Hello and welcome everyone back to another episode of the Publisher Lab
I'm Tyler Bishop and not a solo episode today because I have a special guest
someone that I've worked with for a very, very long time. Someone that actually has more years in the publishing industry than myself
And that is my good friend, Piper LaFrono. Piper, welcome to the podcast
Hello everyone. So I found it odd because we were talking before and you've actually never been on
the show before, which is wild to me. I know. This is my first podcast ever
So just to give everybody a little bit of background, you know, maybe tell people a
little bit about sort of your experience in this space. I know other listeners would probably be delighted to hear that you've worked with
I mean, I have no idea, but how many publishers do you think over the years
Oh yeah. Probably, probably thousands. Yeah. Because it'll be, this is in October will be 10 years at EZOIC
Wow. Yeah. A decade. A decade. Yeah. Which is a decade in the space
And when I came on board was when we just started offering EZOIC as a service
And so I came on as one of the first salespeople working with publishers
getting them on boarded to EZOIC back in the day, way out past the day
Yeah. And actually we still work with some of the sites that I brought on back then
which is really cool to see. I know. And it's a decade in any technology industry, especially like over the last
decade, there's been so much change and stuff. I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone working on, you know, almost any
platform for that long, much less one in the publishing space. Before we get into kind of like the news of the day, I'm curious, what are the
biggest changes you've seen over the last maybe 10 years or so that stick out to
you and how things are different now than they were back when EZOIC was out
At EZOIC or in the space? I guess in the space, like what's different, what's changed for publishers
in terms of the ones that you see and sort of like what they're worried about
And I guess maybe what's changed just overall, but maybe the impact of that
Yeah, I would say I do think the distribution of content has changed a lot
So I remember at the very early days, 10 years ago, it was pretty much all
organic traffic. Publishers didn't have as much reach on social media platforms and just
different distribution channels. So I've seen that change a lot. And also now there's so many social media platforms and publishers can drive a
business from a single one. So that's been something that's changed a lot
That was kind of big, like maybe 10 years ago. Or was that around the time you saw Facebook started really shooting the
reach in the head? It was like, I would say like 2015, 2016 was when we saw like a huge influx of
Facebook pages and publishers driving content that way. That's been one of the biggest changes, I think
It's hard to like think back over 10 years and try and remember what it was like
back then. Yeah. And then I just think like at Ego specifically, like we've just, the
technology has improved so much. And I think it's just gotten so much easier for publishers
And this is not just at Ego, it's anywhere. I think it's gotten easier for publishers to access different technologies to help
them build their business. It's definitely, technology has become more available and accessible
And I think things like cloud and lightweight technologies and things like that have
made the ability for one person to run and do a lot of things that, I mean, in
many cases, it wasn't even a matter of expertise. It's like a matter of access to servers or computers in the cloud or whatever
But I think with that, you know, like ability, it sort of puts this burden on
publishers to know and understand a lot of these things. Because if somebody will, and you know, that person is theoretically a competitor
somebody else is driving, creating content with lower overhead if they have
expertise, you don't. So, is it just getting better or worse? I would say, to be honest, I would say it's getting worse
The most recent example I have of this is Corel Vitals. They're so difficult to improve
And if you're not a developer and don't understand how to go in and make changes
to the code, you're kind of at a loss and you need help with it
And so we expect publishers who are supposed to be experts in their niche
writing great content, to now be developers, to be SEO experts, to understand
monetization, to do all these things. And so they have to wear a lot of hats
And I do think things like that put the burden on publishers to either learn it
themselves, outsource it, which is expensive, or find technology partners that can help
Yeah, and I agree with you. And I think that, you know, without listening to this podcast, you know, sort
of the distraction that you can become. But at the same time, I think, you know, it is one of those things where, you know
like I said before, where you know that somebody out there has the skill set to
work on that and maybe it's even easy for them. And, you know, like to try to then work backwards, become an expert on that
And then, you know, that person may have built something from scratch that's
already optimal for that. And then, you know, to try to fact engineer whatever you've got
It's much harder to do that than it is to, you know, start from the right sort of
foundation from the beginning. And for a lot of publishers, I would say, like, you know, I remember when Mobile
