(Preview) Monday Mailbag: The James Harden of Tech; Bandwidth and the Video Takeover; Gen AI and Ads; Political Donation Texts
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Hello, and welcome to a free preview of sharp tech. Hello and welcome back to another episode of sharp tech. I'm Andrew sharp and on the other line, ben thomson ben, how you do in .

doing good Andrew, just sitting here, luxury and a good call by me told you maxi m going to win the title. You know, actually.

really.

when I, I, I take credit, it's like a take time for Michael Jordan in a champion. Jeff, what can I say? Inevitable, amazing stuff.

If only people could see the shit in Green on pense face right now. Yes, unbelievable work by max were stop in in soul palo on sunday, started seventeenth and lando north poor lando norse stories is a loser.

He did IT all over again now is complaining about was unfair. He was just locked, yet afraid of hours would like lap two or lap three was like maxes wedding up, made up like ten places in the first lap. Those are over. Amazing.

legendary drive. yes. And now band gets to take a Victory to avoid .

all other was gots in sports, it's good. There's nothing said. So I say that a good distance there .

will be no malarky box discussion for the foreseeable future here. Od sharp tag.

any other body, it's pretty ark otherwise.

So they don't worry about a commander, seven and two. Plenty of room on the bandwagon whenever you want to hop on. P, as for the show, I feel like people maybe pretty anxious as we get set for the election on tuesday.

So I figured we keep IT a little lighter on this one. And to that end, we're going to start with S. B.

S, B, says Andrews. Ben is tiktok, the James harden of social media. Both harden and tiktok revolutionized ed the game.

For worse, harden optimized his game for creating open trees lineups and beating free throws. Protheus insert bar from mogi I cosign that, uh, which of all, which all have high expected value. Harden's heliocentric play is generally considered unappealing to most neutral fans.

Similarly, tiktok change how people consume social media by exploiting our monkey brains and using algorithms to surface addictive short form n videos. What other basketball and big tech comparisons can sharp tech think of? And speaking of the short foreign tico video format, twitter is not really text first anymore as the four u tab is aggressively pushing videos.

On a related note, tiktok of fiction of social media continues a pace as linked in, and glass door just announced that they were adding short video feed. Even if tiktok can spend, its impact on social media will continue. I really want to know what a glass door short form video looks like.

So anybody wants to email us some examples then? What do you think here? I love the hard in tiktok cop for a lot of reasons. Any takes?

No, I think I think there's probably something to, and I mean, the reality is, is humans like video, like, you know, i've written about this in the past. I did, I was, I preceptive a question on here, but it's a long time reader. He should know that I written this, which is the reality is the internet was tax because tax is easy and tax transfers down to those ones in areas.

And that works out, you know, go we are of saluted the BBS of a few episodes ago, this idea where you just get online and and have communities and just you'd up, put all your messages and down all the new messages, and that was all you could do. And IT was amazing. And the reality is, is that now with increased band with you do way more things and you go back and maybe this would be sort of the push back is all all these people were saying this about TV back in the day, you're just being some old fogeys complaining about short form video, which is probably true.

And maybe the TV people were right. You know, know, I get up front porcher and make some complaints. The reality is that video resonates.

It's what it's what the majority of people like the most. Maybe the bit about sort of the twitter in the for youtube is the case. I don't know. I mean, like of course, I see a fair bit of video. And if you click into a video, you're really dropped into a video type stream that goes to .

the next one and IT starts hitting you with algorithmic rex like it's not related to the video that you watched. It's it's pretty daring for someone like me who's not a tiktok user. I assume that's how tiktok works, but on twitter, a watch like a sports highlight and then get hit with like a tucker calls and clipped next, then it's just like what the how is happening here?

Yes, the everyday or no. Is that just because he doesn't do videos? I also definitely be I, I think because every other tweet is a new one tweeted these days, I IT just a IT is what IT is.

That is what people sort of get into. I find that annoying. But I back out, I was going to tell, say, just for the podcast, you probably need to use tiktok.

But then I remembered, I want you to be a productive member of society. So i'm pass on that one. So you'll come out .

ahead if I remain tiktok free. So if tiktok is the harden of tech, does that make deal mory the chinese government in couple?

That would be that that is quite the twist of irony. But I mean, what are the this interesting is you back in the day facebook was sorted trying to do a video, and now they gave sort of this high food. They sort of back away from doing that.

They get a high flow and talk about, we want time on platform to be valuable time, and not just like, you know, wasting time on on video and things on those lines, which was all of the a bunch of B. S. The reality is, is that the reason they deemphasize video after originally emphasizing IT is that IT IT moitie ed very well.

Because the chAllenge with video relative to tax or relative to images is you spend more time watching IT, which means there's less time to sort of have ads, and that was part. But the reality is, is now there clearly all in now that tiktok showed ohh, don't have long videos, just have lots of short videos and IT still actually doesn't monodist quite as well for for the timing reason. Just the number of ads you see in like a ten minute span is lower than the number of ads you see in a ten minute span of screwing stories, of growing videos.

But it's so addictive. And like you spend so much time doing IT and you sort of have to do IT because of competition that there you obviously all in on short from BIOS across all their platforms. And yeah, it's a real you know it's a real giving people what they want sort of thing.

And so who do you blame? You blame the platform. Can people do you want to go blame people for wanting IT? Competition ensures that there's kind of no choice if you want to have a competitive product in the space. So yeah, I didn't were back to being at the front porch and promoting the state of society.

Well, I mean, look, i'll sit down next to you all the front porch. I mean, I see short form video everywhere now. And it's not video that I object to. It's the specific tiktok style of video like it's so incredibly tacky and we're all gonna stuck with IT, whether tiktok is banned or not because I now see IT on twitter constantly. It's like you see the aggressive like cuts in the video and the captions and just all of IT is so visually assaulting and people must like IT, I guess I don't know.

Now there's like this this high archy, right? Because a lot of people complain about youtube style videos before this, right? And you know, just the way that they're caught and edited all sort of thing.

And I was mister bees, a sort of bit on the forefront of this. Everyone follows, you know, you you like deeply study the algorithm and all these sorts of things, and what works, what does in, and that everyone should copies that. And then you go before that.

And then people complained about T, V, the same sort of thing, right? I, I, I feel I do that at the top of the mountain because I like complaint about TV period. I like it's too slow, the not information debts enough for me.

I find a no.

I feel this is like me, when your friend keeps inviting you out, you can do IT you ve actually feel about and they stop inviting you because, like man, too far I feel that way about TV. I want your recommendations give them to me. I have I feel bad about dismissing them. But the what I like about .

you and why we can be friends is because you're not one of those pious people who says, you know, I don't even have cable. I happen to know for a fact that you have a lot of cable and I subscribed you a lot of different things. You just still fail yourself of most of the premium television.

That's ava. We're not going to do sort of a money management episode of ript. I mean, it's also it's really about IT comes stuff like substance and all that because there's also a bit where i'm so proud of this format in this business model that I just applied to anyone I got to anyone, everyone thin, I have a single article I want. It's right. It's out of control.

But well, let me ask, do you know what I mean though? We're like all the different jump cuts and like the audio sometime isn't sink to the video and like.

no, yes, I get that. I've say i've just say this is this is A A complaint about new formats. I can't wait to the next thing comes along, A R video or whatever it's going to be.

And it's like completely disassociated what whatever you might be and then the the future sort of podcasts of the world to be like. I mean, do you remember like there was real craft in tiktok videos and today, just like I understand what's going on. So I agree with you, I we use the deal. It's also like I usually save IT for like a friday night.

maybe like the night facing reals yeah oh .

yeah no. Like like you treat yourself to like a couple hours of reals or or tiktok road ever. Like it's pretty enjoyable. Like like i'm not to see here I going to take the opposite tack of you.

Like I worry about IT in a old man on the porch perspective that like, you know, I think learning how to read and and you information density is by and large, a good thing. I also recognize that this they're pretty good at this, both the creators and the algorithm. It's pretty enjoyable. And you have to be pretty careful because you look up at like three hours of got five I go doing with my life that would .

be by take here. And one of the reasons I love this comes so much, just to put this in context for me, who's not a basketball fan like James harden. I actually look at James harden as having revolutionized the NBA more than steff curry because steff curry proved you can win a title shooting thees.

But steff Carrier sort of like a one of one. He's a true unicorn, one of the greatest players we've ever seen. What harden's genius was was proving that you can take thirteen, three a game and lay ups and bit your way, and ten three throws a game, and you could be like a thirty five, thirty six percent three point shooter. And that was still a smart way to play. And so the rest of the league took note like stuff, nobody was really going .

to try to image every right. But once that worked for hard .

and now you get like my favorite player in the NBA is anthy Edwards right now, and he's started the year taking like fourteen, three a game and it's a smart way to play, which is actually really upsetting to me because it's not as interesting to watch. But harden and his ill have sort of hacked basketball to such as the extent and like it's sort of irrefutably the best way to play these days.

I have an overarching sports take. I dropped on deering. But in the order of like avoiding in indian all election talk, I can drop IT .

here for you go.

So baseball is great, but like the apple, enjoy baseball port. But but I think .

it's becoming .

more widely acknowledge that recently, like actually baseball ames are super great. And I would say that just in the first season, which poses baseball always good. But but it's it's Better for reasons to get to the moment.

And also just the regular season is is sort of a really solid product. And this is after, again, as someone who who is generally a baseball fan, for particular in summer night. So I can send my portal, watch that the railway to sort of enjoy baseball.

Baseball went through a very dark period for like ten, fifteen years, the first or twenty years of this century where IT was a pretty rough watch. And what I think happened was there is a bit here where I think analytics does kind of ruin sports in that it's not that it's wrong. It's just that it's boring, like you sort of solve IT, right? And so you end up with baseball where IT was just irrefutably true that all you should do is slim for a home run every single time.

You shouldn't still basis. You shall not move the run or over. And then to counteract that because you're swing for the fences, every time you shift out your fielders over, you play a shift.

Because if they don't hit a home run, they're getting a hit to like weft going to hit like shell, right field. Ds, you put a guy there and and you had just this then meanwhile, IT amps to pressure on every pitch. So pictures are taken for freaking ever, because there, you know, if you screw t it's going to be a home run.

And then that's basically the deciding factor in the game. IT became a pretty brutal product, and IT became so brutal for long enough that baseball had to make huge changes. They ban the shift.

They made the basis bigger, so easier to steal. They put the pitches, ck, in the pitches. Cks a big deal because it's not just that, that makes the games go faster, which makes the poses and much more enjoyable in particular.

But pictures get tired, right? Because of like that means they're more likely to make mistakes. It's pretty tough. You can't take a breather and you're just boom, boom, boom.

And you know every eighteen seconds, whatever you're having to deliver a pitch and it's just IT made the game Better. My feeling about basketball right now is I think it's a pretty brutal product because it's soft, right? Like you just you generate a tonet three bye large.

One of the easiest factor y who's going to win B A games is who took the most three. And actually, like the percenters, that stuff actually don't matter nearly as much. And then you're before super spread out soon get to the rim a week. They they changed the rough a little bit last year or wasn't so easy calls, but I think there's a bit where that actually made even more three this year because the return for going in the way is now even lower than I was before.

And I think there's a bit where the MBA, we just have to accept it's gonna brutal until everyone sort of realizes we have to make large changes, not little changes to me, that changes running the three point line into the sidelines of the corner, three goes away. Dell let the defense contract itself and Operate in different ways and you have to like create different ways sort of approach IT. But that's the but the point being is there's a bit where you just have to go like IT takes a while four weeks to face reality. exactly.

So do a year and a half at this point. So I am with you for sure um and that's why but .

I just think I think the caption of baseball interesting and by the way, baseball crushing the M B A and ratings now right like ort of a real fit from sort of what people expected. One thing is interesting is football. Football arguably been helped by analytics in that like way more teams go for on fourth down.

There's way more two print conversion attempts. Things like like just like football was so stodgy that there's a bit where there was so much low haying fruit. Maybe they're hit a local maximum and have to rethink things, but football always been really aggressive about changing the rules, that they changed the rules all the time and the football they kick off things really done this year.

But I salute the fact they do stuff like that and then just unwinding and change IT. There just seems to be less fields like this is the way it's always been done. And that's, I think, in the reasons why football .

is prety successful. yes. Well, and this is why I like the hard and tiktok com because it's where we ended the last episode. There's a chance that short form n video and algorithm curation is just such an incredibly effective engagement hack that IT wouldn't shock me if we get like five or ten years down the road and we find ourselves in a place where some sort of limits need to be put in place to keep these videos like lobotomized, an entire .

generation of america.

I ve just saying i've open to that possibility. What I know for a fact is that in the world real, four years, the N, B, A is going to have to take action because of the way the hardens of the world have bastard zed basketball. And so whether we get there on the short for a video front, who knows? But s in .

the world where A I takes everybody's jobs, it's great.

We have a very compound entertained product for people.

Well, it's friday night every day.

He asked for other big tech N, B, A, cos, I came up with some nominations for you to review. So i'll start with microsoft.

Oh, this is not the right out. So I, to have to pay attention, like real time reactions, give to the microsoft.

all right? And that is the end of the free preview. If you'd like to hear more from Better night, there are links to subscribe in the show notes, or you can also get a shark tech that F, M, either option will get you access to a personalize feed that has all the shows we do every week, plus lots more great content from protection and this protector plus funder check IT out. And if you've got feedback, please email us at email at sharp tech that at them.