Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

In recent years, brands have changed their entire marketing approach in order to attract the new breed of so-called eco-conscious consumers. This is unsurprising considering the mountain of research showing the majority of people saying they care about sustainability when it comes to their purchasing decisions. But the notion of an eco-conscious mass consumer who is willing to sacrifice their own personal comfort for the planet is largely a myth. This is because, while people might “say” they support sustainable practices, their actions tell a different story. Our own research reveals that almost six in 10 (57%) American consumers say sustainability shouldn’t come at th…

Apple on Thursday disclosed its iPhone sales dipped slightly during the holiday-season quarter, signaling a sluggish start to the trendsetting company’s effort to catch up to the rest of Big Tech in the race to bring artificial intelligence to the masses. The iPhone’s roughly 1% drop in revenue from the previous year’s October-December period wasn’t entirely unexpected, given the first software update enabling the device’s AI features didn’t arrive until just before Halloween, and the technology still isn’t available in many markets outside the U.S. The countries still awaiting Apple’s AI suite include China, a key market where the company continued to lose ground. Alth…

Expect more security — and nerves — at this year’s Super Bowl victory celebration regardless of who wins Sunday’s matchup in New Orleans between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles. A shooting that killed one person and wounded about two dozen others marred last year’s Chiefs victory rally, and a Philadelphia Eagles fan died last month after falling from a light pole while celebrating the team’s NFC championship victory. Kansas City plans to boost its police presence if the Chiefs win a third-straight title, and Philadelphia might grease its poles to thwart climbers if the Eagles win. New Orleans, which was the scene of a New Year’s Day truck-ramming at…

A helicopter flying over your head, the ground rumbling under your feet, bullets whizzing by your ears: If it’s up to Google and Samsung, then your movie nights will soon sound like you’re in the middle of the action. The two companies announced a new 3D audio format called Eclipsa Audio this month that will soon bring spatial audio to compatible devices, starting with this year’s Samsung TVs and soundbars. Google is also bringing Eclipsa Audio to YouTube, where creators will soon be able to upload content with immersive audio, and has plans to extend support for it to Android phones, Chrome browsers, as well as TVs, soundbars and streaming devices made by a number of…

After years of working in PR and branding for luxury beauty, Jaimee Lupton decided to break away and disrupt the space by making beauty products that are accessible. With her business partner and real-life partner Nick Mowbray, she launched Monday haircare in 2020. Lupton saw a gap in the market for a brand that was targeted toward a younger demographic. There were few haircare brands that addressed the needs of younger customers, and even fewer who knew how to speak to those customers through their branding, messaging, and packaging. Lupton knew the power of a personalized message, and she created Monday with that in mind. The haircare company has received its fair s…

Student loan debt has an influence over borrowers’ career choices long after graduation, affecting their job satisfaction, career advancement, and investment strategies. According to a recent study conducted by MissionSquare Research Institute, the debt that’s carried by one in four Americans under 40 affects job-acceptance decisions for 56% of public-sector employees and 62% of those working in the private sector. “When they choose to accept . . . jobs, [the] majority of them have considered how that position or that job can help them with their student loan debt,” says the report’s author and MissionSquare’s head of research, Zhikun Liu. “It not only impacts pe…

Peavey Industries LP, Canada’s largest farm and ranch retailer, has announced the shuttering of all its locations across the country following its filing for creditor protection under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA), granted by the Court of King’s Bench Alberta. The closures will impact 90 Peavey Mart stores and six MainStreet Hardware locations, with liquidation sales starting immediately, marking the end of nearly six decades of operations for the Alberta-based company, which has long been a key player in Canada’s rural and suburban retail landscape. ‘A profoundly difficult decision’ The news comes as Canada’s retail industry faces unpreceden…

In news outlets, business publications, and scholarly journals, there is a crescendo of commentary about the combined power of human intelligence and artificial intelligence. Without question, that convergence is already yielding exciting discoveries in many fields. Yet a third, equally crucial, kind of intelligence is being left out of the discussion: nature’s intelligence. The idea that nature itself displays the hallmarks of what we understand as intelligence—the ability to learn, to encode those learnings in new, more effective models, and to continually adapt—is not altogether new. Leonardo da Vinci understood this well. Nature was his teacher and his inspiration. …

