The100: Trends, lists & the Namib Desert

Welcome back! Anyone else relate to this?

An AI experiment from the Bali tourist board

“We should refuse, in whatever game we’re playing, to make thoughtless and predictable moves just because they’re the moves we’ve been taught or conditioned to believe are the correct ones. We should strive to be difficult to model”

No short-cuts are available

“[…] in the case of video, researchers still have to look and listen to everything to make sense of it. No short-cuts are available”

Whilst technology has enabled the industry to gather data much more efficiently and effectively, without people actually watching those videos you miss the nuance. You miss the gold. Someone once said they were a TAPAS (not SAAS) company. Technology & People as a service. I like that.

The Noble Art

Something must be in the water at Barnes & Noble. Whilst the tech companies are stuck on buffer, the 100 year old store is thriving and recently announced plans to open 30 new book stores. I repeat. Real. Paper. Book. Stores.

Ted Gioia has been looking into how they’ve done so. 

Trendz

There were a heap of trend summaries, both looking back and looking forward, doled out over the break. In case you missed them:

• A collation of (100) 2023 prediction decks
• Pinterest Predicts
• A Year on YouTube 2022
• A Year on TikTok 2022

Life doesn’t change that fast

But, hold your horses, Tom Goodwin argues that we should focus on shifts, not trends: 

“[…] it would be easy to write about Generative AI or Nuclear Fusion or TikTok now, but the truth is that the trends that matter are movements that build over time. The latest trends are weather forecasts, but what matters is climate change. That’s where you make money”

Listz

As well as trend summaries, the end of the year also served up some superb lists:

• Tom Whitwell’s 52 things I learned in 2022. 12 and 39 are particular whammies. 
• Vikki Ross’s 22 things I liked in 2022. The door handle copy in 15 is superb.
• The UK’s top tv moments of 2022. Lest we forget 3 and 5.

And finally…

A live stream from a watering hole in the Namib Desert. Looks just like Basingstoke. Because who doesn’t want to watch a family of warthogs?