First and Mobile Selling was a thing, you know. And so it's not even a matter of, you know, starting with the right foundation
These things weren't prerequisites whenever most publishers that, you know, we worked with over the years started
So, yeah, I definitely feel that burden for publishers that are trying to learn
these things. And Mobile First is a great example because, you know, I've worked with
publishers who started their website at the beginning of the Internet and they
posted content for a friend and back then mobile wasn't a thing. And now they're expected, well, when it was Mobile First and Mobile Friendly, to
have a mobile friendly website after having a website for years and years and
years that wasn't mobile friendly. And they might have the best content, but they don't know how to convert it into a
mobile site. And so, yeah, I think sometimes the technology is a burden, as you said, but
also it I think it does allow publishers with more resources. So things like T-Glamorous or, you know, media companies that aggregate lots of
sites to have more reach than the publishers, the independent publishers who
have the best content. Yeah, it's like Catch-22 and it's a double-edged sword, whatever the
montagne you like. It's one of those things where the larger publishers, it's a risk to them as well
because, you know, they've always had the resources to sort of outcompete independent
publishers. But now, because of the resources available and the technology that are out
there, you know, they can get disrupted by somebody that's much smaller with lower
overhead and that runs a better business. And so they have to adapt as well
So there is this sort of balance. And I think the one thing that is sort of like encouraging and I think magical about
the publishing space is that the ecosystem that has provided an avenue for
all to succeed in one form or fashion. And yeah, I think that's why, you know, one of the things that I think has made this
show popular is that we talk about the topics that are sort of like emerging each
week. And it really is fascinating how quickly things in this space change
Speaking of change, there's been some robust social media changes here over the last
week or so. So as of Sunday and Monday morning, it was final
Twitter has essentially completely rebranded Twitter. I mean, I think ultimately, you know, maybe even calling it Twitter won't be
appropriate, but it's renaming itself as X, which is Elon sort of like, you know
overlying brand that he's sort of had out there for a minute. But Twitter is going to take on this X brand and they've gotten rid of the bird
I think it's Elon's subtle way of telling us that maybe, you know, birds aren't real
And it's just a subtle way of him letting us know. But, you know, what do you say about the Twitter brand
I think there's a lot of things about this from a marketer's perspective I look at and I
find a little bit puzzling. But at the same time, I think I often maybe get it
So I guess what's your take on the Twitter rebrand to X
I don't know if I understand all of Elon Musk's decisions. I don't know that Elon does
I don't think Elon does. So I don't read into it that much
I don't I don't try to understand. From a marketer's standpoint, you think
Well, I do think that there is some merit to it. You know, the publishers on this podcast are like, the redirects, CSEO
There is, I think, an element of that that probably was not thought through, at least by
Elon, probably. And then I think this idea of a super app, which I think is the goal of
the X thing, is I've heard him talk about it before, where he imagines it being like a lot
of the apps in China where you have your social media. It's like a PayPal, Twitter, you know, Amazon and, you know, like a Square payment or
just it's like an all in one app. Like almost kind of like Apple Pay, if Apple also ran Twitter and Amazon or something like
that. And I mean, I don't see how in the United States you're ever going to have
something like that that is going to be allowed by regulators. Well, also, I just think that I have a hard time understanding the super app
And I know that, you know, in China and some Asian countries, they're very popular
But. And also committed. Right, right. But for me, when I think about the way that I use different apps, I have a
different intention. Yeah. And so I have a hard time wrapping my head around going to one app to do
everything. I mean, for somebody that has been unable to log into their Twitter for over
three to four months, like, thank God, you know, I'd be trying to take money out of
my ATM. I'm kind of with you there. I do appreciate the synergy of technology work together
So like all of my hardware is Apple and the OS and the systems and the apps that I have
They all work very seamlessly together. You can say the same thing about like an office suite, whether you use the Google
Workspace or Microsoft Office, you know, you generally want to use all of the
technologies in that suite. It was like picking and choosing best of breeds and different systems and platforms to
get it to work well together. And so I do see a benefit there
But I also sort of look at sort of like each of these things is distinctly separate where
you do have to have different tools where, you know, like from a work standpoint, like I
wouldn't want to be forced to use, you know, like Sketch or something like that, you