Let’s face it: The fact that AI is amazing is no longer all that … amazing. The technology is under ever-increasing pressure to prove its real-world value for consumers, businesses, and researchers in specific contexts. These honorees in the applied AI category are proving AI’s worth for fashion advice, pharmaceutical advice, coding, and much more. Alta For bringing AI to personal styling For people who lack style expertise or time for outfit planning, the task of choosing what to wear can be a daily frustration. Alta built a personal AI stylist app that generates outfits based on users’ actual wardrobes, lifestyle, budget, weather, and upcoming events—whether they’re …

László Toth, a Hungarian Jewish architect and Holocaust survivor, emigrates to the United States after World War II in search of a new life. After a rough start, a wealthy businessman recognises his talent and offers him a job that will change his life. This is a very brief summary of Brady Corbet’s film The Brutalist, which stars Adrien Brody as Toth. While the protagonist of this almost four-hour film is fictional, his story is inspired by many real figures. During the rise of Nazism in Germany, and especially after the de facto demise of the Weimar Republic in 1933, many intellectuals, scientists and other educated people chose to emigrate in search of a…

Riddle me this: What exactly is Trello? Despite counting myself as a heavy-duty power user of the product for well over a decade now, it’s a question I’ve long struggled to answer. Technically, Trello has always seemed to fall into that group of apps folks like to frame as “project management tools”—products like Asana, ClickUp, and Notion that do a pinch of everything and are as much note makers, info savers, and life managers as they are project organizers. But Trello in particular has always been a bit of a chameleon. Personally, I’ve used it for everything from storing story ideas to mapping out my weekly newsletters and even organizing my home workouts. Part of wha…

The L.A.-based fashion brand Lisa Says Gah just teamed up with Polly Pocket for a new limited-edition collection, and it appears to be a sign that Mattel is already gunning to recapture the marketing magic of the Barbie movie. Polly Pocket Says Gah! is an assortment of cardigans, baby tees, accessories, and PVC slingback kitten heels, all rendered in a pastel palette and topped with playful details like ruffled edges and quilted stitching. Prices range from $50 to $198. It debuts today exclusively on the Lisa Says Gah website. [Photo: Lisa Says Gah] A Polly Pocket film has been in the works with MGM since 2021, but it faced a bump in the road last July when Len…

The Fast Company Impact Council is a private membership community of influential leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual membership dues for access to peer learning and thought leadership opportunities, events and more. As the number of internet of things (IoT) devices is projected to reach 40 billion by 2030, IoT integration into our daily lives is undeniable. From smart homes to industrial systems, IoT devices offer unprecedented convenience and efficiency. Netgear’s 2024 IoT Security Landscape report found that IoT devices, including TV sets, smart plugs, routers, and more face frequent attacks, w…

Trader Joe’s and other grocers are limiting the number of eggs customers can buy across the U.S., citing limited supply caused by the ongoing bird flu outbreak. Trader Joe’s is capping purchases to one carton per customer each day, the Monrovia, California-based chain confirmed. That limit applies to all of Trader Joe’s locations across the country. “We hope these limits will help to ensure that as many of our customers who need eggs are able to purchase them when they visit Trader Joe’s,” the company said in a statement sent to The Associated Press Tuesday. Photos of in-store notices about eggs purchase limits at retailers nationwide have swirled around onlin…

PepsiCo is sick of being left out of the prebiotic soda craze—and to catch up with competitors, the multinational food and beverage corporation just dropped $1.65 billion to acquire the functional soda startup Poppi. The deal, announced this morning, will bring Poppi’s range of 14 colorful, low-sugar, prebiotic-packed sodas into Pepsi’s expansive existing beverage portfolio. The move comes as young consumers are increasingly turning away from traditional soda in favor of more health-conscious, “functional” beverages, which typically come with a mood or health benefit derived from a specific set of ingredients. Popular prebiotic brands like Poppi and Olipop fit in this…

The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more. There’s a seismic shift reshaping the labor market, with tremors across government and business. The latest signal of this transformation is the announcement of the Skills-First Workforce Initiative, a collaboration of top employers aimed at making the skills needed for jobs more transparent. It follows an announcement from California Governor Gavin Newsom, who on April 2nd unveiled his Master Plan…

Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) loans have become increasingly popular in recent years—originations grew tenfold between 2019 and 2021, for instance. Last year, roughly 20% of American consumers used one to make a purchase. Despite their increasing usage, BNPL loans are still not used to calculate credit scores—which may have effects for lenders, and could be costing some consumers with good credit habits some valuable points. FICO—the creator of the FICO Score which is used by 90% of U.S.-based lending institutions to make lending decisions—recently published an analysis in tandem with the BNPL company Affirm to get a sense of what the results would be if those loans were …

