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The survival of journalism and a free press largely depends on all of our willingness to fund it. One overlooked element of this issue is how digital marketing is purchased and valued. Consider this eye-opening assessment of how digital marketing and “brand safety tech” works and why these tools that were designed to prevent ads … Read more
The Chicago White Sox are having a historically bad season. Like, a season that could be the worst in the history of baseball. It’s so bad even their own social media team is forced to find a way to make the situation slightly better for fans by tweeting entertaining game summaries after losses, like “FINAL: the other … Read more
Reporter Kevin Roose is dealing with a unique problem … AI chatbots hate him. It’s all thanks to an article he wrote back in February 2023 which was focused on the “death” of Sydney—the name that Microsoft had chosen for the AI chatbot they created and paired with their Bing search engine. The article was … Read more
Last week, many of you wrote to me about a story I shared about the treatment of the media at the Democratic National Convention and how they seemed to be elevating influencers above journalists in priority. One follow up video that offered more context on the story was this behind the scenes video look at the convention spaces created … Read more
One of the truths about our new media environment is the central role that influencers are taking in the content people consume and trust. Particularly when it comes to young people and their media diet … so it’s no surprise that politicians are courting these influencers and hoping they can help inspire the younger generation … Read more
This month was a big one for political news, obviously … but as we come closer to the U.S. election, one of the elements that will probably never get as much attention as it deserves is the importance of local news and the role that it plays in helping people understand who is running for … Read more
The biggest news story of the past week was certainly the assassination attempt on former President Trump’s life and almost immediately in the aftermath of the shooting there were plenty of theories about what had happened and who was behind it. The media dutifully reported on all of it, from conspiracy theories to early guesses … Read more
Back in April, a reporter from the NY Times hiked 50 miles through the Amazon rainforest in order to visit and report on a story about the remote Marubo tribe getting access to the Internet for the first time. The original story published two weeks ago told the story of what happened next in multiple dimensions, from … Read more
The biggest AI story this week was the showdown between Open AI and actress Scarlett Johansson over the use of a voice concerningly similar to hers after she had refused to collaborate with Open AI. This is quickly becoming a recurring typical deepfake story: someone steals the likeness of a famous person, and that person … Read more
A photographer edited and colorized 30 vintage black and white photos. His intention was to “breathe life into these vintage snapshots, turning monochrome memories into vibrant realities.” Some of the images look strangely AI-generated with the colorizing. Others look fairly good, but the very act of adding color removes some of the intrigue and romance from … Read more
Non-Obvious Thinking is my latest book about the 4 secrets of becoming a non-obvious thinker - relesaed 10/01/2024.
Rohit Bhargava is a trend curator, founder of the Non-Obvious Company and the 3-time Wall Street Journal bestselling author of ten books.
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In addition to Non-Obvious Thinking, Rohit is the author of 10 books on trends, the future of business, building a more human brand with storytelling and how to create a more diverse and inclusive world.
