Category: online | 線上 | 온라인으로 | オンライン

The online field has been one of the mainstays since I started writing online in 2003. My act of writing online was partly to understand online as a medium.

Online has changed in nature. It was first a destination and plane of travel. Early netizens saw it as virgin frontier territory, rather like the early American pioneers viewed the open vistas of the western United States. Or later travellers moving west into the newly developing cities and towns from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

America might now be fenced in and the land claimed, but there was a new boundless electronic frontier out there. As the frontier grew more people dialled up to log into it. Then there was the metaphor of web surfing. Surfing the internet as a phrase was popularised by computer programmer Mark McCahill. He saw it as a clear analogue to ‘channel surfing’ changing from station to station on a television set because nothing grabs your attention.

Web surfing tapped into the line of travel and 1990s cool. Surfing like all extreme sport at the time was cool. And the internet grabbed your attention.

Broadband access, wi-fi and mobile data changed the nature of things. It altered what was consumed and where it was consumed. The sitting room TV was connected to the internet to receive content from download and streaming services. Online radio, podcasts and playlists supplanted the transistor radio in the kitchen.

Multi-screening became a thing, tweeting along real time opinions to reality TV and live current affairs programmes. Online became a wrapper that at its worst envelopes us in a media miasma of shrill voices, vacuous content and disinformation.

Motorsport fandom + more things
Motorsport fandom is strange. Back when I was a child motorsport fandom was a bunch of anoraks – literally. There was a category of clothing that you could buy from mail order catalogues and retailers like Demon Tweeks called a rally jacket. This was a coat good enough to deal with some cold wet weather branded by a car company or a tobacco brand.

Motorsport fandom, in particular single-seater race series are starting to see very different types of fans who learned their supporting ideas from the K-pop armies which are a symbiot of the artist promotion machine. While both promotion machine and fans are separate with very different tactics, they were united by a common goal to a point.

This isn’t the first time that media has brought in new fans, gaming created fans in the past. But the current motorsport fandom is interesting because of the cultural friction that it brings for drivers and legacy fans. From hate campaigns and death threats against drivers to ‘idol’ style objectification – women are demonstrating traits that would define toxic masculinity. All wrapped up in pastel tinted social media posts and Etsy products – so that makes it all fine, doesn’t it?
Beauty

‘A marker of luxury and arrogance’: why gravity-defying boobs are back – and what they say about the state of the world | The Guardian

Business

Microsoft saved $500 million last year thanks to AI. This year, it’s laid off 15,000 employees | Quartz

China

Thinking Through Protracted War with China: Nine Scenarios | RAND and Trump is enabling Chinese power – by Noah Smith

Consumer behaviour

More than “I do”: Legal status and cultural distance shape marriages and separations | CEPR

The evolution of stupid | FT – this reminded me of the debate about calculators in maths and physics exams when I was at school

Design

Why carmakers need to bring back buttons

How Renault is speeding up car development to match Chinese rivals | FT

‘When was the last time I saw one of those?’ Car magazine – on the consumer’s obsession with screens over driving experience

FMCG

Japan’s mayo king calls time on baby food as inflation bites and births fall | FT

Health

A Close Look at Auxiliary Prescription Labels | Inconspicious Consumption – interesting intersection of regulation, consumer experience and design

Japan

Alimentation Couche-Tard drops its $46bn pursuit of 7-Eleven owner | FT

Luxury

LVMH’s Loro Piana placed under court administration over worker exploitation | FT – it seems to be a feature of the LVMH management ‘system’ rather than a bug

TikTok won’t grow your luxury brand in the long term | The Drum

China could give luxury titans a run for their money | FT – this was only a matter of time. See also Swatch activist ups pressure as profits plunge over China weakness | FT

Marketing

WPP has its next CEO – but what do clients make of heir apparent? – It’s not indifference. It’s pragmatism. Marketers like this don’t want to buy into the idea that a leadership change signals sweeping transformation. After all, Rose doesn’t start until September. Until then, they’d rather stay focused on the present, not the promise.

