driving cars or you know
you the settings on a smart TV, like all of that is, is driven by those types of things which is not as visible to
us. So, um yeah, I mean, I think it's the natural evolution
Um Ultimately search, you go there, ask a question looking for an answer
Um And search is inefficient. You are provided with a long list
list of text. Um You click, you have to go, the first one doesn't give you the right answer
You have to go back, you have to click on the next one. You have to refine your search
Um So a chatbot is a much more efficient form of search
And, you know, I think it's kind of interesting because we've had
you've had Apple, you've had Google Amazon, you, you name it. Every big tech platform has had their sort of their Siri or Alexa
these voice activated sort of like this is what we imagined in the Jetsons
right? Like you, you say something out loud and then it's like, yes sir, Mr Jetson calling your wife now or whatever
Um But those things have always kind of been um I think the
I guess the rise of these things being everywhere and um you know
being central to our lives that, that, that's something that has been talked about for a decade
but it never felt like it really got here. Um And that
you know, I would argue and probably most of our audience would say that because they weren't really that good or that useful um search
has always been useful. And I think, you know, the, the rev relation with Chat G BT is that it
it's good enough is, is that the thing that we've been waiting for something to interact with
it's actually good enough to provide, you know, uh answers to questions
Uh Is it, is it maybe the flexibility of these things or is it more so
I guess the uh accuracy of them that makes them useful? Yeah
the previous versions were terrible. Um If you, if you want to do anything other than check the weather or play a song
they were basically useless. So um yeah, I think the, the quality of it is the differentiator
Um And I think Amazon and, and others decreasing their team size to
to not focus on those products. Um They thought that was because people weren't interested in the product when really it was just that the
product wasn't good enough. Um So I, I think what we'll see with these models is they're going to replicate human
communication in every form. So if you think about your interaction with another person with your mom since she's come up already
um how do you do that? Right? So sometimes you text, that's the chat bot
Sometimes you send her a picture that's the visual input. Sometimes you send her a video that's a visual input
sometimes you talk to her. So these bots are just going to replicate human communication
They don't care as long as the inputs coming in and they're going to respond in kind
Um When it's, you know, you're laying in bed in the middle of the night
you maybe don't want to talk to something. You wanna type it when you're alone in your car
maybe you wanna talk to something, maybe, maybe. Yeah, I like to talk all the time
You're probably texting, don't text and drive, you don't text and drive. Um
uh I, I do find that, uh, that idea is sort of interesting from the standpoint of
um, you mentioned the, the thing about like being able to communicate, um
and the different types of communication, I think one of the things that stands out to me with these
uh these models is, and this has been a topic of discussion publishing all year long
which is how much are they, um, you know, basically communicating back to you versus essentially a
a little plagiarism machine, you know, like being able to sort of like, guess what the next word is versus being able to actually
uh formulate, sort of like what we would think of as maybe a thought or a
um, or an answer or something along those lines and, and to be honest
I don't know, um, you might have a little bit more insight on this. How
how, how sophisticated are they versus something that's like a very, uh
magical parlor trick? Yeah. The, the current, the current version is, do you
do you remember the first iphone? Yes. So, it was, like, both magical and also terrible
Yeah. Um, that's the version that we're at right now. Um, and
uh, it's a starting point and by the time we get to probably the third or fourth generation it's going to be more magical
um And less terrible. Um But the way the models work right now is all they're doing is predicting what the next word is going
to be based on all the context. Um So that isn't plagiarism
Um But it's built upon all of its inputs and thinking, what would somebody else say next
Um Not necessarily one individual person, but what would society like based on all of my training data
Say next, what would, what would an uh an employee that had zero idea of what plagiarism is
right? If you told them to write something, right? And, and people do that already
you learn, you know, whether it starts from language when you're a kid, you learn based on what other people say
you also read stuff and then that, that dictates what you're probably going to say next
Um And you know, if you play a game of, if we're, if we're doing predict the next word
so I say hi Tyler. OK. Could be how because it'd be
but if I said hi. How, what's the next word? R, right
That's what it's doing. Um, it's taking a lot more inputs than that and just predicting
Um, so it's not like a super intelligent being or anything like that
However, we need to recognize the pace of progress or, yeah, how
how quickly it's progressing here. Um, the version, you know, GP T four that we're using is almost a year old
Um, and clearly what they're working on internally now, there was a big controversy over because it's getting to the point of being a little
bit scary. So, and you know, one of the things that's been discussed in that and um I is the idea that it would be
able to, it, uh you know, when you, when you think of it in the terms that you just put it
it doesn't feel like an it yet. But then you start to talk about, you know
adding in the ability to reason where it's not just necessarily um predicting the next word based on context
but it's taking that context and then adding in sort of uh other information where it's