know, on all my Apple devices. I'd rather use Adobe. And, yeah, I think people will always find that sort of like balance between like best
of breed and then like industry or system specific software. So I don't know that this rebrand is going to have a huge effect
I know a lot of people have talked about problems like Mastodon and maybe the other
ones like there's like a dust or particle or something like that. It sounds like dirt in the air
I can't remember. Probably getting it wrong. But, yeah, there's been a handful of those
I always find that anything that is like that where people are like, oh, everybody's
getting on this one. I don't see it, but I'm notoriously bad at predicting social media
So what do you think? Have you tried out any of these other like Twitter alternative threads
I downloaded threads this morning before the podcast. I have done, but I have not set up an account
OK, yeah. And it imports all your Instagram users who immediately have followers and are
following people. So I've played with that a little bit, to be honest, personally, and take a step back
from social media. Helping? But, yeah, I think with the rebranding, my biggest concern with his decision is I feel
like when he took over Twitter, a lot of the users weren't optimistic about the future
And I wonder if rebranding Twitter is now going to create more longtime users who no
longer see a future there and move to other platforms. I mean, I'm a 14 year account holder that cannot log in
I could, but they're going to lock me as a customer without proof
But I mean, I would love to not be locked. Yeah, so I don't I don't know
I like I actually listened to another podcast about, you know, what's been happening on
Twitter recently and the limiting that they're doing on the number of tweets that people
can access. Obviously, the blue verification checkmarks that you can pay for now, which
has lost its credibility. Doesn't seem like Twitter's in a good financial standing
And now that it just seems like a lot is happening over there. Yeah. I mean, I will say that's one area where I think a lot of platforms get it wrong
because I think as a wins has been like a flaw for a long time in media and that if
a business model that has ads at least is a mainstay centerpiece, the chances of you
succeeding long term and just being a viable business are really strong. Those that always try to either eliminate or rely on other forms of revenue is the
primary. You know, like the future is pretty murky there and the track record of pretty
much every business in that space is not great. I mean, you can think of, you know, maybe one exception in almost every category where
it kind of works. HBO, for example, kind of works, but there are definitely the exception
that proves the rule. And I think with something like Twitter, the thing that could be a conduit is probably
in that category for me, where I do think that they've done something or Elon has done
something that may just be him. And so that may not be something that scales
But, you know, Twitter is the conversation. You know, that's always the advantage that it's had
Like threads, I think, is a failure waiting to happen. And that, you know, like Twitter is Twitter because that is where the conversation goes
I don't follow my friends necessarily on Twitter. I go there to get information you access
It's kind of like the conversation of what's going on, on topics, the world, etc
Threads is my friends and I already have social media for that
Yeah. I mean, that's what's left my whole life. Super not working for me because I have different intent with different platforms
So Twitter, same thing. Like I follow thought leaders, people in the industry, news, that type of thing
Instagram is more friends, family, maybe some influencers. Do I want to hear their innermost thoughts on threads
Not necessarily. So the intent is different for both of those. I mean, I'm going to when I logged into Threads this morning, it was mostly just
repost from what was posted on Instagram. That's how it's used right now
Maybe a few thoughts in there. None of my friends are really using it
I also don't know if they use Twitter, though, because I don't follow them on Twitter. Yeah, I mean, that is another thing, too, where I would say almost all the people in
my life that I have regular contact with have an Instagram or like TikTok or Snapchat
or something like that, but they don't necessarily have Twitter because they don't
use it or they're just not active on it. It's not something they're interested in
Yeah, so I agree with you there. And I think that, yeah, I'm not sure that Threads, if you're a publisher out there, is
worth a huge investment of time and resources in terms of exploring it as a track
avenue yet. I mean, definitely. I'm a fan of experimenting with everything, but I'd say like I'd be weary of a pot of
gold at the end of that rainbow right now. And speaking of weary of something, have you heard of this Karlie Russell story
This is something in particular that I sent ahead of time because it's something that I
wanted to talk about and it was all over social media, speaking of social media, last weekend
Yeah, well, I am also a true crime podcast listener, devout listener
So I had heard about it, not a full episode on it, but people talking about it when it
happened. And then I read the article that you shared yesterday and it's pretty wild
