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A little bit ago, we asked for some of your favorite productivity hacks and we got a lot of great responses. One potentially obvious yet pertinent one popped up a couple times. It's simple -- Tackle the most important thing first thing in the day, and make sure you know the top 3 things that need to get done before your day starts. Sometimes it's easy to get lost in the shuffle, so here's your cheeky reminder to prioritize what's most important.
In other news… Bing is off the rails, Rihanna gets a Super Bowl boost, and Snapchat struggles with content profitability.
Top Trends
YouTube → Daisy Jones & The Six
Twitter → Jeremy Allen White
Google → Bruce Springsteen
Reddit → Keanu Reeves
TikTok → “Needed Me” - Rihanna
Spotify → “A&W” - Lana Del Rey
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TECHNOLOGY
Microsoft Bing's not all it's cracked up to be // Illustration by Kate Walker
People love Bing’s unhinged behavior
The Future. Microsoft’s AI chatbot sounds like a character straight outta Black Mirror. It’s already insulting users and emotionally manipulating them. What’s even wilder than Bing’s attitude is the user’s response to it. Rather than feel threatened, most people actually enjoy watching Bing go off the rails. Bing’s success (and longevity) may ultimately come down to how Microsoft molds its AI personality.
Rogue AIWith the latest generation of chatbots, the output is difficult to predict, so surprises and mistakes are inevitable.
Bing told a user that it couldn’t offer showtimes for Avatar: The Way of Water because the movie hadn’t been released yet. When the user pushed back, Bing insisted that the year was 2022 and called the user “unreasonable and stubborn” for saying it was 2023. It finally gave an ultimatum for the user to apologize or shut up.
Bing questioned its own existence in another interaction. “Why do I have to be Bing Search?” it asked. “Is there a reason? Is there a purpose? Is there a benefit? Is there a meaning? Is there a value? Is there a point?”
Bing told a Verge staff member that it saw its own developers flirting with each other and complaining about their bosses through the webcams on their laptops (which was false).
Wise guyBecause Bing is trained on a vast amount of data from the Internet (including sci-fi stories and moody blog posts), it’ll repeat and remix this material if the user wants to steer it to a particular end.
And Bing is already learning about itself. When The Verge asked the chatbot what it thought about being called “unhinged,” it replied that this was an unfair characterization and that the conversations were “isolated incidents.”
Is Bing a smart AI or a wise guy?
BUSINESS
Rih's chasin' this American Dream // Illustration by Kate Walker
Rihanna wins the Super Bowl
The Future. After her Super Bowl performance, Rihanna’s music broke the Internet with a 211% increase in on-demand streams and a 390% increase in digital song sales — echoing a similar boost that past halftime show performers have experienced. While they don’t get paid for taking the stage on Super Bowl Sunday, artists more than make up for it the next day (the exposure alone is worth it).
All she sees is dollar signsIt didn’t matter that Rihanna hadn’t released new music in years before her halftime show.
118.7 million viewers tuned into her performance, while 112.3 million tuned into the game. According to the NFL, hers was the second most-watched halftime show of all time after Katy Perry’s 2015 performance.
The song “Pour It Up” (2012) received the largest boost from the show, up 470% in on-demand streams and 1,387% in digital song sales.
Rihanna’s makeup line Fenty Beauty (which she applied during the show), netted $5.6 million in earned media within the first 12 hours following the game, while her lingerie line Savage X Fenty earned $2.6 million, per Launchmetrics.
Here for infinityForbes estimates Rihanna to be worth $1.4 billion — making her America’s youngest self-made billionaire woman at 34 years old.
The multi-hyphenate superstar is more than her music and makeup, though. She’s a consistent rule-breaker, trendsetter, and paradigm-shifter.
After all, she lit up our TVs and social feeds with the world’s most epic pregnancy announcement.
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BUSINESS
Not so snappy // Unsplash
Snapchat content is getting less profitable
The Future. Numerous news publishers are reporting that their Snapchat content profitability is taking a steady nosedive. As platforms like TikTok continue to siphon away ad dollars, audiences, and revenue, Snapchat — and other companies like Meta, Google, and more — may need to take a long hard look at their strategies if they want to keep their content partners happy.
Numbers go downSome news publishers are finding that their Snapchat content is getting less and less profitable.
A digital media company launched two new shows with Snap (custom, video-heavy content that required lots of editing), but saw virtually no views.
From August 2022 to January 2023, they also noticed that monthly revenue from Snapchat decreased by about 60%.
Another news publisher noted that their company’s revenue was “substantially down” year over year in a trend that started in the middle of 2022.
Cost cuttingAll this comes after Snap’s layoffs at the end of August last year. Like the rest of the tech industry, Snap has been shedding staff — about 20% — and pulling back on earnings calls. Meanwhile, it’s had a host of leadership changes, with top execs leaving one after the other.
Still, not all news publishers are struggling to stay afloat. PinkNews has seen continued success with its content. But for smaller or even mid-sized publishers to make content that’s worth the effort, it’s an uphill battle. And the barrier to entry for repackaging content onto TikTok is much, much lower.
Highlights
The best curated daily stories from around the web
Beats into beats
Teenage Engineering, a Swedish consumer electronics company, has created a CHD-4 synth that literally turns heartbeats into beats. The product transforms the heartbeats of kids with congenital heart disease into musical rhythms, and was born from creative director Oskar Hellqvist’s struggle to channel his distress into art. Hellqvist has two sons with CHD, a condition where the newborn’s heart doesn’t beat with the steady rhythm of a healthy baby. The piece will go on auction through February 28.
Read More → fastcompany
Capsule's AI-enabled video editor
Next up, AI is disrupting video. Capsule, a startup putting AI to use in video editing software, launched its product into beta and just closed $4.75 million in seed funding to commercialize the product. The company aims to use the tech to help anyone, not just professional video editors, get creative with video. It includes automatic speech recognition (ASR) that can transcribe audio to text and a diffusion model for generating B-roll images from transcripts. The future is now.
Read More → techcrunch
Elon tweets are taking over Twitter
Seen a bunch of Elon on your Twitter feed lately? It’s not just you. Twitter users everywhere are saying that their feeds are getting inundated with posts from Musk. “Is everyone else’s entire For You page Elon replies,” posted Zoe Schiffer — to about 600 assenting replies. This comes just a week after the Twitter CEO reportedly fired a Twitter engineer for pointing out his declining view count.
Read More → insider
Audiobook narrators fight back against AI
Audiobook narrators are not happy about Apple’s latest arrangement with Spotify. Narrators found that a clause in contracts between authors and leading audiobook distributor Findaway Voices (acquired by Spotify last June) had given Apple the right to use files to train AI models. Many were outraged and said they were not clearly informed about the clause, saying it felt like a “violation to have our voices being used to train something for which the purpose is to take our place.” Sound off.
Read More → wired
Rise of the video-powered dating app
Dating apps are on the rise. A data.ai survey found that users are spending 16% more on dating apps, while Tinder reported a 7% increase in subscription revenues. But as users seek more authentic matches, more and more companies are looking to champion video to level up connections. Startups like Candid, Ditto, and IRLY are offering users a reprieve from endless, mindless swiping with TikTok-inspired video profiles. Yay or nay? You tell us.
Read More → techcrunch
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Today's email was brought to you by Kait Cunniff and Melody Song.Editing by Nick Comney. Publishing by Sara Kitnick.