Hello, and welcome to digital creator. Today, I am switching up the format a little bit. Also, as you might have noticed, today is Thursday, not the normal Tuesday release date. Like I mentioned was it yeah. Last a couple episodes ago now, in 2024, I wanna experiment with things kind of outside the box as far as formats go for this podcast and really just kind of, like, Find the creative sweet spot for this show. So thank you for bearing with me for 1 as I experiment with different formats. And, today, what I'm gonna be talking about are some things that are in the headlines and make it relevant to you and I. And I think this will be kind of I'm gonna have fun recording this. I already know ahead of time. And, Yeah. I pulled some headlines of things that are happening around tech, and let's talk about them as it's a solo episode. And, we'll be talking with each other in your ears. Alright. So, also, yeah, I should say that I'm gonna experiment with publishing on Thursdays. So my normal recording date for this podcast It's typically on Mondays, and then I would publish on Tuesdays. But I'm finding that the date would probably be best on Wednesdays and then publish on Thursdays given the news cycle of things and just given, like, kind of midweek recording. I actually got the idea from Marcus Brownlee's podcast, Waveform, they mentioned they record on Wednesday, and I was like, you know what? Actually, I should try that. I though I think they release their podcast, like, some days after. I'm not sure exactly their release date. But for me, I was like, well, if I record on Wednesdays, I don't want to wait all the way until Tuesday. That's almost a full week, especially if I'm gonna be talking about anything related to, you know, current events with it's not all current events here. It's not like some pop culture podcast. I just Don't want it to, like, fizzle out. So much could happen between Wednesday and the following Tuesday. So it Made more sense to just publish it on Thursday. Like, why not? Who's saying I can't? Alright. Let's hop right in. The first topic Up for discussion is the g p t store from open AI is now open. The g p t store It's gonna be like the app store for JazzyBT. And a lot of speculation because it literally just launched earlier today. It's still being rolled out. You might not be able to see it. I'm able to look at some of the things that are available on my phone, but then when I open it up on my computer, I'm, like, not able to see everything, which is kind of interesting. It just takes me to what the old screen was. But this is what OpenAI describes GPTs as says discover and create custom versions of Chat gpt that combine instructions, Extra knowledge and any combination of skills, and there's these categories up top that you can choose, and then it will give you more on. So Has, like, topic or top picks, sounds like topics, top picks, DALL E, writing, productivity, research and analysis, programming, education, and lifestyle. So that's the categories. And some of these are from OpenAI, and some of these are made by just you and I, people. And if you haven't messed around with g p t's yet, It's basically like creating your own mini chat You can customize it around, like, one main idea here. So I'll go down some of the featured ones here and kind of read about these, and it'll kinda make more sense. So the in the featured area, which is says curated Top picks from this week is the top one is all trails. And with that custom GPT, you can find trails that fit your nature for your next hike, ride, or run. Then there's one from consensus, which says formally research GPT, Search 200,000,000 academic papers from consensus. Get science based answers and draft content with accurate citations. And there's CodeTutor, Let's Code Together, by Khan Academy, and then there's books, your AI guide in the world of literature and reading. Then there's a lot there's a lot in here. It's kind of like plug ins in a way, but, more customized. And anyone can make a GPT, and then you can Get it listed in OpenAI store. Now I believe a couple things. You have to be it has to be approved. So, OpenAI has to, like, you know, approve the g p t going into their store. And then I believe you need a plus account. You need a paid account. I don't think you can have a free account and do this. But I have some thoughts on this, because I find them really interesting. And I was just talking about this in the creator club call that we do every Wednesday. And if you're not a part of the creative club, come on, hop right in, the creative club .com. So I was just sharing about how I was reading last night about how Poe, A big AI software app saying and they were just doing a round of fundraising. And they were saying, The person who leads Poe, I believe it was, was talking about how, the future of AI and chatbots. And they're really seeing this as a play on creators, like people who create on YouTube specifically, utilizing Chatbots, basically, like, think about, you know, you go to wanna ask a creator a question. What if you went to their chatbot? And making chatbots really easy to create because I don't know about you, but if you've tried over the last couple years to create a chatbot, It's pretty difficult. There's a lot of steps you have to go