We live in a bit of a strange world at the moment where to have any success we basically have to become media publishers. You can still get pretty far with images and text, but the scale only seems to come with video, whether short- or long-form.

Organisations should be making content because it achieves their mission, but the state of the algorithm means if you’re not making video you simply aren’t reaching people. And content is easy for bosses to cut if you’re not achieving scale or making any money. If you weren’t getting big numbers any way, doing less content doesn’t appear to have much of a material impact. It’s just the potential impact you’re missing out on.

Success comes from intentionality. Goalhangar didn’t create the world’s most popular history podcast The Rest if History by fucking about - they got presenters who (mostly) know their stuff, found the right format and kept giving people what they want: a mixture of information, entertainment and storytelling. Nothing else. Just stories.

I’d like the sector be more ambitious, but you need a strong-willed and strategic thinker with a bit of budget to make that kind of thing happen in the current shitshow of an economic and political climate. It takes time and money and creativity, and you’re lucky if you get one of the three.

That said, I was sad to see news of the Museum of Carpet closing this week. I remember visiting years ago and being impressed by the Big Loom, but I don’t think a podcast would have saved them.

Content of this week

I mean, the content of the week was my chat with Danyele but I also saw some other things:

• If you’ve been on Reddit recently you may have come across someone who’s been posting their chopped chives for judgment on Kitchen Confidential. Philadelphia Cheese picked it up and sent him a care package. It’s one of the first ‘influencer’ things I’ve seen on the platform.

• I’m forever a big fan of making a big deal about very mundane things, like getting a new water fountation.

• The Mary Rose Museum has been on a roll recently, but my favourite thing about this post is a comment: “What do you mean exactly by this post? What a bizarre message. Don’t undermine your good work in conservation with thoughtless posts like this. Be clear about your communicative intent.” I guarantee someone internally will be wringing their hands about this rather than celebrating 22K Likes.

• Another in a long series of ‘just make a post about the stuff you talk about on tours’, this time courtesy of a little mill in Hampshire. The algorithm sucks, but this is a classic case of hooking you in quickly with story, context and nice visuals.

The bullet point bit

• Lauren Leek did a deep dive into how the Google Maps algorithm surfaces restaurants in London, and I bet it’s the same shenanigans for cultural sites.

• Australia has banned social media for under-16s. The Guardian checked in with some parents to see how that’s going.

• McDonald’s pulled an AI ad from the Netherlands because everyone hated it, and it’s looking increasingly like it’s a ‘when’ rather than ‘if’ OpenAI collapses like a drunken uncle at Christmas.

• Ash Mann did an article about adapting to the new AI Summaries world of search, while the EU has opened an investigation into Google about whether it should be compensating publishers for nicking website content for said AI summaries.

Personal stuff I do for me and you can just skip this if you like

🎮📖 what I’m consuming as a consumer

I’ve been listening a lot to Geese because I’m a 6 Music Dad.

🐕 Keith

Here he is