Digital media strategy, revenue, audience, and tech. 30-year digital media veteran. Owner of @nearviewmedia. Husband, father. Imperfect man loved by God anyway.
Colorado
Joined June 2008
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I had to find out if CVC audits require a publication to report county or just zip code and got the answer incredibly fast.
Was it Claude or ChatGPT? Was it a Google Search?
Nope, I picked up the freaking phone and called them.
They answered and gave me the answer. Took all of 30 seconds and I didn't need to worry about AI hallucinations or out-of-date web pages.
Sometimes old school is still the best school. 😉
Are you a media company with a Facebook or Instagram account?
Meta's new terms let it scrape and use your website content for free.
On Oct 30, Meta's new terms go into effect. It allows Meta to bypass robots.txt and use your content for their AI purposes ... including "test credentials" to bypass user registration walls.
You could still block Meta at the web application firewall (WAF). But if they notice, will they say you're violating terms and suspend your accounts?
The arrogance of AI companies is off the charts.
Check out the full story from @NiemanLab in the first comment.
Here's the full story on Nieman Lab: niemanlab.org/2026/10/metas-…
Claude getting snarky with me. 😆
ME: "First, did you get this request? One modification, prefer industries over ideas when it makes more sense"
CLAUDE: "Yes, I received that request — it came in twice, once interrupting my tool call and once as a follow-up message asking if I got it. Both times the content was identical."
Like, yeah idiot ... I got it ... both times ... you interrupting cow ...
Are you seeing "leadsgo" in your Google Analytics? You're not alone. It's a spam marketing tactic. I just wrote this post explaining what it is, if it's dangerous, and how to filter it out. nearviewmedia.com/leadsgo/
Do AI companies actually respect robots.txt? Yes, but they find loopholes to get around it and still use your content. See the full session here:
nearviewmedia.com/wnip-2025-…
Why you can't blindly trust AI …
A publisher I work with saw 10x their normal traffic yesterday, all from the same userAgent.
ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini all said the agent was highly suspicious, a scraper or bot attack, and should be blocked.
See comments for more …
But we dove deeper in Google Search Console and Google Analytics. Everything pointed to this being legit traffic.
We finally determined it WAS legitimate traffic and several stories had gone viral in Google Discover.
Eric Shanfelt retweeted
Yoast, now owned by New Fold Digital (Blue host and Hostgator), is injecting HTML tags that say "ai-optimized" in them on websites using their AI features.
h/t @jonoalderson
30 days after launching a Nextdoor News Account, @BizTimesMedia was driving 3,000 visits per month to their site.
For local / regional publishers, a Nextdoor News Account will expand visibility and drive more traffic.
See comments for how to set this up for your publication ...
Here's my post about how Nextdoor News Accounts work and how to set one up for your publication. nearviewmedia.com/nextdoor-n…
Very excited that my client, Renaissance Publishing, and their publication, @NewOrleansMag , is a finalist for the "online excellence" award from @CityRegionalMag.
It's impressive what they've been able to accomplish:
- A complete website redesign and relaunch.
- A move to @ActiveCampaign as their email / marketing automation / CDP.
- A move to WooCommerce / WooSubscriptions to manage subscriptions.
- A move to @BroadstreetAds as their ad serving platform.
My team and I are thrilled that they are now set up with a state-of-the-art digital platform to serve readers, serve advertisers, and grow their business.
Congrats to Todd Matherne and your entire team! You all have done an amazing job.
Only 20 seats left for the SEO for Editors training this Mon, Mar 17. This is NOT generic SEO training ... it's specifically for editors and media companies.
Sign up at us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi…