Hey
In 1875, a man named Alfred Chester Beatty was born in New York.
A successful businessman in the copper industry, he made more money than he could ever spend.
So, he travelled the world collecting things – manuscripts, scrolls, books, textiles and other artefacts.
He fell in love with Ireland and became an Irish citizen.
His vast collection is now housed in the Chester Beatty Museum in Dublin.
It’s an incredible place to visit, and entry is free, so if you’re ever in Dublin, you won’t regret spending an afternoon there.
Why am I telling you this?
Well, inside the Chester Beatty Museum, there’s a timeline on the wall that shows everything that humans have acheived since they first appeared on the Earth.
The timeline is probably 5 meters wide.
Most of it is pretty empty, except for the last few centimeters, where everything happens!
When I visited, I stood there for ages.
Seeing it on the wall really highlighted the exponential growth of technology.
Each year, the world advances at much faster rate than the year before.
I made this graphic in 2 seconds with ChatGPT
What’s happened this week…
Technology seems to have evolved faster than ever in the past week.
Everyone is talking about the advances in ChatGPT.
For the past year or so, people have been posting slop like this on Facebook and making $$$…
The combination of people thinking it’s real and people telling them it’s not real has made for huge engagement.
Desperate to keep people on its platform, Facebook has allowed, and even encouraged this kind of content.
And publishers have made a lot of money from it.
Since ChatGPT upgraded its image capabilities last week, the telltale signs of AI images are pretty-much gone.
Now, we can now create 100% realistic images like this, in seconds…
And it’s not just images.
One of the key advancements we’ve seen this week is text on images.
A year ago, a request for a sign language poster would have given is something like this… LOL
The only use of a poster like this would be to laugh at it.
Fast forward to today, and a simple request for a sign language poster gets us this…
This is pretty dangerous because it looks real.
The hands are drawn perfectly.
Most of the signs are completely wrong though – something that most people who don’t know sign language wouldn’t spot.
This is worrisome because the more real and believable something looks, the less people will question it.
Misinformation can spread really quickly.
It’s becoming increasingly hard for us to know what is real, and therefore what is true.
Of course, there will be millions of people who see this as a way that they can make their fortunes online.
Unfortunately, I don’t see platforms like Facebook doing a great job of protecting people from being taken advantage of in this way.
The most popular posts on Facebook are evil
If you’ve never looked into Meta’s Tranparency Center, it’s worth a look.
According to Meta’s report, the most popular post in Q3 2024 was this one…
Facebook put that post in front of 82 million people.
I looked into the ‘My world’ page that posted it.
It’s very clearly designed to con elderly people, with images like this…
When they click the link in the description to find out if their need to urinate in the night means that they’re about to have a heart attack…
They’re faced with a pop-up asking them to install an ‘ad-blocker’ Chrome extension.
I’m obviously not clicking that shit because I don’t want a virus.
But my parents might. Your parents might.
Remember, this page posted the most viewed post according to Facebook’s own reporting,
Facebook knows what’s happening.
And they’re not acting.
What does this mean for people like us?
Clearly, there are ways to cash in on this and use a combo of cheap overseas VAs and AI to generate a ton of realistic-looking AI content very fast.
Hey, you don’t even need website content if your landing page just has a virus that will get old people’s bank account details.
OF COURSE THAT IS NOT ADVICE.
Don’t be a dick.
My mantra is framed on the wall next to my desk…
There are two routes we can go down…
1 – The fast way
We can quickly cash in on the opportunities that new tech creates and make money fast, while they still work.
There’s always something that works right now.
This tactic involves picking one technique and scaling it as fast as possible before it stops working.
2 – The slow way
We can put our heart and soul into crafting something that’s genuinely useful to others.
We can get really obssessed with our niche, and share our love of it across multiple channels, to educate and entertain a wide audience.
The aim is to be the number one expert in the field for years to come.
I can’t tell you which to pick – that’s your decision.
I can only tell you which one I’m picking.
Without a doubt, it’s option two.
I accidentally stumbled across something someone wrote about me online.
They said:
“She calls herself Niche Site Lady, but she doesn’t have a niche site. What she has is a brand. She’s an influencer, a journalist, and a YouTuber, not a niche site owner”
That’s fair.
I guess “@influencerjournalistyoutuberlady doesn’t have the same ring to it.
To them, I suppose a ‘niche site’ refers to a website with writen content about a particular topic.
I guess they chose ‘option 1, the fast way’ and are pissed off that their niche site stopped being profitable.
In choosing the slow way, building a brand that will stand the time, focusing on making the internet better, not worse – does that mean that I shouldn’t use the name ‘Niche Site Lady’?
Maybe I outgrew it.
Who knows.
But what I do know is that we’re at a crossroads.
Get rich quick, or build something of lasting value?
Only you can decide what will make you happiest.
And if that’s profiting off of scamming the elderly, then on your conscience be it.
– NSL
P.S. You may be wondering where Niche Toolbox comes into this.
Well, it works for both methods.
Yes, you can create articles and AI Facebook images in a couple of clicks and publish at scale, if that’s your thing.
That’s not what I do with it, though.
I use the articles as first drafts, adding in my own opinions and personal experiences.
I usually upload iphone snaps to it, only using AI images if its something I don’t have a photo of.
For me, it does 90% of the work, so I can work 10X faster while producing better content overall.
That’s what I made it for, but use it as you will.
(Use code TOOLBOX20 if you want 20% off)
Useful stuff: