Podcasters would love to know if Apple is into podcasting or not.  John Herrman of the New York Times writes that even though podcasting is an industry now, Edison says 57M Americans will listen monthly this year, Apple doesn’t seem that interested.  And there’s a reason.  Apple gets nothing from podcasts.  Matt Lieber of Gimlet says ad spending on podcasts will hit hundreds of millions this year, but Apple doesn’t get a slice of that, and downloads are free, and Apple doesn’t let podcasters charge for downloads or subscriptions.  What do podcasters want from Apple?  Gina Delvac of “Call Your Girlfriend” says the lack of podcast data is shocking.  Apple gives it to app developers, but not podcasters.  And they’d like clarity on the iTunes “Top Podcast” list, a nearly do or die list run by an incredibly small team and a mysterious “Mr. Wilson.”

Look out YouTube, Facebook video and Vimeo.  Amazon’s ready to rumble.  They launched Amazon Video Direct, and anybody who makes videos can tap into all those ecommerce shoppers Amazon has.  Todd Spangler writes what Amazon is doing a little different is giving all those Spielbergs 4 choices in how to distribute their epics.  They can make it available to Prime Video subscribers and get a 6 or 15 cents-per-hour royalty.  They can sell it as an add-on subscription through the Streaming Partners Program.  They can offer it for rental or purchase and get half the retail price.  Or they can make it available to all Amazon customers for free with ads and get 55% of the ad revenue, which is what YouTube gives you.  Launch partners include Mattel, Baby Einstein and StyleHaul, whose Chief Content Officer Mia Goldwyn says is bringing some of its original shows, like Denise Richards’ fashion drama “Vanity”.

Clarabridge’s Elizabeth Clor knows most CEO’s couldn’t possibly care less about your vanity content marketing metrics.  So she gives us 4 that…well to tell you the truth, there are some CEO’s that won’t care about these either, but they put you in a better position to tell a story in which your content marketing is bringing real value to the company.  So getting on with it; number of sales-accepted leads, which is a lead the sales team has deemed worthy because they were at least able to get a meeting.  Share of voice, or how much of the conversation about your area of interest you’re capturing vs. your competitors.  Bosses loves being shown that competitors are being beaten at anything.  Branded search; which is people searching your company by name.  No, you can’t prove your content made that happen but if your share of voice is growing, a correlation can be made.  And customer sentiment, CEOs like to hear about happy customers and text analytics of comments can do that.

Say it with me, I am better than a robot.  If you’re a content writer, that statement is probably true.  In fact, Kerry Creaswood reassures us that with so many jobs at risk from technology and AI and robots, yours might not be one of them and gives 4 reasons why.  1: a robot can research, but it can’t be inspired, and only stuff that’s inspired can inspire people.  2: excitement about the topic shows up in the writing, and robots aren’t that excitable.  You know there’s a difference in writing stuff you have to and writing stuff you’re really into.  3: robots aren’t risk takers and thus, can’t think outside the box.  Some risk is required to make anything truly impactful.  And 4: human writers can use emotional “draws” because they’ve actually felt those emotions before.  Robots have no emotional experiences to draw on.  Apologies to those of you currently dating robots.

SocialTimes is telling us when people watch video, they’re likely doing it on Facebook, the preferred video source for 37%.  The Philo Media study says in fact, the whole online video thing is still in flux.  The Millennials though, still prefer YouTube over Facebook for video.  And get this, 6.8% of Gen X’ers actually prefer Twitter for their online viewing.  Twitter’s got to love to hear that #needsallthegoodnewsitcanget.  For video sharing, again Facebook comes out on top with 63%.  The study points out that if you want your video to get shared, emotional targeting is what gets it done.  Positive emotions work better than negative, and 55% say humor is the biggest motivating factor for sharing.

Do you Like this podcast?  Do you love it?  Do you Haha, Wow, Sad or Angry this podcast?  Those are the many faces of Facebook Reactions which was all the buzz when the 5 new options showed up at the end of February.  After 2 months, a Quintly study shows hardly anybody is using them.  They account for about 3% of interactions.  Maybe 2 months just isn’t long enough and users haven’t realized they can have other emotions now.  Or maybe people don’t want to express themselves as much as previously thought.  Of the new interactions, Mark Wilson of Betanews says Love is the most popular.  Over 76% of interactions were good ol’ Likes, 14% were shares, and a little over 7% were comments.  One kind of content gets 40% more reactions than other kinds, it’s video.  Quintly’s Alexander Peiniger says if they catch on, the new reactions can show brands how their posts are being received.

If you desperately want to please millennials, and I know I do, that’s why I’m growing a man bun, you get advice from the people who are doing an amazing job of it.  That would be theSkimm.  Things are going really well for them.  It’s an email newsletter that tells you what’s going on with its own distinct personality.  Sarah Buhr reports in just one and a half years they’ve hit 3.5M subscribers around the world.  If that sounds like a lot, it’s because the New York Times wishes they had that.  It’s more digital subscribers than they have.  And thousands of “Skimm’bassadors” are out there trying to win stuff by getting other people on it.  So back to how to appeal to millennials.  theSkimm founders Danielle Weisberg and Carly Zakin told Disrupt NYC you serve up digestible news that matters to that age group and be completely honest about how you advertise to them.  Weisberg says, “Looking at your phone is the new definition of ‘me time’”.

