Mainstream and tech media alike have filled their pages with headlines about disastrous demos, worrisome uses, fleeing users, and evaporating investments. Is it all true? Or is it a combination of clickbait and a failure to understand what’s really happening? In the February long-form episode of the “For Immediate Release” podcast, Neville and Shel look at generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) developments, mostly having to do with ChatGPT and Microsoft’s integration of it into limited-release versions of Bing and Edge. Also in this episode:

• With all the AI coverage and some media still paying attention to the Metaverse, reporting on NFTs and other aspects of Web3 seem to have fallen off the radar, but there was a big Web3 development when the world’s largest pharmaceutical company invested big money in a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that was launched to circumvent big pharmaceutical companies.
• To read the coverage, you would think that all those people who signed up for Mastodon when Twitter became a less desirable platform are fleeing faster than high school students when the bell rings after the last class before summer vacation. But are they really?
• Most of the metaverse reporting that suggests investment is drying up and business interest has cratered is based on a false premise. There’s plenty of movement and investment in the metaverse, assuming you understand that it’s a network, not a place.
• New research finds that a fast-growing number of podcast fans would rather watch a podcast than just listen to one.
• In his tech report, Dan York also looks at third-party Mastodon apps, how Roblox plans to use generative AI, the opening of a new Federal Trade Commission Office of Technology to fight “AI snake oil,” and the upcoming Supreme Court hearing that could have a profound impact on communicators and our ability to publish information online.

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The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, March 20.

We host a Communicators Zoom Chat each Thursday at 1 p.m. ET. For credentials needed to participate, contact Shel or Neville directly, request the credentials in our Facebook group, or email fircomments@gmail.com.

Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music.

You can find the stories from which Shel’s FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog. Shel has started a metaverse-focused Flipboard magazine. Neville’s Asides blog is also available.

Links from this report can be found in the original post.

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