Twitter’s Ad Problem, Recursive Publishing, & Avoiding Piles
Here’s everything we published this week.
Knowledge Partner: McKinsey & Company
Forecasting the future of stores. Shoppers’ behaviors and expectations have changed dramatically—and continue to evolve. If retailers want to keep their physical stores relevant, here are five things they’ll need to get right.
Happy Sunday!
We are super close to breaking 5k followers on Twitter, so we’re doing a giveaway to celebrate! You could win some very cool and exclusive Every merch (the coveted ‘E’ hat!) and, of course, the bragging rights that come with winning an online giveaway.
Just quotetweet our giveaway tweet with your favorite Every article (and adding your commentary on why you love the article won’t hurt) and make sure you’re following us!
You have until this Friday 5pm EST to enter!
And now for the pieces we’ve published this week (maybe one of them will be your favorite article for the giveaway? 👀)
Twitter’s Probably Screwed
Evan Armstrong / Napkin Math
Mark Zuckerberg, once said of Twitter, “they drove a clown car that fell into a gold mine.” Twitter has been historically terrible with performance ads, but with the ATT ad-pocalypse initiated by Apple, it looks like they’ve tripped and stumbled their way out of total ruin once again. But did their incompetence buy the company enough time to pivot and find success? Evan argues, “ultimately, Twitter only has one choice to become a superlative business: to find new, non-advertising revenue streams around SaaS and the creator economy. Of those prospects…I also have serious doubts.”
Recursive Publishing
Nathan Baschez / Divinations
The internet is changing the publishing industry with what Nathan calls “Recursive Publishing.” Essentially, this process runs on algorithms that perform an iterative looping discovery process where audience reaction → more distribution → more audience reaction → more distribution, etc. This contrasts drastically with the previous “Linear Publishing,” in which a publisher would pick a few winners for wide distribution. What does this mean for our culture and society now that the media engine has shifted irreversibly? Read below for Nathan’s full analysis.
Pile Avoidance
Dan Shipper / Superorganizers
Inbox Zero. This is the goal we all strive for, and yet so few can maintain it. Why is it so difficult to tackle an overwhelming mess of an inbox? For Dan, “The whole reason things are piling up in the first place is that it’s a huge emotional burden for me to do certain kinds of email. Because the perceived cost of sending the email is greater than the perceived cost of avoiding it, I’m going to avoid it—and my entire inbox—until it becomes a pile.” His solution? An email babysitter.
When To Sell: Creating Rules for Taking Profits
Nat Eliason / Almanack
In the world of crypto, it’s especially hard to not get caught up in the investing hype and experience acute losses when that wave comes (like...the last 5 months or so). But with the recent upswing, it looks like Fun Times are here again. Which means it’s time to learn from our mistakes and set some rules for selling. In this week’s post, Nat suggests some guidelines for when to sell so you can de-risk your crypto portfolio. The guidelines are crucial for crypto, but really helpful for maintaining your investment portfolio in general.
DAO It Yourself
Sari Azout & Joey DeBruin / Tokens, But How?
Founded by writer and researcher Cherie Hu, Water & Music is considered one of the most influential independent voices in music business journalism. Just 9 months ago, it was a paid newsletter and community—a web2 subscription business. Today, it’s structured as a research DAO. How did Cherie transform it? In this episode of TBH, Sari and Joey chatted with her to find out!
Study Sunday
We’re testing a section where we break down one interesting scientific study per week. Like it? Let us know in the comments.
🤔 The Question —
Can seeing discomfort as a sign of progress boost personal growth? A new study published on Tuesday finds that seeking discomfort can enhance motivation, persistence, emotional resilience, and more.
⭐️ The Significance —
The way you think about situations (reappraisal) can have powerful outcomes.
E.g., previous research found that reframing anxiety as excitement enhanced performance.
Reframing discomfort as growth is another promising mindset:
“Although personal growth is difficult to detect, people know when they feel uncomfortable. They can use this as a cue that they are advancing toward their goal and be motivated to persist.”
🧪 The Study —
The first of five experiments took place across 55 improvisation classes at the Second City training center in Chicago...
Other Reading:
Refind: Get smarter every day — Join 50k+ smart people on Refind and get 7 new links every day that make you smarter, tailored to your interests, curated from 10k+ sources.
First1000 — Every Tuesday, First 1000 does a case study on how one of your favorite companies got their first 1000 customers (e.g. Stripe, OnlyFans, etc). You can think of it as Harvard Business Review but with a lot of memes—and it’s actually fun to read!
Transition to Web3: A Guide for Non-technical Roles — It can be daunting to make a career shift to web3, especially for those who don’t code. This guide aims to help make a career pivot into web3 less ominous. – from @ljin18 & @sonofalli
That’s all for this week!
Knowledge Partner: McKinsey & Company
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