I started writing this blog in 2003. The first name was Gary’s Radio Weblog—I used Dave Winer’s Radio Userland. I moved the blog to SquareSpace a bit later and renamed it Gary’s FeedForward to parallel my work at Automation World magazine. When I left Automation World in 2013, the blog moved to WordPress and gained the name The Manufacturing Connection. The blog has grown to more than 300K visits per month, and some months actually 200K more.
Meanwhile, I started playing with podcasting in 2007. I would sometimes record the podcasts on Quicktime on the Mac and post on YouTube along with the audio only on Libsyn.
I promoted both of these plus another personal blog on Twitter for years.
Several years ago, Twitter (now X) became useless for this promotion. I would also promote on LinkedIn. Now, LinkedIn acts like Facebook—do you want to reach people? Click here to boost your post (for a fee, of course).
This year I noticed a sudden reduction in the number of podcasts downloads. Simultaneously, the number of visits to the YouTube site rapidly grew. Weird.
Seth Godin is a marketing guru, publisher, speaker, blogger, and more. I’ve followed him for more than 15 years. He recently documented his experiences. I don’t feel so alone.
The Hotel California (and subscriptions)
Every day, this blog is automatically echoed on my Linkedin channel. Over the last few years, the traffic to those posts on Linkedin is down more than 90%. Understandable. Platforms evolve, people shift their patterns and interests.
I recently did a manual post on Linkedin, though, and was amazed to discover that within minutes, it had 10 times as much traffic as a typical post does. I did another one about this leap and it did even better. It’s clear that the algorithm was changed.
Not to help me, not to help you, but to help the endless quest for more that most public companies wrestle with.
The seduction is clear. They’re sending a message: If you want us to bring you eyeballs, move in. Don’t link out.
Problem one: eyeballs don’t make change happen, people do.
Problem two: Don’t check into a motel that makes it hard to check out.
Enshittification is real. VCs and public markets push the companies they invest in to maximize profits. First, please the customers. Then, double cross them to please the advertisers. Finally, double cross both of them to please the stock price.