Ryan Kangisser, a bellwether for client perspective thanks to his proximity to them as the chief strategy officer at MediaSense, expanded on the point: “I do think that often the industry cares more about these sorts of appointments than clients do. Especially if clients have got a really solid client lead, or business lead, then they’re the people who they feel are the ones driving their business.”

Cindy Rose is the right choice for a CEO (but maybe not at WPP) – The Media Leader

WPP turns to Microsoft executive as AI threatens ‘Kodak moment’ | FT

Cindy Rose WPP: Why Cindy Rose will lead WPP to recovery, ET BrandEquity

Is Accenture interested in all or some of WPP? – More About Advertising – it would make sense for Accenture to do their due diligence at the very least

Why Nike Quietly Launched on Substack

Media

Apple TV+ Became HBO Before HBO Could Become Netflix | Spyglass

Amazon Breaks Up Wondery Podcast Studio, CEO Jen Sargent Departs | Hollywood Reporter – issues with the business model for audio offerings, curious to know if Vox will follow suit? The shows that moved to SiriusXM are interesting, SiriusXM is a subscription-based satellite and internet radio service

Online

Google, Microsoft and Amazon face pressure over data sovereignty – Rest of World

Shitposting as a National Asset – DARC

Is Everything a ‘Humiliation Ritual’? | GQ and Humiliation Rituals | Protein – on the nature of social media rewards, but could as easily apply to many unscripted TV formats.

Reddit at 20: A Look Beyond the Upvotes – 3 Quarks Daily

Chinese police crack down on young women writing homoerotic fiction | Le Monde – this is interesting because its been an area of Chinese online culture which has escaped censure so far despite the government’s concern about traditional family values under the Xi administration

Disinformation warriors are ‘grooming’ chatbots | FT

Retailing

China falls for American-style bulk buying at Sam’s Club despite US trade tensions | Ft

Security

Data Warfare – DARC – interesting theory.

Axios Future of Cybersecurity: 1 big thing: A tale of two generative AI futures – differing opinions from Defcon in Vegas on the impact of AI on hacking and cyberdefence

From Tactical Trench Killers to Strategic War Winners: Doctrine, Operational Art, and Tomorrow’s Drone-Enabled Maneuver Warfare – Modern War Institute

Building Trust in Military AI Starts with Opening the Black Box – War on the Rocks

The Innovation Imperative: Why Tactical Ingenuity is Not Enough | Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University

Israel Secretly Recruited Iranian Dissidents to Attack Iran From Within — ProPublica

Software

Nikkei Asia podcast on how the Korean media industry and gaming developers are using AI – South Korea pushes limits of AI in gaming and entertainment – YouTube

Axios AI+ 1 Big Thing: AI’s elusive coding speedup – small sample but interesting study. Part of the problem might be the corpus that would underpin coding for open source projects.

Five things I believe about actually-existing AI today | Dave Karpf

Technology

An OpenAI Acquisition Turns Into a Google ‘Hackqusition’ | Spyglass – hackquisition is the new acqu-hire

Telecoms

Broadband’s tiny barbarians gather at BT’s gate | FT
August 23, 2025
Apple development + more things
Apple development

Apple development changes was at the forefront of Apple’s WWDC keynote for 2025. I think that the focus on Apple development changes were happening for a few reasons:
- Apple got burned announcing sub-standard AI offerings last year.
- The new translucent interface is divisive.
- The multi-tasking iPad was interesting for power users, but most usage is as a communal device to consume content.
- Apple has a number of small on-device models that do particular things well. Which is why Apple needs to get developers on-board to come up with compelling uses.
- The Mac still has great hardware, passionate developers and a community passionate about great life-changing software. Apple development focus was coming home.
Apple Updates Its On-Device and Cloud AI Models, Introduces a New Developer API

China

The Next Labubu: What the Rise of Wakuku Tells Us About China’s Collectible Toy Wave | What’s on Weibo

