Full Transcript of The Rise of the Rant:

David Smooke:

Hello and welcome to ART + marketing, a podcast about the publication, ART + marketing. I’m David Smooke and I’m here with my colleague, John.

John Marshall:

Hi!

David Smooke:

That’s John Marshall. You can find him at The Marshall Variety.

John Marshall:

The one and only.

David Smooke:

The one and only.

John Marshall:

[chuckles 00:26]

David Smooke:

What’s going on today, man?

John Marshall:

Not too much. I’m just enjoying the nice weather. Shorts and flip flops. It’s my natural element.

David Smooke:

Wow. Lucky you.

John Marshall:

[chuckles 00:00:36]

David Smooke:

Flip flops. Shorts. So artistic.

John Marshall:

Yeah. Is it too wet in San Francisco for that kind of outfit?

David Smooke:

Today is the first day in ten days that it hasn’t rained.

John Marshall:

Oh my.

David Smooke:

We’re feeling pretty good.

John Marshall:

Yeah.

David Smooke:

This publication is on Medium. It’s called ART + marketing. We’ve had about 500 contributors. We, today, want to highlight some of the best stories and read to you some of the best excerpts.

John Marshall:

Thank you.

David Smooke:

We’re going to start with a story by Ellie Guzman to get us going. It’s called, “9 Clickbait Headlines for the Soul (you Won’t Believe Number 7!)” Pretty cool headline. Let’s go back and forth reading these headlines.

John Marshall:

All right, awesome. Do you want to start?

David Smooke:

Go for it, John.

John Marshall:

“This Adorable Little Girl is So Brave Because if I Had Her Life, I Would’ve Already Offed Myself”

David Smooke:

“Wait Until You See Where Your Favorite Child Stars’ Missing Limbs Are Now”

John Marshall:

“Ten Ways to Finger Your Own Ass (Number 6 Made My Wife Leave Me)”

David Smooke:

“Watch What Happens When a Wall Street Analyst Begins Treating His Cleaning Lady Like She’s a Person”

John Marshall:

[chuckles 00:01:54] “This Popular Hardcore Drug That Rhymes with ‘Track Tocaine’ Might Be Making You Sick”

David Smooke:

“This Man Morphed Into a Giant Reptilian Creature for His Wife’s Birthday. What Happened Next Will Make You Want to Fuck a Lizard”

John Marshall:

“How to Teach Yourself how to Pass as a Human and Not Three Dogs in a Trenchcoat”

David Smooke:

[chuckles 00:02:15] “Ten Things Foot Fetishes Do Before 6am Every Morning”

John Marshall:

“INSANE Video Shot at Local Church (Skip to 02:17, That’s When the Dogs Start Fucking)”

David Smooke:

Woo! All right. That’s a nice warm-up for some serious headlines.

John Marshall:

Absolutely.

David Smooke:

Yeah. Also with our publication this week, yesterday we published a cartoon by Martino. This cartoon is called “Sunday.” Great cartoon. It got-

John Marshall:

I love this cartoon.

David Smooke:

500 recommendations and 10,000 reads in one day.

John Marshall:

Woo!

David Smooke:

So it was a pretty good “Sunday.” It’s called, “Planned vs. reality.” On the “planned” side, you have: a biker, playing soccer, going to the movies, painting your house, cooking, running, exercising. Then on the right side for “reality” you just have a person sleeping on a couch.

John Marshall:

Yeah.

David Smooke:

It’s better if you look at it. You probably want to go to medium.com/art-marketing. That’ll give you a better idea [chuckles 00:03:25]

John Marshall:

Yeah.

John Marshall:

It’s essentially just a two-panel cartoon. The left side is someone else’s life, and the right side is my life.

David Smooke:

We’re really good at describing cartoons.

John Marshall:

Yes. So good.

David Smooke:

Maybe we should have a whole section, just describe cartoons.

John Marshall:

We could go to art museums and just talk about paintings, so that no one else ever has to go to art museums.

David Smooke:

[chuckles 00:03:52] Yeah. I’m on board. 100 percent.

John Marshall:

Speaking of artists-

David Smooke:

Yes.

