Skip to content

Blog

Members Public

Can you spot vintage slop?

Slop is nothing new.  For decades, we’ve been taught to avoid clichés and jargon in our work. AI just made the list of slop-coded words a bit longer. You might be surprised by the words and terms other generations questioned that we perceive as normal (and human). While

Members Public

Don’t confuse space and time.

How many times have you been told what you should put “above the fold” when creating a landing page or marketing email? It’s become my #1 annoyance with content strategy advice. Over the past 20 years, I’ve seen debates over which elements take priority, how much content can

Members Public

The Audience Neglect Era

I don’t think we talk enough about how much online publishing has shifted over the years. At a very high level, the biggest shifts I’ve seen went something like this: The Audience Deficiency Era People weren’t online enough. It was the mid-90s — a fun period of

Members Public

Why the future belongs to independents

It was an honor to be back on Media & the Machine, which has grown to be an un-skippable podcast — usually with guests who are much smarter than me. Rob Kelly puts a lot of work into these episodes – more than any other podcast I’ve been on (even

Members Public

Do experts keep cleaning you?

Have you ever been mysteriously unsubscribed from an email newsletter?  It happens to me all the time. But I expect it. In fact, it’s how I can tell which “experts” are really beginners. I subscribe to a lot of newsletters and I use RSS to read long-form newsletters,

Members Public

CJ’s Newsletter: 200 Abnormally Useful Ideas

Over in the VIP Lounge, I published a small ebook of readers’ favorite quotes from 20+ years of publishing.  I started it last month because I thought it would be the easiest project ever — a nice extra for paid members, filtering my collection of ~2,000 quotes down to the

Members Public

SeO what?

A new algo dropped from Google and it appears to have the world of SEO in a tizzy. So what? If you’re like me, you’ve learned to recoil at the thought of playing by the rules of someone else’s game instead of serving your readers.  And besides,

Members Public

AI can replace your job. Here’s what it can’t replace.

AI’s weakness lies in technology that predates the web. AI is now the single most-cited reason for job cuts in the U.S. CFOs expect AI-driven cuts to be 9x higher this year, with 44% of all CFOs saying they’re planning layoffs. 9-to-5 jobs

Members Public

Issue 283: The $200 plastic box opportunity

Members Public

The $200 plastic box opportunity

If you ever needed an example of the increasing importance of personal brands in the AI era, I’ve got a whopper.  Over the past few months, I’ve noticed something that construction professionals and jewelry makers on Etsy have in common: they’re always looking out for better ways