What’s Up THIS WEEK: Big Em Dash News!🫢GDPR getting Easier? Thanksgiving Issues! 😅 | Ep. 453

0:00Welcome to Do This Not That, the podcast from marketers. We share quick tips, things you can do right now, and then we add a little bit of chaos at the end of every episode. We also keep it short, like this intro. Let's check it out. We are back for What's Up This Week from the Do This Not That podcast. This is our short episode where we break down what's going on this week in business and marketing and life and all this stuff. So let's get into it. You're probably getting ready to eat a lot of turkey, but before we eat some turkey, what's going on this week? Well, first off, ChatGPT, on their actual official Instagram account, they did a post themselves saying that they have fixed the M-Dash issue.

0:46Now, if you don't know, the M-Dash is like super long dash. And the reason there's an M-Dash issue is that anytime you ask something like for ChatGPT, the majority of time they give you back an answer and includes a lot of M-Dashes, the long dashes. And the problem is now whenever we see anything with a long M dash, right, we think it's garbage that was written by AI. And it's this whole problem. It's a big joke that M dash is everywhere. Well, OpenAI and ChatGPT are in on it. And now they said they've solved the problem. So here's what they said. They said to everyone who once loved the M dash, I'm sorry.

1:21Truly, I'm sorry. The M dash was supposed to be a classy little pause, a soft, dramatic flourish, and not a neon sign that says this was written by AI at 2 a.m. And they said going forward, the MDash will be used responsibly and that they've updated their latest model and will only be used occasionally. So I think as we end in 2026, one of the world's biggest problems, the MDash might actually get solved. Speaking of other problems that might get solved, have you seen this that came out from the European Commission this week? The European Commission, they're like the government body whatever in Europe that oversees all the stuff as relates to AI and privacy and data and all the stuff.

2:04Well, it's not a new law yet, but the commission has proposed something called the Digital Omnibus Package, which is a softening of GDPR stuff and a softening of their AI Act and a softening of Europe's cookie rules, which basically means in this package, they're trying to create a set of easier rules for people to follow on using AI in all sorts of different areas, which is fine because those rules are all still evolving. But the biggest stuff, the biggest change is that they want to change all these consent banners that we always see. Every time you go on a website, accept the cookies, reject the cookies, do this with the cookies, it's super annoying.

2:49So they're trying to actually now say you don't need as much consent. And there's certain consent that's now considered low risk. And we won't need to ask for as much stuff. And it might be easier to actually start using data on all the different social platforms that you're collecting. It hasn't passed yet. But this is kind of a big deal because GDPR is a big pain in the butt. So if you haven't seen this, you could check out the digital omnibus, which is what's being proposed, which is pretty exciting. I'll tell you what's not exciting that also going on this week. Instagram is testing 20-minute reels.

3:28That seems ridiculous. I can't make it past like one or two minutes on a reel, but they're testing 20-minute reels. So get ready for really long potential content on Instagram. I don't know. Something that is cool that has nothing to do with marketing or whatever, but I think is wild. I don't think enough people know about this. So Google has finally fully rolled out their AI tool for flight deals. This is so cool. I messed around with this. So if you've not checked this out, you can go to google.com slash travel slash flights. And so it's google.com slash travel slash flights. And when you go there, there's a button that says flight deals.

4:05And this thing is using all the power, all the AI power that's out there to find you literally the best deals on flights. And I've messed around with it and it has found really, really good deals. And it just updated in the past week to make it like fully available all over the place, the sickest deals. So I don't get anything out of it. I just thought it was pretty awesome. So you go to google.com slash travel slash flight and you'll find some cool stuff. I saw this one cool stat that came out from my peeps over at subjectline.com, which is pretty neat and easy tactic to try for some year-end email campaigns.

4:41So subjectline.com came out with this data about continuation pre-headers. What does that mean? Well, when you send out a promotional email or an email newsletter, you have your subject line and then you have your second subject line, that gray text, the pre-header. And you can put whatever you want in there, right? And even though Apple's messing around pre-headers and all this stuff, it still doesn't matter. Pre-headers are really, really, really important. But there's three words now that if you put as the first word in your pre-header, they're actually driving a big boost to email marketing open rates.

5:14And these are continuation words, meaning the three words are the words and, the word but, and the word plus. So if you write a subject line that says something like, get ready for our biggest announcement of the year. And then the preheader would say, plus, if you show up, you get 20 % off, right? Or download our latest tip sheet guide is the subject line. And then the preheader would say, but it's only going to be available for 30 days. Basically, if you use and, but, or plus as the first word in your preheader, from the last 90 days, it's showing that it's actually increasing email open rates by 19%.

5:56So if you've never messed around with this idea of a continuation preheader word and phrase and sentence. That's a fun, easy test. So what is going on in the world of meaninglessness? Is that a word? I have no idea. So first off, what am I trying to watch on TV? I tried The Beast in Me. So The Beast in Me is on Netflix, number one show on Netflix right now. It's with Claire Danes. I made it through 20 minutes. I did not like it. I feel like I should get more than 20 minutes. Everybody seems to like it. I just didn't like it. I like Claire Danes. I used to watch my so-called life when I was like a lot younger, great show.

6:37What was she in since then? Wasn't she in something where the government was like doing something? I don't know. Hopefully she's doing, I don't know. Should I keep watching this? I don't want to watch it. So then I went over and I tried a merry little X-mas, you know, merry little X Christmas on Netflix. And it was the number one movie on Netflix. And this is a holiday movie starring Alicia Silverstone. Alicia Silverstone. This is unwatchable. I made it through 15 minutes. I mean, it is unwatchable. This one I'm not going back to. I like Alicia. Why can't they say her name? Alicia Silverstone.

7:14I keep saying Alicia. What am I doing? Anyway, I don't know what's going on. And that movie stunk. But I'm ready for Thanksgiving.

7:26I'm going to eat a lot. The problem with me is that we do Thanksgiving at my house. We have a lot of people coming over. And the problem is, is that everyone brings dishes that they make. Fine, whatever. And then, but we have a lot of people. So the problem is, is that nobody brings enough that everybody can have the dish. Right? So somebody's going to make cornbread. And they're going to bring it over. And because I'm the host, every time I go and I pick up, get my plate of food, I like either don't take something or I take the smallest amount of something because I'm like, I want everybody else to have some.

7:59And this sucks because I want to eat everything because I'm disgusting. And because it's at my house, I like play a different set of rules. Like this is not okay. And then forget it. Then the leftovers. People come over and they bring their own stuff to take leftovers. They bring their own Tupperware or whatever you call it. And by the time it's all over, there's like nothing left. Do I need to make rules? Is this bad? I want a lot of leftovers. I want to take a lot of every dish. I want a lot of things. I know that I'm supposed to be grateful and thankful. And this is not what you're supposed to be saying on Thanksgiving.

8:38But I'm telling you right now, it's ridiculous that the person that's hosting gets screwed out of eating what they want to eat. Ridiculous. So is this podcast. Listen, I'm thankful for you. I'm thankful you made it to this far in the podcast because honestly, I think I would have bailed way earlier. And I hope you have a great Thanksgiving. And I hope you get some rest. And I hope you get cornbread. That's what I got later. You did it. You made it to the end. But wait, the party is not over. Listen, I want to keep hanging out. Subscribe to this podcast. And if it wasn't the worst podcast you've ever listened to, give it a five-star review.

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