If Linda Yaccarino Can't Save Twitter, No One Can

Let's face it, it's still the Elon Show

Sree is now teaching workshops about AI, ChatGPT, etc. Book him for your company lunch-n-learn or your next conference! This newsletter is produced with Zach Peterson (@zachprague), with the Digimentors Tech Tip from Robert S. Anthony (@newyorkbob).

🎯 WHAT’S HAPPENING AT DIGIMENTORS: I was in Atlanta for a two-day digital workshop recently with one of our nonprofit clients, a leading voice on social justice and civil rights in the U.S. In addition to a comprehensive look at AI tools (including ChatGPT), we also did a full review of their web and social media analytics, presented a livestreaming 101, offered tips on how to share metrics with the C-suite, helped identify ways to grow their social/digital presence, demonstrated low-lift approaches to Instagram Reels and led an interactive session to help their team identify priorities that would have the biggest impact on their organization.

If any of this would benefit your team or organization, please get in touch with Jenny Lazarus, our VP of Business Development and Strategy: jennifer@digimentors.group. For more, take a look at our updated brochure. I’m at sree@digimentors.group and neil@digimentors.group, and here’s my Calendly.

🗞 @Sree’s Sunday #NYTReadalong: Our guest this week is Shreeya Sinha, editorial director for the brand-new York Times Audio app. You’ll find three years’ worth of Readalong archives at this link (we’ve been reading print newspapers out loud on social for 7 years now!). The #NYTReadalong is sponsored by Muck Rack. Interested in sponsorship opportunities? Email sree@digimentors.group and neil@digimentors.group.

***

LINDA YACCARINO HAS JUST TAKEN THE MOST THANKLESS JOB IN THE WORLD.

She has had an impressive career and may be the most successful advertising executive in the world right now. As head of advertising at NBCUniversal, she was the driver of relationships with every major platform, every major advertiser, and had more people on her global team than Twitter has total employees.

Twitter’s central business challenge is attracting advertisers, and there’s no one better to fix that than Yaccarino.

I am cheering for her and for Twitter (the first of my four essays on Elon since May 2022 started with “Elon Musk can be a force for good”; three more followed: Elon Musk Era Begins at Twitter | Elon Musk and Right-Wing Grift | Six Months with Elon, the Boss Baby).

But Musk still owns the company, and it’s hard to see a scenario where she can truly succeed.

Yaccarino’s skills and contacts are certainly in demand at Twitter. According to Pathmatics, a marketing analysis firm, 625 of the top 1000 advertisers on the platform have stopped paid advertising on Twitter (as of January 2023). These are major brands like Coca-Cola, Unilever, and Jeep, and the resulting drop in revenue has put Twitter in a very tenuous position.

The reason, again, is Musk. He is the ONLY reason that Twitter lost the majority of its major advertisers. If I had to prognosticate a bit, I would posit that Musk will also be the reason that Yaccarino ultimately fails to woo back big-spending brands (or keep them permanently).

Advertising is all about brand safety, and Twitter offers none of it. There are the armies of Elon fanboys, now easily-identifiable with their paid-for blue checks, who hijack replies and threads, harass anyone or any brand they can, and generally make the platform more unpleasant than it’s ever been (and that’s saying something since it’s had its share of problems for years). What’s more, Musk has pushed all of those meaningless replies to the top of every tweet. Here’s a pitch-perfect example of exactly that. I would embed the tweet here, but I can’t because of a weird spat between Musk and Substack. Up until a few weeks ago, tweets embedded really nicely here… but, alas. This is just Musk being Musk.

Musk being Musk is what will ultimately be the undoing of Yaccarino’s tenure at the helm of Twitter.

As toxic as the blue check 2.0 legions have made the Twitter experience, there’s still no one more toxic than the man at the top. Here’s what I wrote when Musk took over:

Musk can cater and cave to his nihilist, edgelord fanboys on the platform, but all that will do is pollute Twitter even more than it already is. Given that he overpaid by several billion(!) dollars, he needs to make that money up somewhere — to the tune of an additional $1 billion in revenue annually by some accounts. The only way that happens is if brands feel safe to spend, and the only way they will feel safe to spend on Twitter ads is if there are enough eyes on Twitter to make it worth it.

