This Old Marketing - Content Marketing News with Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose

Have the Search Wars Started Over Again? (493)

9 snips
Aug 15, 2025
Big news shakes the tech world as an AI company makes a jaw-dropping $34 billion offer for Google Chrome, raising eyebrows about monopolies. Meanwhile, OpenAI faces backlash over its ChatGPT-5 launch, with competitors poised to catch up. YouTube's new age verification system worries kids' content creators over potential revenue drops. Plus, the hosts share laughs over catchy songs, celebrity news, and marketing successes, while exploring the balance between speed and quality in the SaaS industry.
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ANECDOTE

Perplexity’s Chrome Offer Was PR Theater

  • Perplexity publicly offered $34.5B to buy Chrome, a move Joe and Robert call performance art and PR.
  • The stunt raised Perplexity's profile despite being unlikely to succeed, they said.
INSIGHT

GPT‑5 Is A Router, Not A Revolution

  • GPT-5 functions as a router model that picks submodels based on prompts rather than a single step-change upgrade.
  • The rollout frustrated users because it removed familiar personalities and model choice, revealing scaling trade-offs.
INSIGHT

Cost Shapes AI Conversation Tone

  • OpenAI likely balanced quality against compute cost, favoring efficiency over verbose, personality-rich outputs.
  • Reducing words and flourish at scale saves meaningful money across millions of queries.
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