Right About Now with Ryan Alford - Weekly Business News for May 31 | Ad Blockers of Thieves? Ryan & Chris Debate Content Being Free.

Episode Date: May 31, 2024

TAKEAWAYSMedian age of media consumptionContent licensing deals and fair compensation for content creatorsAd blockers on YouTube and the value of content and advertisingCompetitive landscape between Samsung and AppleTIMESTAMPSThe introduction (00:00:00) Introducing the show and hosts, promoting the podcast, and expressing gratitude to the audience.Discussion on media consumption (00:04:49) Exploring the median age of media consumption for different channels and its implications for marketers and advertisers.Content licensing deals (00:10:08) Discussing OpenAI's content licensing deals with The Atlantic and Vox Media, and the impact on data sources for AI algorithms.YouTube ad blockers (00:13:02) Exploring the impact of ad blockers on YouTube, the measures taken by YouTube to combat ad blocking, and the debate on free content versus paid options.Promotional mention for a merchandise sponsor (00:19:33) Promoting a merchandise sponsor, Branded Bills, and discussing the quality and benefits of their custom hats.Samsung's swipe at Apple (00:22:12) Discussing Samsung's marketing strategy and the competitive environment in the wireless industry.Apple vs. Samsung Marketing (00:22:33) Discussion on Apple's media plans and Samsung's marketing strategy.Tech Ecosystem Lock-in (00:24:21) Challenges of switching tech ecosystems and the importance of airdrop functionality.Google AI Search Errors (00:26:31) Criticism of Google's AI search feature and the introduction of ads in AI overviews.Final Words and Sponsorship (00:29:00) Closing remarks on the month's end, upcoming shows, and a promotional mention for the sponsor.  If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, join Ryan’s newsletter https://ryanalford.com/newsletter/ to get Ferrari level advice daily for FREE.  Learn how to build a 7 figure business from your personal brand by signing up for a FREE introduction to personal branding https://ryanalford.com/personalbranding.  Learn more by visiting our website at www.ryanisright.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel  www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford. 

This is Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over 1 million downloads a month. Taking the BS out of business for over 6 years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping necks and cashing checks? Well, it starts right about now. We're taking the BS out of business, baby. Yo, welcome to Right About Now. I'm joined by my good friend and co-host Chris Hansen down in Miami.

What's up, Chris? I'm ready to run through a wall with that intro, boy. I know. Heavy today. Friday, May 31st, our weekly business and news of the world, the U.S., marketing. Hey, if you're taking the BS out of business, you never know where we're going to go. And we're going deep today. That's all I got to say.

Chris, what's happening, brother? How you doing today, big dog? Oh, just shining the gold and ready to go. All that. I love it. We appreciate everybody out there for listening, wherever you are, whenever you are. We know you have a choice. shining the gold and ready to go. All that. I love it. We appreciate everybody out there for listening wherever you are, whenever you are.

We know you have a choice. You got choices of what you do. And thank you for making us number one on Apple. Don't be afraid to tell someone. Go leave us a review. Go watch us on YouTube. You got to see Chris's pretty face. You got to see the shine on the gold, the audio you could only imagine.

And look, I want Sawyer to stay like gratified. And I want people to send in comments about how juicy this back board is here. The LCD with all of our artwork and the amazing, I don't know what you call that, fluttering of dots and everything. You got to see it to believe it. Send me some love via DM and say, I love what Sawyer's doing with the show. All right. We've got to give him some love. He's done some great work with the set here. Look, Chris, look at the glow in here, man.

I feel like I'm brand new. I'm the first time. So, yeah, we appreciate everybody. Yeah, dude. Hey, you got that bamboo. You got the vacay lounge going. We got to keep it organic as well as techie. That's what it's all about.

It's about a little bit of both. And anyway, we appreciate everyone out there. We hope everyone has had a great week. If you aren't listening to this weekly, you know, it's evergreen content. You're going to learn something one way or another. But we like to bring you today's headlines we think you should know about. And it's really less about regurgitating the news and more about sharing our opinion and how it might impact overall business. It always has a marketing spin with my background and Chris's background. And ultimately, I do like to remind

people, Chris and I own multiple companies. We do have credibility. We're not just commenting for the sake of commentings. We're running companies, doing these things and leveraging a lot of the things that we talk about and counsel about. So just know that. And Chris, I know no one more credible than yourself in how we beat up other people's articles. no one more credible than yourself in how we beat up other people's articles. We like to dissect a little bit. It's a fair viewpoint. Like you said, dude, we're siphoning through the BS.

