EU: Meta’s “pay or consent” model may violate consumer protection laws
The European Commission is going after Meta and its “pay or consent” model on multiple fronts. Today, the government body said giving consumers only the options to either pay a €12.99 subscription fee...
Elon Musk wins no matter which presidential candidate does
No matter what happens with democracy and the upcoming presidential election , Elon Musk wins. That’s because despite all that the billionaire has done to drive users away, news still happens on his s...
LinkedIn wants to use games and AI to keep you on the site
Gamification LinkedIn, the Microsoft-owned platform where people go to network, look for new jobs, or post nonsense dressed as enterprise sales wisdom , has added mini games and artificial intelligenc...
Netflix scooped more Emmy nominations than any other network or streamer
You are still watching Netflix further cemented its place atop the streaming throne yesterday, adding more than 8 million net subscribers in Q2 — nearly twice as many as Wall Street had estimated. In ...
Netflix's ads tier is growing but it's not the savior the company hoped it was, yet
A year ago, said it was making more money from ads subscriptions than the more expensive ad-free options. During 2023’s Q2 earnings call, Chief Financial Officer Spence Neumann said , “Our overall ad...
Nearly half of new Netflix signups are for its ad tier
Netflix’s ad tier is making up a growing share of its new signups. In places where you can get the $6.99 ad service, it accounted for 45% of new signups in the second quarter , up from 40% in Q1. In M...
Meta slashes funding for the Metaverse
Facebook changed its name to Meta in 2021 to reflect its virtual reality ambitions in the so-called metaverse. Now it’s slashing funding for those ambitions. The social media company told its Reality ...
Social media is increasingly just social video
Streaming vs. Social media For some time, small screens and big screens have been competing for our attention , with many people admitting to “second screening” — when they find themselves flicking th...
Meta’s metaverse dreams are alive as it eyes a stake in EssilorLuxottica
Meta is in talks to buy a 5% stake in EssilorLuxottica , the trendy eyeware company behind Ray-Bans, with whom the social media company has partnered to make its Ray-Ban smart glasses, the Wall Street...
Elon Musk didn’t rid Twitter of bots. X is paying armies of them for slop.
Elon Musk said he was going to rid Twitter of bots, but he might actually be subsidizing them thanks to his “blue check” revenue share model. Last year, X rolled out an incentive scheme in which peopl...
Disney+ plans to email viewers who give up on their shows
In an effort to pump up their "hours per subscriber" metric, Disney is planning a slew of engagement farming ideas that could launch before the end of the year. According to the Wall Street Journal, t...
EU checks Elon Musk’s blue checks
The European Commission today charged Elon Musk’s X with being in violation of its Digital Services Act (DSA), in part for how it operates its Blue checkmark, or verified accounts. “Since anyone can s...
Temu is trying to become Amazon before Amazon becomes Temu
Last month, we learned that Amazon was trying to upstage competition by creating a Temu clone that would ship items directly from China — a play for customers willing to wait longer for cheaper goods....
X struggles to grow past 250 million users
The social media site formerly known as Twitter has nearly stopped growing since it was acquired by Elon Musk in October 2022. Its daily active user base of 251 million in Q2 rose just 1.6% compared t...
Noplace launches to top of charts, but can the social-media app sustain the hype?
New social-media app Noplace looks a lot like if Myspace was built for iPhones instead of early 2000s clamshell iBooks. The app launched Wednesday and briefly vaulted up the App Store charts. Noplace ...
Bill Ackman wants to monetize his X account to the tune of $25 billion
As someone with a self-diagnosed addiction to the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, one of my favorite qualities about the site is that it levels the playing field between all of its us...
YouTube TV lost paying subscribers in Q1
“YouTube TV” might sound like something of an oxymoron — with many turning to YouTube for short hits or highlights — but, since its launch in 2017, the premium service from YouTube had grown steadily ...
What Amazon’s Temu clone means for American and Chinese sellers
might not explicitly talk about competitors Temu and Shein , but it’s certainly thinking about them. To combat these low-cost Chinese competitors, Amazon is launching a discount section in which unbra...
One chart shows just how much Grindr is trouncing the competition
Grindr, the gay hookup app, is looking for longer-term love. And it’s finding it — from investors. While its peers Match Group and Bumble have had a mostly terrible ride on the stock market this year ...
The big streamers have been cutting their original content output
Seasons change If you’ve been mindlessly scrolling through streaming services and have been feeling even less enthused than usual, you may not be entirely to blame: almost all major US streamers have ...