Content Marketing After the Content Apocalypse
TLDR: Facing falling revenue, traffic declines and reader exhaustion with news, the media industry needs to dramatically reinvent itself for long-term survival in the digital era.
- The media industry is facing an “extinction-level event” with declining revenue, falling readership, and widespread layoffs across print, digital, and broadcast outlets.
- Factors driving this crisis include: reader burnout on news, platforms like Google and Facebook dominating traffic and ad revenue, the demise of print, and competition from entertainment streaming services.
- Legacy brands like CNN, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times are struggling to transition business models, trying subscriptions, events, e-commerce and flashing back to the “glory days” of the commercial internet.
- Local journalism has been hit hard for decades already, with over 3,000 newspaper closures in 20 years, leaving some 204 US counties with no local news coverage.
- With ad revenue vanishing, the future requires fundamentally rethinking the relationship between news outlets and audiences, as well as the very role of journalism.
- Read the full essay in the New Yorker.
Facebook Ads Weaponized to Spread “Ov3r_Stealer” Malware
TLDR: A new password stealer malware called Ov3r is propagating through fake Facebook job ads, using clever social engineering and evasion to steal sensitive user data undetected.
- New malware called Ov3r_Stealer is spreading via fake Facebook job ads. The ads link to Discord, where a script downloads the malware from GitHub.
- The malware steals data from cryptocurrency wallets, browsers, and documents and sends the information to a Telegram bot every 90 minutes.
- This is a severe threat because of Facebook’s popularity, though the social engineering tactics it uses are not new.
- As agency owners, we need to educate our team and our clients about these and other emerging attacks and use monitoring software to detect credential leaks.
- Read the full article to learn the details about this threat.
Hello Gemini, Goodbye Bard: Google Rebrands and Goes Big on AI
TLDR: Google rebrands AI chatbot Bard as Gemini, launches paid Gemini Advanced service bundled with Google One, makes Gemini default Android assistant, and unveils plans to integrate it across products.
- Google has renamed its Bard AI chatbot to Gemini to simplify branding across its AI products and services.
- A more powerful version called Gemini Advanced is also being launched, bundled with the Google One subscription for $19.99 per month.
- Gemini is becoming the default virtual assistant on Android phones and is now available on iOS via the Google app.
- Gemini will replace Google’s Duet AI and power Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Meet and other Google workspace products.
- Initially only available in English, more languages will be added over time across 150+ countries.
- A free 2-month trial of Gemini Advanced is being offered to new Google One subscribers.
- This is just the beginning of Google’s work to integrate AI models like Gemini across Search, ads, and core products.
- Read the full article on Search Engine Land.
Worth a Look…
- Equalize Digital’s Amber Hinds demonstrates how to build a low-code accessible WooCommerce site.
- After several months of dormancy, WP Tavern is coming back to life after long-time contributor Sarah Gooding moved on to another opportunity.
- Russian search engine Yandex has been sold by its Dutch owners to a private consortium of Russian investors for about $5.2B.
