Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

When Katie Hammel arrived at her company’s offsite in Cabo San Lucas, she expected the usual formula: long meetings, awkward icebreakers, and a packed agenda that left little room to breathe. What she experienced instead was something different—a thoughtfully curated, empowering, and inclusive retreat. “There was a little wrap-up at the end of each day,” says Hammel, director of content at travel rewards booking platform Point.me. “At first I thought it was going to be kind of corny, and I actually ended up really loving it. Hearing what surprised people, what they learned—it just really crystallized the day.” Hammel, who’s attended nine retreats while working at …

Given all the recent bad news on the world stage, from tariffs wars to the war in Ukraine, it is no wonder Swedes are tuning in, for a moment of zen, to watch a livestream of “The Great Moose Migration” (loosely translated from the Swedish, “Den stora älgvandringen“). The 24-hour event, which runs for 20 days straight, kicked off on Tuesday. It has been providing soothing entertainment for millions of Swedes each year, around this time, since it first aired in 2019. That first year, nearly one million Swedes tuned in to literally watch moose walk through forests and swim across the Ångerman River, all captured by remote cameras and drones, per the Associated Press. By…

Everyone has their individual bad memories of the pandemic, but one collective nightmare of the early days of that miserable period is the struggle to find toilet paper at the local store. Now, tariffs are bringing concerns about a toilet paper shortage back to the forefront. Suzano SA is the world’s largest exporter of pulp, the raw material for products like toilet paper. And the company tells Bloomberg it has seen shipments decline from Brazil to the U.S. due to tariffs and worries the shipping disruptions could get worse. It is, to be clear, much too early to know what the impact of pulp shipping disruptions will be. The company said shipments were down 20% in…

Instagram has begun testing AI-powered technology designed to proactively identify accounts it suspects belong to teens—even if the user has listed an adult birthdate—and place them under special “Teen Account” settings. This move is part of Meta’s broader effort to strengthen parental controls following criticism over the impact its platforms have on young users. “The digital world continues to evolve and we have to evolve with it,” Instagram said in a press release. “That’s why it’s important that we work together with parents to make sure as many teens as possible have the protective settings that come with Teen Account.” Instagram will also begin sending n…

When Paige DeSorbo was applying to colleges, her mom suggested broadcast journalism school. “You would be a great news anchor,” she said. DeSorbo agreed; she always loved reading off a teleprompter and ended up attending journalism school in upstate New York. Today, the Bravo reality TV star, 32, isn’t exactly reading off a teleprompter, but she is constantly addressing the public. DeSorbo and her best friend and former Summer House castmate Hannah Berner parlayed their weekly Instagram Live musings into a podcast, Giggly Squad, in 2020. There, they bring comedic takes to everything from tariffs (chamoy pickles should have an extra tariff, they decided recently) to t…

You don’t wait for the sidewalk. You don’t check an app to see if it’s working. You don’t wonder if it’s meant for someone else. Sidewalks are just there—always available, always on. And when they’re well designed, you barely notice them. They quietly support everything: commerce, mobility, safety, health, and freedom of movement. Sidewalks don’t require instructions. They’re intuitive. Step on, move forward. That’s the framing we need for local bus service. A well-run bus system is an express sidewalk—a piece of infrastructure that dramatically expands the number of destinations within walking distance. Unfortunately, buses aren’t thought of that way. In most Ame…

Despite a weekslong multinational crackdown, scam centers along the Thai-Myanmar border are still operating with up to 100,000 people working there, the top police general leading Thailand’s operations against the fraud compounds told Reuters. Thailand is fronting a regional effort to dismantle scam centers along its borders, which are part of a Southeast Asian network of illegal facilities that generate billions of dollars every year, often using people trafficked there by criminal gangs, according to the United Nations. Based on early assessments of some of the 5,000 people pulled out of sprawling scam hubs in Myanmar’s Myawaddy area, hundreds went there volunta…

