Happy Monday, y’all! So a week ago, we were preparing for what we thought would be a light dusting of snow here in Alabama. A week later, we are just now starting to see the ice start to significantly melt. Many roads in this area are still closed. We had a terrible situation where snow and rain fell the first couple of days then overnight it froze. So by Weds and Thurs, all the slush had been packed down into a sheet of hard ice that covered all the roads and yards. Basically, everyone has been homebound for the last week. It’s been really frustrating, but thankfully the temps will rise up to the 60s this week so most of the ice should be gone by this time tomorrow at the latest.
Now that the weather update is out of the way, let’s dive into a banger of a Monday’s Marketing Minute with a big surprise at the end:
Reddit is planning on offering an Initial Public Offering in March. I will be curious to see what the reaction is to this move. Reddit has had its issues in the past. I’ve been using Reddit actively for about six months now. Reddit has one thing going for it that other social media platforms really can’t replicate: It has a community or subreddit for literally every topic under the sun. So it can be a wonderful place to learn about a niche topic and engage with likeminded individuals that you probably can’t find as easily on other social media platforms. On the downside, it has a serious troll problem, in fact I would say it’s on par with Twitter, maybe worse. My guess is the response to the IPO will be a bit lukewarm, unless something changes.
Reddit plans to launch its initial public offering in March, sources said. It would be the first IPO of a major social media company since Pinterest's debut in 2019 https://t.co/Njbqs4fnM0 pic.twitter.com/eb8LTEBZKT
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 18, 2024
So the New York Times is suing OpenAI because it claims that OpenAI is using its copyrighted material to train its ChatGPT AI program. OpenAI has denied these claims, but is rumored to be in talks with three mainstream media sources to license its content for just that purpose. Of the three, Time has confirmed that the talks are happening and are ongoing. The obvious potential problem with this move would be that ChatGPT would likely lean heavily on content provided by these three sources. That’s a worrisome thing, even if the content ChatGPT used in its training is always accurate. But I suspect this will be an ongoing trend, different AI models will sign exclusive agreements with select publishers, and each one will likely create its own identify based off the content sources it uses for training. Maybe this AI tool is for liberals, this one is for conservatives, this one is for NFL fans, this one is for people who engage in outdoor sports.
OpenAI wants to license CNN, FOX, Time news content https://t.co/HNjJ9Iu6Lq
— CoinGeek (@RealCoinGeek) January 15, 2024
Elon is asking Tesla to let him effectively double his stake in the company. Elon wants to have a 25% stake in the company, so the AI products he is developing can fall under the Tesla brand and be developed and utilized internally by the company. Elon says if Tesla won’t do so, he will build AI products outside of Tesla. Which would likely mean building them then licensing the AI tools back to Tesla for a hefty fee. So could be a win-win for Elon, Say what you will about him, but Musk is a smart businessman.
Elon Musk demanded Tesla’s board give him shares worth more than $80 billion if it wants him to continue developing AI products. He would “build products outside of Tesla” unless the board raises his stake to 25%, he said.https://t.co/KFBz8vlfkv
— The New York Times (@nytimes) January 16, 2024
BONUS: She’s baaaaaack!!!! I was on YouTube over the weekend and I was overjoyed to see not one but TWO new marketing/business videos from one of the smartest people I know, the legendary Kathy Sierra. Here’s the first one, she has a followup to this video as well. Please subscribe to Kathy’s YouTube channel to get all her content, she’s just flat out brilliant.
So that’s it for this edition of Monday’s Marketing Minute. Later this week I’ll publish the Tourism Power List for January, be looking for that. I hope everyone has a wonderful and productive week!
