Welcome to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast! This week's news podcast is brought to you by Jared Bauman and Thomas Smith, who’s filling in for Spencer.

As always, they’re bringing you all of the latest news related to SEO, Google, and AI, along with their analyses. Stay until the end to hear about their side hustles and weird niche sites!

The first item up for discussion is the fact that Google is thinking about charging for its AI-powered features, such as the Search Generative Experience (SGE). 

Jared and Thomas talk about SGE and the reasons why Google may consider this path, and if they do go ahead with it, what it might look like. They also discuss a Tweet from Glenn Gabe, sharing his predictions about where this is headed. 

Moving along, they discuss how Google’s search engine market share has declined by around 2%, which may not sound like very much, but it is, and it most likely has Google worried. It looks like Bing’s market share is growing, and Jared and Thomas talk about potentially optimizing for the platform.

The conversation then shifts to Microsoft Start, which is Microsoft’s version of Discover, and its  recently-announced and very interesting AI policy. Thomas shares his experience using Microsoft Start and his interpretation of their stance on AI. What do he and Jared think about this policy? And how is it different, or similar, to Google’s?

Moving to a lighter topic, Thomas talks about a musician named Matt Farley, who essentially mined Spotify for keywords and created songs around them. Today he's earning $200k a year. Tune in to hear his excellent advice around this story as well as the stats behind Matt’s “business.”

When it comes to Shiny Object Shenanigans, Jared starts by talking about his Amazon Influencer side hustle. In March, his earnings totalled almost $4k and, inspired by this progress, he uploaded another 66 videos. He shares some of his stats and talks about how passive this business model really is.

Thomas shares his Medium side hustle, explaining how the platform works, its stance on AI, and how he makes money from it. Last year he was earning $500 or $600 per month from it, and last month he made $3k. 

Listen to hear him explain his thoughts on that growth and what Medium is doing right.

He also recently started an Etsy store for fun? Find out what he’s selling!

As for Weird Niche Sites, Jared shares his first: MeetWays, which helps you find a spot in the middle when you’re meeting up with someone. This DR34 site has seen its traffic grow from 15k last year to 30k this year and ranks for 188k keywords.

They talk about how the site is monetized, how it was potentially built, and whether or not it’s helpful.

Thomas shares the site Antipodes Map, which lets you see what’s on the exact opposite side of you on the earth. 

He plays around with some locations to show how it works, and then shares the stats: DR52, 4k organic search traffic according to Ahrefs, and 113k searches per month according to SimilarWeb. 

Is it monetized or is it a passion project? Listen to find out!

That brings us to the end of another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast! We hope you enjoyed this episode with Jared and Thomas and feel informed and inspired in your own business projects.

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