John Marshall:

One of my favorite pieces that we published recently is by Rick Kitagawa, K-I-T-A-G-A-W-A. He Tweets at @RickKitigawa. His piece is called, “The 3 Reasons Artists Don’t Make a Living Off Their Art (and how to avoid them).” This has got over 20,000 reads, 126 recommendations. One of my favorite quotes from this article is, “Good art usually takes time. And if it doesn’t take time now (like an artist who can paint very quickly), it took an investment of time. When I do a demo for a company and paint a full portrait in maybe 40–50 minutes, while that looks easy, the hard part was the years I spent practicing before I could get my speed up like that.” I think- end quote. That’s just a great sentiment that I think a lot of people who make creative things, or people who work with creatives need to remember is that it’s not just about the work happening now. It’s all of the practice and all of the education and everything that led up to that moment when you’re actually producing.

David Smooke:

Yep. That line between taste and actually being able to perform at-

John Marshall:

Yeah.

David Smooke:

Good and what’s bad. It takes you the 10,000 hours, or the whatever it is. To add a little more to that, the three reasons why artists don’t make a living off their art: 1 is, “Not enough practice,” 2, “Lack of knowledge,” and 3 is “Fear.”

John Marshall:

Yeah.

David Smooke:

He concludes the article by saying, “Keep on putting yourself out there and dare to challenge the world and learn and play and make some cool-ass shit.”

John Marshall:

Yeah.

David Smooke:

A very nice sentiment. It’s a good article. Good job, Rick.

John Marshall:

Yeah. The quote I just read reminds me of one of my favorite little anecdotes. I don’t even know if this is true or not. The story goes that a woman commissioned Picasso to paint something very small, like the size of a postcard. He goes and he does it. It takes him an hour. He gives it to her, and she says, “Okay, awesome. How much do you want for this?” He says something like, “$30,000.”

David Smooke:

[chuckles 00:06:32]

John Marshall:

She says, “What are you talking about? It only took you an hour,” and he says, “That’s where you’re wrong. It took me my whole life.”

David Smooke:

Yep.

John Marshall:

Yeah.

David Smooke:

That’s a baller one.

John Marshall:

Yeah.

David Smooke:

All right.

John Marshall:

I hope it’s true.

David Smooke:

Next story.

John Marshall:

Let’s do it.

David Smooke:

This one’s called, “Our Experience Creating Bullshit Free Company Values.” This one is by Paul Quigley. You can find him on Twitter at @PaulYQ. He is the CEO of NewsWhip. The quote begins, “Competence- what a dull word! But what a wonderful characteristic if you need to rely on someone every day! Startup land can make a lot of noise sometimes about being a ninja rock star, an exception, a star. But putting all that aside, a team that’s knowledgeable about hard work, efficient, on point and prepared each day means things will keep on trucking.”

John Marshall:

Great quote.

David Smooke:

Yeah. Really great quote just about what you want out of your coworkers.

John Marshall:

Yeah.

David Smooke:

[chuckles 00:07:41]

John Marshall:

The coolest part about that piece, or how they did it, was he basically crowd sourced his company values from his employees, which is a very cool way to do it, and I think, adds a lot of legitimacy to them. They’re not just buzzwords that someone came up with to make the company look good. They actually reflect what’s going on at the company.

David Smooke:

It’s always- it’s also that idea of how a CEO can crowd source content. It’s like CEOs writing is one of the challenges. We deal with it a lot in our work, where we’re trying to get them to have a bigger voice, and the CEO always wants to have the perfect thing written.

John Marshall:

Yeah.

David Smooke:

It’s a good way for a CEO to get content out there, by relying on their employees, but also not assigning a crazy hard task to them. It’s more like, “Hey. Do this little piece of feedback.” Suddenly, when you put all these little pieces together, you have this great picture of NewsWhip.

John Marshall:

Yeah.

David Smooke:

So-

John Marshall:

Well said.

David Smooke:

It’s a good lesson to learn from. All right, next-

John Marshall:

Yeah.

David Smooke:

Story.