through. It used to be really expensive. I was working with someone a couple years ago, A few years ago now, that was, like, paying 1,000 and 1,000 of dollars, for someone to take their knowledge and make it into a chatbot, and it was, like, basic. What we have today with g p t's is incredibly, more efficient and better. So I I don't know. I see things going in the way of g b t's, more chatbot based, more personalized, AI tools like this. And I look at this like a toolbox. Right? You have Chat gbt, which is like different tools. But if you you gotta know how to prompt to get what you want out of it, and, you know, there's good prompts, and that's gonna give you great results. And there's prompts that are gonna give you lackluster responses. And with GPTs, it's more personalized and specialized just like tools. Right? Now I don't see any prices on these GPTs as I'm, like, going through them. So I don't see any actually for sale, but to my knowledge, they'll be for sale. And then the people who made them can get a cut of it. And I don't know exactly, you know, how much of that cut is. I don't know if they've announced that yet. I'm sure they might have have. I just missed it. But imagine creating your own g p t, putting it up. It's like a knowledge base of things that you You spoke about on your podcast or in your content. People chat with it. They use it. When they use it, you get paid. You know, they pay to access it. Almost like a website. Remember, like, you go to a website. You look through the blogs. Have a lot of potential to be that type of knowledge resource, for someone, especially if you're going, like just throwing it out there like a Tony Robbins g p t. Now He's like a info based person. Right? He's done so many seminars. He's had so many conversations with people. It's So hard to extract the knowledge from someone like him, just through, like, a blog post. It's almost impossible. But if you use the GPT, you could make things that are specific to you in your life. Imagine being able to go, Tony, I have so much trouble. And so you were, like, really respected Tony and what he had to say. Tony, I have so much trouble getting up at 6 AM every day. What would you suggest I do? You know? And then there's this detailed response that's almost like Tony giving it to you, but it's personal to the more information you give it. Now you could try that in right now. But what makes it unique is if Tony has spoken specifically about that topic and it's all trained around, You know? Say goals. Let's just use a better example. Goals for Tony Robbins talking about goals. You have a conversation with it around setting goals. It's gonna be way better than trying to get ChatcheBT to give you, you know, the output that you're desiring. And so when I look at, like, the featured ones, especially around, the consensus, co tutor, things like that, It's pretty interesting to see how specialized it is. And, again, it's just these tools. So I would recommend playing around with it if you haven't already. I think the paid subscription for ChatTBT and these tools is worth it. At least trying it, you know, for a month Just to, like, wrap your brain around, like, how these things work, what's going on, because at the very least, you're investing in, like, your future knowledge of how these these things aren't gonna go away. They're only gonna progress. I know you know, I'm at that age where computers were wildly expensive. People We're slow to adopt them. Some people were. My grandma never adopted them. You know? And she lived, till last year, and she just Didn't even adopt to cell phones. But I think this is one of those things. If you're gonna be around, if you plan on being around, it's worth Investing some of your time and a little bit of resources and just playing around with it, getting a feel for it. Because if the tool is available for you and you're not even sure if it could save you time, what if it did, and what if it saved you hours? One of the things I do with content clips is just kind of look at how I'm doing things, why I'm doing things, because There's a lot of inefficiencies in what I do. You know? Same with this podcast. Like, I always release on Tuesday, but what if It was better for me to release it on Thursday and record on Wednesday. That might actually be way better. So, you know, look at those processes. Reanalyze what I'm doing. Where can I be more efficient with my time? Wednesdays are much better days for me to record than Mondays, but I've been doing Mondays for a long time. So why do I move that around with GPTs? What if there was you know, there is a GPT actually I've been using that I made that I use in my newsletter. If you read my newsletter, you see that I have an image above, like, the Dylan's download section. And I used those are, like, AI images that I've made, and I fine tuned them with my own GPT on images that I have liked. So what I did was I basically was like, I wanna create a illustrator for my newsletter. This is when I was making the GPD. Then I was like, You know, I wanted to look like something kind of like out of the New York Times, which is ironic because they're going through that lawsuit with OpenAI right now. I wanted to look like something that might be illustrated in the New York Times. It should be