it's basically processing, what are the chances that this person means this and how does that relate to these 10 other things
And at that point, you know, that's sort of how neurons operate inside of the brain
And so you got these, like, especially if it's learning, then you've got like the dendrite functions inside of a neuron
So the, the question then is like as it gets these sort of abilities to reason how useful is a
you know, an open A chat G BT versus something like, you know
uh Twitter just wrote out Rock or X, formally known as Twitter
Um There a I chatbot and you know, the big, the big thing with it is it has all Twitter's data and information and live
streaming information, which is um there's clearly value there and chat G BT is not going to have access to it
I would guess. Um And so I, I guess looking forward in time you mentioned the iphone earlier is the iphone
you know, one which, you know, iphone is synonymous with mobile. Now
um You know, are we gonna have open A I I Chat G BT
Most people use Chat G BT or, you know, one of these other Microsoft
you know, um Microsoft's one is called what I, I wouldn't say bar but that's Google Copilot is they've changed the name
a few times. Um So yeah, I guess the question then becomes
is it a name brand or is this gonna be something where we just want lots of each service is gonna have its own
you might have to pay for them all or who knows? Yeah. Uh Yeah, it's hard to say
Um I think probably the, you know, the history of tech is there's usually winner takes all or winners take all
Um, so, I mean, I think that's one, one way to think about it here is that whoever
whoever ends up with the best one probably wins. Um But on the flip side of that just to contradict myself
I could see a scenario where they all get to be so good for what they're doing that you don't really care
Um So, you know, if the answers to your everyday questions on Android are basically as good as they are on
uh apple devices, basically as good as they are on, you know, your windows machine
whatever, whatever it is, I think they'll come in different forms. But do you really care
Um So yeah, it'll be interesting. I think it's really hard to predict
you know, uh that kind of pivots us into our next topic with uh with a question that I had related to that because
you know, one of the things that uh I'd argue, you know
the reason why Google became so successful as a search engine initially was the simplicity of it
It also was very good. Um But it's also maintained its dominance in part and that's been a story
We won't go into that because we've flushed out over months and months
But one of the reasons that's not related to any form of antitrust is the fact that Google has had a really good search engine
for a very long time. But I would argue now that while I
I find Duck, duck go and many of the privacy based ones to be just terrible in comparison
you do have uh Microsoft and Bing and other search engines that are quite good
Um And I would say interchangeable in, in many respects, but yet Google is a pillar of search
Um It is the same thing possible with these generative A is
do you think um the same thing meaning one company dominates? Yeah
I think so. Um I mean, I, I think with Google Search
they're still the best. Um And that's what makes them uh retain their dominance mostly however
they, they're now a brand. Um I'm, there's, you don't even really say Search for that anymore
Um So they've completely replaced uh the verb that's used for the action
So I think it's really difficult to replace, replace them and that's partly one reason for the dominance
but I do think it's better. Um If you, I've tried to switch many times myself and um you know
you, you start using bing, you're like, hey, you type in some sample queries and you're like
this is pretty good. It's giving me the same results and then you get that one or two things per week that uh for me
it's like looking up some sort of coding information or technical documentation
You're like, this isn't even close and you, next thing you know, you're back to Google
So um I think that's ultimately it best best product probably wins
And, you know, I think, yeah, uh Microsoft bing kind of had its moment I would say back in March or April is kind of
when this peaked. But right, whenever they had uh you know, first announced the deal with open A I and integrating it into their search
engine, Google felt a little behind, you know, uh you could see really quickly like bing usage was going up and it was
I I don't think that anybody really believed that like, hey, this is Microsoft finally
like they're going to make their move now on Google Search. Um But you did see that momentum die as sort of predictably it would
Um But I, I do think that that is part of the conversation where Microsoft definitely feels like more of a relevant party uh in
digital publishing than, than they did a year ago. But I'm not sure that that's
that that's really formed in reality yet. Uh you know, for publishers that are trying to figure out like how relevant is
you know, Google, do I need to start looking at the life boats around me
Is Microsoft one of them or you know, is, is it just Google is gonna be here
Don't worry. Yeah. Um I, I mean, I think going back to what we talked about earlier that change is slow
I think Google is going to be here or Google Search is going to be here for the foreseeable future
Um but it's all driven by user behavior. So they either are going to follow that user behavior and they ultimately have to
go and win in a new space. Um And they do have the advantage of a brand name there uh or they're going to die
a slow death like some of the other technology companies. And one of the things that I you mentioned the user behavior thing
and I think one of the things that, you know, it's really fascinating when you
when you go through the Google antitrust uh hearing like uh documents from the court and stuff which we've talked about on the show previously
Um And some of the revelations that have come out of that, the thing that is actually maybe the most impressive uh is