Exactly, exactly. Anything of note on the local level in Miami that anyone should know about or hitting your radar this week other than heat? I was going to say it's hot AF. Yeah. Other than that, no, there's nothing. I don't know of any big events or anything going on. It's quiet after Memorial Day. Yeah, exactly.

I've got kids out. I mean, it feels like summertime. It's heating up here in South Carolina. We're in the lovely Greenville, South Carolina, the number four best city in America to live in. We'd love for you to visit, but we don't want you to stay. in America to live in. We'd love for you to visit,

but we don't want you to stay. Someone in the Greenville Council is going to send me a message for sure. We really appreciate you promoting the city, but could you tell people not to not come? Stop, refrain from discouraging the movement. So I digress. I don't think anyone's going to move or not move because of me.

It's a lovely city. We're thankful to be in it right here in the heart of downtown on the Swamp Rabbit Trail. And it is awesome. My kids are probably riding their bikes on the trail right outside of here right now. And so it's a great place. It's a safe place. And we appreciate all the city has done to improve everything and to make this a great place to live. And check it out.

Yeah, that Greenville. All you got to do is search that online. You'll find everything about G Vegas, South Carolina. We got some business news of the week, but there's a couple of things that hit my radar. First, I'd like to have a little one-off set, Chris. I found this interesting. We always talk about podcasting. It's not meant to be self-serving.

It's meant to just be informative as we talk about business, marketing, and the way that media is consumed. This is about as telling as it gets. And Chris hasn't seen this, so I get Chris's live reaction to some of these things. That's what makes this interesting. like live reaction to some of these things. That's what makes this interesting. And so this is the median age of the consumption of different media channels, i.e. the average age of the viewers, watchers, listeners, how they consume media. I'm going to do a little test here, Chris, for you. I'm going to give you three ages and you get to guess which media falls. Let's see if you can get it right.

So we've got 34, 47, and 56. Those are the median ages. Now, here's the media that you have to apply to those. So 34-year-old, the average age, 47, the average age, and 56 is the average age. Okay. Which one of those do you think is fm radio 34 47 or 56 56 okay tv in in and specifically abc nbc and cbs so local tv so to speak that's got to be the 47 if not the 56 which i may have

fucked up at 47 all right and podcasting is the 30s yeah the 35 or whatever 34 yes you you once you heard the tv you tried to self-correct. You had it right once you corrected. The average age of podcast listeners is 34. The average age of FM radio is 47. And the average age of TV watchers, local TV slash ABC, CBS, NBC is 56. Average age.

That makes sense. Because my parents are the only people I know that watch the local news. Here's why that's important. So you can say, okay, let's use young people. Okay, 34 is not too young. And you know what? 34-year-olds are becoming the new executives, the new rulers of the world, so to speak. And these other mediums are changing.

We're still on the upward trajectory of podcasting. And so what does that mean? That means if you're a marketer and advertiser, you need to think about marketing and advertising on these mediums where people's attention is at and where it's only growing. Do you think it's just going to go away? 34-year-olds that are watching podcasts and aren't really watching television are going to suddenly stop podcast, listening to podcasts, watching podcasts? No. It's just going to increase because it's the new norm. Now, will there be new mediums that come along just like podcasting came along? Of course there will. But the reality is, we talk about being right about now is this is on the rise and this

is how people consume media, education, information, entertainment. And so again, there's some irony and what do you call it? Being a little meta podcasters talking about podcasting media. talking about podcasting media. But the reality is it's important and it's in a business stat and it's growing. Any surprises there, Chris? My only question is, you're the median middle-aged bro. Are you an AM, FM guy?

I know you're nothing average, bro. I skew young. You love that AM, FM, NPR, don't you? I turned 39 for the seventh year in a row. What are you talking about? Yeah. I know you hop in that car and you put on NPR every morning. You love that.

