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reddit llm sample

Reddit: If Google wants our content for its LLMs, pay up

Publishers with original online content shouldn’t be giving it away for free to train LLMs operated by billion-dollar AI companies. Reddit figured it out, and is about to shut off the spigot of free text content to Google, Microsoft, and others. (Even though its user-generated text, people give the discussion platform a basically unlimited license […]

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google c4 dataset scrape web copyrighted content example

Google’s C4 dataset scraped hundreds of my web pages without permission

Google’s C4 dataset used for AI modelling is built upon hundreds of millions of scraped web pages from 15 million websites. Is your website one of them? Mine is. Actually, many of mine are, including Lean Media: I also found personal blogs, book websites, my genealogy business’ website and blog, and other content included in

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amazon side hustle scammers

New Amazon sellers seeking the best passive income side hustles: Who are these people?

Someone on Amazon Seller Central recently shared a browser screenshot showing massive Amazon FBA shipping charges for a pallet of baby goods. What interested me were the other things included in the screenshot, which indicate this person is heavily invested in other “side hustles,” not just Amazon: Mining rigs? Credit repair? A bank in the

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booktok platform dynamics romance publishing

Platform dynamics and a 52% surge in the sale of romance books

Here’s an interesting publishing trend: According to Circana BookScan (aka NPD) romance print sales are up 52% (!) year on year. As an indie publisher for more than 10 years, a jump that size is practically unheard of outside of specific niches (think: the craze for adult coloring books or dystopian YA fiction). Even stranger:

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How indie media differs from corporate media: WJTO’s Bob Bittner

What can tiny media companies do that corporate media cannot? I didn’t know Bob Bittner, but an obituary by Scott Fybush of the WJTO operator shows how a deep passion for broadcasting and a hands-on approach let him accomplish a lot: Experiments with new tech Trying out different formats Investments in platforms or assets that

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Amazon keyword stuffing in book subtitles revisited

Some friends in the publishing world have pointed me to the Book Industry Study Group (BISG) statement on the misuse of subtitle metadata. The statement identifies a real issue (keyword stuffing), but neglects to mention the 900-pound gorilla in the room that’s responsible: Amazon, and the resulting contortions that publishers engage in to game the

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Stable Diffusion review a little creepy

Stable Diffusion review: Cute, but not ready for my Amazon business

A Stable Diffusion review for people who operate an Amazon business. I finally had a chance to play around with Stable Diffusion, which uses a type of generative AI based on diffusion algorithms and millions of online image samples. Here’s my Prompt: “Family Tree Chart.” The results are below. It’s interesting as art, and maybe

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