Written by Happy New Year everyone! Welcome to the Year 2026 where the online revolution is in full swing. I do love this time of year for taking a few moments of retrospect. The time for my New Year reflexions. To look back on the past year, whilst looking forward to the coming one.
My New Year Reflexions!
I do love these moments of reflection. Its great to sit down and reflect on the past year and speculate on the next. . I love watching the progress of content creation over the years almost as much as I love the creating content. It’s a great storyline in the evolution of the worldwide web.
The Early Days
I was a bit of a slow beginner when the web was First launched in 1995 and took me a little while to get interested. But around 2005, I discovered the amazing usefulness of the web for music. So I bought a computer and jumped in head First and before long, was creating websites. These were mainly for music sharing. Blogs and stuff too but I quickly got to creating content for a whole range of things, or ‘Niches’ as we now know them. Back then it was a word we rarely used, least of all for content promotion.
It was so funny back then. As long as you got loadsa clicks, then your site would hit Top of the search results. This was before even Google had Sponsored results. So you really would be Top. It seems so easy looking back compared to today. But like any easy sails, the waters quickly dry up or become harder to navigate. So too with Google and it wasn’t long before they started arranging content into results that users could easier find what they were looking for.
The ‘Tag Age’
But of course, when Google step up the game, so too did the gamers and soon after came the age of the wordsmith. I remember when everyone started word cramming by using every keyword in the dictionary to hit Google results by playing with the Meta tags. Those little Invisible bits of code that tell Google what the website is meant to be about. The Adult sites were the worst for this. I remember a saying at the end of the Noughties that said ”There’s Porn for ‘Everything’ which was actually a confusion of ‘Type in anything you can think of and Google will find Porn site results for it.”
This was because these sites would literally be crammed packed with every keyword they could think of. So you could type in flying hedgehog porn and Google would find you results for it. Didnt mean it’d exist but it would bring the site to the results and many website owners would do this.
The Traffic Influx
Its been really interesting to watch how more and more people have come online. Especially since the Global Pandemic in 2020. With this, Googles Algorithm has been developing more and more. But I think it’s now eventually starting to move away from being gamed and more about genuine interest.
However, I do feel concern for the preservation of Truth within the content we are given. The machine will give us what we want but will it give us the truth, even if it deems it what we need? This concern over the manipulation of Truth is certainly an opportunity for commerce to work it’s influence.
So, It’s been quite a Journey over the past 20 years watching the wild west evolve into what it is today and is awe inspiring to speculate on the future.
Paid Advertising
It’s looking like Chat GPT are gonna start showing Placed Ads. But Chat GPT already advertises as much as Google Notebook LM. They just do it more subtly with casual and subtle referrals to the correct conversion funnels as opposed to outright open advertising with placed ads. Not sure why they actually cheapen their product with placed ads because they just clutter it up.
The method they have at the moment is far more discrete and user friendly (albeit ‘User manipulative’). I.e., a company pays Chat GPT an amount that buys so much direction to their brand or product within the answers given to users and the way the user is directed.
Not sure exactly how it would be gauged and billed, but I’m sure their analytics and analysists do, or could soon work out a way. Not only is it likely to be a much more effective way of advertising, it would also be far less clutter of ads for the user.
What is Truth?
However, this would compromise the whole idea of Chat GPT and turn it into some sort of ‘Ministry of Truth’ fact factory thats controlled by commerce. Much like Mainstream media is today with your Rupert Murdoch who is often accused of printing what the commercial giants with the money wants you to be told. Where they want the viewers directed to. . Or Elon Musk whose platform X (formerly twitter) only permits opinion when its the same as his. If not, you get cancelled.
Perhaps annoying Ads are a small price to pay for Truth. But then again, how truthful is it really? when you consider that it’s really just the likes of you and I who write ‘the Truth’. I guess the blogosphere is already controlled by commerce anyway. But It gives the ‘little guys’ a chance to make a living by creating content. Placed ads or direct funding to Chat GPT in return for promotion, using this Great Propaganda Tool(GPT)? With AI fast becoming a prominent feature in many peoples day to day lives, what is the Truth and who determines it? This may perhaps be the Big question we explore over the next Two decades of web evolution.
What’s your New Year Reflexions?
Anyway, It’s another year we have ahead of us. So I wish you all the very best for 2026. Who knows where we will be next year . It’s an amazing work revolution we live in Indeed. But before I go, I’d love to hear what you think . I’d love to read what you have to say about the past year and your predictions for 2026. Let me know in the comments below. I cant wait to read them.
Happy New Year Everyone, and all the very best for the coming Year!