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Influencers, Media and Relevance

In its story about the Democratic National Convention 2024 (behind a paywall), Wired pointed out that the DNC is all-in on influencers. It has created an influencer paradise at its Chicago convention, with exclusive yacht parties and creators’ lounges, while journalists struggle to find power outlets and CNN anchors wait in security lines.

“Bringing creators to our convention will multiply our reach and ensure that everyone can witness democracy in action,” said Cayana Mackey-Nance, director of digital strategy for the Democratic National Convention Committee.

It’s all about the reach and influence of specific demographics. Democrats know that youth vote is their firewall — and can have an impact much like young voters did back in 1860.

Nearly 200 influencers were given special access and amenities not available to traditional media, signaling a major shift in political communication strategy. Welcome to 2024 — and our post-social strategy.

Data shows the growing

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That Time When Twitter CEO Said Smart Things

OM: Do you think that the future of the Internet will involve machines thinking on our behalf

Ev: Yes, they’ll have to. But it’s a combination of machines and the crowd. Data collected from the crowd that is analyzed by machines. For us, at least, that’s the future. Facebook is already like that. YouTube is like that. Anything that has a lot of information has to be like that. People are obsessed with social but it’s not really “social.” It’s making better decisions because of decisions of other people. It’s algorithms based on other people to help direct your attention another way.

From the archives

I randomly ran across this interview with then-Twitter CEO Ev Williams. It made me nostalgic for days when technology company leaders said interesting things about technology, not about politics or random things, or spewed nonsense. My interview with Ev was published on the last working day of

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Field Notes. 08.04.2024 

On My Mind

A week away from the usual vagaries of modern life and a social media (and news) fast has been a welcome break. It looks like I didn’t miss much on social media. I am glad I took some time to reacquaint myself with my camera and exercise my compositional skills. I went to the Palouse, which is mostly in eastern Washington but also spills over into Idaho. I stayed in the quaint little university town of Moscow, Idaho. A full photo essay will follow — but for now, I’m enjoying this one single photo (see above).

As I return to work, I have to catch up on a lot of emails, follow up on messages and take a moment to shed a quiet tear over my lost season. I’m in last place in my fantasy baseball league, ravaged by injuries and poor form. Nevertheless, I do have

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Musk, the Foxy Kingmaker

No matter how much I try to avoid political news, there’s no hiding from the forthcoming U.S. presidential election and the ensuing political circus. Not even technology newsletters are a respite. Charlie Warzel of The Atlantic and Sarah Frier of Bloomberg in their most recent editions made a point that echoes something I said two years ago when Elon Musk was ready to overpay for Twitter: in the long run, that deal is going to be a win for Musk because it would anoint him as the kingmaker.

For me, Twitter (now X) was going to replace Rupert Murdoch’s Fox. I said as much two years ago in a piece for The Spectator UK. It was clear that Musk would become the new kingmaker for the conservative agenda.

Musk has also realized that social media is going the way of traditional media — and divided along political affiliations. As an

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Social internet has ED

Interaction bait is killing social media. You know what I’m talking about. Those posts that are designed to get you to comment, like, or share. They’re everywhere, and they’re getting more and more annoying.

People are posting things that are clearly designed to get a reaction. And it’s not just the posts themselves that are annoying. It’s the fact that they’re so obviously designed to manipulate me into interacting with them. I wouldn’t mind if it was a genuine question or a conversation starter. But it’s not. It’s just a ploy to boost engagement.

I get it. Social media is all about engagement. But there’s a fine line between encouraging interaction and being downright manipulative

Christian Heilmann

There has been nothing social about social internet for a long time. As I wrote in my essay last year, “The way social media is structured rewards extreme ideas, ideologies and those on the fringe. A radical idea will likely get

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Post(news) Script

Post.News, a Twitter-like news-first social network, is shutting down. It is not surprising. It lacked dynamism and excitement, even as an early adopter and a former media professional. Given the overwhelming emphasis they put on establishment media, I am not surprised. The last time I visited Post.News was to read founder Noah Bardin’s post. “Our service is not growing fast enough to become a real business or a significant platform,” he noted. 

It is not just Post.News. Many Twitter-like social platforms such as Mastodon, Blue Sky, and Threads got out of the gates fast but eventually slowed down. When Threads launched, I pointed out, “The days of getting a social network to grow by importing an address book are gone — instead, it is about using, reusing, and using the social graph again to launch new products.” 

Threads seems to be the only one with staying power because it is being bootstrapped by Instagram’s social graph. Of the lot, it would be interesting to see how much bigger it can get — it

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The Tyranny of Content Algorithms

No matter who you are, how skilled you may be, or how much knowledge you possess, excessive activity will inevitably lead to a return to the average. This phenomenon is observable every day on the Internet. Before Instagram became a competition for the lowest common denominator, there were a few photographers I followed. They consistently shared captivating images, always managing to evoke a sense of inspiration with each viewing of their work. 

I wasn’t alone in this appreciation—over time, they gained more recognition and accumulated larger followings. Or perhaps it was the other way around. The ‘larger following’ meant they were able to monetize their audience. However, soon the tail was wagging the dog. 

As the years passed, I noticed them sharing more frequently, yet the quality of their work declined. They gradually transitioned from being exceptional to merely average. I suppose this is what they mean by “regression to the mean.” Although Sir Francis Galton, a 19th-century scientist, originally used this

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My Essays, Technology
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Is Optimism Wired or Tired?

Wired book by Stephen King
Photo by James Bold on Unsplash

On January 2nd, 1993, Wired burst onto the scene, and let me tell you, it transformed the way many of us looked at technology and its impact on our future. It was like part field notes, part research lab, and a whole lot of fantastic storytelling. That magazine infused us with the kind of wild excitement that only comes from endless possibilities. It was like throwing gasoline on the fires of our imagination and lighting up our optimism. 

In 2017, when chatting with Louis Rossetto, one of the co-founders of Wired, along with Jane Metcalfe, I told him, “Discovering Wired was like stumbling upon my Rolling Stone. It gave me my cultural context more than anything else. I didn’t even think of myself as a nerd back then. I wasn’t. I was just genuinely interested in the future.”

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