Yes. No. I haven't listened to FM radio purpose. It accidentally comes on when I hit the source button. Yeah, before a connection. I'm trying to get to. I listen to satellite radio. Okay. But like accidentally will hit fm radio for two seconds i'm like oh no i didn't mean to do that i'm like yeah horrible

i'm almost apologizing to people in the car i absolutely did fm radio no but satellite radio or podcasts in the car for me i skew young buddy i skew young at heart you're ahead of the game you're trendy bro bro. I know. But in all seriousness, these stats matter for where you're, if you're wanting to reach these audiences and where you see media consumption changing. So important stats. Thought that was interesting. A little bit of a continuation from last week, Chris.

I got on the old soapbox, as they like to say. Sometimes I get in the pulpit. I've been known to be a preacher. I'm from the South. It's in your blood, bro. It's like I get up in the pulpit, start talking about things I'm passionate about. Like we talked last week about basically open AI and a lot of this AI capabilities and where the data comes from, which ultimately informs their magic. They give you the magic answers, but it's informed from sources of media that have spent time, money, and energy collecting that data. Ironically enough, a week later, OpenAI signs a content deals with the Atlantic and Vox

Media. Not coincidental here. I think it was all impacted by our comments last week, Chris. Somebody heard our show. Yes, but here it is. The deals give OpenAI added momentum in its quest for credible content to train its algorithms and inform its chatbots. Which is exactly what I was saying, right?

The ingredients have to come from somewhere. It said it could also protect them from further copyright liability. Both multi-year partnerships include agreements in which OpenEye is able to license the publisher's archived content to train its AI models. And so what's really interesting about this is whether or not The Atlantic and Vox and all that stuff, they've got a treasure trove of old articles and content. A lot of it, which sort of goes like the Wall Street Journal might too, but The Atlantic and Vox cover a lot of the same stories. So they have a lot of the same content. So they're covering a lot of bases with this deal. And so they're starting to pay for the ingredients, like we said last week.

But what I find fascinating is, what about all the other independent outlets, all the other websites? So when they start scraping vibescience.media, Chris and I's other company and media outlet that has a lot of both advanced wellness and alternative wellness takes opinions, then what about that? Are we getting a licensing fee? And how do we know they didn't take from our insights? And so it's interesting. It's good to see that they're realizing they got to pay for the ingredients.

But where does that stop and start? We'll see. Hey, Chris, we got to get paid for that content we're creating. Got to get paid, bro. Put us in the citations. I know. At least, hey, give us a footnote. Put us on OpenAI.com.

It's like a source. Don't put it in seven-point type. We want 18-point type on the bottom. We want the biggest citation. Everything you did in your history paper. But I think you're going to see more and more of that. So I thought I was relevant to the discussion after talking about it last week. So no pulpit on it today, but good enough.

This is interesting. All of this sort of playing a little bit in the same sandbox. Some YouTube users, this comes to us from our friends at Marketing Dive. Some YouTube users with ad blockers report that their videos either mute automatically or skip to the end. The reports suggest YouTube is stepping up its efforts to

combat ad blocking. All ad blockers, including apps and extensions, are banned under YouTube's terms. As of Monday, many users with ad blockers report their YouTube videos skipping to the end or muting, rendering them unwatchable. So here's the deal. YouTube is providing all this content. It's giving you the access to it. And they got to run ads to support the cost of what it does. And so you can have your ad blocker. But what you have to do is you either have to start paying. We either are going to have to start paying for content or we're going to have to get right with the fact that there's going to be ads. iOS tried to make a major play with these ad blockers and doing all this shit. And I respect it.

Look, I get it. Ads are interruptive. It's annoying to users, but you're not paying for this content. So it's like just like television back in the day. And even today, like you could still get CBS, ABC and NBC with some rabbit ears, but you're going to have to watch commercials. Now, it gets a little dicey when you pay for cable. But you're going to have to watch commercials. Now, it gets a little dicey when you pay for cable.