No place is more vulnerable to hurricanes in the 50 U.S. states than the Florida Keys. The chain of islands celebrated by singer Jimmy Buffett in his odes to tropical escapism is surrounded by water, jutting out 120 miles southwesterly from Florida’s mainland to Key West with the Gulf and Atlantic Ocean on either side. The archipelago historically has been known for its quirky and libertarian inhabitants who revel in the islands’ hedonistic, artistic and outdoorsy lifestyle. In recent years, it also has become a haven for the wealthy. Overseeing safety for the more than 80,000 inhabitants of the Conch Republic — the nickname for the islands after denizens declared a to…

A startup marketing to Gen Z on college campuses filed a lawsuit this week alleging that Instacart engaged in federal trademark infringement and unfair competition by naming its new group ordering app “Fizz.” The plaintiffs, Fizz Social Corp., claim they have been operating their event planning platform under the “FIZZ” trademark and have become a well-known social platform used on more than 400 college campuses. The app, which requires users to sign up with a college email, features anonymous text posts, polls, photos, and the ability to send direct messages. The company has raised at least $41.5 million as of last summer, TechCrunch reported in 2024. “This new F…

Mel Robbins’s best-selling book, The Let Them Theory, has captured the imagination of millions of people, earning critical acclaim and resonating deeply with those seeking peace in a chaotic world. The core premise is simple yet powerful: let people be who they are, let them make their own choices, and most importantly, don’t waste your energy trying to change others. It’s a philosophy of radical acceptance—an invitation to stop being burdened by the expectations, behaviors, and opinions of those around us. At first glance, this mindset seems liberating. Who wouldn’t want to shed the weight of trying to control the uncontrollable? In a time where burnout is rampant and p…

Students are still setting fire to their Chromebooks for TikTok—and now they’re facing the consequences. Fast Company first reported on the #ChromebookChallenge trend last week, following a series of school evacuations caused by students igniting laptop fires. The fires are started by inserting items such as pencils, paper clips, and pushpins into the charging ports of school-issued Chromebooks. This can cause the battery to overheat, potentially sparking a fire or explosion that releases toxic fumes. The #ChromebookChallenge reportedly began in Connecticut and has since spread rapidly. Newington High School was the first to evacuate students on May 1 after a …

Last week, I published a deep exploration into Palantir and its founder factory and how the company’s power and success can be explained by its ability to attract elite talent and how it empowers them to develop their skills and learn new ones in the projects they pursue. That talent then goes on to found their own startups, invariably seeking to address hard, intractable problems much as they did in their work at Palantir. (In the few days since I published my first story, I’ve found another 21 former Palantir employees turned founders, bringing what was already the largest public dataset of these people to 335. If you haven’t already, check it out here.) There a…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Zillow economists have an economic model called the Zillow Market Heat Index, designed to assess the competitiveness of housing markets nationwide. This model evaluates factors like home price fluctuations, inventory levels, days on market, and buyer demand to produce a score that indicates whether a market is hot (benefiting sellers) or cool (benefiting buyers). A higher score indicates a hotter metro-level housing market where sellers have more power. A lower score indicates a colder metro-level housing market where buyers have more power. Acco…

Norman Foster has always treated technology as a form of expression. As one of the pioneers of high-tech architecture (along with his friend and colleague Richard Rogers), his buildings celebrate exposed structure, advanced engineering, and machine-age style. Think of the flashy steel trusses and tension rods of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank headquarters, the transparent spirals of the Reichstag dome in Berlin, or the diagonal frame of the elliptical Gherkin in London. His latest project, dubbed the Gateway to Venice’s Waterway, recently unveiled at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, extends that tradition into electric mobility. Developed with Porsche and the …

What you read reflects who you are. Leaders like Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Indra Nooyi, and Mark Cuban advocate reading extensively to gain knowledge and challenge assumptions. At a minimum, reading widely develops a key business skill—making intelligent small talk. More importantly, reading and actively discussing ideas enhances critical thinking skills. Unfortunately, some studies show that only 16% of Americans read daily and for pleasure. Before the digital revolution, that number was well over 50%. Even more concerning, the latest statistics show that about a third of high school graduates have college-level reading skills. Leading a book club is…

