Notes
A feel for what's on our minds, how it goes down in our Slack channels, and what we do outside of Siberia.
Is the Web Getting... Worse?
Date: August 16th, 2023
Generative content is infiltrating our digital media ecosystem. Bots are amassing content exclusively for crawlers, leaving a search-optimized wasteland of unnecessary cardboard content for Google’s algorithm. Surprisingly, some familiar and struggling publications are experimenting with AI written articles, hallucinating their way into brand whoopsies. Additionally, as the WSJ reported, overwhelmed editors who are filtering out a deluge of robot submissions for publication. Oh and on top of all that, there is reporting that ChatGPT 4 is degrading.
The first wave of the AI hype surge is prioritizing content creation over any other function. It’s overloading a digital ecosystem that is built on the veracity of reliable platforms, the trustworthy brand domains that rank high in search results. These brands rank high because they are built on a reputation that is quantified by an extensive archive of trustworthy and crawled pages.
When the tide of bloated content washes out again — in other words, when the AI hype cycle wanes — the legacy brands will stand tall among the washed-out wreckage. In that moment, they will be looking to build engagement tools that accentuate the brand values and quality that make them special.
Then the web will get better again. Let’s build that.
GameOn Wraps $35M Series B
Date: March 29th, 2023
An ongoing innovation client, GameOn Technology, announced a Series B funding round, bringing their total to $54M. Their ChatOS is a core technology already underpinning fan favorites like Arsenal F.C., the Milwaukee Bucks and the Las Vegas Raiders, and this injection will drive innovation and expansion into new verticals while aiding brands in adoption, engagement and sales
Read more on Yahoo Finance.
Design's Role in Building Loyalty
Date: February 13th, 2023
Siberia's Head of Growth Allie Dietzek shared her thoughts on how brands should be looking to design as a competitive advantage to improve loyalty and retention. Check it out in Retail Touchpoints. Hot take in Retail TouchPoints.
Songs Siberia Slacked 2022
Date: December 22nd, 2022
Introducing our 3rd annual Songs Siberia Slacked playlist. We’ve taken all the music from our slack channels in 2022 and curated a representative playlist just for your ears. It's been a great year. Also, we f*ckn love Steely Dan.
Matt Chmiel Reviews 1982's Zaxxon
Date: November 1st, 2022
A few words from Siberia strategy director Matt Chmiel about the marketing materials of a 40 year old arcade game.
In the beginning, shooter games were played on a fixed axis. Games like Asteroids or Galaga applied the simple geometry of pong to pilot spaceships through 2-dimensional space. Gameplay in this context meant shooting whatever space rocks or bugs floated in front of your ship. These were good games that had a good run from 1979 - 1981. Then came Zaxxon, which literally birthed a z-axis onto the screen. Zaxxon - its name a derivative of the so-called axonometric projection visual effect - put an altimeter on the screen. The ship cast an actual shadow on the ground, the size of it signaling to the player how low or high the ship was relative to the ground on the screen.
A player had to literally pilot through tunnels above (or below) objects that were laid out in front of it. This effect gave the universe of this game physics and gravity, to go along with the standard shooter-style adventure made popular by its predecessors.
It's not often you encounter a piece of culture that literally adds a new dimension to its medium. It's like God itself declared one day early in the video game revolution: "let there be height" and then Zaxxon made it so.
For such a long wind-up, it can now be revealed that this post isn't even about the game itself; the true subject of this piece is the amazing design of its arcade flyer that demonstrated its 3rd dimension without explaining what the game is or does. A blue and black page is divided by an exploding logo, bursting into an angular infinity piercing the endless black space above and the blue depths of the terranean bottom. A flat page bursting with dimension.
Such a good game.
Loading...