When international architecture firm Snøhetta found its New York City lease was coming up last year, a search kicked off for a new workspace. The firm, which had been located in Manhattan for 21 years, scoured neighborhoods near and far, such as the Brooklyn Navy Yards. But in the end, the choice was one many such firms had been making recently, according to partner and managing director Elaine Molinar. They wanted a building with character that was conducive to creative work, and found it within a 25,000 square feet space at 55 Washington Street in Brooklyn’s Dumbo neighborhood, where about 70 workers will move in later this year. “The space is on the ninth floor, wi…

In this economy, job seekers face a tough market, despite strong job growth. Some apply for more than a hundred jobs before landing one. Many are looking for any edge they can get—to secure a coveted interview, and eventually, land a position they’re excited about. In his book, Sell Yourself Like a CEO, headhunter Ryan Sheppard provides valuable guidelines for anyone wanting to advance in their career. Sheppard, who works closely with CEOs, argues that top leaders have skills that anyone in the job market would do well to emulate. Here are five ways to sell yourself like a successful CEO would: 1. DEVELOP A CEO MINDSET A strong CEO is able to convey their v…

Parents, rejoice: For the first time ever, there’s a Lego brick so tiny that you can’t see it, let alone step on it. The brick in question is a microscopic sculpture created by U.K.-based artist David A Lindon. It’s made from a standard red square Lego, and it looks like one, too, aside from the fact that it measures just 0.02517 millimeter by 0.02184 millimeter (about the size of a white blood cell). As of this month, the brick has snagged the Guinness World Record for the smallest-ever handmade sculpture, measuring four times smaller than the previous record holder. We’ve seen lunar Legos, renewable Legos, and giant Legos, but this brick might just be the most i…

Lawyers representing victims of a deadly Hawaii wildfire reached a last-minute deal averting a trial that was scheduled to begin Wednesday over how to split a $4 billion settlement. The agreement means victims and survivors will not have to testify, reliving in court details of the massive inferno in Lahaina that killed more than 100 people, destroyed thousands of properties and caused an estimated $5.5 billion worth of damage. Before the trial was scheduled to begin Wednesday morning, lawyers met in private with Judge Peter Cahill, who later announced that a deal had been reached. Lawyers, who reached the deal late Tuesday, are expected to file court documents detailin…

Steven Heine is a professor of social and cultural psychology at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of Cultural Psychology, the top-selling book in the field. His research has been featured in The New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, Newsweek, and New Scientist, among other publications. What’s the big idea? A lot of people right now feel lost, anxious, and despaired. During these dark times, preserving a sense of meaning in our lives is vital. Fortunately, meaning can be cultivated and ground us when life feels turbulent. The emerging field of existential psychology is refining practices for tuning in to the worth, purpose, and importance of your…

Design is in a time of transition. Whether it’s the influx of generative AI tools, Gen Z shaking off their post-COVID haze to drive new aesthetics, the practice of graphic design adding clarity to tight elections and challenging our meat consumption, or even the sudden viability of technologies ranging from environmentally friendly A/C to exoskeletons that are turning sci-fi dreams into practical realities, design is in a position to face an uncertain world of scarcity with an unprecedented abundance of innovation. Our honorees for the most innovative companies in design for 2025 span the gamut of product, architecture, and UX. But they are all united in pushing the cons…

In his last semester at college, in between studying labor law and environmental impact assessment, Alex Elderbroom took a class on something very different: how to build a tiny house. In the class, at Paul Smith’s College in upstate New York—a school that mixes traditional academics with more practical courses—a small group of students spent three months last fall going through each step of the construction process, from planning and purchasing materials to building basic furniture for the finished 8-by-10-foot space. Elderbroom, who just graduated, happens to already rent a tiny cabin. He was interested in learning how to build one of the homes himself. “It seem…

Amazon has agreed to pay nearly $4 million to settle charges that the e-commerce company subsidized its labor costs by taking tips its delivery drivers received from customers, District of Columbia Attorney General Brian L. Schwalb said Friday. The settlement came four years after Amazon forked over $61.7 million to resolve a complaint the Federal Trade Commission brought over similar accusations. In 2022, the office of D.C.’s attorney general at the time followed up with a lawsuit alleging Amazon violated the District’s consumer protection laws by misleading residents about how tips paid digitally were used. According to the lawsuit, the affected drivers were…