John Marshall:

Yep. This one has a lot of similarities with the- two stories ago, “The 3 Reasons Artists Don’t Make a Living.” This one is by Alexandru Giuseppe. It’s got 125 recommendations. It’s called, “Creating a website is easy, doing it right is hard.”

David Smooke:

Dun dun dun!

John Marshall:

Yes. Here’s my excerpt: “This reminds me of a great tale which illustrates exactly why we have to stop selling ourselves as website builders and more like experts, product designers, and problem solvers:

The carpenter walked around the house for a few minutes and listened carefully to the creaking sound that came from the floor. Then, he took a tiny little nail and hammered it between two sections of the parquet.

The creaking went away.

“That is amazing! How much do I owe you?” the guy asked.

“A hundred dollars,” replied the carpenter.

“You mean I am going to pay you a $100 for one tiny nail?”

“Of course not. You’re only paying 10 cents for that nail and $99.90 goes for my knowledge of where to put it.”

David Smooke:

Spot on.

John Marshall:

End quote. Yeah. It’s a great way to illustrate the point of that article, which is essentially- yeah, square space, and word press, and everything are great. You can make a functional website quickly, but when you really need an effective website, something that’s going to do specific things that you need it to do, the value of an expert can’t really be neglected or overlooked.

David Smooke:

Absolutely. Hopefully, with all these website tools coming out, people will get better at the knowledge. If they have more experience, their knowledge should get better. It’s like-

John Marshall:

Yeah.

David Smooke:

Yeah. It’s a great little story of the carpenter.

John Marshall:

Yeah.

David Smooke:

Okay. On to the next story.

John Marshall:

Let’s do it.

David Smooke:

This next one is called, “On Product Debt.” This is by Paul J. You can find him on Twitter at @PivotServices, that’s @ and then PivotServices. He is a Director of Product. Let me start the quote here, “Product Management is (and always has been) a juggling act. Product Managers need to work hard to co-ordinate competing demands for new features and design enhancements within individual products. But they also need to synchronize the development of multiple products within the broader ecosystem. To achieve this, they must ensure that each delivers on the brand’s core value proposition.

“Monitoring (and managing) product debt is one of the best ways to perform this juggling act and to guarantee you are considering the experience of the ‘multichannel’ and the ‘unichannel’ user at the same time.”

I always- personally, I always get sucked into these Product Debt and Product Management pieces of advice. It’s a funny thing in tech- once you build it, it’s basically immediately obsolete. There’s this level of- once you use that tool, there’s already a better tool coming out. To switch tools you have this cost, or to switch infrastructures or architecture. This is really an in-the-weeds type of post, where this is the Product Manager’s mind that you’re getting into. If you’re a Product Manager, you’re going to come out the other side with a better view on your product, a new perspective on how to approach your own product.

John Marshall:

Yeah. Absolutely. I love that job title, too- Director of Product.

David Smooke:

Yeah.

John Marshall:

He directs the product.

David Smooke:

Yeah. Other than CEO, it’s got to be one of the better ones. They have Chief Product Officer, sometimes. Sometimes people say that.

John Marshall:

Yeah.

David Smooke:

Maybe we should start calling him that. We’ll start an internal campaign to get him a promotion.

John Marshall:

[chuckles 00:13:05]

David Smooke:

The Great Paul J.

John Marshall:

Yeah, ha-ha. Paul J. for Chief!

David Smooke:

[chuckles 00:13:14]

John Marshall:

Awesome.

David Smooke:

Cool.

John Marshall:

This next up is … These are all some of our favorites, but this one in particular is very awesome by Simon Owens. He Tweets @SimonOwens. “The rise of the video essay,” actually, more completely, “The rise of the YouTube video essay.” This has 19 recommendations, and it is about YouTube video essays. Here’s the quote, “For years, Turner, a video editor from New York, harbored a conviction that the movie Mortal Kombat was so similar in plot and theme to the Bruce Lee cult classic, Enter the Dragon, that they were virtually the same movie.” This is an interesting story because it’s got 19 recommendations on Medium, but it has been read 11,000 times on LinkedIn. It’s very popular, but hasn’t really seen major Medium traction. It definitely deserves it because it’s a great piece, and the YouTube video essay is a really fascinating and entertaining medium to just explore.

David Smooke:

Oh, yeah. It’s a really cool way to consume … More people are doing it, but it’s still not that popular. Personally, it’s like, with what I’m doing with “Dogs of War,” and trying to make a poetry album and put it to music, and trying to … I’m always looking for a new story structure.

John Marshall:

Yeah.

David Smooke:

The video essay is just so much more consumable than reading. It’s much easier to watch a 10-minute video of someone talking, jumping around to their points, cutting away to different video stuff, than to read a 10-page essay. It’s a really cool, in terms of medium, it’s a cool way to open up the doors to make it more consumable for a lot of people.

John Marshall:

Yeah, absolutely. One point that Simon brings up in this article is that the idea of a video essay isn’t as new as you probably think it is. He talks about something, they used to refer to it as “film remixing,” which-

David Smooke:

That’s a great phrase.

John Marshall:

Yeah, it’s an amazing phrase. I guess people have been messing around with that since the 1940s.

David Smooke:

Yeah, but people have been messing around with the essay since- [chuckles 00:15:53]

John Marshall:

Yeah, true, true. People are- people have been slapping essays around since Plato.

David Smooke:

[chuckles 00:16:02]

John Marshall:

Yeah, this is why ART+ marketing is a rewarding publication to edit. You get the great posts and then inside, it can lead you down all new and exciting rabbit holes that you never would have imagined yourself exploring.

David Smooke:

Yeah. This is a really … Simon’s been contributing to us for a while, and I think this may be the best one he’s written.

John Marshall:

Yeah.

David Smooke:

I like his work.

John Marshall:

Absolutely. Speaking of-

David Smooke:

All right, next story.

John Marshall:

I was going to say, speaking of rabbit holes, let’s talk about pigeons, even though they’re not really related. They’re both animals.

David Smooke:

It’s phenomenal.

John Marshall:

[chuckles 00:16:46]

David Smooke:

Just to- not to change any of your expectations- this is verbatim, this is the title, “Open letter to the tech bro who spat at me, from the pigeon eating a noodle on Market Street.” Great title. I love the personification that we’re about to enter.

John Marshall:

Same.

David Smooke:

This one is by Thea Boodhoo. You can find her on Twitter, it’s @ T-H-A-R-K-I_B-O. This post has currently 15,000 reads in less than a week, and over 300 recommendations. It is a great take on satire, and without further ado, let me read for you: “How do I know you’re a tech bro? Besides the statistical likelihood- you were a 20-something clean cut blond with a messenger bag walking from a place that specializes in chai but doesn’t have a single Indian inside, in the direction of Twitter headquarters- I can recognize faces. You probably didn’t know pigeons can recognize faces. We can. I see you every day hauling your laptop around and looking put upon because you’re almost 27 and you’re not a billionaire yet. Sorry San Francisco has been such a disappointment for you.”

John Marshall:

Such an articulate pigeon.

David Smooke:

I know. This is my favorite pigeon ever.

John Marshall:

Yeah. [chuckles 00:18:19]

David Smooke:

One of my other favorite things about this piece is whenever you get to the end, you think, “This is just for the sake of satire,” but now you enter on a P.S., here’s actually a pigeonrescue.org, pigeon and dove adoptions. You actually, as she says, “If you want to atone, you can donate time, money or noodles to [the pigeon rescue]. These normal, mentally healthy Bay Area humans actually help pigeons instead of spitting at them.”

John Marshall:

[chuckles 00:18:56] Yeah. I like that, too. It starts as- you read it like a humor piece, and then there’s a little more depth to it, which just makes it all the more tasty.

David Smooke:

Oh yeah. It’s really what I want ART+ marketing to be. I admire her writing, and I admire it, there is a cause behind it.

John Marshall:

Yeah.

David Smooke:

It’s a very good use to get the most bang for your buck in terms of, “Hey. I’m pissed off, and I’m going to rant in this direction for a minute.” Suddenly, that direction is driving, like this post probably had more traffic than that website had for the last couple months combined.