But the reality is, if they didn't have commercials running on it, your cable bill would be $1,000 a month and not $100 a month. You have to pay for the content. We've trained this generation that content is free with social media, right? Get access to all this stuff. It's free. And you're annoyed by ads, so you want to turn on these ad blockers to do these things. But then content's not going to be free. Netflix is $20 a month.

And then there's the ad tier that's $5 a month. It's all in the same game, but it's an interesting place that we're getting at, where you're getting this pushback from the users. You've got ad blockers, things like, oh, let's block the ads. We can block the ads. It's called paying for it. It's like going to a movie theater. You're paid to get in that movie theater. But here, I'm going to give you some covers for your eyes and earplugs when you go to the movies. If you want to get in free, you got to pay to play, baby. Or you got to watch some ads. Now, we need to make the ads better, but you can't have your cake and eat it too, Chris.

I like to have my cake and eat it too. Are you kidding me? I'm like, but we don't get to. What say you on this? I love hearing your opinion because my natural reaction is always, look to companies. But I agree with you i think

maybe more because we're in this world a little bit we're even like our own content like it takes a lot of times definitely time sometimes money and definitely energy but i think you read it and i don't know if it's just limited to like youtube but the entitlement in general of this generation is crazy like when you say 20 bucks a month for netflix i think all right back in the day you're spending 20 bucks at blockbuster to rent two movies you watch 20 movies a day now every single day for 20 bucks a month so it's i don't know i just look at it like dude because i i subscribed to youtube premium and i didn't always do that i think i did about two years ago dude it's probably 10 20 bucks yeah you get a lot of content for the

money and what to me 20 is worth more than the frustration of an ad blocker and videos not working and all that other shit and i get it there's always going to be people trying to buck the system but dude we're not talking it's like you said always going to be people trying to buck the system, but dude, we're not talking. It's like you said, you want to be paying $2,000 a month. Yeah. Be careful what you ask for. Right.

Yeah. What would Facebook have to charge you if they weren't running ads at all? Right. I'm telling you, you don't want to know what that number is. And you'd say, I just wouldn't use it. Maybe.

Okay. But that genie is hard to put back in the bottle. And look, it's no different than like an artist with music. Hey, they're spending time, money, energy to create that music. You got to pay to listen to it. Or support the band. And I think people like to get in their own little sandboxes or verticals and think that it's not related. But it's the same thing. Social media, YouTube, a band's music, a writer's writing. Like, we've gotten really comfortable with absorbing a lot of free information.

And it ain't free. It takes time, money, and energy. So the economies of these things are going to have to start to meet somewhere. And ad blockers, on the surface, sound like consumer-friendly, but I would say they're capitalism-not-friendly. Enemy, in a way. And they're not really. Nobody's here throwing borals at people, but it's really not right. It's the equivalent of going on Spotify and playing a stream blocker. Like, I don't want the artist to get paid.

I'm not going to. I'm going to listen and not pay Spotify. And it's called Napster. And there's a reason it became illegal. Even if I used it when I was 17 and a little stupid. Like, and ignorant to it. But once you realized it and understood the dynamics, yeah.

So we'll see where this goes. But at the end of the day, the ads need to get better. They need to be less interruptive and more worked in. And there needs to be commonalities. The thing that the issue with YouTube is I get ads that are not even relevant to me.

That's annoying. I could get over it if it's relevant. Those wigs. I don't need a wig, man. I got hair. It's always the most obscure product, it seems like. I'm like, come on. Are you not reading my cookies anymore?

I need to see my cookies so they know what I'm interested in. Sports, business, watches, boats, energy drinks. But they're clearly not checking my cookies if they don't look at my hat history. Because look, the history is right here. And it's called Branded Bills. Branded Bills. They are. Hey, I don't even mind taking it off. Look,

I got my Memorial Day was Monday and got one of these performance elite hats. They've got custom hats. This is like a rubberized patch with the American flag on it. Brandedbills.com, the official merchandise sponsor of the Radcast. I'm surrounded by it here in the studio. This is why you got to watch the video. You have to be able to see the quality. Drew's in here filming the quality of these hats. You got to go to YouTube to see it, to believe it. Look, you want your brand to look good. You want to be proud of what you have and you want to show it off with pride. And that's what Brainerd Bills do. They got custom ordering. If you go to the website, there's a button at the top that says custom. It's also braindeadbills.com backslash pages, backspace, custom. And you'll go straight to that, do a custom order.