Chinese cities are facing the financial abyss of their subway systems | Le Monde

Consumer behaviour

The gray wave: How an aging population is reshaping the economy | Mizuho Insights

College Students Are Using ‘No Contact Orders’ to Block Each Other in Real Life – WSJ

Culture

ChatGPT has changed how we speak – and how we think | TechFinitive

The working class always had ‘high’ culture – it was just stolen | The Independent

Energy

Rolls-Royce group wins government backing to build UK’s first small modular nuclear reactors | FT

Ethics

‘Positive review only’: Researchers hide AI prompts in papers – Nikkei Asia

Beyond Cannes – by Hamish McKenzie – The Substack Post

UNIQLO ‘Cai fan’ keychain kerfuffle: Where does inspiration end and imitation begin? | Marketing-Interactive

FMCG

Unilever acquires Dr. Squatch to expand men’s care portfolio | Personal Care Insights – the irony of this purchase given Dr Squatch’s positioning isn’t lost on me

Health

New Novo Nordisk drug could beat market leaders for weight loss, early results show | FT

Hong Kong

How my views on Hong Kong’s future have evolved | Stephen Roach

Luxury

Why luxury brands are sliding into the DMs | Vogue Business

Media

European broadcasters launch radio initiative to capture connected car opportunity – The Media Leader

Online

Creative Commons 4.0 has arrived on Flickr! | Flickr Blog

Security

Ingram Micro still silent 14 hours after global outage began • The Register

The Cyber Risks Behind The Iran-Israel-US Geopolitical Tensions | Forrester

UK govt says Chinese spying on the rise | Space War – so why did the UK sign off on the Chinese mega-embassy?

Taiwan

Digital Propaganda: How China Uses Short-Form Videos to Target Taiwan’s Youth | Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University

Technology

Samsung delays $44 billion Texas chip fab — sources say completion halted because ‘there are no customers’ | Tom’s Hardware

Thailand

One Eye on Asia: Pathida Akkarajindanon – ‘Thai ads can hit you harder than you expect’ | Branding in Asia

‘Blood Connect’ – Inspiring Gen Z in Thailand to Value Blood Donation | Branding in Asia
July 13, 2025
Walsh’s + more stuff
Walsh’s of Mullingar

Walsh’s is the kind of business I grew up with in Ireland. In my part of the world it wasn’t the Walsh’s it was Kelly’s and Salmon’s who both ran general stores on the edge of my parish. It was a mix of groceries, cigarettes, a top-loading cabinet of ice creams. In the local market town there was O’Meara’s who still run a supermarket, Lynch’s who run a hardware store, builders yard and farm supplies and Hayes – a chemist and veterinary pharmacy. Like Walsh’s they are all multi-generational businesses with customers from the same families over successive generations.

Maintaining a multi-generational business was (and still is for many) a matter of pride. It can be a great business, you know your customers needs and personalities far better than I ever did working for the likes of Unilever. The Walsh’s will have been with their generations of customers at key times in their lives: engagements, marriage, anniversaries and retirements.

When my Uncle died and we had a wake for him, I met the the pharmacist who looked after his personal and farm needs and her Dad who had filled my prescription for cough medicine as a child. There were people from the hardware store, farm supplies, the newsagent who my family always got their copies of the Irish Farmer’s Journal and the Connacht Tribune.

The Walsh’s are wrapping up because their business can no longer compete with the scale of online jewellers.

It’s interesting that COVID was the inciting incident that broke the generations of consumer behaviour, brand loyalty and relationships. The second factor that the Walsh’s named was the hollowing out of people living within the market town of Mullingar. That’s especially interesting given that Ireland currently has a chronic housing shortage makes me wonder what is going on.

