Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

Search today sure ain’t what it used to be. On the one hand, you’ve got the escalating sense that Google’s once-reliable results are stuck in a downward spiral. It’s a perception we’ve been seeing take shape for some time now, even before Google Search started pushing accuracy-challenged AI answers into its search engine and steering people away from first-party sources. On the other hand, you’ve got AI-powered info engines ranging from ChatGPT and Perplexity to Google’s own Gemini chatbot now browsing the web for you and offering up immediate (if occasionally also inaccurate) answers. For the first time, that’s raising pressing questions about the long-term fate …

It’s game time for Meta’s wearables: The tech giant has bought two ad spots for its Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses during Sunday’s Super Bowl broadcast, including one that has Chris Hemsworth and Chris Pratt wreaking havoc on Kris Jenner’s art collection. The star-studded spot is part of a bigger push to bring AI-powered wearables to the masses. Last week, Mark Zuckerberg revealed that the company had sold more than one million of its high-tech Ray-Bans in 2024, and hinted at plans to sell many more in the near future. “This will be a defining year that determines if we’re on a path towards many hundreds of millions and eventually billions of AI glasses,” he told investor…

Getting a preschool-age child, let alone dozens of them, to wash their hands can be an exhausting chore. At Family Connections preschool in the Portola neighborhood of San Francisco, that used to be a constant challenge and frustration for educators. Without an outdoor sink, students’ outdoor activities were interrupted anytime a hand got dirty, as the whole group had to take a trip back inside, says executive director Yensing Sihapanya, noting how that would eat up precious minutes that could have been spent playing and learning. But in 2021, the Low Income Investment Fund (LIIF), a community development financial institution (CDFI), poured grant money into San Francisc…

AI rivalry heats up: Glean CEO Arvind Jain replies to Sam Altman’s caution to investors. View the full article

Patrón says all the tequila it has ever made since 1989 has been free of additives. The brand is now ready to get loud and talk about it. This week, Patrón is debuting a new additive-free marketing campaign that will run across digital, print, and out-of-home advertising in key markets including New York City and Los Angeles. The additive-free copy features lines like “Our secret ingredient is that we have no secret ingredients” and “When tequila is this good, additives don’t add anything.” Since Patrón’s inception, the brand says it has only made tequila with three ingredients: 100% weber blue agave, water, and yeast. The few exceptions are for the brand’s liqueu…

Shares in Hims & Hers Health, Inc. (NYSE: HIMS) are skyrocketing in early-morning trading today after the telehealth company announced a new partnership with the Danish pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk. That partnership will see Hims & Hers offer Novo Nordisk’s weight-loss drug Wegovy through its platform. Here’s what you need to know. Hims & Hers will offer weight-loss drug Wegovy Hims & Hers Health announced today that it has entered into “a long-term collaboration” with Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk to offer its popular weight-loss drug Wegovy to its users through the Hims & Hers platform. The news sent HIMS shares soaring in early-morn…

If you’re in charge of selecting a leadership development solution for your organization, your budget might feel dwarfed by the goals and needs the program must address. And while the money you have to spend is limited, the options you have to choose from—coaching, learning platforms, content libraries and more—are not.  All of those factors can make it difficult to identify the option that will deliver the best ROI. An “affordable” subscription to a vast digital library of leadership videos and courses is no bargain if it doesn’t deliver the results you need. On the other hand, premium coaching for a few key executives might feel extravagant at first but ultimat…

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…

The challenges businesses face today are increasingly unpredictable and interdependent. Traditional business structures were built for different times and different challenges. These models helped companies to scale and thrive in a more predictable world, where efficiency, clear hierarchies, and specialization were the keys to success. But as the world has evolved, so too have the conditions for innovation. In today’s fast-paced, globalized, and complex world, these outdated models actively hold teams back. Silos trap expertise—preventing the flow of fresh ideas—rigid hierarchies create bottlenecks that slow down decision making when speed is essential, and a lack of …

If your social media suitor seems too good to be true, it might be a scam. Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta Platforms is urging users to stay vigilant about “romance scams” ahead of Valentine’s Day, warning of unsolicited messages through its apps and other social media platforms, as well as general text messages. Scammers tend to pose as “attractive, single and successful individuals,” Meta says. They often claim to have military, medical or business backgrounds, with photos either stolen from real people’s accounts or generated through artificial intelligence. Initially, messages are sent to a large pool of people in the hopes of getting a response. A …