Their custom team is awesome. They'll work with you. They'll actually take your logo, put it into different designs, patches. They did a lot of that with Chris and I's companies. We've got new stuff coming from Right About Now. We've got new stuff coming for Vibe Science. And look, you'll thank me. Every single person that Chris and I have ever shown or turned on to Brandon Bills has eventually gone, I'm so glad you told me about them. And they all have it on. They all have it because it's quality. It's made to order. And they have some great designs on their own website. But

look, you got to get custom, baby. You got an event coming up. You got your brand. You got anything, podcast, you're selling product, whatever it might be. They got t-shirts, they got hoodies, and they got what they're known for. These hats are the best. Branded Bills, brandedbills.com, official merchandise sponsor of Right About Now. You know what I'm talking about. Yeah, bro, I was rocking mine all weekend. I love them. They're great. Down at the pool, good for the water, throw them in the washing machine. Exactly. I'm ready for my bad time.

That's the thing. That's what's crazy. I've washed this hat. I've had this for a couple of years. I throw it in the wash with a little spray and wash or something because it's white. It's got that white camo. It's tasty.

You want to keep that thing clean. They wash easier than any other hat I've ever had. I'm a flat bill guy. Just throwing this in the wash, do you see how this hasn't lost shape at all yeah still crispy dude that's where it's at thought this was fun marketingdive.com samsung swipes at apple over controversial crush ad for iPad Pro. This is bringing me back to the day, man. The wireless wars. My career, I was in the middle of Verizon, AT&T. Did you call it that?

Was that a real thing? I called it that. The wireless wars. Back in the 5, 6, 7. I'd be working on Verizon, slinging mud at Sprint. How bad their network sucked, which it did. And then just throwing dirt. Or when we came out with the Droid, look, I launched the Apple.

Look, I played on all sides of this. That was such a great thing. So I was on the agency side. And so we get hired on one hand to help Apple launch the first iPhone. And then literally come out with the Droid campaign. We're helping promote that with other agencies in New York and the droid. We had commercials bashing the iPhone. And it was like, it's the same world. And so we're back to the past here. Samsung is taking

a shot across the bow at Apple and its competitor tries to recover from a widely panned commercial that rubbed, we talked about this a couple weeksanned commercial that rubbed creatives a big audience for tablets the wrong way. Creativity cannot be crushed was executed in a matter of days, underscoring the tight timelines marketers and agencies must adhere to to stay on the ball with fast-moving social media conversations. with fast-moving social media conversations. Apple has already apologized for Crush and pumped the brakes on some of the media plans behind the Creative, which supports its biggest iPad launch in two years. So essentially, Samsung just came out

totally painting them, that trying to, I don't know, take advantage of iPad's plight here. And it's the worst concept they've ever done, I would say, at least creatively. And it's the worst concept they've ever done, I would say, at least creatively. And it's fun. It's fun. I don't know how much impact it'll have.

People forgot already, I think. That's the thing. Maybe the creative's not. They're pretty sensitive. I'm pretty sensitive. I have to remember that shit. But Sawyer still remembers it. He's creative too.

So he's still not over it. But I don't know that any of us were going to buy an iPad this year anyway. Like they need some innovation beyond the new pencil or whatever. Yeah. Got bigger issues. I'll drop it easier probably if it's thinner. Yeah. That's not an advantage to me.

The point here, I haven't used a Samsung tablet in in a long time i do have a flip phone the z fold i did try that out i still have one around the house somewhere and the only thing i do with it is play video games with my kids on a bigger screen because it does fold out it's cool but that's about it's hard to get off the ecosystem once you're on the ecosystem of one platform it's hard man they get you locked in i'm gonna do that for a reason and i'll tell you what if i can't airdrop something you that's the killer app that's they should run commercials just about that like that's like the killer functionality you gotta be able to airdrop stuff my wife and i

are sitting there airdropping things all the time. Photos, pictures, recipes. Speaking of recipes, made some more salsa last night out of the garden, Chris. That shit's getting legit. I'm ready for a jar anytime you want to send it down the highway. This is a business show. I think we're going to open the Right About Now Farmer's Market. And see if we can start the official sponsor of the vegetable garden, the Alford's Home Garden. I'm going to

bring some heirloom tomatoes and set them up in here. Yeah, why not? Ochre stalks. Add some color to that. I might let the kids come in here and do a live read or something for that. It'd be a good encouragement for them. I thought this was interesting.