More related posts:
- Ramblings on consumption – trying and failing to understand my Uncle.
- Ireland by Frank Delaney – reading a book that caused me to look at the fraying aspects of Irish life in the face of modernity.
- Roots – more about life in rural Ireland.
Concepts as viral marketing

Chris Spargo runs one of the most interesting British YouTube channels looking at the minutae of the UK from supermarket clock towers to book barcodes and milk packaging. This film looks at how The Glass Committee funded by Pilkington Glass created outlandish concepts that promoted discussion. Weirdly enough some of the ideas found themselves from the most outrageous concepts into Britain’s new towns developments.

A history of hacking

Frederico Mazzini goes through a history of hacking with a focus on culture. Even though it was presented for Tokyo College, it had a very western centric slant to it. Interesting points about hacking is an explicit political activity in some non-US cultures – notably France, Italy and Germany.

What became apparent was that Mazzini lacked was any kind of understanding of hacking in Japan, which runs with a much lower profile than their counterpart western communities according to Trend Micro.
May 25, 2025
Careless People – A story of where I used to work by Sarah Wynn Williams
Careless People has been a much-discussed book in the circles that I am involved in. In the book, Wynn Williams outlines her career at Facebook / Meta in what was at the time a nascent public policy team. The term careless people is a highly appropriate reference to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.

While I was reading Careless People, The Great Gatsby was having a moment. It was the 100th anniversary of The Great Gatsby’s publication, and the ‘careless people’ quote was considered apropos for the times we are living in, in particular the Trump administration’s actions.

“They were careless people… they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

Anyway, back to Careless People, Wynn Williams outlines her experience from pitching to Facebook for a role that didn’t exist but was needed, through to navigating the global growth Facebook was undertaking at the time. The challenges that Wynn Williams faces can be broadly broken down into four areas (with specific allegations):
- Sexism and in/out group prejudice
- Sexual harassment (Joel Kaplan)
- Toxic managers (Sheryl Sandberg, Elliot Schrage)
- Poor management judgement (lying to Congress and providing assistance to authoritarian regimes)
What’s interesting about the book depends on the reader. Much of the experience was relatable to my own earlier experience at Yahoo! The long days, changing priorities, travel (which was much more of a thing pre-COVID), office politics and fiefdoms, the constant unintended consequences of inventing the future. Secondly, the Facebook management have bought into what Barbrook and Cameron termed The Californian Ideology in their 1995 essay of the same name.

“…the Californian Ideology promiscuously combines the free-wheeling spirit of the hippies and the entrepreneurial zeal of the yuppies. This amalgamation of opposites has been achieved through a profound faith in the emancipatory potential of the new information technologies.”

However, I feel fortunate to have worked with a mature leadership who knew what they didn’t know and realised that they lived in a global village. But that might be down to the fact that Yahoo! by the time I had got there had a fair share of ups and downs.

Careless People reminded me a lot of Barbarians Led by Bill Gates, written by Jennifer Edstrom and Martin Eller. Although they are separated by some 25 years between each being written. Both books tell the story of an imperfect organisation scaling to an opportunity— I have written about Barbarians here. Wynn Williams is the better storyteller, providing a coherent and engaging path through the narrative.

I can recommend Careless People as a good book to read, I finished it off over a bank holiday weekend whilst nursing a sprained ankle. For people in advertising and marketing it won’t be that surprising, it confirms many things that were ‘common knowledge’ in the industry. For the general public, it will be shocking given the facts that the author marshals together.

Would I have thought reading Accidental Empires or Barbarians Led by Bill Gates in the late 1990s that Bill Gates would have transformed from the soulless ‘borg leader’ portrayed to the voice of relative reason he is today? Probably not, there might be hope for Zuckerberg at least out of the cast of characters in the book.

Wynn Williams is now exploring the edges of policy and artificial intelligence and is likely someone worth keeping an eye on.
May 5, 2025
Share of search volume

Les Binet did some sterling work thinking about share of search volume as part of his ongoing work looking at marketing effectiveness.

In order to understand share of search volume, we have to go back to 1990 when former advertising veteran and professor John Philip Jones^[i] published a paper in the Harvard Business Review^[ii] and a subsequent book^[iii].

