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The CMS market is fragmenting, and platform choice now carries direct implications for scalability, SEO, and revenue growth. The post CMS Market Share Trends: Top Content Management Systems (Oct 2025) appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

Attribution shows who gets credit. Incrementality shows what your marketing truly caused. In an era of automation and privacy restrictions, understanding the real lift behind your campaigns is the only way to prove what’s working. This article breaks down what incrementality measures, why it matters, and how to test it across today’s major ad platforms. The problem with ‘great’ results that don’t actually drive growth Marketers love big numbers – CTR, impressions, and ROAS all sound great in a deck. But what if those results don’t represent real business growth? For example, a paid search campaign reports a 10x ROAS. It might sound amazing. But if 90% of those conversions would’ve happened organically without your ads, your true ROAS is much lower. That’s where incrementality comes in. It measures how many of those conversions happened because of your marketing, not in spite of it. It’s the difference between taking credit and creating value. When eBay paused its brand search ads, a large-scale field experiment found sales were largely unchanged – showing those ads were capturing existing demand, not creating new growth. Dig deeper: Incrementality testing in advertising: Who are the winners and losers? What incrementality actually measures Incrementality quantifies the causal lift from your marketing. It’s a measure of what changed because your campaign existed. In practice: Test group: People or regions exposed to your ads. Control group: Similar people or regions not exposed. Lift: The difference in outcomes between the two groups. If your test group produced 1,250 purchases and your control group 1,000, your campaign drove +250 incremental sales (+25% lift) – the part that wouldn’t have happened without you. Why incrementality matters more than ever Traditional metrics hint at performance – incrementality proves it. It reveals waste: You can see where ads simply capture organic demand (like branded search for established brands). It informs budget: You’ll know which channels actually generate new revenue and which just take credit for it. It builds trust: Finance and leadership teams care about what changed, not what was “attributed.” In short, incrementality aligns marketing metrics with business outcomes. 4 reliable ways to measure incrementality Each incrementality test asks the same question: What would’ve happened without my ads? These four methods offer different ways to answer it, depending on how much control and data you have. MethodHow it worksBest forWhy use itRandomized holdoutRandomly split audience into test vs. controlPaid social, display, searchGold standard; directly measures causal impactGeo holdoutRun campaign in test regions, pause in othersOffline, retail, CTVScales to large markets; works when user-level control isn’t possibleSynthetic control / Causal modelingBuild a “synthetic” baseline from historical or similar dataOne-off or national campaignsUseful when you can’t randomize; relies on good dataMarketing mix modeling (MMM)Use regression to estimate each channel’s contributionMulti-channel, long-term planningPrivacy-safe and strategic; best when calibrated with experiments 1. Randomized holdout (user-level testing) Also called randomized controlled trial (RCT), this is the cleanest way to measure lift. You randomly divide your audience. One half sees your ads (test). The other half doesn’t (control). Your campaign directly causes any difference in conversions or revenue. Platforms like Meta (Facebook/Instagram) and Google Ads (YouTube, Display) now offer built-in lift tests that handle randomization and reporting automatically. When to use: Digital campaigns with measurable conversions and sufficient volume. 2. Geo holdout testing When you can’t randomize individuals, randomize regions. Choose comparable locations, such as two cities with similar purchase patterns. Run your ads in one and pause in the other. The difference in results reveals your incremental lift. Why it works: Real-world scale, works across offline or mixed channels (e.g., TV, radio, or retail). Caution: Match regions carefully and allow for enough time to balance out local fluctuations. Dig deeper: The ROAS illusion: Rethinking what Google Ads success looks like 3. Synthetic control and causal modeling When experiments aren’t possible – say you ran a national campaign – you can estimate what would’ve happened without your ads using data models. Tools like Google’s CausalImpact and Meta’s GeoLift build a synthetic “twin” of your audience or region based on past trends. Comparing actual results to this modeled baseline reveals your campaign’s incremental effect. It’s not as airtight as a true experiment, but it’s a strong option for retrospective or large-scale campaigns. 4. Marketing mix modeling (MMM) MMM uses historical, aggregated data (e.g., spend, impressions, sales) to measure each channel’s contribution over time. It’s not an experiment, but when calibrated with incrementality studies, it provides a strategic, privacy-safe view of ROI across channels. MMM answers questions like: “What share of sales did Meta vs. Search drive last quarter?” “What happens to revenue if we cut TV spend by 20%?” Think of MMM as the macro view, and lift testing as the ground truth that keeps it accurate. Get the newsletter search marketers rely on. See terms. How ad platforms support incrementality Major ad platforms now offer built-in tools to help marketers measure lift directly – no manual setup required. Meta (Facebook/Instagram): Offers Conversion Lift and Brand Lift studies – randomized tests that directly measure incremental conversions or brand outcomes. Google Ads: Provides Conversion Lift for YouTube and Display, with “ghost ads” simulating withheld exposure for the control group. You can also run A/B experiments with Drafts and Experiments for Search. TikTok: Recently launched Conversion Lift Studies, showing that a large percentage of conversions measured by lift were exclusive to TikTok – meaning they wouldn’t have occurred through other channels. Amazon Ads: Has limited native lift testing; most advertisers use geo-based experiments or work with measurement partners to determine incremental impact. How to run your first incrementality test Here’s a straightforward process to get started: Choose one campaign and KPI: For example, Facebook campaign targeting add-to-cart conversions. Form a hypothesis: “This campaign will increase conversions by at least 10% over baseline.” Set up control and test groups: Use a platform lift test or create your own random or geo holdout. Run the test for a full conversion cycle: Avoid overlapping changes (like price updates or promotions). Collect data and calculate lift: Incremental conversions = Test − Control Lift (%) = (Test − Control) ÷ Control × 100 iROAS = Incremental revenue ÷ Spend Make decisions: Scale what’s proven incremental. Pause or rethink what isn’t. Repeat quarterly: Use learnings to calibrate attribution models and budget plans. Common pitfalls to avoid Even well-designed tests can fail if the setup or timing is off. Watch out for these common mistakes that can distort your results or hide true lift. Running tests that are too small or too short: Without statistical power, you can’t trust the result. Contaminating the control group: Make sure control users or regions truly don’t see your ads. Testing too many variables at once: Keep it simple – one campaign, one goal. Relying solely on attribution: Attribution models show credit, not cause. Forgetting to document results: Keep an “incrementality log” test setup, data, and learnings so your team can build institutional knowledge. Make lift your new baseline Three major shifts make incrementality indispensable today: Privacy restrictions limit what we can track – experiments measure lift without personal data. Automated ad systems optimize for conversions, not necessarily incremental ones. Economic pressure demands proof of value. When budgets tighten, finance wants to know what happens if you turn ads off. Attribution shows where conversions came from. Incrementality shows whether marketing caused them at all. In a world where every click is already claimed by someone, lift is how you prove your ads aren’t just showing up – they’re driving growth. Start with one clean test, validate key channels, and make lift your new baseline. Because if your marketing doesn’t create new demand, it’s not really working. Dig deeper: PPC experimentation vs. PPC testing: A practical breakdown View the full article

Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding Lifehacker as a preferred source for tech news. There are a lot of popular study methods to choose from and they can all work well depending on the type of learner you are. One that isn’t as commonly discussed is the THIEVES method. Use it the next time you break open a fresh chapter for school or need to retain a lot of new information for work. What is the THIEVES method?The THIEVES reading technique, recommended by universities like Kent State, is designed to get you thinking critically while you read. THIEVES is an acronym for the following elements of your content: Title Headings Introduction Every first sentence in a paragraph Visuals and vocabulary End-of-chapter questions Summary The goal of using this method is figuring out what you want to learn from the chapter and how the information within it connects. By writing down each of the seven categories before you start, you’ll set the stage to get a bigger-picture view of the content before you start digging into it, similar to how the SQ3R or KWL methods work. How to use the THIEVES reading methodWrite down all seven of your categories—and I do mean write them down, since writing by hand can aid in retention. You can use your phone or a Word doc if you want, of course, but if you're looking for portability and modern convenience, I recommend handwriting, then digitizing your notes when you're done. After writing down the categories, from Title to Summary, and leaving some room under each, start jotting down what you want to gain from each one. Under Title, ask yourself what you think the text is about and what you already know about it based on the title. Under Headings, ask yourself why the information has been divided up this way, what you think you’ll learn in each section, and how the subtopics might relate to the bigger picture. From there, start reading, but mark down notes every time you encounter one of the THIEVES items. For instance, after the Introduction, write down what made you curious about the rest of the chapter after you read it, and make sure you do the same after Every first sentence in a section. Any time you get to a graph, picture, or table, write in your Visuals section about what each one represents and what they might tell you about the content and the bigger picture. At the End, jot down notes on how the author finished the chapter and what you learned, plus what you might learn in the future that relates to what you just went over. Finally, Summarize your reading, writing down what you think the author’s main idea was and your overall understanding of the primary themes and concepts. This is a more structured form of close reading, a reading technique that forces you to pause and consider every tiny detail of a text. The author, publisher, and professor all have reasons for why they want you to read something, why details were left in or out, and why the material presented in the text is relevant. Everything in there matters somehow, which is what close reading is designed to help you figure out. When you use THIEVES, you give yourself a road map to make close reading even easier. During the "summarize" portion, try blurting, or writing down everything you can remember, then checking your notes against the material. You can also try making a mind map, which helps you visualize the connections between your concepts. If you struggle with those, reread the material until you retain enough to move on to the summary. It might take a few passes. Doing this before and as you read will help you stay engaged as you go, and it gives you notes to look back on when you review in the future. Use distributed study to determine how frequently you need to review these notes before your next big test. View the full article

The Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank reported net income of $1.45 billion for the third quarter and earnings per share of $1.04, which beat analysts' forecast of $0.99 per share. View the full article

Kirill Dmitriev says undersea ‘Putin-The President Tunnel’ should be built by Boring CompanyView the full article

Liz Reid VP, head of Search at Google, was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal's Bold Names podcast. They spoke about AI, AI Search, how ads are impacted by AI results and other Google features, and AI-generated content's impact on the web and search, plus more.View the full article

Now if you manage multiple Google Business Profiles, when you add a Google Post, Google will let you quickly add that same Google Post to other Google Business Profiles that you manage.View the full article

The fortunes of major quantum computing firms turned negative this week as share prices sank—in some cases by double digits. The so-called Quantum Four publicly traded companies—Rigetti Computing, IonQ, Quantum Computing Inc, and D-Wave Quantum—saw their stock prices tumble on Thursday. And as of this writing, all four companies are down even lower in premarket trading on Friday. Berkeley, California-based Rigetti (NASDAQ: RGTI) has seen the biggest drop, with its stock price falling almost 15% on Thursday, October 16. As of this writing, the stock was down another 7.65% during the premarket session. Shares of IonQ (NYSE: IONQ) were down by a similar amount on Thursday, although their 2.23% drop on Friday has not been quite as steep. Quantum Computing Inc (NASDAQ: QUBT) fell by 11.73% on Thursday, while D-Wave (NYSE: QBTS) was down 9.65%. Why are quantum computing stocks down? There doesn’t seem to have been any market-moving negative news specific to the quantum computing space. In fact, D-Wave had just announced on Wednesday a $12 million deal to bring its much-hyped Advantage2 computer to Italy. However, the broader stock market experienced shocks on Thursday after regional bank Zions Bancorporation accused some of its borrowers of fraud and warned that it would take a large loss, as the Wall Street Journal reported. This disclosure has sparked fears about the credit health of regional banks more broadly, and those fears appear to be spilling into the markets. Stock futures were all in retreat on Friday morning as investors continue to digest the news. In the meantime, some may be gravitating toward safe-haven assets like gold, which just set yet another record this week when it topped $4,300 per ounce. Quantum computing investors may be profit-taking All four of the major quantum computing firms have had enormous runs over the last 12 months, with shares of Rigetti soaring almost 5,000% over that period. With markets turning negative and troubling signals emerging from the banking sector, it’s natural that investors in quantum computing might be inclined to sell off some of their shares while profits are high. Although quantum computers are seen by many experts as a transformative technology that could reshape the industry, the space is still highly speculative, and some have argued that the stocks are currently overvalued. What happens next is anyone’s guess. View the full article

Google is now sending push notifications to some users that direct that user to a search within AI Mode. Yes, Google is pushing users to do queries in AI Mode using push notification services from the Google app.View the full article

The Indigenous leader on the threats to his Kayapó tribe, why ancestral knowledge matters — and the meaning behind his ‘visions’View the full article

