I’m sorry if this has been asked elsewhere, but why did you preserve the numbering when you renamed TWiG to IM? If it were me, I would have archived the TWiG feed and created a new feed. That way, people who don’t care about the AI stuff wouldn’t automatically get it in their feed.
Leo’s argument was that it is still the TWiG crew doing the podcast and the podcast had already wandered in the IM direction. The decision for renaming was more to do with advertisers than content per se. IM is more sexy to advertisers than a podcast about “Google”, which TWiG rarely was anyway, even from its inception.
He initially said that, whilst the focus of TWIG/IM had moved more towards AI over the last 2 years, it wouldn’t banish the old themes altogether, although he will be bringing on more specialist guests from the AI sphere of influence…
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Automatically rolling over the TWiG audience to the “new” podcast was the point. If they killed TWiG completely, they would have had to start from scratch to build a new subscriber base. “It’s not TWiG, but it is a new branch of TWiG.” That sounded better on paper.
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To be clear about objectives. TWiG was enjoyed by listeners but not by ad buyers–it was too hard to sell apparently because the target demographic was too hard to encompass in a quick sentence. AI is hot now, so the hope was by tagging the show with some AI-ness, it would be more interesting to advertisers. I supposed it also might attract an additional audience, which would also help to sell the show (a bigger audience is always better.) I don’t believe the goal is, strictly, to change all the content, but to add in some new targeted AI content and still keep the charm of the previous TWiG. So I would say, don’t give up on it right away, give a few weeks to grow into itself and to grow on you.
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I agree with that decision, I listen because of the crew and do enjoy the just general coverage (except for the first :30 on the last episode that was mostly political), I really don’t give a rats ass about all the IM stuff (rather tired of it quite honestly), but so far it definitely hasn’t changed for me.
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I’m not a fan of Intelligent Machines. I liked TWIG and have listen since it started. An occasional podcast about AI is fine, but not every week! Also,if you want interviews, restart Triangulation. Do you think that you’ll be able to find AI interviews for many episodes into the future? Most so far have been pretty dull.
After AI, what’s next - This Week In Elon Musk?
You’ve lost me as a listener to the IM podcast. I doubt that it will be a long lived one. Bring back the old TWIG format, if you want to keep going.
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After a few weeks of the new format, I actually find it interesting and entertaining. I really like the deep-dives with the special guests, they have all been very interesting, even if I don’t necessarily agree with their viewpoints.
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I will try to listen to each interview a few have been entertaining enough to sit through but most I wind up skipping through just because it’s not my taste, but after the interview is over and it goes back to the usual TWIG/IM panel I find that the show is still the show I love.