John Marshall:

Yeah, absolutely. You also get to learn a lot about pigeons. For instance, I did not know that pigeons see millions more colors than human beings, thanks to their superior wavelength discrimination.

David Smooke:

That’s bad-ass.

John Marshall:

Yes. I can’t imagine. I couldn’t handle that many colors. It would stress me out.

David Smooke:

Okay. On to the next story.

John Marshall:

All right. This one is called, “A Conversation Between Two AIs.” It’s by Daniel Tunkelang, T-U-N-K-E-L-A-N-G. He Tweets at @dtunkelang. This story’s got 149 requests. Quote-

David Smooke:

Recommendations?

John Marshall:

Oh, yeah, sorry. 149 recommendations. “As you can see, the AIs communicate with one another in natural language as a lingua franca. It seems- what’s the AI analog of dehumanizing?- for them to have to put up with such a primitive form of communication. But I suppose it’s what they’re stuck with until the singularity.”

This is another great ART+ marketing style piece because it’s pretty funny, but it’s also delivering a pretty hefty punch, because it’s giving us an actual conversation between two virtual assistants scheduling a meeting.

David Smooke:

It’s such a funny moment. Everyone’s been in this moment where, “I have these times available, you have those times available, and how do we get to a time that we have?”

John Marshall:

Yeah.

David Smooke:

How does a computer do that versus how you would do it? It’s pretty funny.

John Marshall:

Yeah. The AI is also much more formal than two humans would be, I think. They sign-off with every message. “Hi Amy, Happy to suggest new times! Best, Clara.”

David Smooke:

[chuckles 00:21:45]

John Marshall:

Yeah, I love it.

David Smooke:

Yeah.

John Marshall:

It’s always cool to be thinking about where AI is going, and how it’s going to change our day.

David Smooke:

With the work we’ve been doing with conversant labs-

John Marshall:

Absolutely.

David Smooke:

Yeah. They have a SDK kit, so they can make any app have voice commands. We’ve been playing around with different little apps with them that they can build, in addition to their target app, StayShopping.

John Marshall:

Yeah.

David Smooke:

Chris, he really got a kick out of it.

John Marshall:

Yeah, absolutely. The future won’t be so much conversations between two AIs, but will be certainly dominated by conversations between you and an AI, as you tell your technology what you need.

David Smooke:

Wow. That’s something to look forward to.

John Marshall:

Yeah.

David Smooke:

I can do this [inaudible 00:22:38] with a machine next time, John.

John Marshall:

Yeah. Either something to look forward to, or be terrified of, depending on your outlook. I’m looking forward to it.

David Smooke:

[chuckles 00:22:49] I’m moving on to the next story.

John Marshall:

Oh.

David Smooke:

Yeah. Here we go-

John Marshall:

Let’s do it.

David Smooke:

This one is called, “Putting out the Twitter trashfire-”

John Marshall:

Whoa.

David Smooke:

By Randi Harper. You can find her on Twitter, it’s @RandiLeeHarper, and it’s spelled R-A-N-D-I L-E-E H-A-R-P-E-R. This one, again, coming back to, “What do you do with a quality rant?” To frame this, I’m kind of … She has 23 improvements that Twitter needs to do to basically make their product better. She’s very blunt about it. To give you a taste of her voice, I’m going to read the intro and then the conclusion.

“Tonight I’m drinking and talking about ways Twitter could be less of a shitheap.” Intro over.

John Marshall:

[chuckles 00:23:51]

David Smooke:

Conclusion: “I expect my check in the mail, Twitter. You’re welcome.” This one has 800 recommendations, over 20,000 reads. It’s great to have a good product and developer type of mind, going in to how to actually solve and change Twitter. As if they were to hire a new Chief Director of Product, or Chief Product Officer-

John Marshall:

Yeah.

David Smooke:

Or whatever we’re calling the leaders of product these days.

John Marshall:

Yeah.

David Smooke:

What do you think, John? What do you think of this piece?

John Marshall:

I love this piece. The rant style, if it’s done effectively, can be very effective. What makes the rant, what makes her rant, effective is how specific she is. She’s offering, it’s very clear. The structure is like, “This sucks. This is how you can make it so it doesn’t suck.” An issue I would have with a less well-produced rant would be that a rant could just be somebody blowing off steam, just for their own purposes. She’s ranting, getting something off her chest, and also delivering a lot of value, which I think is awesome.

