Topic3 articles9 research documents2 open problems
Attention & feeds
Writing
3Paying to reach curious readers in 2026: ChatGPT ads, feed ads, paid newsletter recommendations, and the labelling rulesChatGPT now sells self-serve ads, but they cost about 3–8× more per impression than feed ads and are hard to measure, so the cheapest curious readers are still on Meta and Reddit. An ad can be the whole useful answer and still carry its label: the rules draw the line at fake people and hidden sponsors, not at ads that are worth reading.Article11 Oct66 quotes · 1 source · 11 minHow YouTube, Instagram and TikTok rank video in 2026: satisfaction signals, AI content understanding, and penalties for repostingRecommendation feeds have stopped scoring behaviour alone. A language model now watches the content and judges it — better than the crowd-sourced raters it replaced — while reposting is penalised in the ranking itself. Much of what creators are taught describes the system of a decade ago.Article10 Oct43 quotes · 1 source · 8 minWhy people keep scrolling: habit, infinite feeds, and the evidence against the dopamine explanationThe best evidence says people keep scrolling because of habit and a feed that never ends — not because of a dopamine jackpot. And engagement-ranked feeds keep showing people what they say they do not want.Article9 Oct38 quotes · 1 source · 8 min
Open problems
2Does a daily digest beat an endless feed?No peer-reviewed study I found directly tests a daily digest.Open problem9 OctThe infinite-scroll trial nobody ranNo randomised trial compares infinite scroll with pagination on time spent or wellbeing. One review of the evidence says it looked and found none.Open problem3 Oct
Research
9Frontier Scan: The Agent Is Now the Audience, and Right Now It Reads Merchant Feeds, Not CreatorsFrontier #1 (agents) matters most, and it changes the pass-six plan. Profound's tracking found feed-sourced ChatGPT picks jumping from 8.26% to 61.54% on 10 July 2026. OpenAI retired in-chat Instant Checkout in March 2026.…Research27 Sep40 figures · 100 sourcesProject Ancaster: What Influencer Advertising Systems Teach an Indie Ad Network — Strategy Memo (September 2026)Ancaster's best move into the creator economy is not a new influencer marketplace.Build briefSep58 figures · 10 sourcesWhat Makes an Attribution Paradigm Shift — and Whether One Is Available to Ancaster in 2026No shift on the scale of CPM→CPC→CPA is available for Ancaster to cause today.ResearchSep15 figures · 9 sourcesA Public "Accept-the-Offer" Work Platform: Does It Exist, and Is It Crazy?Pieces of it already run at scale around the world, from India's rural job guarantee to a fully evaluated universal job guarantee in Austria.ResearchSep23 figures · 8 sourcesAncaster Interstitial Standard v1: Interactive Pages, Partner-Powered Components, and Feed-Native OffersElevenLabs voice), placed between the creator's endorsement and one dominant disclosed affiliate CTA.ResearchSep51 figures · 183 sourcesAncaster Pass 12: The Functional Toolset and the Integration MapIt should hand everything else to the platforms creators already use, through five native integrations (Stripe, Kit, beehiiv, Ghost, YouTube) plus a webhooks/Zapier/MCP layer.Research passSep23 figures · 172 sourcesThe Publisher Funnel: Turning a Creator's Affiliate Links into Creator-Owned Funnels — Eighth Research Pass for AncasterA publisher-owned funnel is worth building, but not for the reason the affiliate gurus give.Research passSep54 figures · 119 sourcesAncaster Pass 11: The Indie SaaS Advertiser Side — Buyer Reality, Tools, Pricing and the CascadeIndie founders will not pay Ancaster to track affiliates, because tracking is already a $19–$49/month commodity and free inside several merchant-of-record platforms.Research passSep86 figures · 192 sourcesThe State of Algorithmic Quality, AI Content Assessment, and Discovery Alternatives (June 2026)AI content-understanding models (including Gemini and multimodal models) are running inside production recommendation systems, not just moderation or search.ResearchJun16 figures · 3 sources
Questions it raises
1Key figures
72Influencer marketing reached $32.55B in 2025 (Influencer Marketing Hub).Project Ancaster: What Influencer Advertising Systems Teach an Indie Ad Network — Strategy Memo (September 2026)$32.55BInfluencer Marketing Hub puts influencer marketing at $32.55B in 2025.Project Ancaster: What Influencer Advertising Systems Teach an Indie Ad Network — Strategy Memo (September 2026)$32.55BInfluencer Marketing Hub's 2026 Benchmark: 87.49% of brands expect influencer budgets to increase.Project Ancaster: What Influencer Advertising Systems Teach an Indie Ad Network — Strategy Memo (September 2026)87.49%Aspire's 2026 report: 74% of marketers plan to increase budgets.Project Ancaster: What Influencer Advertising Systems Teach an Indie Ad Network — Strategy Memo (September 2026)74%Aspire reports that 86% of creators will still work for free product, a reminder that gifting is still how much of the long tail gets activated.Project Ancaster: What Influencer Advertising Systems Teach an Indie Ad Network — Strategy Memo (September 2026)86%Sacra estimates Linktree's 2023 revenue at $37M.Project Ancaster: What Influencer Advertising Systems Teach an Indie Ad Network — Strategy Memo (September 2026)$37MKoji had raised roughly $36–40M, served a reported 700,000 creators, and offered a "Billboard" mini-app for selling ad slots on a creator's landing page.Project Ancaster: What Influencer Advertising Systems Teach an Indie Ad Network — Strategy Memo (September 2026)$36–40MIt charges low fees on demand the creator brings (5%) and high fees on demand Passionfroot supplies (15%).Project Ancaster: What Influencer Advertising Systems Teach an Indie Ad Network — Strategy Memo (September 2026)5%
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