Jones’ research around the linkage between advertising and sales by looking at advertising including tools of his invention STAS (short term advertising strength)^[iv] and AIC (advertising intensiveness curve). One of Jones’ key findings was the linkage between a brand’s share of voice and its market share. One of the biggest predictors of brand growth was ESoV (excess share of voice). ESoV is when a brand has a share of voice in excess of the proportion needed to maintain its market share.

During economic good times this might be down to an increase in brand building marketing spend, not only advertising and public relations, but also influencer and sports sponsorships with variable^[v] results.

During recessionary times^[vi], it might be maintaining brand building marketing spend when the competitors are cutting back.

Part of this brand building work overlaps with increasing marketing penetration through increasing the number of places where the brand is available. During the 95 percent of time that you are not in a buying mindset when you pass a product display in a supermarket it’s a billboard – doing the brand building work.

Jones’ findings were later validated by Peter Field and Les Binet’s work on marketing efficiency^[vii], and in the summation of research^[viii] from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science by Byron Sharp.

Share of search volume

The clever thing that Les Binet^[ix] did with share of search volume^[x] was find it as a predictor on the likely time when ESoV was likely to impact with a growth in market share AND, he found that the share of search volume change mapped neatly on to market share change.

The challenge is that different sectors have different times between a change in share of search volume and the corresponding change in market share^[xi].

“For mobile phone handsets, Binet further ventured, share of search leads market share “by about six months” as a performance indicator – offering marketers a chance to adapt their strategies if needed if a decline is expected.

“If the brand … had access to the share of search data at the time, it would have had a six-month warning that share of market was about to turn around,” Binet said. “That’s an incredibly useful metric.”

Share of search’s predictive quality for energy brands, Binet explained, was noticeably shorter, at just “nought to three months.”

For automakers, by contrast, share of search anticipates market share by “nine to 12 months,” he said – a significant timeframe for marketers to potentially refine strategies.

Breaking out data for Volkswagen, the auto marque, provided corroboration that sales forecasts based on share of search “are incredibly close to what actually happened,” Binet said.”

Search considerations

Much earlier in my career I worked on the Yahoo! Search business, back when the company had its own search technology and sold its own search advertising. One of the things that we found was that while overall search volume could be modelled accurately for the year based just on January’s search data – unexplained search volume peaks still needed to be ironed out by looking at rolling three-month values instead.

I found it interesting that Binet’s findings didn’t seem the same degree of ‘peakiness’ and was a much more valuable predictor once the time lag factor between share of search volume and market effects were known.

Share of search makes sense from a logical perspective. Many below-the-line activities have been focused on search in terms of aiding SEO to increase share of market opportunity, rather than an explicit appreciation of the impact on the share of search volume and consequently change in market share. My friend James Warren used to talk about public relations and related earned media activities such as organic social media as ‘offline SEO’. This thinking was incorporated into Interpublic’s ‘inline’ concept^[xii].

Future search

Share of search volume is complicated by a number of factors that are down to changing consumer behaviour.

Google’s focus on mobile upended the precision that we could search with and what we could search for, out went Boolean operators that could track down a highly relevant web page from 12 years ago. But we could now find the nearest coffee shop with wi-fi. YouTube^[xiii] due to its explanatory content became the second largest search engine globally (excluding China).

A good deal of product search has migrated to sites like eBay, Walmart^[xiv] and Amazon^[xv]. Part of the reason being is that their site search is good enough, they have a wide range of stock and speedy delivery. Amazon also benefits from Amazon Prime which drives customer purchase, but isn’t without controversy^[xvi].

Social and generative AI have unlocked new challengers to Google. Search on social platforms has become the go-to approach for many young people. Google acknowledged this when asked by Business Insider^[xvii].

“we face robust competition from an array of sources, including general and specialized search engines, as well as dedicated apps.”

The move to social is about tapping what we called back in my Yahoo! days ‘knowledge search’^[xviii]. Search startups like Gigabrain have tried to tap into this market by providing a better search function of Reddit forums.