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. When economic analysts talk about a cyclical change, they’re talking about short-term fluctuations driven by the business cycle. When those same analysts talk about a secular change, they’re talking about long-term, structural shifts in the economy. Sometimes a trend can be a little of both. One example: First-time homebuyers keep getting older. In 1991, the median age of first-time homebuyers in the U.S. was 28 years old. In 2024, it was 38 years old. In other words, the median first-time U.S. homebuyer in 2024 (age 38) has been out of high scho…

As consumers, we are accustomed to rating almost all the products and services we pay for. From toilet paper and tacos, to vacation rentals and online courses, a star rating is the status quo for reviewing pretty much any customer experience. But for platform-based gig workers who work to provide all kinds of everyday services, these ratings are nightmare fuel. Taking consumers mere seconds to dole out, anything below the full five out of five stars can completely upend a gig worker’s income and access to work. Academics from around the world have found that negative reviews often serve as disciplinary tools that can reduce a worker’s pay, can generate an “inexplicabl…

This month’s legal dustup between NFL quarterback Lamar Jackson and NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt Jr. over trademark rights to the number 8 may have amounted to little more than a tempest in a teapot, but it has drawn attention to a rarely considered topic in branding and marketing: the use of numbers in brand names and logos. Why might a seemingly arbitrary number like 8—or 27 or 63, for that matter—be worth fighting over? And are some numbers worth more than others? Obviously, numbers are at an important disadvantage compared to letters when it comes to their use as trademarks. While an initial letter can stand for any word that it begins with, numbers are much more …

St. Patrick’s Day usually conjures images of partying, Catholicism, Irish nationalism and, perhaps most famously, the color green: green clothes, green shamrocks, green beer and green rivers. So my students are often surprised when I tell them that St. Patrick’s Day was once a solemn feast day when you’d be far more likely to see the color blue. In fact, there’s even a color known as St. Patrick’s blue. ‘True blue’ Historians don’t know much about St. Patrick. But they believe he was born in the fifth century as Maewyn Succat. He wasn’t Irish; rather he was born in Wales, the son of a Roman-British official. He was, however, captured by Irish pirates and en…

At the Exceptional Women Alliance (EWA), we empower high-level women to mentor one another, encouraging personal and professional fulfillment through meaningful connections. This month, I am delighted to introduce Malika Begin, CEO and founder of Begin Development, a consulting firm based in Malibu, California. Malika shares her insights on the transformative power of generous leadership—an approach rooted in empathy and purpose—especially during crises like the devastating wildfires in Los Angeles. Q: In moments of crisis, what leadership styles or qualities have the greatest impact on nurturing trust, resilience, and forward momentum within a team? Malika Begin: …

Reid Hoffman returns to Rapid Response to explore today’s AI landscape, and the future promised by a concept he calls “superagency.” Hoffman shares his vision for what an AI-infused workday will soon look like, how we should address society’s greatest fears about technology, and more. As we enter a daunting new era—politically, socially, and technologically—Hoffman urges listeners to choose curiosity over fear. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by Robert Safian, former editor-in-chief of Fast Company. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with today’s top business leader…

Picture this: It’s Black Friday, and the point-of-sale system your thousands of customers depend on keeps crashing. Understandably, those retailers are livid. Complaints pour in day after day, and you start to wonder if the business will survive. That’s exactly what happened to me when I was just starting out as an entrepreneur nearly 20 years ago. And as painful as it was, that near-death experience taught me something invaluable: the power of calm leadership. In today’s unpredictable world, whether that’s due to economic, environmental, or political events—it can be harder than ever to stay calm and centered. Company leaders are no exception to this. Yet it’s c…

If you scroll through your old photos from the mid-2010s—the golden era of Snapchat—chances are a fair number of those pictures feature a dog filter or a flower crown. Now, nearly a decade later, one TikToker has now been struck by a unique dilemma. “Your daughter wants to see her baby pictures, but she was born in 2016,” user @themkidzmama3 posted in a video that has since gone viral. As the Adele’s 2015 hit “Hello” plays, a slideshow of her daughter’s baby photos flashes across the screen. Each photo uses a different filter, from the dog ears to a Sia wig. It’s undeniable: Her daughter is a product of the Snapchat filter era. There was a time when b…