Woah.

Study Hallers. That was a rough one.

Not going to sugar-coat it: Frenemies is a great idea for a book (the media we love runs on advertising…and advertising is struggling to adapt to a changing media environment…) that’s pretty poorly executed.

As I slammed into the second half of the book, everything bogged down. Chapters kept wandering around, with thoughts starting and stopping, information, data and themes popping up at random, disconnected places, and always M. Kassan offering his opinion on things: Basically “Be very scared! Hire me!” No. Matter. What.

About the only thing that was EASY to get out of the 2nd half was the M. Kassan sales pitch.

Worse, there was little discussion of the really successful advertising frenemies, consulting firms (ahem) and internal creative shops.

Even worse than that, there was no discussion of the alt-media (for lack of a better term); the people—like Tim Pool and Joe Rogan—that are eating the legacy media’s lunch. You can’t talk about modern advertising without talking about those people—they are experimenting with ultra-low-cost content generation AND advertising. They are indispensable voices. And they’re nowhere to be found. (And don’t tell me they’re too new—they were on the scene in 2016!)

Good Lord, am I glad to see the back of that book.

Ok—show notes!

• Tim Pool on Joe Rogan talking about internet traffic stats here

• Entire Pool/Rogan interview here

• Pool on the Vice layoffs here

• Drake meme in the wild here

• Drake meme on hotel door here

• Shameless plug for myself writing in Ad Age a long time ago about how the internet was going to decentralize authority right…here