Software engineering with LLMs, AI browser wars and attention economy marketing
Explore with us top updates in front‑end & AI dev, AI‑agent infrastructure, SEO & marketing insights.
This week’s dev batch packs a punch with insightful updates from the front‑end and AI worlds — from Vercel’s latest launch and declarative view transitions to React optimizations, Cloudflare edge tools, and ethical reflections on bots and coding vibes.
The video on software engineering with LLMs in 2025 is a must (in fact, all videos are great to watch!).
As for AI in the news… the acceleration of AI agents leads the way — from browser wars and secure deployment strategies to real-world build stories and economic implications of LLMs. These should help you blend strategic thinking with practical lessons across emerging AI infrastructure, automation, and agent-led innovation.
Marketing batch dives into the evolving landscape of SEO, AI‑driven search, and content strategy—covering everything from Google's zero-click shift, AI-overview impact studies, and advanced link-building stats to monetization tactics, brand-building post-AI, and optimized distribution channels.
Happy reading.
Two and a half years into its existence on Substack, SWIPE has grown to 26k subscribers and continues to expand, with an average newsletter open rate of 35%.
PLEASE🙏 should you find emails from SWIPE unwanted or annoying, unsubscribe. If you're interested in learning how and when you might end up in SWIPE and what you can expect in the future, check it out here.
⚙️Dev stuff
Bot or Not – Explores the ethics and implications of bots in social and online systems.
Vercel Ship 2025 Recap – Highlights the most significant announcements from Vercel Ship 2025, including AI-powered workflows, updates to the Next.js ecosystem, and DX upgrades.
Next.js + Vercel = ❤️ – A personal reflection on why the author believes Vercel is the best way to deploy Next.js apps. A smooth read with practical deployment tips.
🤘10 Best e-commerce Platforms - Guide for developers and business owners. Be sure to check their in-depth comparison pages as well.
Connect Any React App to an MCP Server in 3 Lines – Learn how to supercharge React apps using Cloudflare’s new MCP capabilities with just three lines of code.
View Transitions for Page Navigation – A deep dive into the Web Platform’s new view-transition API and how to build buttery-smooth SPA-like transitions with vanilla JavaScript.
Understanding React Re-renders – A concise breakdown of how and when React components re-render, and how to debug them properly.
Develop with AI – Showcases Angular’s vision for integrating AI directly into your development workflow, including code assistance and project scaffolding.
🥷(ninja quality) The Illusion of Vibe Coding – A sharp critique of aesthetic-driven programming, where vibes sometimes override quality and intent.
Cloudflare Containers Public Beta – Cloudflare unveils programmable containers available globally – a significant move toward serverless compute on the edge.
Tailwind Is the Worst Form of CSS (Except for All the Others) – A humorous yet practical defense of Tailwind CSS from a developer who has tried everything else.
Web Platform Updates – June 2025 – A roundup of the most important new features and standards rolling out across major browsers and web APIs.
Updates from TC39 – What’s new and brewing in the world of JavaScript standards, direct from the TC39 committee meetings.
You’re Overthinking Web Components – Encourages developers to approach Web Components with simplicity and pragmatism.
Caching Is an Abstraction, Not an Optimization – A nuanced look at the purpose of caching and how it should be treated in modern systems design.
👀MCP Server Support in Next.js – Adds first-class support for MCP Server in Clerk-powered Next.js apps. Dev-friendly and highly scalable.
Infinite Queries in React Query – A technical guide on handling infinite loading patterns using React Query’s useInfiniteQuery.
React History Through Code – A timeline-style article walking through React’s evolution with side-by-side code examples and insights into architectural shifts.
🤖AI / ChatGPT stuff
AI Browser Wars – A sharp analysis of the emerging battles between AI-powered browsers, exploring how product vision and architecture are shaping this space.
Securing AI Agents – A practical guide to authentication, data integrity, and sandboxing in agent-based architectures.
Learnings from Building AI Agents – Real-world lessons from designing and launching autonomous AI agents for web automation and productivity.
Why People Bail on Mobile Forms – Research-backed insights on why users abandon mobile forms, with UX tips for boosting completion rates.
The Unsustainable Economics of LLMs – A sobering look at the financial and energy costs of scaling LLMs in production.
Substack publication:
I Shipped a macOS App Built Entirely by Claude – A developer's story about outsourcing an entire macOS app to Anthropic’s Claude, from concept to App Store submission.