Hello again from Fast Company and thanks for reading Plugged In. Before I go any further, a bit of quick self-serving promotion: This week, we published our fifth annual Next Big Things in Tech list. Featuring 137 projects and people in 31 categories, it’s our guide to technologies that are already reshaping business and life in general, with plenty of headroom to go further in the years to come. None of them are the usual suspects—and many have largely flown under the radar. Take a look, and you’ll come away with some discoveries. Two weeks ago in this space, I wrote about Sora, OpenAI’s new social network devoted wholly to generating and remixing 10-second synthetic videos. At the time of launch, the company said its guardrails prohibited the inclusion of living celebrities, but also declared that it didn’t plan to police copyright violations unless owners explicitly opted out of granting permission. Consequently, the clips people shared were rife with familiar faces such as Pikachu and SpongeBob. Not surprisingly, that policy gave Hollywood fits. Quickly changing course, OpenAI tweaked its algorithm to reject prompts that clearly reference copyrighted IP. A handful of high-profile Sora members have used its Cameo feature to create shareable AI versions of themselves, including iJustine, Logan Paul, Mark Cuban, and OpenAI’s own Sam Altman. They’re everywhere on the service. But with other current celebs off the table, the Sora-obsessed turned to one of the few remaining available sources of cultural touchstones: dead people. That too has proven controversial. Most notably, the daughters of George Carlin, Martin Luther King Jr., Robin Williams, and Malcolm X have all decried the use of Sora to create synthetic videos of their fathers. “Please, just stop sending me AI videos of Dad,” wrote Zelda Williams on Instagram. “If you’ve got any decency, just stop doing this to him and to me, to everyone even, full stop.” I am sympathetic to their angst. In 2021, a genealogy site called MyHeritage presaged the Sora era by launching a feature called Deep Nostalgia that let you turn old family photographs into brief videos. Out of curiosity, I uploaded a photo of a deceased relative. The moment I saw the results, I regretted having done so. Being constantly exposed to AI simulacrums of your parent created by random strangers must be agonizing. In response to concerns about bad-taste AI resurrections, OpenAI told The Washington Post’s Tatum Hunter and Drew Harwell that it would allow representatives of the “recently deceased” to block Sora depictions. But the company didn’t specify what it considered to be recent. Whatever its definition, it’s not going to make everyone happy. The aforementioned famous fathers died anywhere from 1965 (Malcolm X) to 2014 (Williams). They surely won’t fall under a recency exception. Yet the old bit of wisdom “tragedy plus time equals comedy”—which apparently originated with another dead person, comedian Steve Allen—doesn’t always hold true. It depends on the context. Even more than a decade later, Robin Williams’s death by suicide still feels like an incalculable tragedy. I have not run across any videos of him on Sora, and would prefer I never do. But I don’t feel the same way about Queen Elizabeth II, who made it to 96 and was spry until her 2022 passing. Actually, I thoroughly enjoyed a jag of Sora remixes that began with a clip of her praising the cheese puffs at Costco (“delightfully orange”) and went on to show her relishing other delicacies in various venues around the world. Some of these clips made me LOL, not figuratively but literally. In fact, the only reason I peruse Sora at all is because an overwhelming percentage of the items in my feed are fanciful and at least aspirationally funny. AI slop of the sort that strives—however clumsily—for realism is scarce on the service. The same is hardly true on other social networks such as Facebook and TikTok, which are infested with machine-generated kindhearted celebrities and cute animals. I’m not saying that Sora is consistently riotous. I’ve scrolled through a lot of videos of MLK—and Mister Rogers, Bob Ross, and others—in which the only point is that they’re mouthing some anodyne term they wouldn’t have used, or talking about Sora itself. That gets tiresome fast, and makes me at least slightly queasy. It might even be slop. It’s just not the sum total of Sora. I have not been above making my own Sora videos depicting the departed. Inspired by the fact that Orson Welles once recorded a radio commercial for frozen peas, I prompted for a video depicting him filming such an ad. It came out entertaining, in part because Sora’s version of Welles reminded me of the late John Candy’s wonderful impression of him. Other users remixed the clip into ones showing Welles endorsing everything from twine to camp chairs, starring less and less convincing approximations of the legendary actor-director. Maybe you had to be there. But I found it to be a rewarding if minor act of collaborative creativity, not a regrettable coarsening of the internet. All in all, encouraging people to channel their AI-video-generating energy into clips that are playful, genuinely social, and cordoned off from reality, as Sora does, seems like a positive development to me. Still, I try to show grace toward the feelings of others and would accept more restrictive policies on the use of deceased celebrities. Maybe the service could permit them only if nobody alive ever met the person in question. Cleopatra and Abraham Lincoln would pass that test; Marilyn Monroe and Albert Einstein would not. (That’s before you get to the fact that the estates of some celebrities have deals with licensing companies that probably aren’t thrilled with Sora’s unauthorized use, such as CMG Worldwide, which represents the Monroe and Einstein estates.) If nothing else, building new guardrails around specific categories of famed individuals no longer with us would be an interesting challenge for some engineer at OpenAI. I can’t see the company investing much effort in it. But in a strange way, it’s done the world a favor by forcing us to confront questions like this while the stakes remain relatively low. AI is only going to get better at deepfaking people, famous and otherwise. Better to figure out how we feel about that now, before the synthetic dead folks are truly indistinguishable from the real thing. You’ve been reading Plugged In, Fast Company’s weekly tech newsletter from me, global technology editor Harry McCracken. If a friend or colleague forwarded this edition to you—or if you’re reading it on FastCompany.com—you can check out previous issues and sign up to get it yourself every Friday morning. I love hearing from you: Ping me at hmccracken@fastcompany.com with your feedback and ideas for future newsletters. I’m also on Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads, and you can follow Plugged In on Flipboard. More top tech stories from Fast Company Inside Microsoft’s quest to make Windows 11’s AI irresistible Executives with a combined 130+ years of tenure on the company’s decades of work to get people to talk to their PCs—and why the time might finally be right. Read More → Billionaire investor Frank McCourt is not giving up on his dream of acquiring TikTok The financier says he wants a closer look at the The President deal for the wildly popular social-media platform. Read More → Goodbye, SEO. Hello, GEO How AI search is rewriting digital strategy. Read More → How kids are getting around classroom phone bans ‘Kids will always find a way, but honestly, the creativity involved is a skill worth developing,’ one teacher commented. Read More → This addictive game is like ‘SimCity’ but for transit nerds The goal of ‘Subway Builder’ is to move people from A to B. Some believe it might just start a transit revolution in the process. Read More → 5 time-saving Google Calendar tricks you should be using Make your calendar work for you, not the other way around. Read More → View the full article

Google's VP of Search said which kind of content gets more clicks in AI Overviews. The post Google Says What Content Gets Clicked On AI Overviews appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

