I get it, you wish your e-commerce business were selling the way it did in 2020, when U.S. e-commerce revenue surged 28%, and in 2021, when it surged 22%. But those days are gone, even though they left their mark.

It’s important for marketers & analysts to understand trends & market happenings because businesses don’t operate in vacuums. Sometimes sales are down because everyone’s are.

Data comparisons for the past few years have been messy, and will likely stay that way for a bit. Try to figure out which changes are signs of shifting behaviors & which are on you.

The splintering of social has barely begun.

Before long, we might have a slew of new reading tools, with different ideas about how to display and organize posts. We might have new content moderation systems. We might have an entire industry of algorithms, where people compete not to make the best posts but to show them in the most interesting order. Modern social networks are not a single product but a giant bundle of features, and the next generation of tools might be all about unbundling.

via The Verge

if you turned a browser history — the most neglected piece of the software — into a robust and fully featured machine of its own. It would help you map the path you charted through a web of knowledge, refine those maps, order them, and share them.

There’s going to be an AI assistant that will do this.

I would guess a chat interface for user-driven queries. But can also see a browser extension that annotates or highlights areas of the current page you’re looking at with references to related pieces from your history.

Like a personal knowledge graph with real time node connecting.

IYKYK

☁️

I was introduced to Daniel Dennett's concept of the intentional stance via Seth Godin. It reads like marketing strategy 101 for being customer-centric with your messaging:

Here is how it works: first you decide to treat the object whose behavior is to be predicted as a rational agent; then you figure out what beliefs that agent ought to have, given its place in the world and its purpose. Then you figure out what desires it ought to have, on the same considerations, and finally you predict that this rational agent will act to further its goals in the light of its beliefs. A little practical reasoning from the chosen set of beliefs and desires will in most instances yield a decision about what the agent ought to do; that is what you predict the agent will do.

I translate this as:

1. Acknowledge the entity you are talking to is both a human being and a rational agent capable of making its own decisions (you're making an appeal—an ask—not coercing or commanding)
2. Determine what (you believe) this entity believes: experiences, values, foundations, local reality, etc.
3. Determine what (you believe) this entity desires: dreams, aspirations, self-talk, role models, etc.
4. Determine what (you believe) this entity will do, given its beliefs, to satisfy its desires: actions, means, consideration set, etc.

With that base you can then craft your messaging.

What is the narrative the entity is telling itself?

How does your brand fit within that narrative?

What is it seeking?

How do you call attention to your solution?

Not ideal

Many car manufacturers are selling car owners’ data to advertisers as a revenue boosting tactic, according to earlier reporting by Recorded Future News. Automakers are exponentially increasing the number of sensors they place in their cars every year with little regulation of the practice.