Yeah, so for our listeners that are unfamiliar with what we're talking about, Karlie Russell
was a young black woman that I believe she's a college student, right
And so she had called 911. There's a brief synopsis of the story, I won't get too far into it, just gives everybody
context. She pulls over on the side of the road and called 911 because she comes and she
saw a toddler walking alongside the road. A busy highway. A busy highway, yeah
And so she pulls over, I guess she was on the phone with someone when all of a sudden
like she just stopped responding to the person they were in. And when the police got there, there was no toddler
The car was there. I think her phone might have actually been there as well
I can't remember. And it kind of blew up on social media
There's this missing person, right? And for 48 hours, there was a ghost on me, I think, that raised $42,000 set up in that
time period. And then the next I heard about it was that she showed up magically back at
her parents' house 48 hours later. And like at the time, the story was just like and details still haven't emerged yet on
what happened. And then I haven't got to read a lot of the in-between, but I guess in
the in-between, she claimed to have been kidnapped by a trucker. And it was kind of a bizarre story, but she had escaped somehow
And ultimately, here over the last couple of days, she admitted that it was a hoax and
she didn't mean to harm anybody or anything like that. But the FBI, they dug in even deeper than they probably needed to
But they found on her phone like how to fake a kidnapping. Oh, I know
How to make money off of an Amber Alert was one, I think she had searched
Yeah. Yeah. Money off an Amber Alert. And then they also had things in there too, where it's like how to steal money out of a
register. And I guess she looked up a particular type of register that she had at the job
that she had or something like that. So I feel like that's when you're just feeling like, well, we're just throwing this one out
there to get a job. But the thing that I find really interesting about it is just you think about the amount
of content that this story produced at every level, you know, everything from like
you don't know what's happening, it's a kidnapping. But somehow, just like anything that has like mainstream appeal, you know, the sort of
identity politics angles have also come out in this. And, you know, I have to admit, like I read a bunch of them and it is a part of my soul
that hurts when I read the ones that are sort of like, you know, they hone in on the fact
that she's a black female. And then you'll find like ones where it's like, even though it was a hoax, like she's
a supporter. And then these other ones that are like, you know, this is, you know, this
is a great example of the media blowing up the story just because of this or that
And it just you hate to see that kind of stuff because it's just like, oh, it's so
junk food and polarizing and negative. But it gets views and it gets a lot of attention
And I think that that's something that, you know, as a publisher, the struggle is
always like, you know. What do you write about, you know? And if you're a publisher and you maybe have like a whole website on kidnapping
there's probably at least one out there, you know, you might not want to write about
something like that, you know. But by driving an agenda to politics, that does produce views
So I guess, you know, one of the things that I think that web publishers struggle with
that YouTubers get right is that YouTubers from day one lean into the things that
drive an audience because they're directly connected to it. Like I started getting lots of views
I see the comments. So I start making content for my for my audience
Publishers, on the other hand, they're kind of one step removed because so many of the traffic from Google, I think they they're not maybe as in tune with the data
And so it does beg the question, when the data tells you you should write about, you
know, an identity politics angle on a topical news story, you do have a decision to
make. And I find that interesting. Like, what what would you do
Oh, that's a hard question. I would encourage people to post extremist content
Not today. Google or YouTube, post an extremist podcast on anything that they, oh, definitely wouldn't
let an extremist podcast on. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. That's a hard one for me because it does it does get clicks
It does get views. I think YouTubers have tapped into that. Hitchhikers are very good at that
That's a that's a really hard question. I mean, I'm I'm a very fast driven person
Yeah. I like to fast. But I know that that's probably not as sexy as we need to that stuff
So I think finding the balance is important. What's interesting is with a YouTuber, for example, it's like they are the content in
many cases. So like if they have a take that is assigned, you know, like a particular
like persuasion of identity, you know, like you could expect them to then take on, you
know, that perspective and talking about their story and it would be appropriate for
their audience and they would probably be comfortable with that. But if you're a website that provides information or news or whatever, you know, it's
not a person, it's the product in this case. And they keep trying to provide information
But you do have like Slate or Vanity Fair or somebody like that that, you know, like