Financial crises and their consequences may be harder to arrest today than in the pastView the full article

Google Ads will be updating the Google Ads Healthcare and Medicines policy to reflect the changes it will require to the approach to advertiser use of prescription drug terms. View the full article

Google has updated its Google Merchant Center policies to now allow for the sale of physical goods subscriptions. Google said this "will be available to all eligible Shopping ad merchants in the United States."View the full article

Decision on planning application has been pushed back to December in latest blow to relationsView the full article

Learn content marketing prompt frameworks, keep SEO trust intact, and scale AI content that ranks. Join our webinar to learn how to show-up in AIO. The post How To Use AI Writing Tools the Right Way: Best Practices for AIO Content Success appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

416+ million users on Reddit weekly. 400+ million on Quora monthly. The question is do you have the right strategy to thrive in them. The post Why Authority In Online Communities Such As Reddit And Quora Matters appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

We are in an era of strategic silence—no longer in the age of the activist CEO. Instead, business leaders are being told to lie low and stay in their lane to avoid unwanted attention, including from the White House. In the wake of Jimmy Kimmel’s removal from ABC, CEOs are reportedly turning down press and speaking opportunities. Today, leaders are faced with the question of when to speak up . . . and when to stay strategically silent in order to protect their constituents. Reverend Mariann Budde is an expert on speaking up. She was thrust into the national spotlight during President The President’s inauguration when she preached a sermon urging him to “have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.” In the weeks that followed, Budde was publicly criticized by President The President, and received both hate mail—as well as an overwhelming amount of gratitude for speaking up. Budde believes bravery can be learned. She is the author of How We Learn to Be Brave, a book about what courage looks like in our lives, and how we can cultivate it. She’ll be releasing an adaptation for younger readers, We Can Be Brave, in late October. Reverend Budde sat down with Fast Company to discuss how leaders should think about speaking up in an environment where doing so has very real consequences. In this paid Premium story, you’ll: Hear how Reverend Budde’s decision to speak out against President The President affected her—both negatively and positively Understand the time and place leaders should speak out Get advice for dealing with the aftermath of speaking up [The following conversation has been edited for clarity.] How can leaders distinguish between when it’s necessary to speak up, versus when it’s actually not worth the risk and, in fact, foolhardy? It’s a very important question. And if there were a formula then it would be easy, right? We would all know. And part of the uncertainty and the risk is that we don’t know. Is this an important time—either for our personal integrity, the well-being of others, or the interests of our community or business—to speak out? Is this a time when we have reputational strength and wherewithal to withstand anticipated blowback? You don’t have to rise to every occasion, if it’s not wise. I think in times like this, these are serious questions to ask, because whole constituencies are at risk. However, there are times when we self-censor or when we step back unnecessarily, out of the anticipation of consequences that may or may not be real. There are dangers when we all take the safe route. It leaves a big gap for really unhealthy dynamics in society to have free reign. I think we are at risk of seeing some of that now, to be honest. What’s the cost to society if we all take the safe route? Unfortunately, in the beginning, you don’t see it unless you are near a vulnerable population, which is why proximity to those who are most impacted by the large societal movements is so important. I live in Washington, D.C., and people ask me: What’s it like in Washington now? It really depends on where you’re standing. For some people, life is just fine, and for other people, it is a living terror. How do you decide when to use your voice? Carefully. I don’t speak up every day. I did not and I don’t speak up on everything. I weigh my very limited public impact potential carefully. I try to stay in my lane, which is where spiritual values that I represent are in alignment with the democratic aspirations of our country. When I speak up, I do so from that foundation, and also from a constituency base that I personally represent. What’s a time when you didn’t speak up and wish you had? I wake up almost every day thinking of human inflicted starvation in Gaza. I am asked repeatedly to speak out, and I have done so very rarely, in part because I have very deep ties within the Jewish community here in Washington and in this country. I recognize not only the complexity of the situation, but also the impact that things I might say or do. The Archbishop of the Anglican church in Jerusalem asks us sometimes not to say anything because it just makes things worse for them. But I tell you, it doesn’t feel good to be quiet sometimes. Not that I have any illusions in this particular political environment that I would make a difference, which is another calculation I make: If I have absolutely no chance of affecting change by what I say, I have to decide if it’s worth the cost. You have spoken up in a very public way that has thrust you into the national spotlight. What was the impact on you personally? Well, first of all, it was a very unusual opportunity that was given to me to preach at the post inaugural prayer service. In terms of the upside, that was a privilege. The downside, it was obviously hard. It cost me a lot to think that through. I clearly offended the President and his inner circle, and they took the opportunity to make that known and it set in motion an onslaught of reaction for about three weeks. Our entire church was flooded with some pretty mean-spirited and false accusations. So that was the hard part. The other side to it was also a huge outpouring of gratitude, the likes of which I’ve never experienced. Boxes and boxes of mail—so much we couldn’t open it. People wrote me letters that began with, “I’m not a religious person, but I wanted to tell you how much what you said meant to me. Thank you for reminding people that my child is a human.” What advice do you have for people who do want to use their voice in a very public way, such as the way you have? Maybe people such as other leaders? It’s very helpful to be grounded. For three or four days, you’re at the height of all this energy and attention, and then the world goes silent. And it’s time to take out the garbage and remember that you forgot 17 things on your to-do list. It’s helpful to remember while there’s a response to you, your life is rooted somewhere else. We’re not the first generation of Americans to experience significant pulling back from values that we thought had been well-established. It was no picnic in the early 1920s when resegregation was introduced into this country. What did the people do then, and what can we do now? It’s also good to have a sense of humor, and a couple of children around to keep you grounded. We are at a time of deep disconnection and polarization. What does good leadership look like right now, especially if you’re leading people who are deeply divided? We don’t realize how influenced we have become by the contempt that’s poisoning our society. We can’t have conversations with people who differ from us in ways that don’t dehumanize and belittle one another. If we can’t figure out how to talk to each other across our differences, we will never, ever solve the problems that we’re facing as a society. You do have to speak up in the face of hatred and intolerance, but how you do it matters. You have to meet that kind of intolerance with firm conviction and persuasion—and yet not robbing that person of their inherent dignity as well. What does it mean to be brave? From our earliest days as human beings, we have to and are summoned to do things that we have never done before. Stepping into something that is unfamiliar carries some degree of risk, and yet this is the miracle of our existence. Even though we’re afraid, we know exactly what we’re supposed to do. Sometimes we’re really excited because we feel like we’re in our element and we can do this. Other times, we’re terrified. We don’t know if we can do it. And we learn sometimes that we can’t, in fact, do that thing, and we fail. Then the most important learning is what is the brave moment after failure or disappointment or making a mistake? I find that the brave or the courageous call in those times is to step up, learn, wipe off whatever humiliation or wounding that happens, and persevere. View the full article