Glue pizza and eat rocks. Google AI search errors go viral. This comes to us from the BBC.com. Google's new artificial intelligence AI search feature is facing criticism for providing erratic, inaccurate answers. Its experimental AI overviews tool has told some users searching for how to make cheese stick to pizza better that they could use non-toxic glue. The search engines AI generated responses have

also said geologists recommend humans eat one rock per day. A Google spokesperson told the BBC there were isolated examples. Oh, okay. In that case, then fine. Glue in your beets. What could go wrong? Scratching the surface.

Go eat rocks. Isn't that kind of a saying? I think I've heard my kids say that to me or something. I was like, what did you just say? Eat rocks. Kick rocks. What did that become a saying? I don't've heard my kids say that to me or something. I was like, what did you just say? Eat rocks. When did that become a saying? I don't know. Go eat rocks? Is that the old thing? I don't know.

Anyway. Nothing else could possibly go wrong with the AI there. Google also to bring ads to its no AI overview as part of search transformation. We knew there was going to be ads. It can't just be answers. Also from Google, they're bringing ads to the new AI overview

as part of search transformation. It's from marketingdive.com. The latest Marketing Live Summit was all about generative AI, which has become a strategic priority for Google amid an arms race. We're just throwing out military terminology now and everything. With other tech firms like OpenAI and Microsoft along with, and I already in the arms race comment,

it's just a reporter though, is what like everybody's fear is with like with the generative AI, right? That it's going to be like militarized. Yeah. So whether it was intended or not, there's some irony there. I don't think they know what it means. Along with previewing new tools for marketers to build around automation,

Google said it would soon introduce ads directly into AI overviews, the summaries that have begun appearing at the top of the search results for many users. And here's like what we talked about, Chris. Okay, you're going to give answers only. So you're not going to give credit back to the source of the website that the answer came from or that you generated the answer from. And now you're going to put an ad on it, which is good for you, but not good for whoever

created the content unless truly they're getting paid. created the content unless truly they're getting paid. And I just think that we're in a slippery slope here with how people are going to get compensated for the content that's helping generate answers. But nonetheless, there will be ads in your open AI searches. So we knew that was coming, right? Sponsored by Toyota. It's coming. We know it is. Chris, any final words today, final thoughts, final insights? It's the last day of May.

Made the most of it. We're almost halfway through the year. It's crazy. Yeah of May. Make the most of it. We're almost halfway through the year. It's crazy. Yeah, summer's out. Everybody's getting ready for those vacation trips. So get out on the road. Enjoy your time. And don't forget to set your recording to make sure you keep up with all the rad shows that we have coming.

For right about now. And go check out our new show, Vibe Science, vibescience.media. Chris and I break down all the latest health and wellness insights and alternative ways to stay healthy. Hey, look, business and health go hand in hand. You can't run business. You can't take the BS out of business unless you're staying healthy.

And Chris didn't get those arms and those good looks by eating peanut butter and jelly every day. Not unless I'm doing a dirty bulking. Yeah. Trying to put on some pounds. Exactly. So good. But right now, yeah.

Yes. Healthy. We appreciate our sponsor, Brandon Bills. Official merchandise sponsor right about now. Got some exciting things coming. We appreciate everyone for listening and viewing. Go hit that YouTube. Telling you.

The video product, especially today. We had Drew in here, Cameron around, like all kinds of stuff. We got Sawyer with the crazy background and a killer set. And Chris is always looking good as always. So go check that out. Chris Roby Hanson on Instagram. I'm at Ryan Alford. Ryanisright.com.

All the highlight clips and the full episodes and links to everything you need and some things you want. We'll see you next time on Right About Now. This has been Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. Visit Ryanisright.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities. Thanks for listening.