David Smooke:

Oh yeah. The good details on API limits, scheduling Tweets, filtered Tweets. The tone is very direct and “F- you,” but it’s also if you imagine a high-paying consultant coming in. It’s like, “Bam.” [chuckles 00:25:38] Some of it is-

John Marshall:

Yeah.

David Smooke:

Bolding. Written in all caps-

John Marshall:

Yeah.

David Smooke:

“CREATING A TOGGLE WOULD BE SO FUCKING SIMPLE WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU BONEHEADS.”

John Marshall:

[chuckles 00:25:49]

David Smooke:

I love Twitter, but sometimes it’s like some of their choices, as the stock price drops and leadership changes, there’s definitely the pressure to make moves just for the sake of making moves. In terms of timing, it’s also a good lesson here of how to ride a wave. She’s- the amount of times this post was Tweeted to @Jack, Jack Dorsey, it’s absurd.

John Marshall:

Yeah.

David Smooke:

You type in the title and Jack, and it’s like now there’s suddenly this army of hundreds of people saying, “Jack, you need to read this.”

John Marshall:

Yeah.

David Smooke:

I think I can say without a shadow of a doubt he read it. [chuckles 00:26:30]

John Marshall:

Yeah.

David Smooke:

That’s also kind of cool to have a reader like that on a publication like ours.

John Marshall:

Yeah, absolutely. You never know who’s scrolling through ART+ marketing.

David Smooke:

Yeah [chuckles 00:26:44]

John Marshall:

Maybe even Gary V.

David Smooke:

Yeah.

John Marshall:

Which is a elegant segue into this next piece we’re highlighting that’s called, “Five Hours With Gary Vaynerchuk,” by Christina Kehoe, or Kehoe, but I’m going to say Kehoe. K-E-H-O. She’s Tweeting at @ChristinaAKehoe. Story’s been recommended 60 times. My quote is also her little rant portion here-

David Smooke:

We really like rants, don’t we?

John Marshall:

Oh we love rants.

David Smooke:

Yeah.

John Marshall:

“Side rant: Over the last few days I have had a bunch of people telling me how lucky I am for all the experiences I have had in my life. I think ‘luck’ is a word I now decidedly detest more than the term guru. I have come to find that luck is a term that people who play defense in life use to describe the accomplishments of others.

“So while some may say I am ‘lucky’… and yes, I am sure there is a little bit of luck and privilege involved with every success. I believe luck is a much smaller part of the equation than most factor. I’ll let you in on a secret, I get many of the opportunities I do because I choose to play offense. I choose to put myself in uncomfortable situations. I choose to make sacrifices others won’t. I choose to ASK for what I want. I choose to focus and expend mental energy only on causes I am passionate about.”

Powerful little side rant from Christina Kehoe.

David Smooke:

Yeah. It’s good because throughout the piece you’re getting a lot of, “Hey. Gary is speaking with my company, and he was super generous with his time, and he gave back, and he stayed there late.” And Gary, it’s like … I don’t know if you follow Gary V. He’s definitely a great person to follow also on Snapchat. He just gives a lot of inspirational quotes, and his whole-

John Marshall:

Yeah.

David Smooke:

His whole brand is really around engaging with the audience, which is-

John Marshall:

Yeah.

David Smooke:

It’s a great … Everything he does you can see at … He’s responded to my Tweets and Instagram comments. It’s not because I’m special, it’s just because he responds to as many comments as he can. He spends a lot of his day responding to comments.

John Marshall:

Yeah. One nugget that I got from this piece is Gary V. is famous for speaking, I mean, he’s famous for a lot of things, but when most people think of him, they have an image of him speaking- speaking into cameras, speaking on stage, et cetera. What Christina is saying in the piece is what is most impressive about him is not what he talks about, but how well and how often he listens. That he’s listening to his audience in-person, listening to them on social. He’s always very keyed-in to listen to what people have to say, which is incredibly important for anyone who’s communicating.