Finally, the move towards consumer usage of generative AI tools based on large language models has created new competitors to Google including Perplexity and ChatGPT Search. Google itself has adopted LLMs in its own search offering and seen an increase in both revenue and profit from search advertising^[xix].

Share of model vs. share of search volume

In order to try and understand new LLM-driven search, innovator agencies like Jellyfish and Deft^[xx] have looked towards understanding share of model. Share of model tries to understand how LLMs perceive a given brand, in a similar way to the way SEO rankings held a similar place in search engine marketing. Like SEO, they look to understand whether the brand has sufficient optimisation of their digital properties to feature in recommendations by the models.

What share of model doesn’t give us is the consumer insight provided by share of search volume. Share of search volume is consumer behaviour driven and advertising influenced; share of model is algorithmic behaviour driven and training influenced.

^[i] John Philip Jones profile (United Kingdom) WARC

^[ii] Jones, J.P., (1990) Ad Spending: Maintaining Market Share (United States) Harvard Business Review

^[iii] Jones, J.P. (1995) When Ads Work: New Proof That Advertising Triggers Sales (United States) Jossey Brass

^[iv] Hansen, F., Olsen, J.K. STAS and Other Short Term Advertising Effect Measures (United Kingdom) WARC

^[v] Siu, A. (February 2025) The Honey scandal is a ‘wake-up call’ for the creator industry’s affiliate partnerships

^[vi] (2023) The power of excess share of voice (United Kingdom) Thinkbox

^[vii] Binet, L., Field, P. (2013) The Long and the Short of it: Balancing Short and Long-Term Marketing Strategies (United Kingdom) Institute of Practitioners in Advertising

^[viii] Sharp, B. (2010) How Brands Grow: What Marketers Don’t Know (United Kingdom) Oxford University Press

^[ix] (2020) Share of search can predict market share (United Kingdom) WARC

^[x] Binet, L. (2021) Share of Search (United Kingdom) Les Binet channel on YouTube

^[xi] (2020) Share of search can predict market share (United Kingdom) WARC

^[xii] Warren, J. (2008) Back to school (United Kingdom) PR Week (republished on PR 2.0)

^[xiii] (2010) YouTube Revenue Approaching $1 Billion Per Year [REPORT] (United States) Mashable

^[xiv] Levin, M.R., Lowitz, J.N. (November 2020) Grocery Drives Walmart Online Orders (United States) Consumer Intelligence Research Partners LLC (CIRP)

^[xv] Evans, B. (2023) Retail, search and Amazon’s $40bn ‘advertising’ business (United Kingdom) Benedict E vans

^[xvi] Stoller, M. (2021) Amazon Prime Is an Economy-Distorting Lie (United States) BIG by Matt Stoller

^[xvii] Delouya, S. (2022) Nearly Half of Gen Z Prefers TikTok and Instagram Over Google Search (United States) Business Insider

^[xviii] Carroll, G.M.S. (2021) Yahoo Answers (United Kingdom) renaissance chambara

^[xix] Morris, S. (2025) Alphabet shares gain as Google search boots profits (United Kingdom) Financial Times

^[xx] Crocombe, I. (2025) Share of Model (United Kingdom) Deft

April 27, 2025

Category: online | 線上 | 온라인으로 | オンライン

Motorsport fandom + more things

Beauty

Business

China

Consumer behaviour

Design

FMCG

Health

Japan

Luxury

Marketing

Media

Online

Retailing

Security

Software

Technology

Telecoms

Apple development + more things

Apple development

China

Consumer behaviour

Culture

Energy

Ethics

FMCG

Health

Hong Kong

Luxury

Media

Online

Security

Taiwan

Technology

Thailand

Walsh’s + more stuff

Walsh’s of Mullingar

Concepts as viral marketing

A history of hacking

Careless People – A story of where I used to work by Sarah Wynn Williams

Share of search volume

Share of search volume

Search considerations

Future search

Share of model vs. share of search volume