Tucker Carlson and Vladimir Putin

Tucker Carlson and Vladimir Putin

Tucker Carlson has intuition. His break with his former employer, Fox, seemed challenging at the time. He showed up on a battered X and was mocked for the seeming irrelevance he was going to have to endure.

Fast forward a little while and Carlson is in Russia doing a one to one interview with Vladimir Putin.

More US users installed X in a few days than any other app

The interview could originally only be seen if you subscribe to the 'The Tucker Carlson Network'. I'm going to guess a lot of people did.

But, breaking news

Tucker Carlson released his two-hour interview with Vladimir Putin, the Russian president whose military is deep into its second year of the Ukraine invasion, marking an unprecedented sitdown between an American journalist and adversarial head of state during wartime. From The Wrap

Watch it here.

If there was ever a moment to shine a light on the power of the internet (web, apps, messages, email and more) to deliver compelling content outside of the old media franchises, this was it.

A camera, a computer, a streaming service and - depending on the content - you can take over attention.

Most commentators will focus on their distaste for the interview, or the fact that Carlson is a Trump supporter. But the main point is none of those. It is the very fact it could happen.

Substack should be very happy and be thinking about live events and audiences as additional features.

X will be more happy. This brings to life the ideas Musk has been working towards - a global multi-modal platform with content you cannot miss.

Issac Saul has an interview with Bill O'Reilly discussing this, and the role of Tangle.

Thanks to Andrew Keen for the reference. O'Reilly seems prescient and logical. And not on big media.

Enough said.

Ironically this coincides with this week's first Essay of the Week by Casey Newton speaking about "the dying web". He focuses on the Arc browser and Perplexity AI and the experience of getting answers to questions without search and without visiting web pages.

Joan Westenberg's essay about how to monetize this new internet is a timely delve into the challenges facing the new, new media.

The web is not dying, it is changing. X is part of the web, as are the tools Newton discusses. But they are not web pages. Or even web apps. They are audience networks delivering experiences people want. More properly they are the result of the internet developing scale, speed and computing power. The web is dead, long live the web.

Peter Walker and colleagues have an excellent review of the venture market - we are still deep in correction territory. Smart investors will find a lot less competition investing in the next generation of big companies.

Enjoy...

Essays of the Week