very minimal, not super colorful, just 2 colors, black and white usually. And no text, just 1 person, and the dimensions, like, 9 1920 by 10 80. And it started giving me, like because I I had used that prompt before with using DALL E inside Chat2PD. I would get images. You know? 90% of the images or more, I'm not really happy with. I'm very picky when it comes to the images. But I have, like, 10, 15 images at this point that I really like that it's given me. So I have those saved on my computer. So when I was making the GPT for this image illustrator, and I was saying a similar prompt like I wanted to be an illustrator for my newsletter in the style of New York Times. These are the dimensions. There was also the ability to upload the files, and these are 15 images that I really like, so make them in this style. Now when I make then when I use the g p t to create images, whereas before, You know, 90% plus of the images I was not happy with. Now I would say only about 25% of the images I'm not happy with. That means It's got like a went from, like, a 5 to 10% success rate to a 75% plus success rate. And that's huge. And that saves me time on hitting refresh on chat t b t to create this image that I'm trying to create. And so that's just one of the ways that could be more efficient. And that carves out 25, 30 plus minutes, give or take, around just the image part because I put a lot of thought and care into my newsletter, and the image is really important to me. And I Don't put out just anything. So I want it to be related, and I want it to look right. Now I'm not obviously making the exact image, not trying it by hand. You don't want me to because it would not be good. But still, I'm trying to get it to look a certain way. I'm like the creative director, the creative prompter, I guess you could say. And, thanks to GPTs, I can do that faster. So I look at these tools as just like, yeah. I might not use All of them, I'm not you know, I might play around with them like the consensus one, which you can search 200,000,000 academic papers on from consensus. I've Use that before I could see using that in certain pieces of content that I wanna back up with, science based data. You know? Look up academic papers and then, use that. So I could see playing around with these. None of them, you know, right away, I'm like, oh, I have a need for. But I know they're there, and I am comfortable with using them now. So I think, like, in the future, if I come across An idea or something I'm working on. Like, let me go hop into GPT GPTs and see if there's something there. Now I know also what I'll be doing is Being on the lookout from my favorite creators and seeing if they launch any, I don't know off the top of my head who that would be. But, like, let's just say Casey Neistat, YouTuber I like. I don't suspect he'd be one to do like GPTs, but what if he did? You know? He's a creative guy. And if he did one and it was interesting, I might like, oh, check it out. If it's paid and it's helpful and it saves me time, like, okay. As far as the cost goes, I don't know if it's a one time cost, recurring cost, but it will be interesting to see how it rolls out. And, Yeah. That's what I'll be on the lookout for GPTs. Topic 2 I wanna talk about. Continuing on the theme of AI, and it's not all AI today because I talked about AI last well, this week. Almost said last week. Just a couple days ago, I Published an episode about AI and using a voice tool. Jeffrey Katzenberg, who is the cofounder of DreamWorks and DreamWorks Animation, which is, like, one of the biggest movie productions. He's a movie producer. He said AI will take 90% of artists' jobs on animated films in just 3 years. Reading that out loud, like, gives me goosebumps. He says, I don't know of an industry that will be more impacted than any aspect of media entertainment and creation. Now why is this headline interesting coming from Jeffrey Katzenberg, the cofounder of DreamWorks and DreamWorks Animation, who These things are wildly inaccurate, but when I Google or one of the Google things other, like, searched was, like, Jeffrey Katzenberg net worth. Google says 900,000,000, whatever. 100 of 1,000,000 of dollars, most likely. I mean, guys are extremely wealthy. 3 years that's a that's a bold statement, and a lot of lives are obviously Already impacted by AI, but gonna be continue to be impacted by AI. It's huge. And I think that Even if we're not working on animated films, and we're not, you know, artists in that way. I think there's this kind of fear that we all have of, like, how are we gonna integrate this, And how will our lives continue to be impacted, and what can we do to prepare ourselves? And if you've looked at the news headlines lately, The especially in, like, the tech space. And I never really paid super close attention to news headlines before I started incorporating Relevant stuff in my, newsletter, like tech and creator related things. But I gotta, like, Go through all these layoffs when they come up in the headlines, and so many people's jobs are being cut. So many things are happening. Things are just Moving at an incredible pace, obviously. And we're integrating this, like, new technology in our lives. Definitely Crazy times. And when I see that headline, it just made me pause, for