Why I founded Machine Learning Times?

Why I founded Machine Learning Times?

A very mediocre Manifesto post

Thursday, August 18th, 2022. 

Hey Guys, 

So here's the thing, a lot of you have or will unsubscribe from my coverage of the future and A.I. 

Listen, I get it. A Newsletter is supposed to be that thing you get once or twice a week and enjoy for 20 to 180 seconds, to some degree. 

But! That's not how my brain works, I am obsessed with covering breaking news around machine learning and AI, on a more prolific and frequent basis. My solution? I'm building a suite of Newsletters around the web. 

My LinkedIn AI Report, has over 208,000 subscribers, my Substack AI, machine learning and Tech news coverage is growing steadily. 

So in yet another experiment, here I present to you the launch of Machine Learning Times, if this is not right for you, feel free to unsubscribe. (no hard feelings, it's not for everyone!)

At the risks of bombarding my audience with too much content, I'm hoping more Newsletters will lower the frequency and annoy less people! Yes, you heard me right. 

With a passion for my niche and a plummeting open-rate, who am I to pretend I'm audience driven? I'm selfishly covering this stuff because I'm just that MUCH into it. I'm going to have opinions you won't agree with. I may trash monopoly tech at times. I may get angry about A.I. ethics! 

As an accountability indie tech journalist, I am anti-monopoly. This means I won't always be praising Meta, Microsoft, Google and Amazon! Get used to it. This is not just PR, this is just my own opinion and my coverage of breaking news as it relates to A.I., society and technology. 

No news coverage is unbiased or without an ideological slant. The Guardian, The Verge, Axios - it's really not just news - it's news that appeals to a particular way of looking at the world. I won't always agree with the perspective of the NYT and you won't always agree with my random subjective statements. 

That being said in addition to my LinkedIn and Substack activities, this Email is being sent to you from beehiive, yet another Newsletter platform. I have no idea if it's good or how long I'll be using it, or for that matter, how often this Newsletter will go out! 

But knowing me, it could be weekly or more often. Just trying to slow down my semi-on the spectrum brain about all this stuff I'm passionate about. 

What can you Expect?

• Articles related to Machine Learning, A.I. and related topics.

• Future of AI focused

• Not technical, more on the breaking news sides of things

• Curated material, some Op-Eds, some in-between

• Profiling A.I. Startups

• Not just another "This week in AI"

• Short bites and sometimes longer articles

Who is my target Audience?

• I'm not monetizing subscriptions very well, I'm barely paying the rent. So this Newsletter will also focus on A.I. startups, B2B AI, Cloud folk, developers and some weird sweet spot between SaaS / A.I. and innovation.

• A.I. hard-core Enthusiasts.

• People that want curation around Machine learning News that saves them time (not listicles of articles though).

• CEOs, Founders, Executives, VP of Sales and Product in A.I. types. (A man has got to eat).

• AI Startup folk and innovation culture around developers, engineers, quantum computing, AI and low-code enthusiasts.

This is literally my Visa application photo, so serious! 

Who am I?

I am a freelance writer, content consultant and LinkedIn strategist for brands, personal brands, startups and executives.

During the pandemic I got more into Newsletter building. I'm not an Engineer, or someone that works in the field. I'm more like a curator, writer, activist or indie tech writer - definately not a journalist, but interested in the future of media, advocacy, accountility and a kind of independent coverage analyst. 

Most of the time I just call myself a "futurist in residence". For the most part people think people who call themselves "futurists" aren't credible. I'm in my early 40s, and I've always believed in creating our own job (if that were indeed possible). I'm self-employed to that degree, and so many "writers" who have some internal intrinsic motivation compass. 

I'm not a serious solo-entrepreneur though, I'm mostly just like to tinker and write. I come from a pretty humble background. So all to say, the "Futurist" title - mostly:  

This just signals my category interest.

Functionally, in my experiments, I have hit my max publications on Substack, of course they refused to give me additional spots. Because, who does that? They told me at the beginning, just focus on one Newsletter. Sorry to say I didn't take their advice. 

• 5 Newsletters on LinkedIn

• 10 Newsletters on Substack

• More Newsletters to come?

I'm not personable or authentic, I'm not here to win you over with community. My threads, podcasts, discords, have fallen totally flat. When I do share personal things, it's likely to come out a bit awkward. The last time I did so I literally lost paid subscribers. This hurt my feelings. 

My personal brand is thus, a bit muted. I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder, I'm a bit defiant. What's the right word, eclectic? But who cares? What you need to know is that I'm: 

I'm topic driven. I've been called a content machine. I applied to win a couple of LinkedIn Top Voices (2016, 2017). They put me in the lists for Marketing. But I'm certainly not an influencer and my topics certainly aren't micro-niches for the most part. 

Tl;dr 

I'm into the category of A.I. and all things related to the future of technology. 

Anyways enough about me. 

• Twitter

• LinkedIn

• Substack (bookmark my feed)

• Facebook 

If you are feeling conversational though, do hit reply to this Email and tell me what kind of content you most want me to cover?

• Hit REPLY to briefly:

• Tell me how often you'd like me to post?

• Tell me how many words you'd like me to write per Newsletter?

• Short or Long?

• Curated or ranting Op-Eds?

• Give me tips or tell me about where you are coming from?

• Or just send me your LinkedIn! I will definitely check it out.

It's your Time - I am just trying to be of Service & Sharing 

So here we go, it's time for you to come to a decision. You can Unsubscribe if Machine Learning is really not your thing! Machine Learning Times?  What the heck is that? If you are curious, stay tuned. 

If you just hate Email maybe you want to just come to my webpage here and check it out, web viewers are welcome. I am creating "tags" to help you find your away around. I'm not an Email marketer, I'm just a blogger that still tries to blog.

The main reason is I'm hoping the tags can give me focus and also enable you to find my work via tags and categories that make sense. On Substack, I'm lumped in this huge list of "Technology" Newsletters. I'm basically buried beneath a host of Newsletters who have just been writing there for longer. This pissed me off. 

If I had the time I'd format my Newsletter properly with emoji (plural), personal sharing and snippets for mobile readers, but then I wouldn't be able to cover all the things I want to in any given week!

So in my brief and transient life, I'm literally choosing quantity over quality because that's what turns my own brain on. That might insult your intelligence, and if it does, I do apologize. 

You will find spelling and grammatical mistakes! You can tolerate this or unsubscribe if you find this deeply offensive. Full disclosure, people actually unsubscribe on a regular basis for this reason. But listen, this is is my situation: 

I don't have a designer, editor, producer or even much more than a laptop. Machine Learning Times is just another stop on the internet to the metaverse for me. You might be disappointed with the quality of this Newsletter, or you might be surprised, but mostly you are likely unlikely to notice at all. 

Since I post high frequency my open-rates have been plummeting. On many days I'm writing 5 articles a day, the challenge is for me where does all of this go? Let's say you appreciate my OCD approach to breaking news: (perhaps that is my micro-niche after all):

You can however add michaelkspencer2025@gmail as an Email contact, if you don't want this to end up in your promotions or spam folders. Should you want to befriend the topic of A.I.?  

I'm not a beloved of algos, feeds or have a personal brand that has been optimized for clicks. I'm just me. Sorry for the rant! Thanks for reading it until the end. 

P.S. The people formerly at Moring Brew who made beehiive inform me that my list has a max of 5,000 free subscribers on this site, therefore if I ever were to reach that amount, I'd "prune" my list and auto-manage the ones that don't actually open the Email to make way for new interested folk. 

I will try to stick to a posting time of 2pm Eastern Time. 

That's all for today, I hope you have a good weekend guys!