“Find a powerful trend that you think is true but most people don’t. Being contrarian and right is where you will find the most outsized outlier opportunities.”
Ever wonder what you could learn if you read all of the Google Founders’ Letters that have been published since 2004? Well, you’re about to find out.
“The single most important step Facebook — and its subsidiary Instagram, which I view as equally important in terms of countering misinformation, hate speech and propaganda — can take is to abandon the focus on emotional signaling-as-engagement.”
Apparently I wasn’t the only one thinking about what Facebook should do to address its problems this week.
It’s time for Facebook to invest in journalism.
This week’s Congressional hearings about the influence of social media, fake news, and misinformation campaigns has Facebook promising to do better.
But while it searches for a silver bullet algorithm to solve these problems, here’s something Facebook can do to immediately improve its platform and our country.
Facebook should fund local journalism throughout the United States.
Facebook doesn’t need to editorially oversee newspapers —it has enough trouble editing its trending topics.
Facebook should start cutting big checks.
Checks that go to qualified, experienced, smart, talented, digital-savvy journalists who can use them to create and revive local newspapers across this country.
Doing so would have an enormous impact.
Facebook (as well as Google and Twitter who should join it) sits on enough money to not only make local journalism great again, but to build it into the engine a healthy democracy needs.
Here’s why it would be a win-win for the public and platform.
Funding local journalism will lead to an overall rise in the amount and quality of news created in this country — this is especially needed in underserved areas at the moment.
This news — created by legitimate journalists — will provide a strong counter to the fake news and misinformation that currently fills Facebook’s news feed.
Facebook could also tweak its algorithm to reward these legitimate news sources to further ensure real news is more likely to be consumed than fake news.
The impact of the decline of newspapers on the public has been vastly underestimated.
The rise of social media as a news source has happened at a time in which legitimate journalism — particularly in Middle America — has vanished and/or been outsourced to journalists who largely live in a handful of cities on the coasts.
This Politico article offers a fascinating look at what’s happened.
Here’s an excerpt:
Today, 73 percent of all internet publishing jobs are concentrated in either the Boston-New York-Washington-Richmond corridor or the West Coast crescent that runs from Seattle to San Diego and on to Phoenix. The Chicagoland area, a traditional media center, captures 5 percent of the jobs, with a paltry 22 percent going to the rest of the country.
The collapse of local newspapers — or their increasing dependence on journalism created outside of their locality — created a vacuum which has in part been filled by “fake news” and FOX News.
The public desperately needs more quality local journalism to understand what’s happening in their city— and in cities nothing like theirs.
This year, Mark Zuckerberg changed Facebook’s mission statement to emphasize his commitment to building community.
He declared the company’s goal is, “To give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.”
Local journalism has traditionally played a key role in doing just that by providing people with a shared set of facts.
It’s one thing to have different opinions, but our country has become divided because we now have different facts.
In this way, an investment in local journalism is an investment in Facebook’s mission.
There are certainly charitable (and PR) reasons why Facebook should fund local journalism, but that’s not the only reason to do this.
While a large initiative like this would be unlikely to turn an initial profit, that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t down the road.
The economics of a Facebook-backed journalism entity would greatly differ from the economics that doomed traditional print-focused newspapers.
Facebook would be able to monetize local journalism in different ways than newspapers have and I’m sure would do so in more effective and efficient ways.
And, as Amazon’s acquisition of The Washington Post is proving, when a tech company owns a newspaper the entire economic model changes.
Then maybe it’s time to make them.
Like it or not, Facebook’s the most powerful media entity in the world and with that power comes responsibility to ensure high quality media exists.
If it doesn’t want to invest in journalism, then maybe we should tax Facebook and use those funds to finance better local journalism across the country.
Quality journalism is a public utility and somebody’s got to pay for it.
Why not the platform that’s making the most money off it?
“If you have read an interesting article, do not wait until you want to talk about it to revive your memories. The time to revive them and make them permanent is within half a day after the first impression has been made.”
“The right way is to focus exclusively on the kind of people who make up your specific audience and deliver content that only they will appreciate.”
Obviously, I’m a big fan of newsletters and believe there are a lot of great ones out there — unfortunately there are even more bad ones.
But this post can help change that.
“A lot of people don’t appreciate their moment until it’s passed.” — Kanye West
I’m obsessed with Rick Rubin.
The legendary music producer who’s worked with everybody from Run DMC, to Metallica, to Johnny Cash may have the most impressive resume of all time.
Seriously, look at these credits:
But what fascinates me most about Rubin is his ability to create great work with such a wide range of artists and styles.
His success and experience with all sorts of different artists suggests he may have unparalleled wisdom when it comes to the creative process.
So, I studied him to see what I could learn.
Here are five lessons you can learn from Rubin’s approach to creative work.
“Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming.”
“Think about all the things you do that ultimately save your company money, whether it’s streamlining a procedure, saving time, or negotiating discounts with vendors. Multiply those actions by how frequently you do them, and pop them into your resume bullets.”
“Asking this question regularly allows me to begin to recognize patterns that I may not have seen before and new ones that may be establishing themselves in my life.”