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Google Wants To Be The Destination Over Your Website

July 27, 2026

by:

Joe Patti

Seth Godin asked Google’s AI service Gemini about how Google has undermined blog and creator generated content.

Godin gave the AI credit for being honest about its corporate masters. It reported that shutting down Google Reader in 2013 meant that blog content was no longer easily accessible, breaking down the relationship between creators and readers, and shifting people to algorithm driven social media.

Then in 2023-2024 algorithm updates saw independent publishers see organic search visibility plunge 40% to 90% overnight..

Finally Gemini noted that the inclusion of AI overviews in search results has seen independent publishers and tech sites lose up to 58% of their traffic since early 2024.

This latest phase is also impacting arts organizations as well. Because Google is scraping sites for content to provide answers, a lot of arts organizations have seen their visitation numbers drop precipitously because people don’t have a reason to visit.

Google actively scrapes blog data to answer questions directly on the results page. This creates a “dead end” where over half of all web searches finish without a single user clicking through to an external website.

[…]

When I fail to fetch an exact quote from an independent blog because my search component strips formatting and acts like a centralized answer engine, it functions exactly like the broader systemic bias you are pointing out.

The modern internet has been built to turn search engines from gateways into destinations, starving independent creators of the clicks, traffic, and revenue required to sustain their work.

Source

While Gemini was responding to Godin’s query about the impact on blogs and independent creators, its answer sheds light on the reason arts organization websites aren’t getting the traffic they once did. Google’s goal is to have the information they provide be where the visitor stops.

I performed a search asking what was happening at my theater and the response listed the next 6-8 chronological events. But there is no mention of tickets for our upcoming season going on sale soon which is something visitors would learn more about if they visited. I performed similar searches on peer organizations who had also recently announced seasons and there was no mention of their seasons being on sale in the results.

For some, there was no AI summary either which means people would have to click through to the website. I am wondering if it might be beneficial to design a website so that the content can’t be easily scraped and summarized. Though I also wonder if those sites might be demoted in future search results.

The searches I did specifically asked “What is happening at X,” where I mentioned the venue by name. But if I asked what is happening at theaters/performing arts centers in a city or region, those that can’t be easily scraped for data may not appear prominently in the results.

Arts in an Age of Technology

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If You Swap Slogans, Can’t Anyone Tell The Difference?

July 22, 2026

by:

Joe Patti

Seth Godin had a post about lazy slogans and headlines that feels pretty applicable to organizational mission statements, branding, and many marketing terms used by arts and cultural organizations.

If you can swap your slogan with a competitor’s without changing the meaning of either brand, then your slogan is meaningless.

For example, “You belong here” is not a positioning statement for a college seeking new students. It’s just noise.

It also doesn’t help to mix weasel words with more weasel words and then add specifics. On charity’s pitch: “Your contribution can help up to 35 people.”

“Up to” covers a lot of ground, doesn’t it?

Source

The bit about swapping slogans with a competitor and there being now meaningful change to the brand seems particularly applicable to mission statements. If they are so easily interchangeable between two organizations, then is there is a compelling reason for both to exist in the community?

The fact that a lot of organizations may not pay close attention to their missions may be the only saving grace in that what they do in practice may distinguish them quite a bit from the competing organization. If that is the case, there probably needs to be some introspection about aligning the guiding principles with practice.

Business Models, Marketing/PR

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It’s Hard To Try New Things When The Old Stuff Is Successful

July 21, 2026

by:

Joe Patti

Been kinda mulling this over for the last six weeks. There was a story in the LA Times in June that AMC Theaters was putting a new program they had created on hold due to strong summer box office numbers.

The new program involves streaming concerts into movie theaters.

Acts including Bebe Rexha, Paris Hilton, Kim Petras and Maren Morris were lined up to test out the new format next week, as a part of the Girls Night Live concert series.

….This tech would allow artists on a remote stage to see, hear and respond to the theater audience, in effect turning your local cinema into a stadium, the companies said. Fans who purchased tickets have received refunds.

The series was initially marketed as a new draw to get customers to the theaters, but given the strong box office numbers so far this year, it’s clear the demand for theaters is already growing.

Source

I have been debating if this was a good decision on their part. On one hand, you want to fill as much of your venue capacity as you can when the demand exists. Seeing movies in theaters is something people are already familiar and accustomed to vs. a live interactive concert experience that probably will need to be adjusted to better meet audience expectations.

My initial thought is that movie attendance is likely to ebb again and that it might have been smart to move forward with the concert series on a small scale to work out the bugs and get feedback so that it was more polished when there was a need to really promote it to fill theaters.

Now obviously I don’t know all the operational details of the plan. Part of my assumption is that the technology would connect theater audiences to a live concert happening in a large venue. If the concert was in a smaller, controlled environment where the performers were more directly focused on the theater audiences, running the concerts to a limited number of screens might not be economical.

The general basis of my internal debate is thinking about all the new programming ideas that popped up during the Covid shutdowns and how arts organizations largely shifted back to the more familiar programming approach they had been using in 2019. I am looking at AMC Theaters and seeing something of a parallel.

Part of me is hoping they are continuing to develop and think about their interactive concert idea along with anything else that might draw audiences when movies being released aren’t resonating with the public.

Arts Facilities, Arts in an Age of Technology, Audience Relations, Business Models

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Maybe It’s Your Org Chart

July 20, 2026

by:

Joe Patti

Caitlin Pontrella wrote an article about the ways in which non-profit org charts are hampering success.

One of the first topics she addresses is mismatch between job duties and titles. This can manifest in a multitude of ways from people having duties outside their title, people getting title promotions that don’t match duties, people having similar titles but vastly different work loads, and people having legacy titles that don’t match the current operating environment.

She had a number of suggestions such as separating reward from title if the person was deserving but there wasn’t a case to create a new position. She also advised being honest about career ceilings that exist within the organization and provide support for seeking paths elsewhere.

Among the other suggestions she made that I appreciated were:

Annually audit roles against strategy. If this role didnt exist today, would you create it? If the answer is no, or maybe, then it might be time to transition the position into something the business needs now.

Design growth paths that build depth, not breadth. When someone asks for growth, promote them into bigger responsibility within their domain, move them to a new function with clear boundaries, or invest in their development, … but only if the business needs it.

Source

Another issue she addresses is hiring decisions in terms of who is being hired and why they are being hired, including counter offers. She offers some good tips for analyzing need and making some data informed decisions in that direction.

The third big topic she addresses is organization charts and decisions about who is reporting to whom. She covers employees answering to too many masters as well as too many employees reporting to too few managers who are unable to support them. She includes related issues with staff taking a lot of initiative to pursue new directions, but with the result that supervisory lines are blurred.

Two of the six suggestions she made in this area that caught my eye:

Map the critical path first. Before you design structure, understand the processes that create value and revenue, and design around those workflows.

[…]

Fix the real problem before the org chart. Before you reorganize, ask whether you have a structure problem or an execution problem. If teams aren’t communicating, build better systems. If there’s no trust, address it directly. If accountability is unclear, clarify it through goals and decision rights. Save reorgs for when the work itself has changed.

Source

In some respects, I think she saved the best for last because a reorganization isn’t going to help much if the underlying issues aren’t addressed first.

Business Models, Leadership, Management Philosophy

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