Some brands are watching their organic traffic – and revenue – slip away. Others? They’re optimizing for this new search channel and seeing theirs rise. That’s why Semrush Enterprise built the AI Visibility Index. It’s the definitive study into how brands perform across the world’s leading AI search engines. Leveraging Semrush Enterprise’s AI Optimization (AIO) platform, the Index analyzes 2,500 real-world prompts in both ChatGPT and AI Mode across five key verticals: Business & Professional Services Digital Technology & Software Consumer Electronics Fashion & Apparel Finance Revealing which brands are leading the AI search landscape, and why they’re winning. The findings uncover a new hierarchy of visibility. Mentions in AI responses – not traditional rankings – now shape awareness and purchase intent. The brands that dominate AI conversations are those optimizing for how models learn, cite, and recommend. Key takeaways from the research: SEO ≠ AI visibility: Top Google rankings no longer guarantee placement in ChatGPT or Google AI Mode results. AI models reward structured data, transparent pricing, and strong third-party validation. Mentions ≠ sources: Being cited isn’t enough. Brands mentioned in AI-generated answers see exponentially higher visibility than those simply used as data sources. The brand effect is real: Iconic names like Patagonia and Garmin win by owning their niche through consistent, structured visibility signals. UGC is the new authority: Forums, reviews, and authentic user conversations have become the key drivers of brand visibility in AI search. Beyond the leaderboards, the report decodes how AI models decide which brands to show – and what you can do to grow your visibility. From understanding the gap between “who AI talks about” and “who it trusts,” to aligning discovery, authority, and sentiment, the AI Visibility Index gives marketing leaders a data-backed blueprint for growth. Because AI visibility isn’t accidental, it’s engineered. This study offers some of the first truly evidence-based framework for how brands can be found, trusted, and recommended by AI across every major platform. Ready to see how your industry stacks up and what it takes to lead? Explore the AI Visibility Index to see who’s on top across five industries. Then download your own blueprint for winning in AI search. View the full article

When brands hire illustrators, animators, or other artists, they typically know what they’re paying for: a defined set of creative assets, delivered on deadline, with clear usage rights. But in the age of generative AI, that’s no longer the whole picture. Commissioned artwork is increasingly being used not just in finished campaigns, but as training data to power AI models—models that, in turn, generate new, derivative outputs. Often, this use isn’t spelled out in contracts. It’s not malicious. It’s just . . . new. That’s left brands, agencies, and artists in a tricky spot—trying to apply old licensing logic to a new generation of tools. The result is a growing disconnect between how creative work is made, how it’s used, and how it’s paid for. What’s needed isn’t a philosophical debate about machine creativity. It’s a practical framework—one flexible enough for fast-moving teams, but structured enough to protect the humans still at the heart of the process. The Creative Loop Has Changed Traditionally, artists get paid for what they deliver—a character design, a series of storyboards, a set of icons or illustrations. The license defines where, how long, and in what formats those assets can be used. But as AI workflows become more embedded in creative production, the loop looks different. A brand commissions original artwork. That artwork is used not only in campaigns, but to fine-tune a generative model trained to produce content “in the style of” the original work. From there, marketing teams or third-party vendors can generate dozens of variations on demand—without going back to the original artist. There’s nothing inherently unethical about this. In many cases, it’s efficient and creatively useful. But if the artist who trained the model isn’t compensated for that secondary use, a value gap opens up. And that gap becomes a reputational risk for the brand—especially as creative professionals, advocacy groups, and consumers become more AI-literate. A Shift from Ownership to Participation This isn’t a question of whether AI should be used. That debate is over. The question now is how to ensure the humans who shape the aesthetic intelligence of these systems are fairly recognized and fairly paid. One path forward is to rethink the licensing structure. Instead of defaulting to flat fees for fixed deliverables, brands can structure creative engagements to reflect how derivative value is created over time. That starts by offering two distinct paths: one built around full ownership, and the other designed for ongoing participation. In the ownership model, brands pay a higher up-front fee that covers the rights to train a model, generate derivative outputs, and use those outputs across campaigns without future royalties. It’s clean, comprehensive, and often a fit for fast-scaling companies or complex campaigns with long content tails. In the participation model, brands pay a standard commission fee and then compensate the artist over time, based on how their work is used to generate new content. This might look like a royalty per output, a revenue share, or a pooled licensing structure tied to usage volume—akin to how publishers or music rights organizations operate. Neither option is perfect. But both reflect the realities of modern creative work—where original contributions can fuel a long arc of generative production. More importantly, they offer artists a choice in how their labor and influence are valued. What a Smarter Licensing Framework Looks Like For brands and agencies ready to adopt more transparent compensation models, the good news is this doesn’t require a reinvention of the creative contract. A few key mechanisms, easily added to existing agreements, can bring clarity to how AI-derived work is used and monetized. The first is a Commission-to-Model clause. It makes explicit that commissioned work will be used to train a model, and defines the scope of that use. These clauses can specify what kind of model is being trained, whether third-party partners will have access, and how long the model can be used. Crucially, they establish triggers for expanded use—say, across new business units or global campaigns—that would require a conversation or renewal. Think of it as the AI-era equivalent of a sync license for a song: it clarifies how the “source material” can be extended and scaled. Next is a Derivative Use Ladder—a pricing framework that reflects how far an AI-generated asset strays from the original commission. Minor edits or resizes might be included in the base fee. AI-generated variants used within the same campaign could carry a modest uplift. Broader reuse across platforms, regions, or product lines would trigger higher fees or require relicensing. The goal isn’t to over-monetize creativity. It’s to avoid ambiguity and allow both sides to plan with confidence. For brands building longer-term systems, where a model trained on original artwork might generate thousands of outputs, a royalty-bearing model license may be the most aligned. This could take the form of a flat fee per generated asset, a quarterly revenue share, or a pooled royalty structure when multiple artists contribute to a shared model. The mechanics can vary. What matters is the principle: as the system creates more outputs, more value should flow back to the creative source. Each of these frameworks can integrate into existing production workflows. But together, they offer something more powerful: a shift in mindset from “we own what we paid for” to “we share in what we build together.” What Artists Want (and Brands Can Offer) Artists aren’t looking to halt innovation. Most understand the value of generative tools. Many already use them in their own workflows. What they want is transparency, consent, and a fair share of the value created when their work is used to teach machines. That doesn’t mean every output requires a payment. But it does mean brands should be prepared to offer clear terms—not just to protect themselves legally, but to build trust with the creative talent they rely on. A Reputation-Forward Approach to AI As generative AI becomes normalized in creative production, scrutiny is rising: lawsuits over unlicensed training data, open letters from illustrators, AI-generated brand work that backfires online. In this environment, it’s no longer enough to stay quiet and hope no one asks. Responsible AI use is becoming part of a brand’s public posture. A clear, fair compensation model for human contributors isn’t just ethically sound—it’s reputationally smart. Put simply: compensating the people who make your model smarter is good business. Pay the Source The creative economy is shifting—from artifact to algorithm, from fixed deliverables to living systems, from single commissions to ongoing creative loops. In that new reality, we need new rules. Paying the source isn’t about holding onto the past. It’s about designing a future where artists, technologists, and brands can build together, with clarity and trust. That future is already arriving. The only question is whether we meet it with contracts that reflect the tools we use—or keep pretending the old ones are enough. View the full article