is that Google had really great, great foresight into sort of like the
I guess what user behavior would look like in 10 years, you know, you think about them getting very far ahead on things like mobile
Um And I think I, I don't know if they have the same sort of like um insight
Now, I'm not sure if anybody does. Um I'll let you know in a couple of years
Um But it does beg the question of um is it, is it hard for someone like Google
So I, I saw the story from this week was video mode now in search results allows or Google is only going to show the
thumbnail um in, in the on the search results page for pages that contain mostly video
Um And that there's actually going to be a search console based uh notification for that as well
Um And I think it's specifically for uh videos marked up with video schema
Um But this is Google sort of adapting to something like video
And I would argue that sort of like video on a mobile phone, not the newest and latest thing you mentioned uh earlier in our
conversation, the usage data being sort of out of sync with um with
with uh sort of ad dollars and different things like that is
is Google playing catch up now and, you know, is a company like Google playing catch up um ultimately going to fall into the same
fate as many others in the past versus the one that's maybe looking for out in the future
Um I mean, my, my opinion with Google is is that they have the right strategy and they have the foresight and
you know, at, at E Zoic, we work with them quite closely
Um I think they know what's coming. I think they're, they're thinking about things the right way
but they're so big that their execution is poor um or slow
maybe not poor. Um So, yeah, like, like what you cited how them
you know, with Android and mobile and, and becoming one of the big two players there
they bought youtube before like video was a, was a big thing
They um and on this A I race, they were also first where they purchased the mind
they were high, they were hiring all the, the top researchers, et cetera
So they were thinking about it the right way. They're just not executing um as well as even other big companies like Microsoft
I think are more aggressive on these, this place are executing better. So um yeah
and with, with video mode, is it them catch up? Um So they maybe um they rolled out uh that the
they would only show videos that were the primary content on the page in Unified Search a couple of years ago
I think. Um and then now uh adding that to the video tab
I think only makes sense. Um And you know, when you search for a video and you click and you end up on a web
page that has a video um somewhere on the page and it becomes a where is Waldo
Um Like that's not what users are looking for. So, um so I think it makes total sense and it's
you know, it's something that with, with Humi, we, we tackled um a couple of years ago when we first rolled out the product where
it creates separate video pages that rank in that Unified Search. Um And uh you've seen a lot of large publishers do that as well
when you go to like a CNN. When you click on a video, it has a video only page for each video just for the
ranking purposes and kind of in line with that. One of the things that I think um publishers are probably starting to think about now
when you think about uh maybe a publisher that is traditionally um you know
built a website and publish uh largely articles online. You know, when you have a website
what do you have, you've got, you know, you've got whatever your framework is. Wordpress is incredibly popular and you host it someplace
right? And there's your website, it's hosted some place you have your domain name
Um Video is this incredible. I mean, youtube is the third largest search engine
I don't know if you knew this or not. Uh The second is actually uh surprise
It's also Google, it's images and video. Um So video is, is very popular
Two and three in terms of search engines. And where would you say the majority of that content is hosted
It's, it's not on individual publisher domains, right? Yeah. Yeah, I mean
it's ultimately on youtube. Um And I think the thing that a lot of the publishers that we work with Miss is that
that's not a requirement. Um I think there's a misconception that Google is ranking youtube content higher
Um And we've seen time and time again that that's not the case. Um So my opinion is when you're posting your content only on
youtube. Like, I think you have to have your content on youtube right now. But when you're posting it only there
you're giving away your audience and, and some of your authority and
and we've seen it with some prominent names that get banned from there or they
they make the rules. Um And you're, you're just giving all of that away to a third party
Um when you could be hosting that on your own domain, still getting visitors to your page
Um You control what the recommended is. That's beside your video, you try to drive them to other uh content on your
your channel or on your site. There's a lot of things that you can do with having that visitor come to your site as opposed
to going to youtube. Um And uh yeah, I, I think that hopefully will be a trend here in
in the coming years is that people realize, you know, what I actually want to keep my audience and not have it on a third
party platform. And I think the, the strange thing with the video is that because youtube has been an incumbent for so long
Um Yeah, I think, you know, it, it gets treated a lot differently than other things
But, you know, you think about, you know, hosting all your video inside of youtube
I mean, most of the publishers that do use wordpress listening to the show, you wouldn't host majority of their content on a wordpress.com
They'd want to use the, you know, the C MS framework, but even more so than that
you know, looking back at history, you remember Facebook pages, Facebook pages was
you know, you don't even need a website anymore. You're getting so much traffic from Facebook
There was a time whenever you could get a million followers on Facebook and that meant you could
you could have a lot of traffic, you could drive traffic back to your site. And then Facebook was like