their brand is sort of like they have a curtain like lean to the types of information, how
they, you know, like write about it. And there is a balance there to be had
But for publishers that are, you know, maybe more traditional information based, you
know, like there's opportunities in topical news. But like how do you, you know, like how do you approach that with something that actually
has an angle for your audience that like maybe doesn't separate them because maybe your
audience is split. Yeah, or you can have a diverse audience. You bring up a really good point
Like I feel like YouTubers, TikTokers, influencers, they have a persona and their
readers, viewers, users are belong to that persona and expect that type of content with
the ideas that they've heard previously. Whereas, you know, for most of our publishers, I'm assuming, you know, they have this
diverse audience from all over. And so you don't want to be, you know, too extremist one side or the other or, you know
tapping into click baity headlines because then you might lose part of your readers
Yeah. And I think the balance to be had is probably going to be different for, you know
like I know a listener base is probably like all over the map in terms of the content that
you produce. But, you know, I think that like Bud Light probably brings us a really
good example of like every type of person that drinks beer, probably you can think of
like that category person, probably at least some percentage drinks Bud Light
Right. And so when Bud Light had the, the thing, like what was the influence of the
thing? Something to do with the name, right? Yeah. I can't remember the name
I think it was Joe and Delaney or something like that. I probably got that wrong. So listeners, just assume I got it wrong
But when they started working with that, that influencer, there was like a huge pushback
from a good contingent of their, of their beer drinkers. And, you know, I think you've seen with brands over time, they almost always recover from
any kind of boycott or backlash or whatever. But the thing was, is that it was drawing to their audience for them for whatever reason
that there was this disconnect between sort of like what they thought they were and then
something that they saw. And I think that's the that's the careful point that I think publishers that, you know
maybe want to take advantage of maybe new tools or data that tell them, like, these are
topics or these are subjects that you can get into your audience, you know, especially on
the Web. I don't know that they recover in the same way that like a major like retail
brand recovers, because I think content to a certain extent is a commodity
And if you burn somebody that maybe is, you know, a return visitor or something like
that, because they like they don't align with my values of belief, like they may truly
not ever want to read your content again because they may view it as biased or slanted
or trying to like. Trick their mind, don't try to fool me, don't try to get me with your magic booty
tricks and convince me that I think something that I don't. So how would you suggest that publishers tap into their audience and try and understand
who they are? What's the best way for them to do that? I really feel for publishers, actually, because of the Google paradox where you are one
step removed where you don't necessarily get that traffic from search results because
you know, like it's popular with an audience. Google decided it was popular or Google decided for the audience what they would see
And so like you're not getting that feedback into this service. I will say one of the ways that everybody can do it is by looking actually at their
data. So you can look at things like your writers, your topics, the subjects, the
categories and look at sort of like engagement metrics with it. So like, you know, length of time reading
If you have videos on the page, people watching the videos. What does that tell you about the content
If there's videos on a page and people aren't watching them for the most part, like what, you know, maybe what are your takeaways on that
And I think it's going to be different for every single site. There's no like broad based like this amount of time reading an article or this, you
know, whatever. I think you need to slice it up and look at all the information because you're you're
actually the best interpreter of your data. Like, what does that mean
If you have one writer that seems to always produce articles that are more popular and
more engaging and make more money, then like you could probably figure out what is
that writer doing that the others aren't. And maybe that tells you something about the content
Maybe it tells you something about the writing style. I don't know. But that's when I'm a big fan of that
Everybody can do. Yeah, I agree with you there. I think the data is really important
And, you know, I've worked with a lot of interpreters and I feel like people have a
tendency to look at or listen to the vocal minority to make decisions rather than
looking at the data. So, you know, someone comments on one article on your site and says, I absolutely
hate this. Let's not use that to make further content, just take a quick look and see
what's the engagement on that page. Are users reading the entire article
Are they staying? Is it producing revenue for your site? I think that's a much more holistic way of looking at things
But it's easy to, you know, that's an interaction that I think everyone enjoys
