We keep an eye out for the most interesting stories about Labby subjects: digital media, startups, the web, journalism, strategy, and more. Here’s some of what we’ve seen lately.
March 26, 2024
“For all the people using Google to find important and hard-to-access scientific information, orders of magnitude more are using it to find their email inbox, get to Walmart’s website, or remember who was president before Hoover. And then there’s my favorite fact of all: that a vast number of people every year go to Google and type ‘google’ into the search box. We mostly talk about Google as a research tool, but in reality, it’s asked to do anything and everything you can think of, billions of times a day. The real question in front of all these would-be Google killers, then, is not how well they can find information. It’s how well they can do everything Google does.” —
The Verge / David Pierce
/ Mar 26
“I saw this over and over again, journalists posting tributes, who were then killed themselves soon after. And a tribute goes up for them. And then the pattern continues.”
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This American Life / Dana Ballout
/ Mar 26
March 25, 2024
“‘X Corp.’s motivation in bringing this case is evident,’ U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer wrote in a 52-page ruling. ‘X Corp. has brought this case in order to punish CCDH for CCDH publications that criticized X Corp. — and perhaps in order to dissuade others who might wish to engage in such criticism.'” —
The Washington Post / Will Oremus
/ Mar 25
“…London newspapers pioneered the celebri-fication of the House of Windsor, famously hounding the previous Princess of Wales, Diana, and exposing the most microscopic details of her and her children’s private lives. In the case of Catherine’s recent whereabouts, however, the British press largely showed an unusual level of restraint.” —
The New York Times / Michael M. Grynbaum
/ Mar 25
“‘What this proves is that Kensington Palace can still control the British press to some extent,’ said [Helen] Lewis. ‘But they can’t control the internet, or the American media, who are hugely interested in our royal family but have very different standards on privacy and libel.'” —
The Guardian / Vanessa Thorpe
/ Mar 25
“A journalist first selects a ‘seed’ source like a city council, parks department, local school, etc. they plan to cover. With a link from that single source — whether that’s a press release, 500-page report, or even a tweet — Google’s generative AI software produces a first draft of the story, complete with a lede, nut graf, quotes, and the rest…The idea is that a journalist can add to that draft with reporting and fact-checking and eventually publish a full story.” —
Big Technology / Alex Kantrowitz
/ Mar 25
“It’s not surprising. A lot of us who’ve been following this closely, I think had a sense that they were getting less interested in providing this sort of transparency. When I left, two years ago, one of the big conclusions and takeaways I had from the entire experience is that private companies and tech platforms are only going to go so far when it comes to their transparency efforts.” —
Fast Company / Christ Stokel-Walker
/ Mar 25
“The surprisingly readable 88-page complaint is a very relatable litany of all the annoying things Apple has done to you and me…You can almost forget this is a lawsuit and not just the compiled observations of a single very motivated poster in The Verge comments section — until you get to page 57.” —
The Verge / Sarah Jeong
/ Mar 25
“So far, X is still trailing well behind platforms like YouTube, TikTok and Meta Platforms’ Instagram as a destination for many creators…Some creators have cited concerns about the state of X’s advertising business as a hurdle to the platform’s efforts to woo them, while others have complained about payments being inconsistent.” —
The Wall Street Journal / Alexa Corse
/ Mar 25
“In the case of Peacock, by the end of February, nearly seven weeks after the AFC Wild Card Weekend, Antenna observed 29% of the AFC Wild Card sign-up cohort had canceled their subscription, meaning 71% remained subscribed. Peacock’s one-month survival rate across all 2023 sign-ups was 78%.” —