Ethan Lazuk

SEO & marketing professional.

Hamsterdam Weekly SEO & AI News Recaps

Last updated:

New recaps every Friday! 🐹

Hamsterdam set up inside the white flags scene from The Wire.
Image credit: The Wire
Read latest recap (2/13)

About Hamsterdam, a place for the latest SEO and AI updates

If you love SEO or AI news and knowledge, step inside the white flags of Hamsterdam!

Hamsterdam is a weekly recap for all things related to marketing, SEO, and AI news, tips, resources, tools, and opinions, plus related content on topics like information retrieval, general business, or social sciences that may interest my fellow marketing professionals or clients.

With so many insightful articles and resources shared about SEO and marketing every week, it can be hard to keep track of everything, let alone remember it or find it later for reference.

That’s the benefit of Hamsterdam!

Just scroll through each week’s recap, which includes content taken from my Google Discover feed, among other places, absorb what you like, or save it for later, and carry on.

Plus, the information is shared with summaries taken directly from the sources who contribute it, so you always get the right context.

Latest weekly recaps:

If you’re new to Hamsterdam and want to learn more about the origins of the project, keep reading for an introduction and history.

When you walk through the garden …

There are no agendas in Hamsterdam. Like ethanlazuk.com on the whole, no content is monetized, incentivized, or filtered. It all comes organically from the information I find interesting in my feeds each week on Google Discover, as well as from other sources.

I used to include information largely from social media platforms, namely X (Twitter) and LinkedIn, but I’ve since left that life behind for greener pastures. Come ride with me!

That said, I’m constantly discovering more voices to follow for marketing and AI information, so please don’t think this is everyone!

I’ll also never share anything I consider as misinformation, dishonest, or ill-intentioned. 😉

Thanks to the marketing and AI communities for sharing their knowledge every week. If you like a person’s content, please support them with a share or friendly comment.

As for the origins of the name and concept, enjoy this soundtrack as we delve into the history of Hamsterdam:

A history of Hamsterdam

The first news recap in what is today Hamsterdam came out the week of April 9th, 2023.

Here’s the tweet that sparked the idea:

We officially hit our 1-year anniversary with Hamsterdam Part 53. However, I’ve deleted all past versions because they were SEO-focused. Today, I’m someone who thinks SEO is dead. I call myself a holistic marketer instead.

In the beginning, Hamsterdam was called, “The Twitter Files.” The name was in the news at the time, but it was actually a reference to X-Files, a show that was the theme for the early recaps.

The Twitter Files SEO recap images on Google Image Search.

Growing up, my family were fans of X-Files. We’re talking the series, movies, action figures, posters, you name it! It looks like X-Files might reboot soon as well. 😉

So calling the recaps “The Twitter Files” and making them X-Files-themed was a tribute to my nostalgia.

Then after 15 weeks of recaps, Twitter rebranded to X, and so I renamed “The Twitter Files” as “The X Files.” It almost seemed like fate!

But as fate would have it, I also started embracing more sources of SEO news and insights beyond X. That was the purpose for changing “The X Files” to “Hamsterdam,” which was broader in scope.

Now, I’m revising that strategy yet again, focusing largely on my Google Discover feed and more general marketing and AI content.

But where does the name “Hamsterdam” come from?

While X-Files (and sci-fi content) were family favorites in my childhood home, I personally grew to love realism. In college, I studied cultural anthropology (with an emphasis on the Islamic world) and American government, and I later worked in the nonprofit sector before doing digital marketing. I prefer content that portrays different realistic perspectives on our society.

Among my favorite TV writers is David Simon, who created, The Wire. I’m not exaggerating when I say I’ve watched thousands of hours of The Wire. My X profile bio even claims, “The Wire aficionado.” (But David has also made other great content, like Treme about New Orleans, which is masterful.)

Hamsterdam is from season 3 of The Wire, where the character Major Colvin creates free zones for sanctioned street activity as a way to move it from the corners, where it interfered with everyday citizens’ lives. This was all unofficial. The free zones were explained by an officer as being, “like Amsterdam.” Some young people didn’t get the reference and started calling it “Hamsterdam.” The name stuck.

Major Colvin Hamsterdam GIF from The Wire.

Hamsterdam later became a place welcome to all, designed to help all.

The name itself is also a bit tongue in cheek — while “Hamsterdam” is a joke of sorts, the community itself was meant for accomplishing serious work.

That’s the idea here, as well.

Learning marketing today and staying updated on industry news should be fun, but it’s also a serious matter. Outdated sources or misinformation about marketing or AI can be found everywhere, especially given our current era with generative AI.

Finding reliable sources has never been more important, and showcasing those voices is our goal with Hamsterdam. I use my 10+ years of experience working in marketing to provide sources that I find trustworthy and accurate.

Stay tuned for the new Hamsterdam, published every Saturday.

View all past versions of Hamsterdam.

GDPR Cookie Consent with Real Cookie Banner