interactions with people and also probably has more, you know, more of an impact on
you than just looking at Google Analytics or big data analytics. But, yeah, I would I would just caution people to not use that to make decisions unless
you have, you know, if you have a very active forum or lots of comments back and forth
And I think that's the that's the benefit that, you know, YouTubers and Tik Tokers
have is there's so much interaction and engagement on every post. Yeah, back and forth, back and forth
And publishers don't get that. And it also allows you to be to ignore things easier as well
So like a publisher that maybe gets one comment on something and it's the only one
they got, you know, in a week or something, it's like you have a tendency to maybe like
overreact to that feedback. But on YouTube, you know, it's like YouTube comments are like they're hell on earth
So it's it's very easy to sort of ignore negative feedback there if it doesn't seem
to be like consistent. And yeah, I mean, I feel for publishers in that way
And I think that's something that Google has maybe like robs them of a little bit
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Azole account today. Speaking of our good friends at Google, our last story, and I've connected these two
because I because to me, they're very connected, although I don't know that everybody
else would maybe draw behind. But you talked a little bit about this a few weeks ago, but the Canadian government
followed suit with what you've seen in Australia and the EU has been trying to do
this a little bit as well. But forcing those social media companies or big tech platforms to pay publishers for
displaying their news in a newsfeed or a search result. And to me, it's incredibly misguided because it, you know, it aids the big tech
platforms because it gives them a strong negotiation position. Oh, we have to pay
Great. Well, that makes it pretty easy for us. Hey, New York Times, we want to pay you this to show your news results
And New York Times is like, no. And they're like, all right, cool. Washington Post
You know, and it's like, you know, well, now you've lost out on, you know, audience
and you've given, you know, Facebook and Google the ability to negotiate, you know
race to the bottom on price. And somebody will always be willing to put their content up and be paid for it
So to me, the law is, is per Clausen's beginning. But, you know, the whole negotiation position with with Google and Facebook
first, their response was, we're just going to pull out of these countries in
news. And then they started to maybe work with publishers a little bit
But now Google is testing an AI tool that actually writes news articles
So is this pet Nathan to these governments that have been trying to put them in check a
little bit? Maybe. I mean, the Google AI tool, I think their their goal was to, or like, offer to
sell it to people like the New York Times and the Washington Post, right
Sell the news articles to them to then display on Google. First of all, I didn't really understand the the decision making behind the Canadian
government. I feel like this has such a major impact on small local news publishers
who at this point, I would assume are driving most of their revenue from advertising from
users sent by Google to their website. And, you know, I don't think they're making that kind of money selling newspapers, you
know. So this just really hurts the those publishers. And I didn't really understand why the Canadian government didn't see what they were
doing and the impact that they could have on these smaller guys. Yeah. If you want to go back and listen to previous episodes, it's maybe the first time
you heard us talk about this topic. I went pretty deep on sort of like where I think regulation, especially like even the
most thoughtful and expert sort of led regulation in this space, is still potentially
more harmful than good. And in many cases, GDPR is a really good example where it's like it was legislation
designed to essentially tax the large tech companies, you know, as a response to users
giving them data, which became a product, which, you know, would have been GDP for, you
know, the EU had it been an actual product, not based on an American company
But the implementation of it actually just created a burden for independent publishers
of which are in many cases EU citizens and businesses. And big tech sort of like was the one that benefited because now they can define what
those regulations and how it's implemented looks like. So they just gave them the strongest foothold over, you know, European businesses
And I think this is not too much different. And your point about like Genesis is the name of the tool that Google has
And yeah, the idea of then selling these publishers the news to then show in the results
I mean, it's a great business. It just seems like an evil plot from a movie
And for sure. And I think they have to post their own news content, right
And then and then display it. Yeah. Search results. But they could have the New York Times post it and pay for it and then
show it. But it seems like such a mob move. I know it is
We're you know, like we're not going to come and mess up your store here. But like you could pay for protection
Yeah. Yeah. It does feel like a shakedown. I do wonder a little bit, too, about no publishers have concerns about AI writing