Musk is 100% incapable of just dialing it down — quite the opposite, he doubles down on his personal toxicity almost daily. In the last week, he’s dabbled in some anti-semitism, conspiracy theories about a Texas mass murderer, and that’s just the hits. His Twitter feed, which he insists that you need to see, is that of someone who genuinely lacks interest in any sort of information hygiene.

This is what Yaccarino is up against. Having just interviewed Musk on stage, she knows all of this. As Kara Swisher noted on the Pivot podcast, this was like a public version of a job interview and none of us knew it. I recommend watching the whole thing:

I very much want Twitter to succeed. It’s been a huge part of my personal and professional lives, and, despite it all, I still see it as a net “good” in the world. But that’s only in the longest possible view. The last six months have been an unmitigated disaster, and I just do not see a world where that changes. Twitter is still Musk’s playground, and absolutely beholden to his whims.

I wonder how many ad deals Musk will somehow blow up before Yaccarino looks for the exit. It’s not hard to imagine a scenario where a series of 4 a.m. tweets cost Twitter tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in ad revenue. It’s also not hard to imagine someone with Yaccarino’s stature deciding that the levels of patience and fortitude needed to deal with someone like Musk are simply not worth the (probably quite substantial) paycheck.

— Sree / Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn | YouTube

Digimentors is now booking workshops on generative AI (ChatGPT, Bard, DALL-E, Midjourney, etc). If you’d like to attend or organize one, please LMK. I’ve also been writing a lot about AI recently (1, 2, 3), and plan to continue to do so. Thank you so much for your thoughtful notes and comments on this crucially-important topic. If you have any stories to share about how AI is affecting your life, send me an email sree@digimentors.group.

---

DIGIMENTORS TECH TIP: Burned the Steak Again? High-Tech Thermometers Can Help

By Robert S. Anthony
Each week, veteran tech journalist Bob Anthony shares a tech tip you don’t want to miss. Follow him @newyorkbob.

The summer is the perfect time to cut the cyber cord, step outside and enjoy the sweet smells of summer—including those emanating from an outdoor grill. But if you’re known for cooking burgers and steaks that resemble the charcoal you’re cooking with, some high-tech help is available.

Electronic meat thermometers are nothing new, but some of today’s offerings make it very easy to monitor what’s going on at the grill. Two useful units were spotted recently at a Pepcom home tech showcase for the media in New York.

The simple-looking, but sophisticated MEATER from UK-based Apption Labs started as a Kickstarter crowdfunding project in 2015 and has been evolving ever since. The unit links wirelessly to a free mobile app which not only allows users to monitor meat temperature but can also send out an alert when it’s done. The app offers a library of recipes and cooking tips for various types of food.

The slim unit incorporates two thermometers—one for the ambient temperature and one for the inside of the meat—and is rated for internal temperatures up to 212°F and ambient temperatures to 527°F. The unit lasts for 24 hours between charges from the battery in its charger, according to the company.

The standard MEATER ($69.95) can be wirelessly monitored up to 33 feet away with a Bluetooth connection while the MEATER Plus ($99.95 to 109.95) has a Bluetooth repeater built into its charger and can be monitored up to 165 feet away.

The InstaProbe from Typhur Inc. features a large, bright OLED display and claims to be “the world’s fastest and most accurate food thermometer,” providing temperature readouts in three-quarters of a second and offering accuracy of within half a degree.

Unlike the MEATER, the $109 InstaProbe isn’t meant to be left inside food but simply inserted into the meat, liquid or other food to quickly check on progress. A motion detector turns the unit on when picked up and powers down its two AAA batteries when it’s not being handled.

The unit’s 4.3-inch probe handles temperatures from -58°F to 572°F and folds into the InstaProbe’s body when not in use. The body itself is magnetic, allowing it to be attached to the side of a refrigerator for storage. The unit has a IP67 resilience rating, which means that it’s both water and dust resistant, and the company claims that the OLED readout is bright enough to be easily seen in daylight.

Yes, the heat will soon be on as the dog days of summer get closer, but at least you can be in control of the heat being contributed by your grill.

---

❓Did we miss anything? Make a mistake? Do you have an idea for anything we’re up to? Let’s collaborate! sree@sree.net and please connect w/ me: Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn | YouTube / Cameo.