hey, you don't even need that website. They're already here, send them right to your
just give it to us. We'll take care of it. Yeah. And you know that Facebook pages isn't here anymore for a pretty good reason
And, and I think that publishers are very weary of those types of things, but because youtube kind of has
feels like it's always been here. It sort of sneaks, sneaks past those things
Yeah, I think it's the perfect ogy. Um If somebody came out
if Google came out with something that said, hey, um don't post your
your next article on your website, just post it on google.com and we'll split the ad revenue 5050 with you
Um, publishers would pull out the pitchforks. Um Yet when you have a discussion about video
it's like, oh, I just put it up there and it will be fine. So, um yeah, it's interesting and hopefully it will change and
so speaking of that topic, because you mentioned the, the revenue sharing and it's
it's an inevitable part of um you know, sort of like this business with a platform
So as a publisher, you know, obviously you need someone like Google
um but you always try to figure out how much do I have to feed the beast without letting it eat me
And those choices are, are fairly limited, right? Like, you know, you'd like to think that you can find that balance
but that balance is not come towards publishers, I would say, but I would say historically
it, it hasn't either. And one of the things that um you know
whether it's the um uh judicial processes and things like that across all the different municipalities
states countries and like that is it relates to the platforms at large
Um You still have this large advertising ecosystem that is pushing back against sort of the platforms which now dictate largely
a lot of advertising because digital being the primary source of uh advertising or the or the largest I guess portion of that pie
Um But the question then becomes, you know, like we talked about chat bots earlier
we talked about some of these other technologies, things like rock are peop if people start to change the way they consume content or expect
different forms, we were talking about video, you know, how well is Google's trajectory
Something we're just talking about um you know, positioned to align with those user behaviors in the future
But then also sort of advertising, you know, are these things all on
you know, the same trajectory now, are they, are they forking? Um
and, you know, is the power shifting in any particular direction? And I guess
like, what, what would shift that power, um, either towards or away from publishers
Um, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, it's pretty hard to predict, I guess
I guess where it's gonna go. Um Yeah, I would, I would say the trend has been consistently against uh or away from publishers for
a long time. Um There's obviously a lot of companies that are trying to shift that back and
and there's a little bit more of a fight um or there has been for the last five years or 10 years
Um but uh ultimately the the sources of traffic two publishers um control control the
industry. So I think um they have the most data, they all, they ultimately are the biggest ad players
whether it's Google for display ads or Facebook for video. Um It's because they control the the audience overall
So, and one of the things that uh we've constantly seen and
you know, it's a story that pops up every probably 3 to 4 months on here and I always tell our good friend
Producer Manny here. Oh, it's about that time again, advertisers are upset about ads being placed next to extremist content or you know
something along those lines are being paid, doing an experiment and learning
they're paid, you know, 30 cents on the dollar for, you know, uh, display ad or something like that
that, you know, somebody ran on their own site and, you know, these things all end up being when you get enough
uh, publishers kind of upset at the same time. It's really sort of just like a chance to maybe negotiate a tiny bit usually with
one of the platforms or get them to do some kind of pr movement that
you know, in many cases is very unhelpful or um et cetera
And the same thing could be said for, for uh regulations and things like that that we've seen in um uh implemented and things like
that across GDPR C CPA. Um And, but you are seeing now
Google is, you know, starting to do things like I, I saw this week
Google is gonna share um limited search partner site placement info with advertisers
So, um this is basically Google offering limited information on certain ad placements across its search partner network in response to
the ytics report, which um kind of highlighted a little bit about
you know, constant problem in advertising, knowing exactly, you know, where your ad spend is going
Um Is this just one of the it, do we expect things to shift in terms of what kind of transparency
What sort of, um you know, the way that business has been done in both programmatic and
and just general digital advertising over the last decade. Is this basically
is this space ever going to get cleaned up? I'm very cynical on this topic
As is anybody that works in the space? I, I've found and I think it's for a good reason
It's because these things sort of, um, have a very top level surface
sort of like discussion that underneath the surface nothing is changing. Um Do you think that that continues or is that something that like you're
optimistic about? Um I mean, I, I think I'm actually a little bit optimistic
Uh The changes around uh you know, with sellers, Jason as a tax
I think it provided a little bit more transparency. Um And, but if you just back away from all the technicalities of it
I think hopefully everybody can agree that when an advertiser is buying an ad
they should be able to know where that ad was. Um And
and like, have some insight into that. I, I think if you think about any other advertising medium
if you're buying a billboard, you're like, oh, it's here and we think there's this many cars that go by it and yes
they're real cars, you know, and so I think the basics of
of trying to clean up and be more transparent, just make sense for everyone um except for the bad actors
