Reflection: 2022 & 2023

2022 was indeed a versatile year. Full of unexpected, happiness and sadness, historic moments, and all the ups and downs in between. I’d like to say big thanks to all the people who fight together with me, who debate with me, who follow and support me, who challenge me to be a better person, who share the same vision and beliefs with me, and who bear with me for my imperfectness and mistakes. I’m very grateful for getting through this challenging year with all of you!

Looking backward, I feel these were the biggest things in 2022 that happened in the world closely related to me (not the entire world!), mostly professional stuff, and a bit of personal… ??

1. We built our direct-to-customer business line at NewsBreak. 3x+ YoY, hooray!
2. Experienced historic inflation in the U.S., and the “turnaround” by Fed. Impacted everybody’s lives! People started to realize - things are all connected, in the back.???
3. Earlier this year I thought the issues were mostly caused by the war and the supply chain. But in 2H I realized I was wrong. It’s the cash on people’s hands, sent from the gov’s printers.?
4. BTW, war is always bad. Very bad. No matter what the so-called reason(s) or what side(s) you are on. Human beings should take whatever is needed to avoid it.??
5. I bought a full-electric car, not Tesla. I hate monopoly and love supporting underdogs.?
6. Advertising spends. For many years people have perceived it as an unlimited gold pool. It’s not. “Unbeatable” giants like FB/Google/etc. can also be beaten, sooner or later.?
7. The content industry, especially those who count more on the traditional comScore UV & CPM model, suffered and suffered. Many big names, even with profits, are seeing a <1 EV/Revenue multiple! Never imagined this would happen in real life…?
8. Starting in the summer, at least in the U.S., people traveled! I felt society was moving back from the Metrix to Zion. Loved that! (as I like meeting with real people in real life). Our newly opened NYC office at the Empire State also partially cured my fear of flying.??
9. Probably for the 1st time in many years, being private is sooooo much better than being public! Many IPOed (SPACed, ha) folks are crying to get back…but no time machine ??
10. My elder son turned double-digit in Dec, and became a “pre-teen” ??.

Looking forward, as many of my friends do, this year I’d like to make a few bold predictions (just for fun!) for 2023, and see how many of them will coincide with the actual development later:

1. The long-time “duopoly” in digital ads by Google and Facebook will continue to melt, (partially thanks to Apple’s IDFA move!), and things will revert back to a “network” mode (instead G/F being the only two real ad agencies). A good thing! Way more opportunities for independent publishers, growing platforms (like NewsBreak! ??), and performance advertisers who are very tired of the G/F rules.?
2. Short (“drug-ish”) videos will continue to shake up the content-ad industry, as it completely illuminates the navigation bar/menu, and cater to many people’s unspoken desire to defer everything to the algorithm (in this chaotic world!). However, Youtube/FB/Yahoo and Click-Through-Rate won’t go away at all. Similar to the cable “unbundling” shift in the past 4-5 years, I foresee the “feed-based” product world will evolve in 2023 to become more ‘intelligent’ (instead of ‘relevant’), more extremely personalized (only have 2-3 shots to hit your interest!), and remove all other things that are just killing your time (unless that’s what you want!), or just getting clicks not reading.
3. The bottle-neck, or say the differentiators, of digital advertising, will gradually shift from first-party data ownership (well, the real weapon of G/F today) to the ability to generate a large number of engaging video ad creatives, in a TikTok-ish format. It will become the new currency. Highly data-driven, performance-based FB ad campaigns are relatively easy to develop and scale - commoditized - and the new question for ad buyers and agencies is how to create 1,000 engaging short video ads that can really convert with reasonable cost and ROIs.?
4. Performance advertising will not shrink that much, even under the economy doom - many businesses still need a way to showcase their products and get them to order and keep their businesses running. More businesses are relying on the perfect ad to run their flywheels. Meanwhile, brand advertisers may see more hesitance and a “wait and see” sentiment.
5. On the consumer side, I don’t see a scenario for the challenging macro economy that will actually affect the people’s daily lives and behaviors much, especially in the U.S. Unless the Fed continues to raise the interest rate to a historical high - almost all economic activities cease and U.S. families find it reluctant to just go to a decent restaurant or a 3-day trip at long weekends - people will still spend 80% of their $$ on things, and B2C businesses, consume tech, etc. will probably see a very good timing to grow the user base if they have the funding.?
6. Local will become one of the dominating factors when people are evaluating what daily tools/apps/things to do. The pandemic taught us that big, sensational, so-called “big impact” stuff matters, but the daily, nearby, small but important stuff in your locale also matters a lot for you and your family. The U.S. is a very family-oriented place. Local will find its place.?
7. The economy will not fully recover in 2023, but it won’t go worse too much further. There aren’t many fundamental, structural problems in our economy, and I view it as more like a periodic adjustment cycle. Things must go south for a period, after a long-time boom. However, the possibility of de-globalization is dangerous. If that continues to rise, no one knows what will happen.?
8. More time-killing services, more gaming, and more virtual-world stuff like the metaverse, Youtube time spent continue to raise sky-high, ? of our children will spend 80% of their time on Roblox/Minecraft, and more newborns.?
9. The privacy thing will continue to shake up the whole ad industry. Many services or established platforms may need to face the reality that we’re going back to square one. It’s a reset.?
10. I will win the lottery.??????