Rohit Bhargava's Blog, page 43

Why We Should Celebrate the Most Underappreciated Agency in Government: The EPA

There are parts of the world where the first thing that residents check on their phones when they wake up isn’t their email or the weather. It’s the air quality report and based on the numbers, they decide if they will go out that day or not. This isn’t a reality that most Americans or Europeans are familiar with. 

This week the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized a stricter standard for fine particulate pollution (otherwise known as soot). While some critics say it’s not far enough, ...

The Truth About Paid Reviews Might Not Be What You Think

I have paid for a book review. Most authors have too, in one way or another. If this fact shocks you, then you might enjoy a piece from Wired that digs into the misunderstood world of paid reviews and why it has become so prevalent across books, movies, hotels and just about any other experience that you can read an online review about.

The first reality check you’ll get from this piece is perhaps the one that’s the most important. Paying for a review and paying for a positive review are two diff...

Super Bowl Marketing Recap: The Best, Worst and Almost Ok Ads From The Big Game

This year’s Super Bowl Ads cost $7 million – and most are being rated today based on their entertainment value. Not exactly the metric I would pick. Instead, I always look at the year’s ads based on the marketing strategy and whether the creative the team used actually delivered on what they might have hoped to get from the big spend. Based on that, some ads were winners, some were total losers and many were “almosts.” They could have been good, but were executed in a way that didn’t work. Here’...

New RXBands Offer a Secret Stretch Code and a Marketing Case Study

Here’s something you probably haven’t seen before … a protein bar company launching a discount code promo that only appears once on an exercise band after it’s fully stretched. This clever stunt comes from RXBAR, which is partnering with three Instagram fitness influencers to give away the bands and free prizes too. It’s a fun and quirky campaign but also a great reminder of the predictable elements of a campaign that stands out and gets attention.

The idea is new and easy to explain. The timing ...

The Dreaded 404 Page and Its Little Understood Cousin: The 402 Error

Did you know that back in the earliest days of the Internet, there were a list of error codes created for situations that the web’s first designers thought would be highly possible in the future? Of course, the dreaded 404-error is the one that most of us know well: page not found. It was ubiquitous among websites of the 90s and continues to be part of our online lives. For some, it has even offered a canvas for creativity as web designers have fun with it.

Far less known is the 402-error...

New Program at Supermarkets Will Use Facial Scanning to Check Age

Welcome to a case study on why facial scanning is a bad idea. Supermarkets in the UK have been experimenting for the past year with technology that estimates the age of shoppers by scanning their faces at checkout. Apparently “Tesco, Asda, Morrisons and Co-op have already successfully trialed the technology which allowed anyone that is estimated to be over 25 to buy their alcohol without further checks.”

So the first question that comes to mind is what problem exactly is this technology meant to ...

Is Poisoning AI The Best Way for Artists to Fight Back?

In less than a week since the AI poisoning tool known as Nightshade was made available online for free, more than 250,000 people have downloaded and started to use it. Artists and creators can use the tool to tag their images at the pixel level which is undetectable to the human eye, but wreaks havoc on AI learning models. It is part of an effort known as the Glaze Project, designed to “increase the cost of training on unlicensed data and making licensing images from creators a more attractive o...

The Gen Z Gender Divide

For all the research and articles you might have read about the habits and beliefs from one generation to the next, one assumption has remained surprisingly unquestioned: both men and women from any particular generation share a similar mindset. What separates Boomers from Millennials may be extreme but that shift applies relatively equally to anyone regardless of gender.

This week an op-ed piece in the FT suggested that Gen Z (a term generally referred to those currently under the age of 26) may...

We Need Another Word for Different Types of Plagiarism

Given the recent increased usage of AI tools and the story of the ouster of Harvard President Claudine Gay for plagiarism, it seems we hear about it everywhere. In an op-ed piece all about the word, John McWhorter suggests that perhaps we need a second word to describe instances where ideas aren’t truly stolen:

“The term ‘plagiarism’ is overstretched. Cutting and pasting is not the same as stealing ideas. ‘Plagiarism,’ as a term, should be restricted to the latter. That means we need a new term f...

How the “TikTok Voice” Could Help You Be a Better Communicator

Uptalk. It’s the vocal quirk that makes every sentence sound like a question and it’s something you are regularly taught to avoid. It’s also a key element in the “TikTok voice,” a vocal style adopted mainly by female influencers that some linguists believe might signal the future of English.

Uptalk has been criticized because it seems to indicate a lack confidence. Making statements is more definitive than asking questions, right? What I had never considered is that this sort of uptalk might be a...