B2B Content Marketing for brands that want to STAY HUMAN
Our Executive Audio Producer Chris Mitchell is currently in Guyana recording Redemption Man, a podcast about a man in West London who walked around holding a large cross for 35 years. He’s looking for anyone who might have information about him from that time. Give him a shout if this might be someone you know!
💻 DATA POINT: A new report by the Open Markets Institute maps the AI content licensing market and shows that AI systems are cannibalising the very content systems they depend on to function. News and content creators are in a double bind, because ‘the same Big Tech firms whose AI products are eroding website traffic are now building and controlling the licensing infrastructure for alternative revenue – crowding out innovative startups and occupying both sides of the value chain simultaneously.’ As the report says, we’re running out of time to solve this problem, and policymakers need to be quick on their feet or it’ll be too late. The report has a few recommendations, give it a read.
📕 The Short Story
The Future of B2B Is Still Human (3-min read)
Lend David Your Ears (collection of audio snippets)
Social Media Is Now Parasocial Media (13-min read)
An Analysis Of 200,000 Similes From Popular Fiction (Data visualisation)
Distrust, Then Verify (16-min read)
Reaching Younger Audiences: Lessons From The V&A (8-min read)
Ducks: An Independently Animated Short Film (5-min watch)
📣 Finding A Place In Nature And Rebuilding It For Others (11-min read) 📣
It was not inevitable that social media platforms would become the dumpster fire that they did become. But I do think that we made a mistake when we collectively agreed to call this phenomenon “social media.” That linguistic frame biased how we normatively interpreted the practices on these platforms.
📚 The Long Story
The World Cup Is Becoming A Test Bed For Journalism Experiments (14-min read)
The football (or soccer, for our US readers!) World Cup is coming up in June, and fans all over the world are waiting with bated breath for it to start; it will also no doubt bring in plenty of revenue to bars, restaurants and venues screening the event. The quadrennial sports event is also inspiring journalism to try out different ways of reporting, from newsletters that will last only for the duration of the event, to one-time magazines dedicated to it.
A Lovely Thread About The Original Content On Some Popular URLs Of Today (Bluesky thread)
This is such a nostalgic collection of website domains and the people who made them (and/or perhaps originally owned them too?). Did you know that openai.com was once the personal homepage of a guy named Glenn, TikTok.com was the homepage of a couple that tracked their progress from dating to having a baby, Hulu.com was the family photo collection of two people named Hung + Lucy, and midjourney.com belonged to a woman named Shannon who blogged about ‘the midjourney of life’? ❤️❤️❤️ Ah, what a nice place the WWW used to be!
The Future of B2B Is Still Human (3-min read)
B2B Marketing analysed the shortlisted campaigns for last year’s B2B Marketing Awards ahead of this year’s entries coming in, and found that ‘emotionally engaging, audience-first campaigns’ emerged as a clear winner. Because of the high-stakes purchase environment that most B2B companies operate in, trust and relatability still win over AI when it comes to storytelling. Amen to that!
Lend David Your Ears (collection of audio snippets)
On the occasion of David Attenborough’s 100th birthday, this website by creative agency Enviral captures audio recordings of his wisdom and encourages us to listen, be reminded of the natural wonders of the world, and contribute to organisations committed to protecting wildlife and nature.
Social Media Is Now Parasocial Media (13-min read)
A long but important research paper. Academic and internet expert danah boyd writes about how the term ‘social media’ came to be, and how in today’s use cases it is actually parasocial media, rather than ‘social’. The way technology and algorithms mediate what we see today, means that most content is no longer truly social at all; and we should evolve the language we use to describe it accordingly. HT Ash Mann’s newsletter.
An Analysis Of 200,000 Similes From Popular Fiction (Data visualisation)
At Storythings, we can never say No to a really good data visualisation, and The Pudding have smashed it out of the park yet again with this lovely one. It looks at SO MANY uses of similes from books that most of you will be at least somewhat familiar with - I spotted many from books that I’d only recently read!
Distrust, Then Verify (16-min read)
An absolutely brilliant read by Paul Ford on good loops, how they will be critical to how we use AI, and why AI won’t replace humans. As Matt says, Paul is a ‘great writer, a brilliant thinker, and hits that perfect balance between scepticism, optimism and practicality.’ You will learn a lot from this post, I guarantee that.
Reaching Younger Audiences: Lessons From The V&A (8-min read)
Friend of Storythings, Kati Price, Head of Experience & Digital at the V&A, shares ‘how the V&A built Mused, a content platform for 10- to 14-year-olds that’s reached over 2.5 million users, and how the museum is rethinking its YouTube strategy to reach younger audiences.’
Ducks: An Independently Animated Short Film (5-min watch)
A ‘great (and wonderfully weird) animated short film’, as Darren Garrett from the Storythings team says! A fun way to welcome the weekend 😊
📣 Finding A Place In Nature And Rebuilding It For Others (11-min read) 📣
This is the perfect piece to share today, as it feels like the whole of the UK (including my children’s school!) is busy celebrating David Attenborough’s 100th birthday. In this piece for Storythings-produced Futures in Draft, Nadeem Perera makes a case for changing who gets to tell nature stories, as it can impact our spaces, species and future.
💌 Humans of LinkedIn
Media analyst Thomas Baekdal researched whether the concept of the feed existed in the old days of media, and guess what, it did! He analysed The New York Times editions from 1926-28 to look at coverage of Charles Lindbergh’s historical flight in 1927, and shows that, in essence, the ‘feed’ as we know it existed back then!
Drop us a line if you have anything you’d like us to share in a future edition of this newsletter, or of course if you have any comments or suggestions for us!
Have a great weekend!
Matt, Anjali, Hugh, and the team
B2B Content Marketing for brands that want to STAY HUMAN