Kristina Smithe was running the California International Marathon in 2019, grabbing cups of water to stay hydrated, when she started to think about how much waste such events produce. On the flight home, she did the math: 9,000 runners, 17 aid stations, and something like 150,000 cups used once and thrown away. “I was just shocked that, even in California, it’s not sustainable,” Smithe said. That sparked her idea for something more durable—a lightweight, pliable silicone cup that could be used again and again. After working out a design, Smithe ordered her first shipment and tested them at a race in 2021. Now her business, Hiccup Earth, has 70,000 cups that Smithe rent…

There are so many ways to die. You could fall off a cliff. A monk could light you on fire. A bat the size of a yacht could kick your head in. You’ve only just begun the game, and yet here you are, stranded on some strange mountaintop, surrounded by ruins. If you’re a newcomer, you’ll be dead within moments. If you’re a hardcore gamer, you’ll probably be dead a few moments later. But death isn’t the end. Death is the beginning. You’ll respawn in a graveyard, and that graveyard will lead you to a vast chasm—a pitchblack pit of certain doom. Taking the plunge down into that pit will surely lead you to more death. If the fall doesn’t kill you, it’s reasonable to assume th…

European Union privacy watchdogs fined TikTok 530 million euros ($600 million) on Friday after a four-year investigation found that the video-sharing app’s data transfers to China breached strict data privacy rules in the EU. Ireland’s Data Protection Commission also sanctioned TikTok for not being transparent with users about where their personal data was being sent and it ordered the company to comply with the rules within six months. The Irish national watchdog serves as TikTok’s lead data privacy regulator in the 27-nation EU because the company’s European headquarters is based in Dublin. “TikTok failed to verify, guarantee and demonstrate that the personal data of…

Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Company’s weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. You can sign up to receive this newsletter every week here. Half of all LLM usage is for writing computer code The tech industry insists that AI will “transform” how companies, both large and small, operate. Tech VCs and AI founders predict that major business functions will be reshaped, one by one, to be handled by AI agents. For a while, many speculated which function would be transformed first. It wasn’t customer service, legal, or marketing: it was software development. Generative AI’s first killer app is coding. Tools like Cursor and Windsurf ca…

A new ad from the Coca-Cola Co. opens with a shot of a typewriter clacking out Stephen King’s The Shining. The viewer follows a passage being written in an old-timey typeface until there’s a reference to a bottle of Coke. Suddenly, the type appears as the cola company’s script logo. The ad is part of a new campaign called “Classic” running in Spain and the U.K., in which Coca-Cola highlights instances when its brand name appears in literature by rendering them in the books’ original first-edition typefaces. The passages are printed in black, and references to either “Coke” or “Coca-Cola” in passages from King’s The Shining, J. G. Ballard’s Extreme Metaphors, and V. S.…

If you’re searching for a job, you’ve probably heard about how important it is to tailor your résumé and cover letter, showcasing your measurable achievements, and incorporating relevant keywords from the job description. These elements can make a big difference in catching a hiring manager’s attention. But beyond these essentials, there’s one powerful sentence that can truly set you apart from the rest: the one-liner. According to Sam DeMase, career expert for Zip Recruiter, this line in your cover letter is important because it highlights exactly what employers want to see. “Employers are looking for relevant work experience and aligned skills. So if you’re…

The cutting edge of zipper technology involves zippers that work remotely. Japanese zipper maker YKK says it has developed a prototype for a self-propelled zipper that zips up with just the push of a button. These self-propelled zippers aren’t meant for your jeans or jackets, but rather for industrial uses, like tall tents that can’t be zipped up without using a ladder. That’s the mostly likely place you’ve seen YKK’s logo (it has 40% global market share). The company says the tech will save time and be safer than putting workers high up in the air to zip and unzip in hard-to-reach use cases. YKK conducted experiments with the zippers in February. It says th…