Speaking of chips, Nvidia is feeling the heat from the new crop of startups looking to serve the exploding AI market with custom fabs.

Nvidia is building a new business unit focused on designing bespoke chips for cloud computing firms and others, including advanced artificial intelligence (AI) processors

via Channel NewsAsia

Sam Altman’s next galaxy brain idea:

Sam Altman Seeks Trillions of Dollars to Reshape Business of Chips and AI 🔒

The project could require raising as much as $5 trillion to $7 trillion
…
Such a sum of investment would dwarf the current size of the global semiconductor industry. Global sales of chips were $527 billion last year and are expected to rise to $1 trillion annually by 2030.
…
Altman has said he wants to build dozens of chip-fabrication plants in the next few years, the people said. His vision would be to raise the money from Middle East investors and have TSMC build and run them.

Finished reading: Agostino by Alberto Moravia 📚

Why might the investment in brand marketing be increasing?

MarTech: Web analytics is badly broken

Apple has led the charge with Intelligent Tracking Prevention, Mail Privacy Protection, restricted IDFA tracking, iCloud Private Relay, Private Click Measurement, & more.

A 2021 study from YouGov suggests that most countries are registering a maximum 60-70% cookie banner acceptance rate

That drops to ~35% in the US.

Also 🍪 = ☠️

36% of marketers worldwide will increase investment in brand marketing this year, a 13 percentage point increase over 2022

&

40% of marketers worldwide will increase their performance marketing investments this year—down from 46% last year, but only slightly below 2022’s 41%.

The pendulum ever swings back and forth.
(Be more like a scale, balancing the two as needed.)

via eMarketer

🔋

batteries are an “atoms” technology — something that powers our physical world instead of helping us spin a new digital one. So the Decade of the Battery will look more like earlier decades, in which physical appliances like washing machines, refrigerators, and air conditioning were the hot new thing.

-Noah Smith

(good stuff before the paywall)

This is why I’m interested in battery tech. And “atoms” technology changes in general right now. I think most of the Next Big Things will be infrastructural as the foundation gets reworked to build the next paradigm change (Ambient computing).

About those indirect competitors

So next time you think about how to garner more listeners, think more broadly about where that time will likely come from and what you are up against. It may not be another podcast.

Consumer attention is indeed a battle. They always have choices so the competition isn’t just another podcast, it’s everything.

via amplifi media

Apple enters the chat

Apple has released a new open-source AI model, called “MGIE,” that can edit images based on natural language instructions. MGIE, which stands for MLLM-Guided Image Editing, leverages multimodal large language models (MLLMs) to interpret user commands and perform pixel-level manipulations. The model can handle various editing aspects, such as Photoshop-style modification, global photo optimization, and local editing.

via VentureBeat

I love headlines like this

Netflix’s Threat Isn’t in Hollywood. It’s YouTube

Because they’re a great reminder that your biggest competitor probably isn’t what you’d consider a direct competitor.

YouTube is actually larger than Netflix right now. And growing! And it made more money than Netflix last quarter! It’s an ad-supported service… but has more than 100 million subscribers.

You don’t compete with substitutes, you compete with everything those dollars could be spent on.

Also, YouTube is underrated by many marketing plans. (Probably because it’s not easy or quick.)

Come together, right now
On my TV

ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery team up to launch sports super-streamer

Consolidation—aka The Great Rebundling—is happening.

The service, which each company will own one-third of, will offer consumers access to a host of sporting events, including NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, and FIFA World Cup games. It will also feature NASCAR races, UFC matches, and PGA TOUR Golf tournaments.

Live sports may be some streamers savior, but fans are sick of splintering. I wonder if the new service can sign deals. Like, say, for the new, upcoming NBA TV rights.

Finished reading: Prayers to the Nature Spirits by Julia Cameron 📚

God of Coyote, God of Fox,
Teach me with your wily walks.
Make me clever, make me shrewd.
Help me spot my greater good.

Apple is asking its developers and partners to describe its forthcoming Vision Pro headset as a “spatial computing” device

Currently, VR seems more like a video game console competitor and AR a platform play by social media giants.

“Spatial computing” is clear category creation in action and positions it more as a productivity device. Putting it in competition with your next ultrabook, 4K monitor, and home theater.

via Fast Company

Finished reading: Demon Wars by Peach Momoko 📚

Basically a low key year ahead

Chief marketing officers (CMOs) enter 2024 with an imperative to drive efficient growth in a volatile environment. Customer demand and buying behaviors continue to fluctuate unpredictably amid pandemic waves, supply chain disruption, inflationary price increases and geopolitical instability.

via onescreen.ai

Finished reading: Hojoki by Kamo no Chomei 📚

Hey, it’s me, your friendly neighborhood podcast stan…

research has shown that audio ads outperform video ads in grabbing attention and generating brand recall.

Fully unqualified armchair neuroscientist pontification: you can close your eyes to tune out those sensory inputs, our ears don’t have an off switch. We’re new, modern folk but our hardware is old, an important sensory input for survival probably hits the brain different. See: music.

via ExchangeWire

So what about those cookie crumbs?

Uncookied Chrome users appear to be monetizing about 30% worse than those [users] with cookies

users of Apple’s Safari browser monetize about 60% worse than cookied Chrome users

The winners of the cookiepocalypse will be (usable) first-party data and AI-powered contextual targeting tools.

And actual customer relationships and email and all the really valuable stuff.