Logan Ivey has tried everything to cut down on his screen time. He bought a modern “dumbphone” that’s designed to be used as little as possible, tried a device called a Brick that removes distracting apps and notifications from a smartphone, and even resorted to a classic flip phone when all else failed. Still, nothing was working. So he turned his iPhone into a 6-pound weight. The 6 Pound Phone Case is a bulky, stainless steel contraption designed to make your smartphone extremely annoying to use. Inspired by the aesthetics of an ’80s brick phone, the case transforms a typical, ultra-portable iPhone into a cumbersome eyesore—and that’s the whole point. Ivey, who has been using the case for the past two months, says it has helped cut his screen time in half. Currently, the 6 Pound Phone Case is just a prototype, but Ivey is raising money through a Kickstarter page to sell a small batch of the cases for a whopping $210 each (the hefty price tag, he says, is due to the high manufacturing costs and current tariffs on steel). Ivey’s invention is the latest in a recent series of out-there projects designed to help smartphone users “hack” their brains into cutting the doomscroll short. In the late 2010s, dumbphones enjoyed a spike in popularity—but since then, many users have met with the unfortunate reality that they need smartphone functions like maps, Google, email, and other services to navigate the day-to-day. Creative minds have thought up all kinds of solutions to this conundrum, including an app that forces you to literally touch grass before you scroll, a phone case that doubles as a tiny screen, and an app that uses an animated bean character to guilt-trip you out of going on social media. The 6 Pound Phone Case is the newest addition to this wacky smartphone detox lineup—and it might just be the most effective. Designing a 6-Pound Phone Case Ivey uses social media for a living. He’s both an independent creator and a full-time social media producer for Matter Neuroscience, a company he describes as dedicated to “bridging the gap between everyday behavior and molecular science.” Part of Matter Neuroscience’s mission has included building an app that lets users track their emotions every week to understand what kind of behaviors drive happiness. Through this project, Ivey says, he realized just how much his phone was sapping his energy and blocking his “feel-good neurotransmitters.” After trying dumbphones, a flip phone, and app blockers, Ivey realized that, especially given his job in social media, it was just too inconvenient to try replacing his smartphone. Instead, he needed a way to make his iPhone feel more like a tool than an addictive pastime. “I asked myself, ‘How can I keep all the functionality of my phone, but still use it less?’” Ivey says. “Then I thought, like, What if my phone was just really heavy and inconvenient to use?” Matter Neuroscience partnered with Ivey to help make the idea reality. He turned to the clunky form factor of an ’80s brick phone as inspiration, designing a case with one flat surface and two jutting rectangles on its top and bottom. Cutouts for charging, volume buttons, power, and a tapered camera hole keep every part of the phone functional—but its stainless steel construction, which can be removed only by unscrewing four screws with an Allen wrench, makes it physically difficult to hold for too long. “At 6 pounds, your hands and arms physically get tired while using it,” the case’s Kickstarter page reads. “That fatigue reminds you to put the phone down.” Further, it adds, the case’s size is inconveniently big, purposefully preventing the user from tucking it in their pocket. “You have to carry it in a bag like a laptop, or leave it in another room. That means fewer phantom notifications, fewer sidewalk swipes, and fewer brain rot sessions while pooping (and maybe less hemorrhoids).” In Ivey’s experience, the 6 Pound Phone Case has cut his screen time from four and a half hours per week to just two. While Ivey does hope to sell some of the cases through his Kickstarter with Matter Neuroscience, he doesn’t have plans to patent the design, and sees it as a concept that could have genuine potential for other phone case companies. “Those little moments in life where you just instinctively reach for your phone, I don’t do anymore,” Ivey says, “because I either don’t have it on me or it’s too heavy.” View the full article

