Month: April 2023

Michelle’s Approach to ChatGPT Has Me Convinced Google Will Launch a Direct Competitor

Last week I wrote a piece noting how my wife Michelle’s Google usage was down by nearly two thirds, thanks to her discovery of ChatGPT. I noted that Michelle isn’t exactly an early adopter – but that’s not entirely true. Michelle is more of a harbinger – if an early tech product “fits” her, she’ll adopt it early and often – and it’s usually a winner once it goes mainstream.  The early Tivo DVRs come to mind – and they remain a better product than anything that’s come since in the television world (another example of how entrenched business models kill innovation).

But few early versions of any new product get to “Michelle market fit” on first attempt. For it to happen with an AI chatbot – well before I developed the habit – is rarer still. I mean, I’m supposed to be the early adopter around here!

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Yeah, That’s Why BuzzFeed News Failed.

I’ll see if, in a few minutes, I can get at least the outlines of a rant out. I’ve got to get to an appointment in half an hour, but I just saw today’s Dealbook newsletter, which focuses on the demise of BuzzFeed News. “Why BuzzFeed News folded” it promises, then goes on to willfully fail to answer the question – in much the same fashion every other story has noted the latest catastrophe in what used to be called “the news business” these days.

Buzzfeed “failed to go public well,” it “didn’t focus on profitability” soon enough, it “depended on social networks too much.” That’s like analyzing an open wound by stating “it’s bleeding too much” and “the skin was too ruptured” and “the band aid failed to stay on.” True, but wrong.

Only when we are willing to acknowledge the cause of the wounds will we start to address them. And right now, it’s as if the very same journalists whose professions are imperiled can’t see the damn forest for the trees.

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Michelle’s Google Usage Is Down 60 Percent. Discuss.

 

Uh oh, Google.

On Sunday The New York Times reported that Google is furiously working to incorporate conversational AI into its core search products – not exactly news, but there was a larger takeaway: Google has got to get some killer AI products out the door, and fast, or it risks losing its core users for good. And if my own family is any indication, the company is already imperiled. More on that below, but first, a bit more on the Times piece.

The article led with big news: Samsung may decamp from Google and partner with Microsoft’s Bing instead. This would be a major blow both financially as well as optically – Samsung’s commitment to Android is a key reason Google’s mobile platform towers over Apple’s iOS in terms of worldwide market share.

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If We Pay for GPTs like We Pay for Internet Service, What Will We Really Get?

“A swarm of genies in the sky, digital art” via DALL-E

Would you pay $200 a month for generative AI services? It may sound crazy, but I think it’s entirely possible, particularly if the tech and media industries don’t repeat the mistakes of the past.

Think back to the last time you decided to fork over a substantial monthly fee for a new technology or media service. For most of us, it was probably the recent shift to streaming services. If you use more than a few, that bill can add up to nearly $100 a month. But streaming is a (not particularly good) replacement for cable – it’s not a technological marvel that changes how we live, work, and play. To find a new service that rises to that level, we have to go back to the introduction of the smart phone – a device we were willing to spend hundreds of dollars to obtain and an average of $127 a month to keep.

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We Dream of Genies – But Who Will They Work For?

Of all the structural problems “Web 2” has brought into the world – and there are too many to list – one of the most vexing is what I call the “meta-services” problem. Today’s commercial internet encourages businesses and services to create silos of our data – silos that can not and will not connect to each other. Because of business model  constraints (most big services are “free,” revenues come from advertising and/or data sales), it’s next to impossible for anyone – from an individual consumer to a Fortune 50 enterprise – to create lasting value across all those silos. Want to compare your Amazon purchase history to prices for the same goods at Walmart? Good luck! Want to compare the marketing performance of your million-dollar campaigns between Facebook and Netflix? LOL!

For the past 15 or so years, I’ve written about a new class of “meta-services” that would work across individual sites, apps, and platforms. Working on our behalf, these meta-services would collect, condition, protect, and share our information, allowing a new ecosystem of services and value to be unlocked. OpenAI’s recent announcement of plugins, along with their already robust APIs, has brought the meta-service fantasy tantalizingly close to reality. But it’s more likely that, just as with the “open internet,” the fantasy will remain just that.  Internet business models have been built to collect short term rent. Truly open systems rarely win over time – regardless of whether the company uses the word “open” in its name.

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