When you think of Spotify you probably think of music; playlists and playlists of music and video ads you can watch to get 30 minutes of commercial free music.  But now Spotify is thinking hey, let’s make videos that are content, not ads that interrupt content.  Look for 12 original series, most centered around music.  And that shouldn’t come as a surprise since they’re coming from content partnerships chief Tom Calderone, who did plenty of music based shows while he was at Viacom.  He jokes that there are videos on Spotify, but they’re buried at the bottom of the app with how to unsubscribe and the privacy policy.  Lucas Shaw reports shows will be a few minutes to 15 minutes and include things like “Landmark” about big moments in music history, Russell Simmons’ “Rush Hour” where 2 hip-hop acts must collaborate and perform, and a Tim Robbins mockumentary about a competition to be the next dance music phenom.

If I knew you and you were always doing awesome things, guess what I would do.  I’d want to do those same awesome things myself.  And social networks are no different.  LinkedIn has been keeping an eye on what Facebook’s been doing with Instant Articles and is acting like the droid R2MeToo.  That makes no sense, I hope I have time to edit it out.  Anyway, BuzzFeed News has reported talks are going on at LinkedIn to get a similar thing out for publishers.  Why?  Maybe it’s because Instant Articles has been working, posts with rich media that load and play so quick brands don’t seem to care the content isn’t on any of their properties.  Whiz bang like that could enhance LinkedIn’s influencer blog posts.

I got a $500 loan against next month’s paycheck and all I have to do is pay it back almost immediately at 36%!  Thank YOU Pay Day Loan Company!  You might keep seeing those kinds of ads on late night cable but you’re not going to see it on Google anymore.  They’re updating their AdWords terms to put in a total ban on lending products like that.  If it’s got to be paid back in 60 days or have high APR’s, Google says no AdWords for you as of July 13.  Paul Sawers reports it may be because Google just loves and wants to protect consumers, or because regulators were on their backs, because the old terms were “AdWords will only serve payday loan ads if the phrase “payday loan” or similar terms are included in the user’s query.  On the Google Display Network, they’ll be shown only on sites related to payday loans.”  Now the kibosh has been put on.  Did you know Google blocked 780M ads in 2015, up 50% from 2014 for various nefarious reasons?

That’s it.  Would a follow of @mikestiles kill ya?

Let’s talk about something you care about deeply, you and how much you can earn in your career.  McKinley Marketing Partners did a survey to see who’s getting hired in marketing, and what skill sets are most in demand right now.  Ayaz Nanji reports the biggest lesson, you better know and be comfortable with marketing technology.  The biggest jump in expertise that hirers are looking for was in digital marketing, 27% more than last year.  As for skills with the most planned hires this year, it’s a tie between general marketing and content management.  Then comes communications.  If you’re just getting started or are still a junior-level type, the most jobs for you are going to be in digital marketing, analytics, and content management.  But you can’t ignore those mysterious soft skills either.  Most, 64%, say problem-solving is essential.  Then comes elegant thought articulation, analytical thinking, company culture fit, and personality.  And here you thought you were going to get by just on your sparkling personality.

We all think marketing technology is cool but there is that line that has “creepy” written on it.  Steve O’Hear tells us that a new ad unit from Vyking called ReactivAds, is able to watch you right back when you’re watching it using your device’s camera, see what facial expressions you’re making using emotion, face and gesture recognition, and have the ad react to how you’re reacting to it.  You’ve got to opt in of course because some people like to be watched and others, you know, call the police.  They say they don’t store pictures of you, everything’s done in real-time.  CEO Matthew Klimpke says something interesting, that it offers up a whole new metric.  He says, “Any effective advertising evokes an emotional response; this technology will enable advertisers to hone in on the raw, unfiltered emotions from their campaigns.  Advertisers need more KPIs to measure engagement beyond clicks.  Emotional engagement will become the new KPI of advertising effectiveness.”

Are you still trying to game Google?  C’mon, join us in 2016, because a lot has changed and even more is in the process of changing.  If you don’t already, you should know about RankBrain.  That’s Google’s artificial intelligence they’re using to decipher vague, long-tail type queries and deliver relevant results.  15% of searches are getting RankBrain applied to it and Google’s Greg Corrado says it’s the 3rd-biggest contributing signal.  If you’re ever playing Google trivia with friends, a) God help you, and b) there are over 200 search signals Google uses.  Al Gomez @alseoblog tells us how content marketers should start dealing with RankBrain.  Narrow that audience and answer problems they may search; I mean really narrow.  Make your content sound human and natural, like you’re talking to a person.  Steve Baldwin of Didit.com says think long-form cause RankBrain uses co-occurrence, how often similar terms are in the content.  We’re not talking keyword stuffing, we’re talking similar or synonymous terms.  Lastly, refer to authoritative sources cause it helps the algorithm figure out the intent of your post.

If you start seeing more Facebook posts with marketing stuff like end cards, brand logos and product placement, don’t be surprised.  What, my warning isn’t enough for you?  Okay I’ll explain further.  Facebook is now letting publishers and marketers share brand content on the platform.  AJT Santos reports that it’s not like a free for all, there are still a few guidelines in place like you still can’t do branded or sponsored cover photos or profile pictures, you can’t watermark and you can’t do pre-roll ads.  But trust me, the brand content is gonna flow.  A new tool from Facebook even lets publishers tag the brand being promoted in the content.  Facebook’s VP of Partnerships Nick Grudin said, “We know many of our partners have existing partnership deals with marketers, and this gives them the ability to extend their branded content business onto Facebook.”

Can I ask you a question and have you answer it honestly?  No?  Well here’s what I was going to ask.  Do you want people to engage with your content or not?  Because if you’re gating your content and making people fill out a form to get it, you have a wildly inflated sense of how great and valuable your content is.  You’re lucky they found it, you’re even luckier they’re clicking on it, but then you want to withhold it unless they sacrifice themselves to you as a lead?  Anna Talerico reports that gating is taking a back seat to quality interactive content.  When Demand Metric tested a gated interactive white paper against an un-gated version, the un-gated drove 33% more leads than the gated version.  How?  The un-gated version had an optional form to get a PDF version.  Plus, Anna points out most people are smart enough to find the info they need somewhere else without coming through your gate.

It’s been decided by others that you have too many choices.  For instance, you have a choice as to whether or not to watch a video ad in your messaging apps.  Well you did.  Brielle Jaekel reports Snapchat’s 2.0 update lets marketing content get right in your face and roll without a click.  Mark Cluett, who’s a Marketing Manager at Polar, Toronto, says, “Before, even if a user chose to follow a brand on Snapchat, they had to manually interact with the brand to see what they shared.  Now, videos from brands will see more views and engagement as users stumble upon them naturally.”  But with great power comes, that’s right, great responsibility.  Cluett goes on to say, “If a user is inundated with stories from only brands when they’re expecting a stream of content from celebs, friends, and news sources they’ll unfollow very quickly.”  The warning, brands better share less content that’s more valuable.

It’s not like Snapchat is the only one in the in-your-face video business.  Twitter’s had First View since February, letting you get your paid video content to the top of users’ feeds for 24 hours.  When that happened, there was some wondering going on; wondering if users would rebel.  They haven’t.  In fact they’ve hardly noticed them at all.  Does that surprise you?  David Neuman, Director of Social Media Services for Prime Visibility says, “Users are so accustomed to seeing native ads across all of their social feeds the rollout of First View isn’t going to be met with much backlash.”  And as John Montesi writes, Twitter’s an easy place to quickly get those native ads in barely noticed…as opposed to pre-roll ads before YouTube videos.  And since they only run for 24 hours, users don’t see it often enough for it to sink in that it’s an ad.

We don’t do a lot of stories about gaming but hey, it’s a very valid channel on which to do content marketing.  And a Unity Technologies report tells us whether or not gamers are turned off by in-game video ads.  Brandy Shaul reports that it depends.  If it’s a run of the mill full-screen picture ad, 39% of developers say their players left the game “either a little faster, or even a lot quicker than usual.”  But if the players get rewarded for watching a video ad, that’s a whole different ballgame app.  78% are open to watching reward video ads and 71% prefer that as a way to “pay” for in-game content.  Well okay, but such video ads would hurt other in-app purchases right?  Nopers.  86% of developers say they weren’t affected or even went up after reward video ads were introduced.

You’ve put together some dynamite downloadable content.  Maybe it’s even about dynamite.  So learn now what device people are most likely to download your stuff onto.  Limelight Networks knows, cause their State of Digital Downloads report found overall, 45% of people are more likely to download all kinds of digital content than last year.  But here’s the big news, the smartphone just now passed PC’s as the device most downloading is done on, specifically Android smartphones.  The iPad and Android tablets were almost tied at 2nd and 3rd.  As for what’s downloaded, EContent reports other than OS updates, it’s new apps at 33%, video games at 18%, and movies & TV content at 13%.  Most downloading happens from 6pm-midnight.  But whenever it’s done, that download needs to be fast.  Especially Millennials have no patience for slowness or hangups.

Are you ready to chat with Facebook Messenger’s 900M users?  Among the many announcements at their big F8 shindig to-do, they said there will now be a Messenger chatbot platform, and you, Mr. or Ms. Brand, can pay to bot message those poor souls who connected with you at one time on Messenger.  “Sponsored Messages” are being tested and one of the things they’re really trying to figure out is how to keep this experience from being, you know, hated.  Facebook’s VP of product David Marcus says, “These will definitely be limited…we’re very paranoid about that.”  Josh Constine writes what we all know is true, when Messenger buzzes right now, you know it’s a friend.  That assurance could go away.  In addition to Sponsored Messages, Facebook also announced “Click to Message” which can be put into News Feed ads.

That’s it.  I live on Twitter @mikestiles.