If you’ve noticed that the internet feels different lately—more cluttered, harder to navigate—you’re not imagining it. The system is breaking down in real time, and by 2026, researchers predict that 90% of web content will be AI-generated. Quality journalism is disappearing behind paywalls while feeds fill with noise designed purely to capture attention. An innovation that was supposed to democratize information is now drowning us in it. I know this intimately because I helped build it. As founder of AppNexus, which sold to AT&T for $1.6 billion, and former CTO of Right Media, I created the technology that became the backbone of digital advertising, a multibillion-dollar industry and the economic engine funding everything from major newsrooms to niche blogs. Now that engine is stalling. You are now the product Here’s what happened: instead of paying for what you have actually read or watched, the advertising system turned you into the product. Every click, search, and scroll got auctioned to the highest bidder. You became the currency. And once the dollars followed your data rather than content quality, the value of real information slipped into the background. The effects are everywhere. News organizations are consolidating rapidly or shuttering entirely. AI-generated slop is creeping into YouTube and other online communities, and flooding search results with spam. Trust in the media and the online ecosystem is on the brink of collapse. Shoes chase you around the internet, misinformation spreads faster than facts, and billions vanish to fraud. It feels like the end. But I’ve seen this before. A recurring pattern The internet has a pattern: it breaks, people panic, and then it is rebuilt into something much better. Web 1.0 gave us static pages and basic connectivity. Web 2.0 brought user-generated content and social interaction—but not before people warned it would destroy traditional media entirely. Each transition looked catastrophic while it was happening. Remember when mobile first arrived? Mobile websites were impossible to read. Ads covered half your screen. Everything required pinch-to-zoom and patience. Companies spent years trying to shove desktop experiences onto phones before they figured out that mobile needed its own infrastructure. It felt broken and annoying, until it didn’t. With phones constantly in hand and the first screen for most people, we barely remember the awkward transition. Another phase We’re in that awkward phase again. Our attention is fragmented across more platforms, devices, and channels than ever. We seek information and entertainment everywhere, and we have higher expectations: we want access without annoyance, quality without cost, personalization without intrusion. The current infrastructure wasn’t built for this reality. Now, AI has cascaded into everything. It’s generating slop that’s flooding search results and feeds, yes, but it’s also the tool we’re using to rebuild. We are reorganizing our lives around it: how we work, how we find information, how we consume content. What some are calling the “agentic AI economy”—where AI is integrated as an intelligent intermediary that reasons, plans, and acts to solve problems—is starting to take shape. The internet’s infrastructure will be fine once it catches up to that shift and the industry rethinks its fundamental economics. Course correction Licensing deals, revenue sharing, and “pay-per-crawl” compensation models are taking shape to course correct and ensure publishers start to be paid for their value and those will continue to evolve as the industry sees what sticks. Meanwhile, AI companies themselves, OpenAI being the most recent, are investing in advertising infrastructure, recognizing that if chat and AI engines are here to stay as primary channels, they need sustainable business models beyond subscriptions. New targeting approaches leveraging agentic AI are also on the horizon, offering the promise of eliminating waste and fraud that would otherwise go toward funding made-for-advertising websites or AI slop. Companies like mine, Scope3, offer “agentic advertising,” using AI agents to match ads to specific content themes and values rather than relying on personal data or demographics. Try this: copy a page you’ve browsed and paste it into ChatGPT, then ask it to produce an ad and compare the result to what’s actually on the page. More likely than not, ChatGPT gave a better ad without even needing your browser history or data. This makes content the product again, not you. Quality publishers get rewarded while content farms and fraudulent sites are starved of revenue. These are proof points that the economic infrastructure is being rebuilt. A turning point The internet’s promise doesn’t have to die with its decline. We’re at a turning point where we know AI will shape the web—that’s inevitable. Now we decide what kind of system we build with it. If the attention economy monetized distraction, the agentic AI economy has the chance to monetize trust. We can use AI to filter noise instead of creating it. We can reward publications that invest in fact-checking and original reporting. We can connect ads based on values and genuine interest rather than demographic profiles. Or we can let the internet collapse—either descending into unusable chaos where AI slop buries everything of value or splitting into a world where quality content exists only behind paywalls most people can’t afford. The builders who understand this moment, those championing dynamics that reward quality and trust, are ready to shape what’s next. The internet we want is possible. We just have to choose to build it. View the full article

How we nearly tripled our share of voice and boosted our AI visibility with Enterprise AIO and AI SEO Toolkit. A systematic approach with real data. View the full article

