??????? Mini-games, Insta views and pruning your content
Issue #318
The Olympics have finished. Singapore won a bronze, Australia had its best Olympics ever. Paris shone. And so did creators. It might well be the first creator games. YouTube, NBC Universal and Eurosport flew creators in to .. err .. create. Or are they reporting on the event? The meme Olympics became as newsworthy as the sporting achievements. We all know about a certain ice-cold Turkish shooter now, and the Aussie breaker, Raygun. Go creators. Happy Thursday, Simon.
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The rise of the mini-games?
Marketers have always pushed the idea of gamification when it comes to content. Somehow it always felt a bit too gimmicky. What has been growing in popularity though is the concept of mini-games. The games aren’t the focus, but they do enough to engage. LinkedIn has launched puzzle games, YouTube has interactive ads called Playables and more readers go to the New York Times for gaming than any of its other content. We’re talking more than quizzes here; creators can make really niche games that are not only memorable but keep the audience coming back for more.
Changes at Instagram
Instagram wants you to stop worrying about your follower count. In a rejig of its analytics, the focus for creators will now be on views. According to the press release: “We’re introducing ‘Views’ as the primary metric across all formats including reels, live, photos, carousels, and stories.” They’re also going to count multiple views - so while follower count might not budge views will definitely be going up. User behaviour has changed, with many now relying on the algorithm to suggest content from people they don’t follow. It will probably inspire creators to create more content. Which is lucky, as Instagram has also launched a photo dump function.
Pruning your content
Just because you can create a lot of content, doesn’t mean you should actually dump it all on your audience. In fact, from an SEO perspective, sometimes less is more. We took a deeper look into the idea of content pruning. Last year’s Google Panda 4.1 update forced many websites to take a look at legacy content to see if it was offering any value. Some, like CNET, took out the sheers and pruned thousands of old pages. Find out if it worked for them.
Cool tools
We stumbled on these earphones with built-in AI and a touchscreen. It's like they shrunk a smartphone and stuck it on the earbud charging case. I wonder whether this form factor might be the future of the AI smartphone??
Hot Tips
You know bullet time, first done in the Matrix with a hundred still cameras that makes the scene appear to freeze time. You can do a DIY version if you have a steady hand, someone who can stand dead still, and know a few swift moves in Cap Cut. Add the bullet as a sticker.
What we're looking at
Happy Thursday
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This week’s newsletter was written by Tim Colman and Simon Kearney, and edited by Andre Howson. Gifs produced by Ilka Tishia D. .