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The GRADIENT

The GRADIENT: Why Taste Is the New Moat

Insights From Last Year’s Best Debates For 2026

Hosting my podcast, gives me a front-row seat to the unfiltered reality of our industry, the gritty, “in-the-trenches” reality shared by experts who manage millions in spend. Last year, my guests, including Greg Finn, Christine “Shep” Zirnheld, Julie Friedman Bacchini, Andrew Lolk and Shawn Walker didn’t hold back. They dismantled “best practices,” called out platform

‘The net is tightening’ on AI scraping: Annotated Q&A with Financial Times’ head of global public policy and platform strategy

For much of the past year, publishers have been playing defense against AI scraping and copyright uncertainty. But heading into 2026, some see reasons to believe the ground is finally starting to move a little more in their favor. The Financial Times was the first U.K.-based publisher to strike a licensing deal with OpenAI in

The magic behind Louis Garella’s design process is “a constant back-and-forth between digital and print”

Louis Garella’s portfolio is a reminder that whilst many works in graphic design are destined to be flat or experienced on screens, the interactions we have with colour, form, type and composition don’t have to be so immaterial. What defines the designers work is his “hybrid practice”, one that sits at the intersection of visual

Generative Engine Optimization, Trust, and the PESO Model©

Citations are the new backlinks. Summaries are the new search results. Communicators are the new visibility engineers. Gini Dietrich explains how to combine all of that for AI search success. The post Generative Engine Optimization, Trust, and the PESO Model© first appeared on Spin Sucks.

The Technical Guide To Adobe Commerce (Magento) SEO Issues

Magento, now officially Adobe Commerce (but still known as Magento with SEOs), remains a powerful but demanding ecommerce platform, especially in the Magento 2 era. Adobe Commerce can deliver strong organic performance when built and optimized correctly, but it requires careful attention to technical SEO, site speed, and structured data. This guide outlines key Magento/Adobe

Google and Walmart Join Forces to Shape the Future of Retail

Google’s and Walmart’s leaders are both betting the future of retail on AI and technologies like drone delivery. Google CEO Sundar Pichai and incoming Walmart U.S. CEO John Furner — who will become the company’s next CEO in February — revealed how AI is reshaping search and shopping during a Sunday keynote at the National

Why the time was right to return to R-Type Delta, according to Nobu Yoshikawa

R-Type Delta HD Boosted revamps a game that bridged the eras of pixel art and 3D polygons, giving it unique appeal for fans of retro shooters. But can it also appeal to new players? The collaboration between City Connection, ZeroDiv, and Irem was a task of gaming archaeology, made more difficult by incomplete source code

How Generative AI Ruined My Fantasy Baseball Season

Christopher Barger explains why generative AI isn’t a magic solution and how to integrate it into your work without losing focus. The post How Generative AI Ruined My Fantasy Baseball Season first appeared on Spin Sucks.

Google Announces AI Mode Checkout Protocol, Business Agent

Google announced tools that let shoppers complete purchases directly within AI Mode and chat with branded AI agents in Search results. Users can purchase from eligible product listings on Google. Retailers are still the seller of record, while the checkout happens on Google surfaces instead of the retailer’s website. Universal Commerce Protocol Powers AI Mode

The retail visibility gap most DTC brands still miss

A consumer opens ChatGPT and types, “What laundry detergent has perfumer-grade fragrance that lasts?” The AI provides three specific recommendations, each with detailed explanations. Your brand, despite its SEO-optimized product pages and paid search budget, never appears. This scenario is playing out millions of times daily across product categories, and most DTC brands remain completely

Lu Fraser’s illustrations of microbes and infodumps are driven by a culture of DIY possibilities

Lu Fraser is a UK-born, Iceland-based artist who describes their work as a “broad mess of illustration based creations”. Starting in an interest in making comics and zines, Lu brought these sensibilities into everything from gallery spaces to noise shows. Noise, sonically and visually, plays a large influence in Lu’s textural gestures, utilising the heavy

Using the PESO Model© as Your Marketing Operating System

Gini Dietrich shows you how the PESO Model© helps CMOs optimize data, build first-party strategies, and balance AI with human creativity. The post Using the PESO Model© as Your Marketing Operating System first appeared on Spin Sucks.

Google Gemini Gains Share As ChatGPT Declines In Similarweb Data

ChatGPT accounted for 64% of worldwide traffic share among gen AI chatbot websites as of January, while Google’s Gemini reached 21%, according to Similarweb’s Global AI Tracker. Similarweb’s tracker (PDF link) measures total visits at the domain level, so it reflects people who go to these tools directly on the web. It doesn’t capture API

Sainsbury’s credits marketing with driving Christmas ‘outperformance’

Sainsbury’s has seen another strong Christmas, winning market share for the sixth consecutive year, putting this down to customer engagement and a “winning combination of value, quality, service and availability for customers”. In a call with the media today (9 January) CEO Simon Roberts told Marketing Week that its marketing over the Christmas period helped

People are calling Nintendo lazy for its new Joy-Con colour designs

The Nintendo Switch 2 is getting some brand new Joy-Con colour variants for the first time since launch, but fans are really not happy. The newly introduced Joy-Con colours for the Nintendo Switch 2 console are ‘Light Purple’ and Light Green’, but despite the pretty aesthetic, the only areas where you’ll see these accents are

From Kitchen Catastrophes to Culinary Confidence: A Microlearning Journey

Shelly Verkamp explains how to use microlearning to break down complex skills or concepts into bite-sized, digestible pieces. The post From Kitchen Catastrophes to Culinary Confidence: A Microlearning Journey first appeared on Spin Sucks.

Marketing Calendar With Template To Plan Your Content In 2026

Key dates and notable events throughout the year can feed your content strategy and your social media marketing strategy. Timely aligning your digital campaigns with the right seasons for your brand is a staple part of creating a content calendar. The SEJ marketing calendar includes dates from holiday dates to big sporting events to awareness

Digiday’s extensive guide to what’s in and out for creators in 2026

The importance, reach, and financial power of the creator economy is well-established — now everyone is fighting for a piece of the pie. As such, it will become increasingly important that these pies feel freshly baked by hand rather than stale and mass-produced. With AI-generated content flooding social media platforms, embracing the messiness and imperfection

Monotype’s logo for lingerie brand Chantelle Pulp takes on different weights to celebrate all shapes and sizes

As design briefs go, Chantelle Pulp’s unwavering commitment to inclusivity and individual expression quite naturally lent itself to variable font technology. Monotypes logotype couldn’t just exist in one static state – “ideas of diversity, adaptability, and boundary-pushing were central to the creation of the variable logo from the start,” says Daniel. Collaborative workshops, sketching sessions

Structured Trust Is the New Currency of Reputation

Outdated bios. Old articles. Contradicting stats. That’s what AI is using to define your brand. Gini Dietrich shows you how to fix it. The post Structured Trust Is the New Currency of Reputation first appeared on Spin Sucks.

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