With more than a decade of experience working as a design and tech analyst, Andrew Hogan is all in on the efficiency and ease that tech brings to our lives. But lately at home with his daughters (ages 4 and 18 months), Hogan is grappling with something unwieldy and undefined: how parents, kids, and technology interact, from smartphones to screen time to AI. “We are so eager to remove friction—avoid it and smooth over the rough spots, especially as parents,” Hogan says. In fall 2024, Hogan began writing a newsletter called Parent.Tech, designed to help him, and other parents, better understand how to navigate the increasingly complex world of tech and consumer products. Some of the topics covered include parenting apps, parental controls, AI’s place (or not) in homework, and how to build a framework for kids’ tech use. “I want to be a better dad, and Parent.Tech was a path to doing that,” Hogan says. “It’s given me some scaffolding and context to make decisions.” Hogan is parenting children who are on the back end of the “anxious generation,” named for a book written by social psychologist and New York University professor Jonathan Haidt. Touted by Oprah Winfrey and Katie Couric, the book links the steep decline in adolescent mental health to the increased reliance on screens and technology, calling this period in our culture “the great re-wiring of childhood.” Haidt advocates for more time steeped in unfettered play and fewer hours tethered to tech. While Haidt’s messaging isn’t entirely new (documentaries Screenagers in 2016 and The Social Dilemma in 2020, and the Wait Until 8th campaign have all introduced similar conversations), it’s spurred a renewed interest among parents to seek out new ways to manage tech. Entrepreneurs are listening. In the past decade, dozens of products have hit the market with the intention of giving kids and their families (everyone, really) the tools to reclaim attention, relationships, and presence. Businesses like Yondr are making it easier for kids to go phone-free in school; startups like Tin Can ($75) are bringing back the landline; and mobile-phone makers including Light Phone ($699), Pinwheel ($119), and Gabb Wireless (phones starting at $149) are offering phones free of social media and web access. Plus, there are untold numbers of toys that promise to help children enjoy the screen-free fun they deserve. These companies have identified a real need—it’s clear by now that willpower alone is not enough to keep humans off their screens. And together they are channeling our techno-anxiety into a new and growing market of products that parents are increasingly willing to shell out for. Determining the size of this market is still tricky because the products don’t fit into a neat box, despite their shared mission, says Audrey Chee-Read, principal analyst in Forrester’s CMO practice. “What you have isn’t really an established category with specific guardrails [e.g., there’s tech like Gabb that’s considered kids consumer tech versus Yondr that’s not a tech],” she says. “So there is probably a forecast out there on consumer or family tech products [of which Gabb, Tin Can, and Light Phone would be under] but that will also encapsulate other things like gaming.” Still, it’s clear that these businesses are growing: From 2020 to 2023, Gabb grew 895%, nabbing a spot on the 2024 Inc. 5000 list, while Pinwheel landed in the top 5% of that same list. Jacqueline Nesi, psychologist and assistant professor at Brown University who writes a newsletter called TechnoSapiens and runs a consultancy called Tech Without Stress, says the shift is undeniable: “People realize we can’t get rid of technology so [they’re asking] How do we learn to live with it in a way that promotes our well-being rather than detracts from it?” Building protected spaces that mimic the “before” While most children haven’t experienced life without screens, for most parents (especially Gen Xers), there’s a distinct before and after. An increasing number of adults, says Chee-Read, want to tether back to a time when phones weren’t in every pocket and we didn’t feel the pull to check social feeds at school or work. Distraction wasn’t as pervasive in our culture and there was a level of freedom to be in the moment. For Graham Dugoni, grappling with the desire to spend more time in the “before” made him a founder. His company, Yondr, makes and sells lockable neoprene pouches that allow people to leave their personal tech behind at school, work, concerts, and for other experiences to remove distraction and foster connection. Dugoni refers to the Yondr mission as creating a sort of “National Park system” of protected spaces. “It’s a big exercise in social psychology,” he says. “What happens in a phone-free space is at some level giving people a sense of freedom that they can’t find in other walks of modern life. We view ourselves as part of a counterculture movement.” Inspired by philosophers such as Martin Heidegger, who explored what it means to be in the world, and Marshall McLuhan, who studied the effects media has on society, Dugoni started the business in 2014, hand-making the pouches and selling them out of his Toyota RV. Since then, he’s scaled Yondr to reach more than 300% year-over-year growth. Dugoni hopes his product will become a form of infrastructure for a world with less screen time. The company now works with schools in 35 countries and 50 U.S. states, including one-third of all New York City secondary public schools. Los Angeles Public Schools (80% of middle schools and high schools in the district) work with the company, too, and Yondr’s neoprene pouches are also used at Madison Square Garden and at comedy clubs throughout the U.S. In fact, one of the first big relationships Dugoni secured was with comedian Dave Chappelle, who asks his audience members to store their phones in Yondr pouches during his shows to protect his act from online leaks and to maintain a distraction-free audience experience. Says Dugoni: “It’s so wildly traditional, it might be revolutionary.” A big piece of being in any emerging market, he says, is buy-in and consumer education. At schools, that takes the form of writing letters to parents, holding community forums, meeting with school administration, and step-by-step, day-by-day guidance for students and adults on what a phone-free school day looks like. “We always start with a why,” says David Franklin, Yondr’s manager of partner programming. “We need to change the school culture—that changes attitudes and it pushes this idea forward.” At concerts and comedy clubs, Yondr employees cruise the line into the venue, talking to attendees about the pouches, how they work, and why they’re a key part of that night’s audience experience. Sometimes, Dugoni says, people resist the idea, wanting to keep their phones available. Other times, folks are happy to try the pouch for a phone-free night. “The majority of our work is around experience design,” he says. “What things have to be true for this thing to work? It’s about how you approach people and make it conducive to their understanding: ‘This is a special experience and what you are stepping into is worth everyone being there for it.’” Seizing gaps in the attention economy Around the same time Dugoni founded Yondr, Kaiwei Tang met his now business partner Joe Hollier at a Google incubator program in 2014. The two founded Light Phone, one of the first “dumbphones” on the market, a year later. The spark for Light Phone was a desire to sidestep the attention economy and a frustration with the available options. Now on its third iteration, Light Phone III (priced at $699) offers people a chance to leave the house with a way to communicate, check the weather, listen to music, or find directions, all while free of the nagging distractions that often come along with smartphones. And while Tang knew there was a market for his product, he also quickly learned there’d be tension around its adoption. Change can be awkward, and as much as Light Phone built something for people who want some space from always-on tech, there would also be some friction around what using Light Phone means on a granular level. “We got so much feedback from our users; when people used it, the first 15 or 20 minutes were really nerve-racking,” Tang says. “Everyone had this anxiety. Standing to pay for your groceries and you don’t know what to do. After 15 or 20 minutes, you get over the FOMO, you remember what’s happening, you pay attention to the details of the buildings or trees you never really noticed.” Managing that dissonance, Tang says, has been a big part of the company’s growth. “Asking anyone to change a longtime behavior is going to be hard,” he admits. “We see it with food. We know we’re eating too much grease. We can’t help ourselves. We’re trying to show the benefits of the organic and healthy food brands, but we’re not asking everyone to become vegan. It’s the same thing with Light Phone. We’re trying to show the benefits of breaking away from the smartphone.” Gabb Wireless is another business aiming to knock off a sliver of this market, selling Samsung phones dressed in the company’s proprietary software, built specifically for kids and teens. Gabb phones and watches have no internet and no social media. Parental controls are built in, with safety and developmentally appropriate communication tools tailored for kids. Parents also have access to a Gabb app on their phones, allowing them to tap into location sharing, video calls, and text flagging capabilities on their kids’ devices. CEO Nate Randle says that while businesses in the category started when the conversation around kids and smartphones wasn’t really much of a thing, the market opportunity has been clear from the start. “We talk about TAM [total addressable market],” he says. “There are more than 60 million kids in the U.S. alone between the ages of 5 and 16. There is a wide-open market for an alternative solution to smartphones.” And for Gabb, showing up as a solution for families and kids has required an awareness around what it means to be a kids’ tech brand. “Traditionally, when someone thinks of a kids’ brand, they go to rainbows and stars,” says Brad Dowdle, VP of creative at Gabb Wireless. “This is Generation Alpha. They’ve grown up around technology. They’re savvy. It has to be aspirational, and they can’t feel we’re designing down to them.” When business opportunity and cultural change collide As these solutions emerge and build a following, it’s also important to zoom out on attitudes toward technology, privacy, and life online. For instance, says Chee-Read, while 63% of adults say they’re concerned about online behavior being tracked, less than half of youth report feeling similarly. At the same time, grassroots organizations are pushing for legislation in California, New York, Pennsylvania, and other states to ban phones from school. A company like Tin Can, which has a mission to make the landline cool again, is showing up on national news and having a viral moment on Instagram. Jerry Chen, the founder of Firewalla, which sells cybersecurity software to homes and businesses to shield everything from baby cameras and laptops to speakers and phones, says in its first five years the business doubled in revenue annually, followed by a “slowdown” of 100% growth every two years. On top of all of this, of course, is a vanishing amount of institutional knowledge and understanding. As technology progresses, the number of people available to provide relevant support and advice on how to manage it—especially as parents—is disappearing. The factors present five years ago in terms of managing the way technology influences daily life are nearly irrelevant today. And five years from now, we’ll be immersed in entirely new circumstances. Founders who can manage that kind of market speed and the dissonance around technology and its place in our lives stand to create solutions with real staying power. Entrepreneurs and CEOs like Dugoni, Randle, Tang, and Chen are selling products, yes, but they’re also shaping a new version of what it means to grow up and live in our world. This is not a market built to reject tech but rather to redefine how we relate to it. And for now, Hogan’s hope is that continuing to work on Parent.Tech in his off-hours will help him find the middle path in managing tech tools for himself and his kids. “People need to design these tools, and then we need to pay for these tools,” Hogan says. “We have to figure it out. No one is coming to change it for us.” View the full article