Culture, tech, luxury, travel, and media news in 5 min. or less
âThe client originally came to us with a simple, yet powerful concept: design a âTerminal in a Garden.â â (Ar. Ekansh Goel / Studio Recall / Wallpaper)
đŒ Chipmaker Nvidia. The firm expects quarterly sales to be 170% higher than last year, thanks to demand for AI chips »»
đœ Electric vehicle sales in America. Some dealers donât want the cars any more »»
đŹÂ âI make fun of things.â Meet the taxi drivers earning more from viral TikToks than from rides »»
đ« Is this the worldâs most beautiful airport? »»
đ Jennifer Lawrence's Loewe tote is peak stealth wealth »»
đ Portugal could end its popular Golden Visa program. Hereâs how to get it before itâs gone »»
The new superyacht Leonaâs opulent interior (Bilgin Yachts / Robb Report)
Posse is the affordable Aussie label you need to have on your radar »»
A night train between Paris and Berlin is coming »»
A new app called Cheyn will let you create 3D streetwear mockups in realtime »»
TikTok plans to ban links to outside e-commerce sites like Amazon »»
Goldman Sachs wants to buy Subway »»
Simon Cowell sold his London home for £30m below asking »»
A Korean apparel company has licensed the defense contractor Lockheed Martinâs brand to make streetwear. This is part of a fashion trend in Korea that has seen seemingly ârandomâ Western brands, like CNN, the Discovery Channel, or Kodak get licensed by local firms who turn them into fashion labels »»
The 153 key (room) Fifth Avenue Hotel is set to open in New Yorkâs Nomad in October. Interiors were led by the designer responsible for the London club Annabelâs »»
Also: What it's like staying at Aman New York, one of the most expensive hotels in the city »»
A wild new developer app called Kombai is able to âlook atâ complex UI designs, and then automatically generate the actual back end code that will turn the designs into working React and HTML + CSS sites »»
Nigeria recently loosened its control over currency exchange rates. Itâs been a disaster for the countyâs startups »»
Hollywood producers publicly revealed their latest contract proposal. Talks between studios and writers remain heated »»
Hotel investment in Japan is up. Foreign investors like Goldman, KKR, and Blackstone have spent a combined US$2b on deals so far in 2023 »»
The best mezcals for mixing, according to bartenders »»
This new 80 meter / 263 foot superyacht has an ancient Greece-inspired beach club: Marble walls and floor, a night sky ceiling, and statues surrounding a tiled pool »»
A lot of people want to create an online course these days. Should they?
Whoâs the only one finishing online courses these days?
EVERYONEâS DOING IT
Thinking of creating an online course? Your friends and colleagues are.
In a recent (unscientific) poll I conducted on LinkedIn, 73% of respondents said they either constantly think about creating an online course, or are, at the very least, entertaining the idea.
Does that seem high?
It does to me. Why the interest? And, do online courses even have a future in the age of generative AI?
Letâs unpack.
$$$
Creating a successful online course does sound pretty sweet. Who wouldnât want to earn money from course sales while they sleep? Whatâs more, pushing a course would seem to bolster the instructorâs authority in their particular field, increasing future income potentialâ both good things.
That said (though cynics may find it hard to believe), many online course creators probably just genuinely want to share their expertise with the world.
Some creators may even be motivated by the idea of addressing gaps in existing education systems.
Or, they may simply want to find their people: courses foster communities, after all, by sparking and facilitating discussions and networking.
STUDENTS WANTED
If thatâs whatâs fueling the supply, whereâs the demand for online courses coming from?
Several places, actually.
Thereâs the always-on desire for personal and professional growth. Online courses give students a chance to acquire new skills, helping them remain competitive in the job market, or allowing them to pivot into new careers. They also let people explore new areas of interest or deepen their existing ones. Many folks simply love learning about diverse subjects across all sorts of fields.
On top of that, online courses âat least those with live lessons and group Slack channelsâ can also fulfill our emotional and social needs. The desire to be a part of a community is universal, after all.
THE DEAL HAS ENTERED THE CHAT
Longtime Fv readers know that The Deal is my nickname for the advertising-supported business model. That model has fueled everything from the earliest radio stations to Google and TikTok, and I donât believe it will ever, ever die.
As you may well have noticed, everything is marketing today, and online courses are no exception to that rule. LinkedIn Learning, HubSpot Academy and Grow with Google are just three examples of tech giants offering countless online courses, for free, to help market their core businesses.
Yep, even education counts as content marketing these days, and itâs actually a huge business.
CHATGPT HAS ENTERED THE, UH, CHAT
Generative AI introduces a wrinkle, though
Systems like ChatGPT are obviously only going to get better with every additional article, video, and, yes, online course they ingest. Even the ones currently behind paywalls. (Think about it: whatâs stopping the data teams at Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI from simply buying Masterclass, Coursera, or Udemy subscriptions and just feeding the transcripts from those countless courses in to their systems? Nothing!)
And donât forget, multi modal AI (fancy AI speak for chatbots that donât just read and write but also watch, listen to, and return videos, songs, speeches, and more) is coming, which will make it even easier for AI firms to train their content using the worldâs training videos.
OK, WHATâS THE POINT HERE?
Will we even need online courses, if we can just ask ChatGPT whatever we want to know?
In our view, yes.
Earlier this month I wrote about online coursesâ dismal completion rate.
My thesis as to why: deep down, everyone knows the value of education lies with the connections you develop at school, not the information you download. Itâs just that, for some reason, most people seem to remember this fact after they buy and start the course.
So, go ahead and build that online course youâve been thinking of. Just be sure to build in plenty of live sessions, community elements, and âif you canâ in person meetups.
Or buy the course youâve been thinking of taking.
But whichever side of the supply/demand equation youâre on, rest assured: every module, workbook, and unfinished video seminar will sooner or later end up getting ingested by artificial intelligence firms, nourishing the next generation of generative AI systems.
In our view, thatâs a good thing.
Youâre probably never going to complete that principles of SEO sprint, or digital strategy bootcamp anyway.
At least GPT-5 will.
Written by Jon Kallus. Any feedback? Just reply!Â