So I think over time they'll try to figure it out, I think a common misconception with the space is that there's so many parties
Um And that are doing different things. I I think they exist because they mostly add value
Um And people like to think like, oh we don't need that. Um But if you're an advertiser and you're trying to reach a specific
target audience, um you might not have the data or the data layer to apply to that to the general web to be able to
reach that audience. And company X might have that data available and they charge a fee for it
So there's a lot of companies that have that are adding value and that's really why they exist
I don't think there's too many uh major players out there that are um existing and growing because they're not adding value
So yeah, there was kind of a a come to come to Jesus moment a couple and might be longer than a couple of years
ago now where a lot of those businesses sort of kind of get filtered out of the space a little bit more
So, III I do think that there's been that the clean up and yet that perception still persists
II, I do wonder a little bit about sort of w what that ecosystem looks like with a stronger or weak
weaker Google. Do you think it looks a lot different in both instances or is it maybe just different
not necessarily better or worse? Um yeah, probably just different. I think
I think Google will say the right things, but then they obviously have to protect their
their current position. So, you know, case in point here is in Google ad manager
there's uh advertiser disclosures so that publishers can see which advertisers run on their site
Uh That's an opt in. So if you're tied into the exchange
you can opt in. Do you want to share which advertiser purchased the inventory or not
So most parties opt in and that information is available, one notable party opts out of sharing advertiser information and that's Google
Um And you know that that's a really good example of like
they, they, hey, we're going to build the infrastructure so that it's transparent and visible yet we're not going to share that information because I
suppose they're scared some people will steal their advertiser list. I don't know what it is
But um it's, it's a good example of like probably two parts of the company uh not communicating and not being on the same page
Yeah. And II, I do think that that's something that um our
our audience is fairly aware of that, you know, um it is relates to just about every interaction with Google
There's, yeah, it's a love hate relationship in many ways because, yeah
you depend on them for many things and oftentimes things are not always uh executed the way that they're sort of um uh promoted
right. Right. Um Yeah, bidding is the same um header, bidders and
and third parties provide a transparent bid for inventory. Um and you can use whatever ad server you want
Um Google has no method to receive what they're actually bidding on inventory
Yeah, and I think that, you know, advertising is something that is probably for in many respects
Um you know, one of the publishers least concerns heading into 2024 in terms of
I don't think that there's an expectation that digital advertising or that ecosystem is going to change a lot uh in the near term
Um But one of the things that I would say, maybe, and maybe I'm wrong about this
I've said it a couple of times and I, uh my perception, at least from publishers is that they felt the same way
which is in January, it was, there was a little bit of apprehension and fear about what does generative A I um you know
and, and things like that mean for the space, what is the exi existential threat of
And I, and in January it wasn't even doing this near as good as it can now
but producing content. Um And to what degree, you know, is, are we going to live in a robot world where robots write all the
content and then maybe read for us. Um you know, that you
you think about sort of like the, the sky is falling scenarios that uh many could have imagined in January versus I would say
like, the much more milder, sort of like, ok, now that we've had a chance to see even the full capabilities so far of some
of these things, maybe it's not, the sky is falling. Um, where do you think we land now and then
you know, is there a reason for apprehension? Is there reason for optimism
you know, looking at, sort of, yeah, the best we can looking into the future
Yeah. So I think there's two sides, both of which are scary. So one is
does do chat bots or whatever that morphs into replace search. Um
and then there's the side of a I producing content. So I think it's kind of scary
Um, on both sides. Um, I think again, the change on both of those fronts will be slow
Um, and that, you know, most people are not replacing their search activity with chat bots today
Um, but I do think that that will be like the transition to the phones or
or the internet where over the next several years it's, you know
it's gonna be 1% of people in 2024. It's gonna be 5% of people in 2025
It's gonna be 20% of people in 2026 or whatever that's gonna look like
And, uh, so that's gonna constantly eat away at search traffic. Um
and, and again, that's just because it's better it's better at it
It's more efficient. Uh, it can learn, learn about you over time
Um, it, it writes better for me if it knows what I want to write
I found that when I dictate things to chat G BT that it
it writes, if I had a core competency, I used to always tell people it's writing
I, I feel like I'm good at it and if I dictate exactly what I want to write
like, like voice into one of the things, it will write an article that I think is better than the one that I would have
wrote because it, it makes me more, it makes my economy of words better
it edits it. Um And I wonder a little bit about that's it getting the completeness of my thoughts and ideas
which I, I don't really feel negatively about that because I'm actually like
it made me sort the core thing that I want to do is not right. It's to produce content
So I'm, I'm ok with that. It's, it's the part where the part that I guess is gives me apprehension is the idea that it
wouldn't need me fully for that. Um But it does seem like we are quite a bit away from that
I mean, you know, I think the last story we have for today is about Chat G BT getting worse
So, you know, it does kind of feel like maybe I'm gonna be needed for a while
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it's, it's like all, all tech transitions where um tools start out being helpful
and useful in making things more efficient and then get more and more automation um comes in later on
But it also creates a lot of opportunities that, that we're not thinking about
Um So yes, as far as the quality of the content that it produces
I think it's um yeah, it's as good as the input, but there's also changes that are coming to that
Um One of the things that our radio team is working on right now is um building out virtual writers and personas
and training um A I models on that, that writer or whether real or not um historically
So that'll include like, here's my life, you know, background, a little bit of a bio
here's a bunch of my writing samples from the past. Here's topics that I'm and
and kind of providing building a persona uh for which the A I can from which the A I can like draw inferences
Um So I think things, opinions on whether or not birds are real
Yeah, things like that. Um Yeah, so, so I think that will get the quality of the output from that is much
much better than using kind of a vanilla uh G BT. Um And uh with custom G BT s
you can train them to, to kind of like mimic um real people
So So, yeah, I think, I think again, we're at the first iphone stage and
um, what it looks like in a couple of years is going to be miles ahead of where it is now
Um, I know Sam Alden thinks that if you got enough money they
they'd have, um, general intelligence in 2024. So I think that could be a pretty big paradigm shift as
well. So, yeah, I think one of the things that, um you know
the the question mark for that and, and the impact of something like that
you know, it kind of comes back to the thing you mentioned earlier, which is like
you know, the capabilities versus the inputs where I think, you know
uh probably six months ago, I was really disappointed with anything that I saw that basically turned a static image into a video um or
animated something like that. It was just very, you're like, I'm not using this
like it's a nice trick but it's not usable yesterday. I looked at
you know, three or four different things that I was like, wow, that's, that's incredible
So the capability seem to be, you know, almost as good as you could ever imagine
seemed to be on the table in terms of what's possible. But the question mark really is
you know, the inputs right now, the inputs need to continue to be about the same as they were um early this year
maybe slightly worse. But, like, you have more sort of like guidance on it
Um, and I don't know if that will shift but generative. Um
or I, I guess general intelligence potentially would shift that. Yeah, I think so
But I, I think, um, I think it isn't going to replace
you know, like writing, for example, I don't think it's going to completely replace human
um, human writing uh, anytime soon. But I think it's a tool that there's going to be two camps and one camp is going to
say, no, no, I'm not using that. Um I'm going to keep doing it the old way and there's going to be a group that
says this is how I become more efficient. Um And, you know
just with something like article writing, it's a lot easier to start with
um either the points or the outline or even uh a completed article that you're editing than to start from scratch
Um And that, you know, you can probably increase your output by 34 or five times and still have the same level of quality that
you had before. Um And I think that's how it's going to progress is that people are going to figure out how to
how to use it in ways like that or updating content if you're a large publisher and you've got 10,000 articles and helpful content update
comes out and they want fresh updates. How do you tackle that? How do you how do you update 10,000 articles
Um think things like that where you can feed them in and say
hey, you know, let's a, I can figure out what we should update with if you don't
if you still want to write it yourself, like here's the missing information or it can actually go and provide updates to that content
So I think there's going to be an evolution of how to improve workflows um for publishers over the next year or two
And obviously the capabilities are going to change. So, yeah, and I think we're talking a lot about
you know, the progress and things like that, that we've seen and really, you know, if you think about the beginning of the year
it's, it's easy to sort of see things now and go well. Chat G BT was at the start of this year and now we
have all this, it's been a fast year because it was, I mean
I was impressed a couple of years ago, just the sandbox that open A I had
but you sort of had to very specifically, it worked almost as good as Chat G BT
but you just had to very hyper focus and set things up so that it would give you sort of the response that you were
expecting it to give you. Um But you know, now you've got something that's quite a bit better
but there's been a lot of discussion I, I would say this is a topic that I got from you
um, maybe six months ago. But it's something that's in the realm
especially in Seo right now, which is C GP T, getting worse question mark
And I think there's enough conjecture out there to assume that there's something that they've been trying to do to make
I'm guessing, scale the way that it's, uh, distributed or, um, yeah
I, this is a topic, you know, more about than me. But, um, yeah
the question is, you know, are they trying to maybe break it up into smaller models and make it smaller
And that seems to be a real trend going into 2024 is these smaller
more efficient, cost effective models because it's, takes a lot of power
uh, chips are super expensive and hard to find. Um, and so I think everybody's trying to figure out like
you know, while the hardware catches up, is there a better, you know