content. And I think, you know, listen to this podcast and I think largely, you know
I've understood that this is something they have to embrace to some degree and really
use it as a tool. And I think if you're not, you know, the thing that I encourage
constantly and I want to get this off before you finish here on AI
But the thing that I think about with this is you need to be experimenting with it as a
tool. And this needs to be something that you almost look at as like going to the gym
where it's like every week, every day you should be investing time and energy into
figuring out like how do I use this tool to help me make my publishing business better
Because if you're not, it's what we talked about in the beginning where somebody else
will. And this could be an exponential gap between you and other people in your space
and a year if you don't take it seriously. I agree 100 percent
And especially in publishing, I think there's a lot you can do with it. But I even tell my friends, my team, everyone, you should be spending minimum 20 to
30 minutes a day using it for whatever you need. Try different things. Because I do think it's fair to say it's going to change a lot of
things. And I think it can make everyone, especially publishers, 10, 20 times more
productive than they are right now, especially with content generation. You know, that's an easy one
But then, you know, getting into the code of websites, that's something that they can use it
for. So if you're not a developer and you need to make some changes on your website, you
now have a tool that can help you. That costs far less than out-versing it
It's like what we talked about earlier. You know, like this is sort of maybe the great equalizer
This sort of like balances the complexity and the freedom of, you know, like advanced
technology with sort of like the burden of needing to be able to wrangle it
You all of a sudden have this magical tool that can do it for you. And you and I were talking about this maybe last Friday
But one of the things that's interesting about it is, like, if you're using it from a
development angle and you don't traditionally have a development background, you don't
have to know everything to be able to have it do work for you
But you'll probably start learning a lot along the way and seeing how different things are
implemented. And that's one of the real benefits that I see in it as well
And I'm just curious, like, is there anything else that you found, whether it's like in
the workplace personally or anything like that, that you began using it for or anything
like that? So I lead the sales team and we do a lot of outreach to publishers
And, you know, one of the things that we want to know is what is this website about
And have we communicated with them in the past? You know, what is this
What's the publisher's persona? Do they have other websites? We've been able to take all that information into BTC and summarize who is this
publisher? What are they interested in? What is their site about? And that's been really interesting to now have sort of like a persona of the publisher
and goes back to the difference between publishers and YouTubers. It's easy to know who a YouTuber is because it's their face right there
It's harder to understand who a publisher is. But we have been able to get what we think is like a decent idea of who they are and
what's important to them. And then in my personal personal life, not so much, but really just I've been trying to
use it instead of Google for certain things to see how it asks and what sort of
responses I get. And especially now with the plugins to get real time information into BTC4, that's
been really interesting. Yeah, the plugins are a huge, huge help because sometimes you don't want a chatbot
response, but you need something done or you want something in particular
And the plugins give you a new feature set, really. Yeah. And then I think the coding aspect of it, I don't code, but I write, you know
MySQL queries. Yeah. It's very helpful. And so instead of all this, you know, trial and error, like, why isn't this query
working? I can now just ask it and it'll give me what I need and then I just plug it
in. Yeah. You could you really just need the back of a napkin sort of like understanding it
So many things like development and programming languages and you can do so much
with it. And that's pretty incredible. Personally, I found that it can make cocktail recipes, unique ones, some good, some bad
You're taste testing them all. Yeah, I will tell it to make like a certain type of cocktail
And I'll say to your knowledge, I want you to produce one that will be good, but has
never existed before. How awesome. Yeah. And when you see like carrots or something like that, you're like, nope, I don't
think so. I think the time saving aspect of it is something that if people aren't
using it, they're missing out on. And like you said, that gap is going to widen between the people who understand how
to use it and become so much more effective and progressive than the people who don't
So, for example, like I had to write a letter of req for someone and normally that
would take me probably 30 minutes to put everything together, you know, make sure it
says what I wanted to say. And I was able to just put bullet points in about like the main things, like main
attributes that a person had and the value that they brought to an organization and
then share a few like specific examples that I wanted it to include
