Google's new AI Mode search killer, AI SEO lessons learned, and 199 publishing ideas which work (#31 will shock you!)

LA Times rerolls its new AI bot, data trials and tribulations, and non-profit Newswell on a mission to help local news - all in this week's Content Aware.

Published: 16:06, 06 March 2025

Corbidge comments on... quality control
As the robots take over the internet, and prompted by Barry Adams' piece on the Content Quality Bell Curve, Glide's certified USDA Prime content-maker Rob looks at content quality and standards of excellence and sees a clear path forward for publishers.
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GenAI vs content quality
Top publisher SEO (and our friend/solution partner!) Barry Adams of Polemic Digital takes a dive into what generative AI and tech monopolies are doing to content quality. To quote Immortan Joe, it's all getting mediocre - but that creates space for excellence.
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AI SEO - a tale of ups and downs
Emina Demiri-Watson of Vixen Digital shares a tale of a client which grew rapidly with AI-powered programmatic SEO, followed by a possibly unrecoverable crash. Check out the dos and don’ts.
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The bigger they are
Supersized public broadcasters like the BBC are probably best-poised to use AI in ways which transform how media is created. But they also face the biggest challenges to do so successfully, write David Caswell and Mary Fitzgerald for Prospect Magazine.
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The future of Google Search
Google previewed its new AI Mode, and it looks a lot like AI Overviews with even fewer links or onward traffic. SEO tech guru Barry Schwarz shows and discusses the implications for publishers and site owners here.
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The power of news(letters)
A good read on how the team at UK rights and reviews gurus Which? used newsletters to grow its pool of potential subscribers by over a million people, while showcasing a much wider array of content to audiences at the same time. The secret? Great content, to where people want it.
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LA Times's AI U-turn
Few major titles use AI to create things without human oversight, for reasons reinforced this week when the LA Times had to disable a new 'anti-bias bot' within a day of launch. The AI bot, "Insight", adds counterpoints to opinion pieces to try and present a wider picture and eliminate supposed bias. The notes, generated by Perplexity without human oversight, create a sort of automated discussion thread beneath articles. As other publishers have decided, while you can generate content without human involvement the inevitable and ultimate bit of human oversight comes when it reaches its readers, rarely shy of making noisy judgement - as they did on a piece about the KKK.
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Lawyers rejoice: Musk vs Altman is on
The dispute between Elon Musk and OpenAI is accelerating to the courts after a judge rejected a motion to delay OpenAI's move to becoming a for-profit entity. It means a showdown between the two biggest figures in AI is certain to boost the billing accounts of vast swathes of the US legal system. For observers in media, we'll have our eyes open for any morsels dropped in depositions which might hint at attitudes to purloined IP and pesky things like paying for content.
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ICO on patrol
The UK data protection watchdog has launched an investigation into TikTok's handling of children's data, alongside examinations of Reddit's and Imgur's age verification practices, to ensure compliance with data protection laws and the Children's Code.
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TikTok frenzy
The list of social media names, tech "experts", influencers, TV stars, and even actual investors with money, all circling the mooted sale of political football TikTok like sharks, gets longer by the minute - all pretending there will be a normal sale process where bids are judged on merits. The China-owned app is under order to sell up or exit the US over concerns about user data. Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian has joined one, The People’s Bid for TikTok, as the clock ticks to an April deadline.
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Reviving local news
Our happy story of the week: Newswell, a nonprofit based at Arizona State University, is helping to sustain local news. Led by Executive Director Nicole Carroll, former editor-in-chief of USA Today, the model works by newspapers effectively 'donating' themselves to Newswell, which in turn offers all the backend operational services.
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Google tracking
Did you think your phone habits would only start being tracked by Google after you fire up some apps? A recent study by a Trinity College Dublin professor reveals that Google uses advertising cookies, like the DSID cookie created after logging into your Google account, and Google Android IDs to track users on Android devices even when they are not actively using a Google app. Worse still, this all happens without user consent or knowledge. Google has, expectedly, pushed back against the findings.
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Eye on excellence
Here's a cheatsheet of 199* projects launched in 2024 by publishers worldwide which have all moved the needle in areas as varied as audience engagement, AI newsroom adoption, attracting young readers, multimedia products, PR, marketing and more. All nominees for the 2025 INMA Global Media Awards. (*OK, some were entered in more than one category, but ain't no-one got time for... etc etc).
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