someone thinking like, just thinking empathetically of, like, all the people that are gonna be affected. But and then I got to the bottom of the article, and they buried this kind of like I'm doing as I say here. He said Jeffrey also said individual creativity will still be necessary to prompt the AI. Prompting is actually going to become a creative commodity. So on one hand, it's like, I read this as, Wow. That's incredibly scary. And where will those people go, and how will this work? It looks like, you know, things are gonna be shifting at a quick pace, and he kinda talks about this because he was speaking at an event in Singapore. And, you know, not to just read the whole article, but It's from IndieWire, and I'll link to this in the episode description here. But part of the thing he was talking about is, like, you look at 10 years of tech, and then you look at how fast it's moving now. Like, it's just gonna move faster and faster. And We don't have to stay completely up to date with everything to be in the know. Right? Like, you don't need to know the top of everything now. Before it was like, oh, you had to know every musical artist. It's impossible. If you've tried to look at the top 50 artists that are popular right now. Everything is so much more personalized than it's ever been before, which is good. And if you're like me who at one point would buy compilation, now that's what I call music CDs or, You know, you felt like everyone was reading and watching and consuming the same things. It's a weird shift to go to this Personalized media consumption. For creators, it's something because we We don't wanna create something for someone, and we're like, oh, I can go really specific these days, and you can be really successful and not have some huge audience. You know, we see people that we've never heard of have millions and millions of subscribers on YouTube. But what we don't see is that there are people doing a lot of money with very, very small followings on social media. And the numbers don't always tell, like, what's going on. So I say that just because individualism and personalization towards, like, individuals is going to be just it's just increasing and increasing, and The skills that we, like, prepare ourselves with are gonna be really important. And I think we used to have to be a little bit more generalist when we would approach things, especially if we wanted to, like, do things on a bigger scale. But AI is giving us tools that, like, Education wise, we couldn't have got just a couple years ago, just a year and a half ago, whereas now you can get answers quicker. But the exact road map and personalization is also more difficult. Speaking for creators, for example, like, knowing what to fix Can be sometimes confusing if you have the manual to everything. You know what I mean? So it's kind of like I guess as I'm, like, thinking about this and I'm reading this headline, I'm just thinking it feels like the best way we can equip ourselves It's through knowledge but not being a generalist at everything. It's like knowing how to diagnose the thing that Knowing what's needs to be improved and then fixing it and then doing something about it, because There's this, like, fear, doom, and gloom in the headline, and I'm like, that is alarming, and it's not everything. Like, that's just an article. And Jeffrey Katzenberg is this big time movie guy. And Entertainment and movies, there's a lot of money in it, and we're a part of that as creators. And it's important to know, like, how Things are gonna go. But I don't think there's a lot of certainty in what we're doing, and I think that's why it's gonna just require us to Be quick on our feet, but being like, know how to be knowledgeable about the knowledge that we're given, if that makes sense. Like, use the tools you have at your disposal, but don't let the tools overwhelm you and know, like, that you have the tools. That's kind of why I'm saying, like, g p t is, like, play around with them. Try these different things out. Like, don't get so stuck in one way of doing something that when something happens or, you know, you gotta be quick on your feet, like, you're stuck because you're like, I only knew how to do it this one way. The output I'm able to do with content clips, this podcast, the content that I'm doing, I do a lot, but, like, I'm not doing so much that I can't function. Right? Like, it's not like I'm so busy that I I've been watching Godzilla movies. Like, I I have never been a fan of Godzilla, and I'm just in a Godzilla rabbit hole. And there's so many Godzilla movies. There's, like, 30 plus, I think. And I started at the beginning. It's a fascinating series. But, like, I'm not so busy that I can't, you know, still consume, Play a Nintendo here every now and then, be with my daughter, you know, be with my wife, learn about these AI things. It's like because I'm using certain things to my best of my ability and getting help where I can, but not overwhelming myself in the process. So I guess when I think about, like, what can we do to prepare ourselves best for this AI future is like we can take really good care of ourselves so that we're not bogged down by this pace of technology that we've never experienced before. And if you're in the Creator Club, I'm sure, like, you're