gladiator - TJ's Blog

RCS Builder’s Log: How Many Cards Are Too Many?

RCS Builder’s Log: How Many Cards Are Too Many? The art of knowing when to stop A carousel can take a minimum of two cards…

RCS Builder’s Log: Could I Be Wrong About RCS?

Last week I pointed out Apple’s gaps—the flaws hidden inside a spectacularly successful product. But fairness demands that I bring the same scrutiny to my…

RCS Builder’s Log: The Podcast Platform

RCS media cards can carry full podcast episodes. I tested it by turning my Q2 earnings review into a seven-minute video podcast. One scan of…

RCS Builder’s Log: Android vs. iOS Carousels

Carousels are one of RCS’s most powerful formats. They let you stack cards, images, and actions in a single swipe. I tested the same carousel…

RCS Builder’s Log: Trading Cards on the Data You Reveal

This week’s log is about what your phone number reveals in an RCS chat. You can skip ahead and scan the QR code to try…

RCS Builder’s Log: Goodbye, 3 MB MMS Limits

Somewhere in my fire-damaged house is a dog-eared, scribbled, underlined, autographed copy of Friedhelm Hillebrand’s 2010 book, full of optimism about the then-nascent MMS format.…

Sift’s Digital Trust Index: AI, Fraud, and the Confidence Paradox

Sift’s Q2 2025 Digital Trust Index should disturb us. The bad guys are getting better at using genAI to scam us. We’re getting worse at…

RCS Builder’s Log: Cards, Carousels, and WebView

Notes, takeaways, and field tests from building and deploying RCS in the wild. Cards Don’t Need Carousels A standalone card can hold its own —…

Have we been SWOT-ing all Wrong?

Introduction If you've spent any time in a strategic planning exercise, you might hear SWOT thrown around like a verb, like a needed activity to…