Warning Labels On ‘Addictive’ Social Media 🚫 Follower Counts Have Never Mattered Less 👎 CMOs Top Marketing Trends Of 2026 🚀

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NY Governor Signs Bill Requiring Warning Labels On ‘Addictive’ Social Media [2 min read]

New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed a bill requiring social media platforms to display mental health warnings to young users before they access "addictive" features like autoplay, infinite scrolling, push notifications, and like counts. The law positions this as a public health measure similar to warning labels on tobacco and alcohol, aimed at protecting children from excessive social media use and its potential mental health impacts. This legislation is part of a broader regulatory trend in New York and other states like California to address concerns about social media's effects on young people.

Social Media Follower Counts Have Never Mattered Less [5 min read]

Follower counts are irrelevant as posts no longer reliably reach a creator's audience, fundamentally fragmenting the creator-audience relationship. To combat this, major creators now employ armies of teenagers on Discord who mass-post short clips across platforms to game the algorithm, since virality depends less on established followings and more on flooding the zone with content. Despite this fragmentation, consumer trust in creators rose 21% year-over-year as people seek authentic human voices amid AI-generated content, pushing creators toward niche communities and direct relationship platforms like Substack and Patreon.

CMOs Top Marketing Trends Of 2026 [5 min read]

After a year of chaotic stunt marketing in 2025, brands are expected to shift toward more sincere, emotional storytelling that creates genuine connections with consumers in 2026. This authenticity extends to a "quiet quality" movement where people are buying fewer, better-made products that are durable and worth the investment. While AI will help marketers personalize experiences and work more efficiently, the winning strategy will pair this technology with unpolished, relatable content and tangible, hands-on experiences that feel real.

How To Stay Ahead Of AI As An Early-Career Engineer [5 min read]

AI is reshaping the job market rather than simply eliminating positions, as computer programmer employment dropped 27.5% between 2023 and 2025 while software developer roles only fell 0.3% and fields like information security and AI engineering are actually growing. Early-career workers need to view AI as an augmentation tool that enhances their capabilities while focusing on irreplaceable skills like client relationships, negotiation, problem-solving, and communication that AI cannot replicate. To prepare workers for this AI-augmented workplace, education systems must shift toward more hands-on experiential learning and apprenticeships, while employers need to take a long-term view of developing human talent rather than making short-sighted hiring decisions focused on immediate quarterly needs.

AI Marketing Examples: 13 Times AI Actually Delivered [16 min read]

The most successful AI marketing campaigns used AI as an augmentation tool rather than a replacement, keeping humans in control of strategy, creativity, and quality decisions while AI handled repetitive tasks and removed production constraints. These companies achieved measurable results including doubled sales, 81% lower cost-per-click, 11% higher click-through rates, and significant time savings on tasks like newsletter production and campaign management. The key to success was knowing what to automate—like generating images, optimizing titles, and analyzing data—and what to keep human, such as creative direction, brand judgment, and final decisions.

How To Write With Accessible Language [11 min read]

Accessible language removes barriers and makes content understandable for everyone, regardless of their abilities, background, or education level. The key is keeping writing simple and concise by using shorter sentences of 20 words or less, avoiding jargon, and writing in active voice—especially important since subscribers spend only about 9 seconds reading emails. Also, structure and organization matter: create clear visual hierarchy with headings, use descriptive link text, and organize content logically so readers can quickly scan and understand your message.

5 Smart Ecommerce Retargeting Strategies To Recover Lost Sales [17 min read]

Most website visitors don't convert on their first visit, with up to 97% of first-time visitors leaving without purchasing and 70% of shopping carts being abandoned, making retargeting essential to recover these lost sales opportunities. Effective retargeting must go beyond simple discounts since only 2 of the top 10 cart abandonment reasons are price-related, requiring strategies that address other concerns like trust, shipping policies, and product quality through social proof and personalized messaging. The most successful approach combines multiple tactics across channels, including sequential advertising that shows different ads over time, email automation for cart and browse abandonment, advanced audience segmentation based on buying intent, and continuous A/B testing to optimize performance.

Why Your CTO Might Start Coding Again [10 min read]

Agentic AI has fundamentally changed what's valuable in software development by making code production nearly free (from $150/hour to $200/month), shifting the bottleneck from "writing code" to "knowing what to build" and transforming production skills into a commodity while elevating judgment skills to essential. Development managers who stopped coding actually accumulated the exact skills now needed—writing specifications, reviewing work product, maintaining architectural coherence, understanding business, and knowing what not to build—abilities that transfer perfectly to orchestrating AI agents. Traditional developer career paths are now at risk, as senior developers who optimized only for coding velocity, narrow specialists, and those who avoided business knowledge face obsolescence, while the roles of development manager, product manager, and architect converge into one: the orchestrator who knows what to build, why, and whether it was built well.

25 Big Ideas That Will Define 2026 [28 min read]

AI will shift from development to practical implementation as organizations redesign workflows around it, education systems teach AI literacy, and society learns to work collaboratively with the technology rather than simply responding to it. Simultaneously, a critical rebalancing is emerging between technology and human connection, with movements to pull kids off smartphones, address loneliness through real-world community building, and recognize in-person experiences as increasingly valuable in an automated world. Meanwhile, health and longevity are becoming data-driven and mainstream, as everything from GLP-1 drugs to biometric tracking to women's health innovations transform how we approach wellness, aging, and even the structure of our careers.

Age Gating The Future [7 min read]

Age verification is evolving from ineffective self-reporting systems to mandatory hard verification standards, as exemplified by Australia's 2025 social media ban for users under 16, which marks the end of the honor system era and the beginning of biometric and cryptographic proof requirements. This regulatory shift follows the path of other high-risk industries like online gambling and adult content, where soft gates failed and were replaced by hard gates that cross-reference government databases and third-party verification apps to create legal audit trails and protect platforms from prosecution. Rather than eliminating online anonymity, this evolution is pushing toward "verifiable anonymity" through encrypted identity solutions like AgeKey, where users can prove specific attributes such as age without revealing their full identity, protecting privacy while ensuring compliance and reducing vulnerable stored personal data.

Researchers Make “Neuromorphic” Artificial Skin For Robots [5 min read]

Researchers have developed artificial robotic skin that mimics the nervous system by using spike-based neural signals to transmit pressure sensor data, allowing seamless integration with energy-efficient neuromorphic AI chips. The system processes information in layers similar to human biology, with a second processing layer that can trigger reflex-like responses to damaging pressure before signals reach the main controller. The modular design features magnetic snap-together segments with automatic wiring and unique ID codes, making it easy to identify and replace damaged sections.

Market Segmentation: The process of dividing your target market into distinct groups based on shared characteristics. It allows you to create more targeted and effective marketing strategies for each group. Segmentation can be based on demographics, behavior, lifestyle, or other relevant factors.

Example: A clothing retailer segments their customers into "budget-conscious students," "working professionals," and "luxury shoppers," creating different marketing campaigns for each.

Artificial Intelligence Marketing: The use of AI technology to automate marketing decisions and predict customer behavior. It analyzes large amounts of data to identify patterns and make marketing more efficient and personalized. AI helps marketers make smarter decisions about when, where, and how to reach customers.

Example: Netflix uses AI to analyze viewing habits and automatically recommend shows to different users, personalizing the experience for millions of subscribers.

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