the you're a different you're going at a different pace than most people are because You're paying attention to things that most people don't pay attention to. Same with if you're not in the creative lab, you're just listening to this podcast, and if you listen this far. You're moving at a pace that most people aren't moving at. I can say that because I speak with so many people. And even if it feels like, oh, other people are doing this, There's a comparison of, like, we we were hard on ourselves sometimes. And I think one of the ways we can prepare ourselves for the future is to be more kind on ourselves, more compassion towards what we're doing, be easy on ourselves and not feel like we have to do it all, not burn out before we even get to 2025 because it's only a couple weeks into 2024, so taking care of yourself It's gonna be one of the best ways to compare yourselves, which has nothing to do with, you know, using every tool at your disposal. If you're not taking care of yourself, you're not even it's not even gonna matter what tool is available. Next topic I wanted to shout about with you today is The wonderful world of sludge content. I didn't know this name before this article, but this is fascinating. Scientific American reported on sludge content, and the article is titled Sludge Videos Are Taking Over TikTok and People's Mind. So what is sludge content? I'm gonna bring up my window here because it is something that you've all seen. These 2 sentence or this 1 sentence explains it best. Sludge content is a type of viral video that features multiple clips playing simultaneously on a screen. These are really popular on TikTok. They have been for a little while. My dad who consumes a lot of TikTok and a lot of memes Shares these types of videos with me, and sometimes I have a hard time watching them. It feels unhealthy to watch sometimes. But they'll do it a lot on, like, Podcast clips, I've noticed. So it'll be a person talking, and then you'll see, like, someone just doing something like could be anything. Cooking while someone's talking about Elon Musk or someone playing with slime or someone, you know, doing some video game. So there's, like, 2 things happening at once. This article is interesting. I recommend checking it out just to familiarize yourself with it. But one thing it highlights that I think is interesting is The myth of multitasking and how we feel like we're doing multiple things at once, but we're really not good at it. And when we go on social media this is not a not a professional psychologist, but as someone who has worked with really successful psychologist. Just my 2¢ on on the idea here is, when we go on social media, it is and you've probably heard me talk about this before. It's interruption based marketing or content. Right? Rarely do you go on TikTok to Go for something specific. And even if you do, as soon as you open the app, it's trying to get you to just stay on the app by showing you new and new and new and new things. So when, like, these sludge videos, which is that type of content, which I know most of my audience does not given to the sludge content. I've messed with a couple of them on my Facebook reels. I haven't published those on Instagram or TikTok, but They did pretty well on Facebook, surprisingly. And I was like, it just didn't feel authentic. I just wanted to test it out. But when you go on these apps, like, it's interruption based, and there's this constant feeling of newness. How many videos do you see when you open TikTok? Probably a lot. I've tried to look up exactly how many average person sees in a session. I haven't found Any solid numbers on this, but, like, let's just say the number was 60 videos in a TikTok session. It's just like new, new, new. The brain wants new. So when you're getting a podcast clip that is interesting, Even if the content is interesting, people will still wanna scroll because they're seeking new. They're not necessarily seeking the information that's in the clip. Whereas, like, in a podcast, you get more time to give that information out. But on TikTok, it's a completely different format. That's why on this podcast, it's not If this was like a if there was a sludge podcast, it'd be like ADD podcast, and it would be things going at once. Right? It's not what's happening. But on TikTok, it's different platform. It's a different format. It's different consumption. And people are seeking the new, and they're you know, The dopamine hits, and it's just that cons constant novelty factor to it, which is what make is making sledge videos so popular. So you can look through the article, because it talks about media multitasking, it's called, and how it has effects on the developing brain. And it says a 2020 study found that attention and memory recall may worsen in young adults who engage in various digital media on multiple devices simultaneously, such as by watching a show, texting and checking social media at the same time. Sludge content appears to be a supercharged form of media multitasking. Then it says, like, multitasking essentially fragments Your attention into tiny nuggets. When your attention jumps between multiple activities or videos on a screen, you're not able to fully comprehend or remember the information in any of the sources. This is