🥷(ninja quality) Inside the Browser Company: Why They Killed Arc to Build Dia – A behind-the-scenes conversation about why The Browser Company pivoted from Arc to their new browser, Dia.
Introducing Pay-Per-Crawl – A new Cloudflare initiative aimed at charging bots and crawlers for accessing content, reshaping the economics of scraping.
ChatGPT Leak: Web Search Enabled – Investigative piece on a potential leak revealing OpenAI’s web search capabilities being quietly tested in ChatGPT.
Is AI Just Software? – A philosophical take by Brad Feld on the nature of AI and whether we’re over-mystifying it as something more than complex software.
👀Mastering ChatGPT: Advanced Techniques– A practical guide to advanced ChatGPT prompting for power users, marketers, and engineers.
What People Are “Vibe Coding” (and Actually Shipping) – A trendspotting roundup of side projects and prototypes that started as “vibes” and ended up in production.
Substack publication: by
AI in Practice – A roundup of AI product strategy, monetization models, and real-world implementation across Google, Cloudflare, and others.
Tech Philosophy and the AI Opportunity – Ben Thompson explores the more profound philosophical implications of AI as an enabling layer, not just an industry.
🥷(ninja quality) LLM as a CLI – A clever exploration of treating LLMs like command-line interfaces, radically simplifying how we interact with complex systems.
Seeing Like an LLM – A mind-bending essay on the cognitive worldview of language models and what they reveal about human reasoning.
Substack publication:
📊Marketing stuff
Liz Reid on Google Ads, SEO & AI Search – A recap of Google’s Liz Reid explaining how AI Overviews will impact organic SEO and ad visibility.
Link Building Statistics – A detailed data-driven report with 50+ link-building stats covering strategies, ROI, and current industry benchmarks.
👀Startup Guide – A comprehensive and beautifully designed step-by-step startup playbook for founders, covering idea validation to scaling.
The Attention Economy – How marketers are navigating shrinking attention spans and content overload in social media environments.
Cannes Lions 2025: Key Trends – Creative trends and campaign themes that dominated Cannes Lions 2025, from AI storytelling to brand activism.
YouTube Analytics: Data Digging 10x Faster – A deep dive into advanced YouTube analytics tools and techniques that uncover insights with greater speed and clarity.
🥷(ninja quality) The Ethics of Content Creation – Tackles questions around AI-generated content, plagiarism, and ethical publishing in digital marketing.
How to Make Money on Instagram – A monetization guide for creators and influencers looking to turn Instagram into a revenue stream.
Zero-Click Search Growth – Covers a Similarweb report highlighting the rise in zero-click search behavior and its implications for SEO strategies.
AI Search SEO Traffic Study – An in-depth analysis of how AI-powered search affects traffic volumes and visibility in the SERPs.
Content Distribution: 7 Use Cases – Tactical breakdown of 7 high-impact content distribution strategies.
Substack publication:
Explaining the Great Decoupling to C-Level – A primer for non-technical leaders on what AI and automation are doing to decouple content from traditional SEO structures.
Build a Brand with SEO Post-AI – How to evolve SEO strategy toward brand-building in an AI-first world.
Substack publication:
Branded Web Mentions and AI Visibility – Examines how branded mentions (not just backlinks) help drive visibility in AI-generated summaries.
What Is Social Media Intelligence? – Defines and demystifies social media intelligence, including tools and KPIs for extracting real-time consumer insights.
Conjecture: Performance Marketing – A personal theory on how performance marketing has changed, and where it’s failing marketers in the AI era.
Brand Refresh vs. Rebrand – Helps brands decide whether to tweak or completely reinvent their identity with case studies and strategic guidance.
👀How to Leverage AI in Marketing – Covers actionable ways AI can automate segmentation, targeting, and campaign personalization.
Search Everywhere Optimization – Introduces the concept of SEO beyond Google, encompassing app stores, AI engines, social platforms, and voice search.
How to Rank in AI Overviews – Tactical tips for optimizing your content to be picked up and featured in AI-generated answers and summaries.
🛠TOOL you should check out: Test the Spammyness of your Emails with mail-tester.
🎸LISTEN TO: Slomosa - live at Hellfest 2025 - ARTE Concert
Happy reading /bookmarking!
If you enjoyed these, please SUBSCRIBE, recommend 👏 and share to help others find us! Let us know what you think in the comments section below.
🐦Follow SWIPE on TWITTER