There and back again

We skipped last week in order to move back to the Revue newsletter platform. I hope itâs a lesson in not being afraid to explore opportunities and to feel comfortable saying âNope!â and resetting things if it just doesnât feel right.
I think itâs also a lesson in realising that you just canât âdemoâ something and know if itâs right for you. Sometimes you need to commit, and through that commitment the lessons are learned.
Iâve also learned a lot about all the HTML cruft that some newsletter tools generate invisibly under these emails. Most are built to help a marketer send a pretty message, but the message is pretty compact. Not so good when youâre trying to share a bunch of curated links to interesting things and most of the data budget (102kb in Gmail) is eaten up by code instead of words.
Iâm sure thereâs a metaphor there for all the ways we underestimate the invisible costs in our work routines. And how much brain space we win back when we keep it simple.
Iâd been hoping to launch a really cool reader referral system to encourage and reward people for sharing the newsletter and getting others to join. That wonât happen here at Revue yet, but Iâm promised by the Revue team that just such a feature is in its roadmap. Iâll definitely jump on that when it launches.

If I live to 111 I'm having a party in Hobbiton.
Next week our new podcast, Bits: daily tech news bulletin, will launch with a daily 4 minute update on the top news headlines of the day. Get it in your podcast feeds now so it lands first thing Monday!
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He got Facebook hooked on AI. Now he can't fix its misinformation addiction
This is fascinating stuff. Sadly, itâs âcar crashâ fascinating, really. But we need to grasp just how badly Facebook has managed the disinfo crisis.
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Insightful
YouTube failed the 2020 election test
Speaking of disinformation crisesâŚ
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Good chat with Twitterâs head of consumer product, Keyvon Beykpour, on its flurry of new initiatives. Weâre really focusing our social presence on Twitter more and more. It feels like itâs finding its groove for a post-Trump era.
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What is everybody doing on Discord?
Discord is a great story, and I love that it is such a space for positive communities almost precisely because it has focused on growing quality to encourage membership payment instead of how to target people with ads.
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News
Facebook's temporary news ban still impacting Aussie media consumption
Australiansâ time spent on news websites dropped by as much as 22% during Facebookâs news ban in February. It still hasnât recovered.
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Games with loot boxes could face an 18+ rating if new German laws pass
It could soon be illegal to sell videogames containing loot boxes to children, if legislation ahead of the German Federal Council passes.
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Peloton is coming to Australia
US fitness cycling service Peloton has announced it will be coming to Australia in 2021. Is this the gym replacement youâve been looking for?
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Podcasts
After daily tech news fast? Get Byteside's new podcast: Bits
Our new 4 minute news bulletin, Bits, launches Monday! Go get it subbed and ready today!
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The WandaVision post-mortem episode
Our first Byteside episode where we used Twitter Spaces to bring in listeners to have a chat while we recorded.
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Interesting!
Cuttlefish join the ranks of species to pass the marshmallow test
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Banksy adds Bob Ross to beautiful Oscar Wilde tribute
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Mars Perseverance Rover Powered by 1998 iMac Processor
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