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There is a question that journalists learn to consider often which we should all get better at asking: why now? Any time a story crosses their orbit and they consider writing about it, one of the most fundamental questions they will often start from is trying to understand the timing behind the story. This week … Read more
Facebook announced they are going to get more aggressive with allowing AI-generated users and profiles on Facebook. In a move literally no one was asking for, they announced the shift and one of their senior AI execs at Facebook described their vision this way: “We expect these AIs to actually, over time, exist on our platforms, … Read more
Getting laid off is hard. Though I’ve now been an entrepreneur for nearly ten years, I do remember those moments (yes, plural!) in my life when it happened to me and those were always emotional times. If you were to go by what people share on social media, though, you might think differently. A recent … Read more
One of the irresistible allures of social media has always been the dopamine hit from people engaging with the things that you post. Getting likes feels good. What if you could create that same feeling without the toxic repercussions that come from just posting to chase this engagement? A new app called Palmsy offers an interesting solution – letting … Read more
LinkedIn can be a cringey place. As a “jobs board with a social network layered on top of it,” the platform has a consistent stream of people posting about their professional lives in moments of transition, desperation or elation. As a result, we all consistently end up on the receiving end of everything from self-congratulatory posts … Read more
About a decade ago in a Facebook post, Mark Zuckerberg once wrote “we thought it would be fun to make a feature that has no specific purpose.” He was describing the much-ridiculed Facebook “Poke” button which was retired but now may be making a bit of a comeback. The thing people simultaneously loved and hated about it was … Read more
In general, the idea of banning something that kids really want to do or use hardly ever works. Betting against the ingenuity of young minds is usually a losing wager. Yet the fact that the US House just passed a bill that could ban TikTok if it doesn’t separate from its Chinese parent company could actually work. … Read more
The newly released TikTok 2024 Trend Report offers more than a few to-be-expected trends that are essentially meant to promote the platform to advertisers … but some of the insights also offer some useful cultural commentary. Here are a few observations that stood out for me:
Here’s something you probably haven’t seen before … a protein bar company launching a discount code promo that only appears once on an exercise band after it’s fully stretched. This clever stunt comes from RXBAR, which is partnering with three Instagram fitness influencers to give away the bands and free prizes too. It’s a fun and … Read more
Social media today is often the home of negative emotions and addictive outrage. It’s no wonder many surveys are showing a mass exodus with shrinking usage on the top platforms alongside observations that “social media is falling apart.” One platform trying to shift this perception is BeReal, a popular app that sends users prompts once a day … Read more
Non-Obvious Thinking is my latest book about the 4 secrets of becoming a non-obvious thinker - released 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.
