Brooks Thomas
19.4K posts
Brooks Thomas
@brooksethomas
Bourbon hawker, boot-slanger, long-time domestically-international aviator, very brief wave-catching telecommunicator, newsmaker, and casual food purveyor.
Dallas, TX Joined Temmuz 2008
695 Following2.1K Followers
We hit a full house on the river card. Second baby boy to join our three girls. His name is Louis, and my name is NOT Philip Rivers
English
@herrmanndigital I thought Bruno Mars was noteworthy.
But Prince’s performance was absolutely the 🐐.
English
Prince had the best half time show ever.
It’s not even close.
English
Wirecutter's "the best pick for most people" shows exactly what they think of you: that you're tasteless, you don't want to do anything seriously, an amorphous halfway house of function, form and value
I started making category review videos because I don't want recommendations for miniature east coast journalist apartments written by people passionate about nothing strongly enough that they would choose to pursue it over writing bland little write-ups on why I should choose a mid tv
cockroach protein website
Randy Olson@randal_olson
I was shopping for a new microphone this morning and had a moment: I didn't even look at Amazon reviews. I went straight to Wirecutter's recommendation. That's wild when I think about it. The entire 2010s was built on this promise of democratized information. Crowdsourced reviews. Wisdom of the crowds. Data-driven everything. We were supposed to route around traditional gatekeepers and let the people decide. Turns out all of it is gamed now. Amazon reviews are mostly bot farms and incentivized 5-stars. The FTC just sent warning letters to 10 companies in December about fake reviews. Bot traffic crossed 51% of all web traffic in 2024 and hasn't looked back. It's only getting worse with AI-generated content and AI agents everywhere. So I'm back to expert curation. Wirecutter. Consumer Reports. Specialist forums where real humans who actually know stuff talk to each other. The exact model we thought we were disrupting. The irony: the democratized system became easier to manipulate than the old gatekeepers ever were.
English
@herrmanndigital @drsnow @mykomarci They definitely did. And FBT fortification—assuming they run logistics as well as Amazon—might eventually give them a leg up since the content experience is a wildly different animal than on Amazon as a more sterile marketplace.
English
@drsnow @mykomarci That’s my point. Ads manager has really fallen off. Seems like they realized the juice was worth more on Shops.
English
TikTok essentially gave up a solid ad platform in favor of TikTok Shop affiliate and GMV.
I'm really curious if the trade-off makes more money in the long run.
English
@Evan_P_Grant Angry Dog might deserve to unseat Wingfield’s. Both are a delight.
English
Me and my big mouth: I'm a part-time food journalist now. Join me on the hunt for DFW's best burgers. Here are my five faves from the last 30 years:
dallasnews.com/food/restauran…
English
Too many drops.
Too much failed running on 3rd and short.
Too much much going for it on 4th instead of taking the points.
BUT.
This was the most enjoyable Bears football season of my adult life, and only 2006 is close.
Bear down. I wish it were different; can’t wait for camp.
English
English
@FirstLadyOffice @FLOTUS thank you melania, a lot to think about
English
"Today, I urge you to take action: use AI to unlock new parts of your imagination. Lead with your ideas, stay sharp, but remember - never surrender your thinking to AI." @FLOTUS
English
Went to Las Palmas last night and just to to Katy Trail Ice House.
Both were awesome.
Where for dinner tonight?!?!? DALLAS LMK!
Jack Mac@JackMac
I’m going to Dallas for the first time today. Probably only have time for two dinners. Where should I try to eat?! Late tonight and tomorrow. This is my first time in Texas in my life (I know, pathetic. I’m a Yankee. But STILL A PATRIOT!) THANK YOU!
English
@herrmanndigital So sorry, David. Praying for you and your family.
English
If you're the praying type, we had to take my son to the ER last night for difficulty breathing. He was admitted and now has to spend a second night here. Not sure when they'll discharge...
Pray for him, he's very scared of the hospital and all the "beeps" he hears and pray for my wife who is staying with him while I manage my daughter at home.
English
@brock_mammoser How often you guys going live, Brock? Hearing this is going to be a requirement for brands by the end of next year to stay in front of people.
English
Just passed $2M on Tik Tok Shop for November
Thinking we will get close to $3M
#1 in Kitchen 🙂
English
@RotoPat @stereogum My only feedback—and I do mean *only*, because this is otherwise stellar—is Cortez the Killer from Live Rust versus Zuma.
English
Inspired by @stereogum's recent 80 for Neil Young's 80th birthday suite, I had to make a playlist of my own "core Neil." Classic artist where there are no true "deep cuts" to the obsessive, but I tried to balance deep with famous open.spotify.com/playlist/3yJsw…
English
@herrmanndigital McFlurry machine levels of unreliability.
English
This auto on from Meta is diabolical too.
Had a client text me last night asking why I had a 100% promo code in my ad copy. I was lost. Apparently this feature randomly got turned on.
The company had a few 100% off codes that were created for gifting only, but Meta being an utter mess these days decided to run those in our ads.
Everything turned out ok, but man... just another thing where Meta's AI optimizations are impacting brands during the most stressful season of the year.
English
@MadsPosting Dude was tired of it and needed an out. Forever skeptical of such a public “trip.”
English
@herrmanndigital @jacob_posel This 100% needs to be in a closed beta or ad credit opt-in and not firing at will and likely for bigger spending brands in order to gain the learning data they need.
English
@jacob_posel I assume they’ll figure it out eventually but should be having brands be in a ad credit scenario while they test.
English
What if … what if.. hear me out for a second … this is exactly the ad TC needs to run
English
@BryanECano @herrmanndigital Thought it was Barbara Bush at first.
This is so insane.
English
Meta's AI is actually steering me away from and hating all things AI. Simply put, Meta has destroyed my confidence in AI.
Meanwhile tools like ChatGPT / Gemini and what tools like Motion and others are using them for are making me bullish.
It's a weird middle ground I have.
English
@SanjayAtPlay Haha I said DOG AS IN “BRO,” “DUDE,” OR “MAN.”
They aren’t dog snacks!
(This is amazing.)
English
@brooksethomas i couldn't get the URL cloner to work so i took a screenshot of the entire gruns page and yolo'd it
lmk what you think (links probably aren't set up)
…jay-x-pumps-livestream.reploshops.com/pumps-dog-snac…
English
I'm going live tomorrow morning to build pages for any brand that wants one using the new Replo AI builder.
If you want to see me build a page, comment your brand and/or your offer here.
If you like helping other business owners, repost this.
English