uh, technical approach? And if open A is current chat G BT is any indication of that
Maybe not. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah, I th I think the, these models are really expensive to train and
really expensive to run. Um, so I think they're trying to find ways to scale
Um, yeah, and one of the ways is to make specialized models
Um, and then I assume that that's the, the way that it's gonna go long term
I don't think we're gonna have this like monolithic model that knows everything and does everything
Um I think you're gonna end up with layered models. So you'll have this one is medical and this one is about
you know, sports and then you ask a question about uh football
knee injury. Um You want both. So I think there's going to have to be like a control layer on top of that that says
OK, wait a minute, this is about sports and medical, let's ask and combine and figure out a way to do that
I, I think that's probably where they're trying to go um with these models
Um And it'll be a lot faster and then when you can specialize a model
you can probably increase the quality of information in it as well. You can say
hey, I'm building a medical model. I'm not just gonna take any random website off the internet
I'm gonna like have AAA closed or, or a more vetted information source to train that model on
So you can probably increase the quality as well. So I, I think that's probably where it'll go
Um But it'll be interesting to see. And as far as the quality of GP T there's two theories on there
One is that they're trying to do this on the behind the scenes
Um And that's changing the results, which might be the case. Um And then the other is that there's just a thing called drift in
in A I models which is, um, as people are playing around with it
it just kind of gets off path and, and goes, and then when they release a new one
you kind of see it come back on where, where you expect it and it drifts over time again
Um, so with the, the next, uh, J BT four version that's coming out
which adds the larger context, I think you might see. Oh, that got released
Oh, it's good again. Yeah. And then six weeks later everybody's going
is it getting worse? Um So if we see that, then I think they probably just have a case of drift going on
Interesting. Yeah, I could see a case for both. Um what you mentioned earlier about the layers
Um Anybody that's used chat G TS uh build your own GP T function
Uh the G BT builder a lot of times if you, if you prompt it, say, hey
what am I missing from this model that might make it more helpful in
you know, XY or Z, it'll list off what seems to be something similar to those layers where it's like you would like it to
be able to parse code inputs. Would you like me to add that
Yeah, do that. Um It seems to have sort of like maybe those models behind the scenes or something like that
Um And so I, I guess, you know, going into 2024 what impact do you think that A I is likely to have this year
or this coming year depending on when Producer Manny releases this. I think so
It'll still be 2023. Um, he, he's not in yet. So it will be
um, uh, what, what types of things can we expect maybe to
to change or to expect from it this year or next year that we didn't have in this past year
Um, I don't know, is that a good answer? I think, um
I think it's really difficult to keep up with the, the rate of change on this
Um, and I think that's going to be quicker in 2024 than 2023
Um I think you're going to see more and more developments in
I mean, just the quality of the output, um, the types of inputs and outputs that can happen
Um You'll see, you know, probably video input, um, go into a lot of the main models
Um, and that's just going to cause chaos. Um, because the amount of content that's being produced right now
is already completely destroying systems. So, you know, one of my favorite examples is a wordpress plug in so to get it approved for the
store, I guess. Um, I don't know, it's manually reviewed by someone
Um, last I heard it was like eight months and the reason for that is I
I actually posted on Twitter yesterday. Somebody's asking how can I do something on wordpress and I just asked Chad G BT
it was wrote a plug in for it. It can write plugins. So, so everybody's writing plugins and submitting them and they're still using people
to try to review them. And so that's an example of just the flood of content
And um in that case, code that's going to hit and then all these other systems that have to deal with that are going to
break and that's going to include um Google search. Um just the quantity of content that's going to be produced and they have to index
it, figure out what the highest quality stuff is and, and all of that
Um I mean, I wouldn't, I wouldn't want to be having to solve that problem
So it does speak to the, I don't know, aspect of it too when you really think about the cascading effect that something has on
something else. You think about the way that mobile impacted so many other things um that weren't predictable in those respective spaces or companies
Yeah, and I, I'd never really thought about the wordpress uh manual review thing
but as soon as you brought it up, I remembered that, yeah, they still have people manually look at those
There's got to be a flood of it. So then wordpress traditionally open source project
very, very slow moving, talking like 10 year road maps and stuff
So it's been aging but aging fairly gracefully. Um It might be old but it's
it's still been effective, something like that. Do you, you know, does wordpress ultimately say
hey, we need to fix our processes and, and change something fundamentally
which is not necessarily like their mo um but if they don't
it's not really sustainable. And then what are the, what are the large reaching ramifications of that
You know? Yeah, because uh you know, just from an exo perspective
we're, we're making uh a plug in that's meant for, you know, tens of thousands of users and we have to wait a year to
get that approved that meanwhile, somebody else just whipped something up this morning that they want to use on their own site and they also
