Digital marketing feels disjointed. Online marketing teams create social media marketing and add content to their websites. Sometimes these two ideas seamlessly mesh, but mostly it feels like a left hand and right hand on different bodies. We struggle with two Cousin It (Adams Family) hands running in different directions, too; that's why we created Tech Tuesdays, our slightly snarky commentary on technology news and trends.
In our most popular 2022 post, Flipboard Beats Twitter, we shared why we love Flipboard. Every Friday, we'll summarize the magic, unique, weird, and extraordinary things that happened in our Flipboard magazines. We're still determining the format, so grant a little more leeway as we experiment.
My favorite Flipboard interaction this week was with Colby Parsons in our Sign-of-the-Times magazine (linked below). I follow and like Colby because he is my brother by another mother. I share an interest in art, design, and business. Here is the excellent conversation we had about my share of this post, "Rather than gaming, consumers are interested in the metaverse for practical purposes."
COLBY
"Consumers are starting to see the metaverse as an essential tool” -- that is complete horseshit. Almost no one uses VR and AR yet in that way. Very few even have the equipment required to access the "metaverse."
MARTIN
Colby what do you think it will take to have consumers care about the metaverse?
I guess my short answer is that it will take off only after it offers us something truly useful rather than gimmicks and games. And of course the technology needs to get better and cheaper.
For me, I will probably be interested when mixed reality glasses/goggles work well and are affordable. I would love to use them for design purposes, both for me to use with 3D design software, and to share and discuss designs with others in real space. I think there could be lots of practical commercial uses that would lead adoption. I could imagine construction workers wearing MR goggles that show an overlay of the site and where things are supposed to go. And optional signage or directions in certain situations.
Of course the flip side could be pretty bad, with advertising spam all over the place unless you pay for a premium service.
I went on to let Colby know I think he is right and how much I liked his answer. And that conversation is illustrates why we love Flipboard more than Twitter. If you're on Flipboard please follow Colby. If not, 2023 is a good year to focus your online marketing on content instead of comments.
Sign-of-the-Times ChatGPT and the metaverse, will it or won't it be a thing that continues to dominate our SOT Flipboard magazine? Soon, I shared that we'll ask ChatGPT how to shower. It was early, and I needed to get ready to work. Still, the analogy holds with articles from educational fears of OpenAI's chatbot to medical miracles thanks to it.
Call To Action There's a great video from Matt Diggity about how to use ChatGPT for SEO.
Techno Great post from Irina Nik about how designers can stay competitive in text to image AI world (sensing a trend?).
Popshop Loved the Step inside the fantasy world of Frank Frazetta post because I used to live near Frank when I worked at M&M/Mars. Also enjoyed Stereophile's latest Revinylization.
Popshop Three Arrows Capital founders subpoenaed by tweet and Animoca halves fundraising target for web3 fund to $1 billion: Bloomberg sounded painful as we see 2023 being a hard row to hoe for startups.
WTE Ecosystem How to Get Facebook Ads Working for You in 2023 shares solid tips from a trusted source (Social Media Examiner) and Accelerate your data exploration and experimentation with the AWS Analytics Reference Architecture library | Amazon Web Services gets your geek on.
Eric, our CEO and my boss, wrote a great post about AI as a Service. Look for his post next Wednesday and have a great weekend.