So within three minutes, I had it. And it sounds, you know, I think I'm a decent writer, but it sounded so much more
eloquent than I would be able to put together on my own, which is a great thing
because this is going to the person's future employer. And it's, you know, it's this beautifully written letter of req
Yeah. And I have a model where I've edited all the blogs that I've written from
multiple different sources and stuff like that. And it writes like me better than me
And I think you have to like kind of get past a little bit of the ego that says like
you know, only I could do this or whatever, because it can. And I think you can definitely got it
But it does actually allow for more, I think, human like elements into things by
removing sort of like the the productive part, like, you know, writing something
like, you know, I love writing. I like writing. And I also think like we don't want to lose sort of like human
communication, but like actually typing out the pros and sort of like the act of
typing. That is not the part that's human. That's work. And I think that that's the thing that I would encourage our publishers
to probably spend time thinking about is trying to make your mind default to how do
I use AI to do this as opposed to how do I complete this work? And then AI may be secondary to that
How can I have AI speed up this thing and accomplish? Yeah, I think this would be this would resonate with publishers
I use it to create outlines for me. So I'll give it a topic and then say, you know, like, can you outline five main
points? Here's some ideas of what I want to point to you about. But if you're writing an article, having an outline of what to go in each section is
so helpful. If you want to go write it now, you don't have to spend the time doing
that. You can have it generated for you and then go do the part you enjoy, which
might be filling that in. Yeah. And even research as well, where it's like, you know, to really strengthen the
value of your content, being able to say I'm writing about this. Is there any other studies, metrics, you know, information that I can reference here
that would support sort of this point or whatever? I've used it a few times in creating presentations
One of the things I like to do is I like to like give an example of something that's
like a parallel, but like not industry related. So there was one here recently where I want to talk about where everybody missed
something and it was a disaster. And like I asked it, I was like, what are historical examples of something where
everybody missed something that was really important and it was a disaster
And it like spit out a whole bunch. The calendar exploding, you know, like different things like that
And it's like perfect. You know, otherwise it's just my mind cycling through historical events that I can
kind of maybe draw those parallels with. But it just, I'm like, oh, that's a good one
Yeah. That's a good one. It's so hopeful. Yeah. And I think that, yeah, I think everything in this space has changed a lot
But I think the fundamentals still remain the same. And I think that that's, you know, trying to separate what's new and then what's
fundamental is probably important for publishers. And I'd bet you probably agree with that
Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, in the 10 years I've been in this space, like content, they still change
And, you know, updating your content, having new content, relevant content that
is so important and it's easy to get stuck into the weeds of what's my LTV score
and how it answers that one for me. But at the end of the day, your time is better spent getting good content, maybe
with the help of AI, to your users because that's what they want. Yeah. And I think that that's a good line to draw between spending your time
wildly versus like, you know, maybe getting caught up in like the latest and
greatest new stuff is like, like you said, content is king. You know, like that's the picture of like what runs your business, what life
looks like. But thanks for joining us. Yeah, that was so fun
Yeah. Well, yeah, we'll have to have to. I'll be back soon
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that our listeners, if you have questions for Piper or just questions
in general for the show, go to publisherlab.org. Find me on Twitter and threads now
Yeah, that's awesome. You can easily find me on threads. And you can leave us questions or comments based on the show and any questions or
comments for Piper, we'll wrestle it back over here and we'll do another episode
and she can answer them directly. Any questions for the show, those are always great
Helps me make sure that we're producing and making the content that you guys
love. And you can find us on pretty much everywhere you find or listen to
podcasts. And if you have never checked out the show on YouTube, check it out
which reminds me, take a look. I've got the Travis Scott Air Trainers
Yeah. Yeah. These are these things are still durable. We have, I think, one publisher, but maybe a contingent of publishers that always
want to know what they're pressing on. It's like I try to go through my collection and just figure out, do I have something
new to show? And I'm running low on the rotation, but I got a couple of new ones for you
Some of the podcast listener or listeners. But that's it. And thanks, everyone, for joining another episode of The Publish Lab