David Smooke:

100 percent agree. It’s a good read on ART+ marketing. I also wanted to move into a different one. A little shameless, promotional self-plug, here.

John Marshall:

Oh no!

David Smooke:

My post had the highest read ratio of the publication at 94 percent. This is a stat that Medium is trying to grow. Basically, they’re measuring … Page views, in and of themselves, if you write a shitty- if you write an amazing headline and an awful piece, what’ll happen is you’ll get page views. People will come and they won’t want to read it all.

John Marshall:

Yeah.

David Smooke:

In terms of the future of content, this is an interesting stat that they’re trying to push through. I’m not sure officially how they’re doing it. You could do it by once an amount of time on pages hit. You say it was read, or they consistently scroll down. Either way, there’s a few ways to measure it, but the sentiment is very strong. In this post of mine, it was called, “The 14 Considerations When Evaluating Whether to Sell a Physical Good.” Basically, it was a brainstorm with my friend, Mike, Michael Ulrich. You can find him @UlrichMike, U-R-L-I-C-H M-I-K-E on Twitter. To give you a little bit of a taste. A lot of the piece is a picture of a spreadsheet.

John Marshall:

You know that we’re good at describing visuals.

David Smooke:

[chuckles 00:31:26] What characteristics of a good, such as cheap to produce, search volume is high, competition is low, low shipping costs, limited design work, percentage of customers that are willing to be testimonials. The whole point of this piece and this exercise that we’re doing is to say, “Hey. If you take the emotion out of what you’re selling, what physical good you can, or should sell, what does that mean? How would you pick a good?”

It’s a good thought exercise on what objective criteria you would actually say is a good good to sell or not. If you want to add any comments, comments are obviously welcome across all our posts. When the art of marketing is more like plain, old art, the science of marketing just makes more money.

John Marshall:

Wow! That was an elegant plug.

David Smooke:

[chuckles 00:32:28] Okay. Let’s go to our favorite bookend here.

John Marshall:

Yeah. This one’s very serious-

David Smooke:

Very serious.

John Marshall:

Yeah.

David Smooke:

John, why don’t you read the title here?

John Marshall:

All right. We’re back with Ellie Guzman, “Clickbait Headlines Vol. II: 2 Fast 2 Clickbait.”

Number 1: Five Sexy Ways to Tell Your Boyfriend He’s Not Your Real Dad

David Smooke:

This Man Drew a Face on His Thumb and What Happens Next is Devastating

John Marshall:

My Yoga Instructor Has Huge Balls and This is How I Found Out

David Smooke:

Clever Life Hacks Helps Mom Successfully Abandon Her Kids at Mall

John Marshall:

Viral Video Shows Two Cartoon Characters Waiting for Godot

David Smooke:

Five Mind-Blowing Sex Tips for People Who Are Just Not Into It Anymore, Brad

John Marshall:

Quick Ten-Minute Easy Recipes for that Acid from Breaking Bad that Melts People’s Bodies

David Smooke:

Ten Ways to Stroll Through BevMo! And Not Indicate That You May Have a Problem

John Marshall:

HEART-WRENCHING VIDEO That Will Have You Asking “Where Are My Car Keys?”

David Smooke:

Bum, bum, bum, bum!

John Marshall:

[chuckles 00:33:49]

David Smooke:

That is the latest-

John Marshall:

Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum!

David Smooke:

From ART+ marketing. Presented by ArtMap Inc. I am David Smooke, that’s D-A-V-I-D S-M-O-O-K-E.

John Marshall:

I am John Marshall, that’s J-O-H-N M-A-R-S-H-A-L-L, and we are ART+ marketing.

David Smooke:

We’re open to more submissions. You can email me, [email protected], or [email protected], and we’d love to … If you’re a creative person at the intersection of art and technology, and you just write good shit, we’d love to help you get more eyeballs.

John Marshall:

Yeah. That’s a wrap!

David Smooke:

That’s a wrap. Take care.

John Marshall:

You, too.

David Smooke:

You’re beautiful.

John Marshall:

Yeah, you too [chuckles 00:34:40]

You made it all the way to end! Hire us now. Thanks!