FATE V FUTURE

What you want to know in culture, tech, travel, luxury, media, marketing and more. We aim to send the Internet’s best newsletter. Feedback? Simply reply

FUTUREBOARD

🔼 Soho House. The group “roared” to a profit in 2022. (They also now have nearly 227,000 members, up from almost 156,000 in 2021. The waiting list stands at 86K) »»

🔽 High speed rail in the US. Despite a fortune already spent, the LA to San Francisco bullet train seems unlikely »»

💬 “We get a lot of positive comments and we get a lot of negative comments.” More on the rise and rise of TikTok’s young landlords »»

🛩️ Finnair’s unusual new business class seats have been designed to look and feel like Nordic furniture. And they don’t recline »»

👗 Marc Jacobs is bringing back the “iconic” mid-2000s Stam bag. The new campaign stars Paris Hilton, Ashanti and Ashlee Simpson Ross »»

💎 Look at an US$18m Ferrari »»

QUICKFATES

Want to move to Europe? Here are the EU countries welcoming the most —and fewest— new citizens »»

Bach, a bachelorette trip and group travel app, raised US$9m »»

London’s coolest neighborhood has been named. (Even Drake bought there) »» 

The writer changing how London thinks about food »»

Germany’s SACLÀB bagged €1.6m for their handbag resale marketplace »»

ChatGPT will now Slack for you »»

Listen to why Taco Bell is such a strong franchise »»

The Instagram labels moving from the grid to the runway »»

Poolside cabanas have become the hottest —and priciest— amenity at luxe hotels. (Some sell for US$2,500/day) »»

“Sam” (OpenAI’s CEO) is the new Elon »»

Have Google and Meta “overhired” thousands to do “fake work?” »»

Fly “semi-private” —from private terminals— for the price of a regular ticket. Meet JSX, a new-ish airline in the States »»

Spotify’s launching vertical video »»

So, should we unplug chargers when we’re not using them or not? »»

20 years of Google’s AdSense changed the internet »»

Pedro Pascal on Hot Ones is as delightful as you'd expect »»

The simple hack for increasing fitness and meeting health goals? Sleep »»

The winner of America’s US$2b “Powerball” lottery bought a US$25.5m house above the Chatueau Marmont in the Hollywood Hills »»

Everything we know about the iPhone 15 »» The newsletter's writer owns shares of Apple

DEEPFATE 😵‍💫 KNOWLEDGE, KNOWLEDGE EVERYWHERE

It's never been easier to learn anything —which means it's never been easier to teach stuff too. But if you're ready to drop some knowledge on the world, where and how should you do it?

YOUTUBE. TIKTOK. NEWSLETTERS. Twitter. Blogs. It's never been easier to learn about anything.

• By definition, that means it's never been easier to teach others things too. Great!

• Everyone has knowledge and passion about something.

• The creator economy is one of the most positive elements of modern life.

• Everyone should feel encouraged to have a go at sharing what they like and know because there's likely some sort of audience out there for whatever it is.

• But. Where and how should you do so?

EARLIER THIS MONTH, I wrote about "frequency."

• It's a pleasing way of thinking about creative output, and it comes from an advertising creative director and copywriter who found that different forms of creative expression were harder for him than others.

• For instance, he found standup comedy and writing plays hard.

• By contrast, coming up with tv commercials and writing children's books is surprisingly effortless for him.

• They are on his "frequency."

• Frequency is a lovely, optimistic way of looking at creative impulse and expression: if something feels difficult to you, you may simply not have found yours yet.

BUT FREQUENCY IS a very creator-focused way of looking at things.

• When it comes to learning, what frequencies are audiences into?

ONLINE COURSES SEEM pretty popular these days.

• But, like, they’re also not.

• Believe it or not, all those online courses you see advertised on the socials have an absolutely dismal completion rate, on average.

• (Like, 10% dismal.)

YOUTUBE IS A perennial favorite when it comes to learning.

• But it also comes with its own challenges, chiefly how to stand out on YouTube’s search results page.

I'M PARTIAL TO newsletters and —if you're reading this— you may be too.

• I love getting cool things emailed to me, and skimming through what looks good.

• But I can vouch for how hard it is to build an email newsletter subscriber base. (A very sincere and tremendous THANK YOU for reading this!)

• So, back to the point: where to start if you want to teach?

IN A VERY unscientific poll posted on LinkedIn by content strategist Sara Stella Lattanzio, most people chose “snackable social content” when asked how and where they want to learn new stuff.

• Snackable social content beat blogs, podcasts —and everything else.

• Now the poll was on LinkedIn, which likely skews the results.

• And, to be fair, "snackable social content" is pretty broad, covering anything from the comments section of Reddit and LinkedIn, to TikTok and YouTube.

BUT IT REVEALS an interesting and oft-forgotten point.

• People want their education short and sweet (aka snackable).

• And they want it where they are (aka social content).

IF YOUR AIM is to teach people what you like and know, forget your blog and don’t even bother with a time consuming podcast.

• Best start on the socials.

NOT SURE WHICH? Emily-Rose Hills aka The Social Media Coach is a SM expert in Australia whose newsletter The Social Media Insider (link below) recently broke down how every major social network’s algorithm works.

• Knowing this is valuable.

• Twitter looks for relevance and recency, niches do well on Instagram, and TikTok's algo is secret—but it takes user interactions*, video information, engagement, device and account settings, and content popularity into account. On YouTube, high watch time and high quality matters, while on LinkedIn, the perceived value of your content is key.

• (*As everyone knows by now, TikTok’s superpower is how quickly it “learns” from users’ in app behavior —even a slight pause in your doom scroll is enough to make TikTok think that you like what you see.)

• Click through below for the full breakdown.

BOTTOM LINE: IF you want to teach people, you gotta reach people.

• Forget the pod, online course, and blog.

• Come to them.

• Just remember: if you want to make some money from what you share, that's a different story entirely.

More:

Original post and poll from Sara Stella Lattanzio »»

The Social Media Coach Emily-Rose Hills’s Social Media Insider breakdown of how each platform’s algorithm works »»

Written by Jon Kallus. Any feedback? Simply reply.