submitted it. Um So how do you, how do you filter those
How do you prioritize, how do you automate that process? I don't know what they're going to do with that
Um My mind they should automate the reviews but then that can be exploited as well
I guess. Um So yeah, it's, it's just an example. And um yeah
I think the, the example you brought up there of the phone when it came out and how it changed everything
I, I don't think that when the iphone launched, there were executives of a flashlight company sitting there going over screwed
and guess what? Flashlight companies were in big trouble because everybody carries one around in their pocket
Now the cameras. So, so I think that's where we're at is
we don't quite know everything that's going to affect. Um, but yeah
there's going to be a flood of content. Um, it's going to, uh all of this A I stuff is going to make the election
a disaster. You're gonna have candidates saying things in video that they didn't actually say
And um, yeah, just a little bit of chaos. It's that perfect timing on the cusp of something where it's like we haven't been inoculated
quite yet to everything that's a, that's out there and available as a populist
Um You know, one of the things I always tell our listeners and I think it's appropriate for uh how we would end the show
is I, I tell our listeners, like, don't worry because by listening to the show
you're already on this end, I would say of the spectrum of
of folks in your space that are plugged in trying to stay on top of whatever is either cutting edge or just very engaged in
sort of like which way things are moving and educating themselves. Um But outside of listening to the show
which offers, you know, just by being a listener, you know, that offers zero practical advice
What, what practical advice would you give um to, to those listening that are publishers on how to either protect themselves or how to um
just approach sort of like, um all the things that are headed their way
Um I mean, first of all, I I think a lot of publishers I speak with
There's, there's a sense of anxiety um around things. Um The main point there is this change
is happening and you're, you're in the middle of it and you're, you're the one that's
you know, on the cutting edge. Um But if you head out to your local store
go to, go to your local Walmart and just stop people and ask them what they think about
um, chat G BT and A I and everything else. And what you realize is that you're living in a bubble
um that is really focused on this because it's important to, to
you know, you and your business. Um But the general population is not that up on it yet
Um So it's going to be slow, you're gonna have time to make a transition and that's the practical
that's where the practical part comes in is embrace it. I, I think there's a sense of this might replace something
that I do. Therefore, I'm not going to use it. I'm going to put my head in the sand and pretend it doesn't exist
Um And, and what I would encourage everyone to do is just go out there and use these new tools
Um Figure out how you can use them in your job every day to make your life easier because if you don't
you're going to fall behind if you're only manually uh writing your content one by one
without the help of A I, if you're only making your videos one by one
um you're going to fall behind and you're going to be way less efficient than your competitors
So, um so yeah, just embrace them, work them in your work flows with in whatever way you're comfortable
Um And like what I always tell everybody at EO is like
turn yourself into a superhuman. Um like using these tools, you can get 35 times as much done by effectively using these tools than if
you didn't. Um And if you just pretend that they don't exist
that you, you're not doing yourself any favors. So, and if nothing else, you can just
you know, when you said superhuman, I was like, oh yeah, you could just generate a picture of yourself as a superhero
hang it on your own, feel a lot better about it. Exactly. Every morning. Yeah, I've seen some pretty good ones out there that man
the image stuff has gotten so much better too, by the way. Right? Yeah, it's incredible
Um But I wanted to thank you again for, for joining us
Um It's nice to trap you in a room and get your thoughts on all these things. I'd bug you all the time about them
But I know that this is probably questions that you get all the time from uh various folks
And so I know that there are topics that you would go over quite a bit, but it's a fascinating time and it's interesting to
get your, your thoughts on all of it. Um, while I've got you on, on camera
I'm gonna say, you know, you're always welcome on the show. Can we have you on again
Uh, yeah. Yeah. Sure. I, I figured I'd get it on tape
Um, maybe, maybe for 2024 2025. There we go. We'll have an A ID by then
But yeah, it's a, it's a very exciting time. I'm, I'm excited about it
Um More than scared, I think it's uh it's really cool publishing
There's always been change, but this is, this is kind of the um the big revolution or change moment that's
that's happening right now this year, next year. So I think it's uh I think it's fun
There's gonna be lots of opportunities. Yeah, I, I agree. I, I would say my sentiment on it has definitely shifted and from more anxiety
to excitement uh throughout the year. And I think that that's, that's probably our audience as well
And um for all of you listening, we want to thank you for listening in 2023 to the Publisher Lab
We've almost been back a full year now. And if you want to catch up on any of the previous episodes
you can go to the Publisher lab.org and you can leave us a comment or ask us a question
We love those. We use them to make the show better. We like to practice what we preach
So if you have an opportunity to go on there and you have just a question or any kind of feedback
leave it there. And pretty much the next week, Producer Manny here has rolled that in whether that's from the decor in the background to
um yeah, the type types of things that we talk about. So I want to thank Dune again for joining us and we'll catch you
next time on the Publisher Lab. Thanks