because the brain has to switch back and forth to give each one attention. Now It's easy to say, well, like, just don't consume them, but we have responsibility as creators to be, you know, ethically creating content that We want and it's not just about maximizing the views, let alone with the sludge content. It's like, that's not what I wanna put out there, but I do wanna test it, like, 1 or 2 videos just to see what happens. Felt like dirty publishing that on Facebook Reels. But, you know, we have, like, our ethical considerations when it comes to what we're putting in here and what we're putting out there because The people that are going on TikTok like my dad, for example. He's on he's 73, 74, 74. He's not he has no idea on, like, creating a TikTok video. Younger people have no idea when it comes to creating a TikTok video, like us as creators. And, you know, we think about what we're putting out there It's affecting someone. We don't always see the effects of it, but we can create content that is not making people, have worse comprehension. You know what I mean? And Like I say that, you know, I've experimented with that sludge. Again, it was literally, like, 1 or 2 videos. And, like, the on the flip side of that, I've also experimented with slower content, with not as stimulating content, and it is not all that different. Like, I will still consume content as long as the topic is interesting. And I have editors edit my videos, and I don't give them a lot of direction. Oftentimes, I'll give my own videos as a way to, like, test editors to see their style, to see what they can do with no direction, and then I'll post those videos. But I think as creators, like, one of the things we can do is interrupt how people are consuming content, Give enriching topics doesn't mean that has to be, like, Super one way or the other. Like, enriching could simply be sometimes just inspiring people to Think about a topic differently or educate them on some simple idea. But one thing, you know, we just simply help make someone's day brighter, like, without overstimulating them. And that's totally okay too because if you had more time to edit your videos and if you hired, like, the best editors, you know, they might make stuff. They they're gonna maximize views, and your goal, really, as a creator should be to maximize, like, your message. I think a thought like, I don't know. I'm just kinda thinking, like, one of the things we can do is Keep that message of the priority and not edit the video in such a way that it destroys it and becomes like sludge content where you're hooking people for the wrong reasons, like an unethical hook. To me, sludge content is like it's put it in, like, someone around more my age, which I'm 34, turning 35 this year. To me, sludge content is kind of similar to, like, the bait and switch kind of content. It's like there's no nutrition to it. You promise 1 thing, and you give nothing, and you get a view in return. Like, that's how I see the sludge content. People are maybe watching it for the thing that's in there that's not about the video, and also that makes the testing part hard. Like, if a client came to ContentClips and they were like, this is our style of what we do, I would be like, this is not the style we do. I've never worked with a client that Has done that style of content. I wouldn't we wouldn't be able to work with them in that capacity, but you don't know which part they're watching. And I would not suspect that those people would convert better. And for the people that are just, like, maximizing views, that's why I don't think it's The best thing for creators is just more views, similar to how I was just saying previously about, I think, Personalization and, us as individuals, we want more personalized content. Similar for the content that we're creating is, like, If your style does not match up with sludge content, no nutritional value, like the hooks that are overpromising the world and then just don't deliver, You don't have to do that. Like, 200 views is fine if that if those 200 views Are, like, the right 200 views than getting 200,000 views or 2,000,000 views? So All that to say, I think it's pretty clear that I'm not one of those, creators who just all I care about is views. Absolutely not. I would rather have 2 views at the end of the day if it meant, I really believed in what I was saying versus just trying to maximize everyone's attention because you can get attention. What do you do with the attention? You know? Not mister beast. I have no desire to be mister beast. And so I think it's just the ethical considerations we have as creators. Something to think about. Worth checking out that article. Thanks for sticking with me through this new format. I had fun talking about this stuff. It's fun exploring ideas that I hadn't really explored previously and kind of Going through things that are happening and then, like, placing them with, us us as creators and kind of in this, like, the business space, Solopreneur entrepreneur space. It's a new angle, similar topic with new topics because of the news. So, yeah, I hope you enjoyed this, and, I'm gonna keep it going on Wednesdays, release Thursdays. Be curious. Let me know what you think. Any feedback is helpful feedback. I'll see you in the next one.