Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

Kering released its third-quarter 2025 financial results on Thursday, showing it reduced the slump it had seen in the previous quarter. The French luxury goods house, which owns brands like Balenciaga, Gucci, and Yves Saint Laurent, reported 3.42 billion euros ($3.97 billion) in group revenue, down 5% year-over-year (YOY) compared to a 15% drop in quarter-two. It also beat Wall Street’s estimate of a 9.6% decline, according to consensus estimates cited by Reuters. Kering attributed the reduced revenue YOY, in part, to a negative currency effect of 5%. Luxury is in a lull As a whole, luxury brands have struggled in recent years, with blame boomeranging be…

A Gustav Klimt portrait painting that helped save the life of its Jewish subject during the Holocaust sold Tuesday for $236.4 million, a record for a modern art piece. Klimt’s “Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer” sold after a 20-minute bidding war at Sotheby’s in New York, where the flashiest item of the night was a solid gold, fully functioning toilet that went for $12.1 million. The 6-foot-tall (1.8-meter-tall) portrait, painted over three years between 1914 and 1916, depicts the daughter of one of Vienna’s wealthiest families adorned in an East Asian emperor’s cloak. It is one of two full-length portraits by the Austrian artist that remain privately owned. The work …

H Company and CEO Gautier Cloix turn AI and APIs into the next office colleague by creating agentic systems to perform real tasks alongside humans. View the full article

Ice cream maker Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream Company has issued a voluntary recall of select Häagen-Dazs Chocolate Dark Chocolate Mini Bars after discovering they might have wheat in them. An investigation is underway, but Dreyer’s believes that food with wheat was put in the wrong packaging at the start of a production run, according to its announcement, published by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). There are no related illnesses or injuries as of Dreyer’s announcement on Monday, November 3. As Dreyer’s states, “Those with an allergy or severe sensitivity to wheat run the risk of serious or life-threatening allergic reaction if they consume these product…

Fila is looking to Hailey Bieber to help its struggling brand. The South Korea-based sports apparel company is today launching a 13-piece spring/summer 2025 collection made in collaboration with Bieber, who is the founder of Rhode beauty. The pieces, which include a baby tee, sweatpants, and an oversized pullover, are designed to be “wardrobe staples,” according to the company, and are now available on FILA’s website and select Urban Outfitters stores. It’s clear the Hailey Bieber x FILA Collection is geared toward athleisure rather than performance activewear based on the campaign photography, which in one photo shows Bieber spilling an iced coffee. [Photo: Fila] Fila…

Half of Airbnb users in the U.S. are now using the company’s AI-powered customer service agent, CEO Brian Chesky said Thursday during an earnings call. The tool was quietly rolled out last month and is expected to be available to all U.S. users in the coming weeks. Chesky said the AI assistant has already led to a 15% drop in users needing to contact live support agents. While the technology is still in its early stages, he expects it to steadily improve. “It’s going to get significantly more personalized and agentic over the years to come,” he said following the release of Airbnb’s first-quarter earnings. Compared to other travel platforms racing to apply AI …

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Fresh data shows that as of August, 25 of the 50 biggest U.S. metro areas—representing half of the country’s major housing markets—are seeing prices fall compared with last year. That share has steadily climbed from just 14% in late 2024, underscoring how soft demand and rising active inventory for sale have coincided in greater downward pressure on prices across much of the country. Back in November 2024, seven of the nation’s 50 largest metro-area housing markets (14%) had falling year-over-year home prices. In February 2025, 12 of the nati…

Halloween is a fun, scary time for children and adults alike—but why does the holiday seem to start so much earlier every year? Decades ago, when I was young, Halloween was a much smaller affair, and people didn’t start preparing until mid-October. Today, in my neighborhood near where I grew up in Massachusetts, Halloween decorations start appearing in the middle of summer. What’s changed isn’t just when we celebrate but how: Halloween has evolved from a simple folk tradition to a massive commercial event. As a business school professor who has studied the economics of holidays for years, I’m astounded by how the business of Halloween has grown. And understanding why …

As countries continue to deal with a hantavirus outbreak linked to passengers aboard the M/V Hondius cruise ship, government and public health agencies have begun repatriating both those confirmed to have the virus and those potentially exposed to it. This includes the United States, where 17 American citizens who were on board the ship are being repatriated by the U.S. State Department. Here’s what you need to know. What’s happened? On Monday night, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) confirmed that the repatriation of Americans aboard the M/V Hondius cruise ship had begun. In a post on X, the HHS said that its Administration for…

Happiness may be hard to quantify, but for the data-obsessed, the World Happiness Report is as close as you can get. The annual report, published by the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford, leverages data from Gallup to rank every country in the world by self-reported life satisfaction. For the second year in a row, not a single English-speaking country has cracked the top 10. The exact reason is tough to pin down, but this year’s lead researchers point out one major factor that could be to blame. As per usual, Nordic countries dominate the top 10 happiest countries, with Finland claiming the number one spot for the ninth consecutive year. Ic…

The gravy train is picking up steam again at Hardee’s. The Southern-inspired fast food chain has been quietly reopening locations across the Southeast after an explosive legal battle with a franchisee had led to dozens of store closures late last year. Newly reopened Hardee’s restaurants in at least three states—Georgia, South Carolina, and Missouri—are being described in job listings as “now corporate owned,” according to recent ads posted on Indeed.com and SimplyHired. They share addresses with Hardee’s restaurants formerly operated by franchisee ARC Burger, whose 77 locations shuttered in December 2025. Some of the listings are marked as “urgent.” …

On December 1, podcaster and venture capitalist Harry Stebbings posted on LinkedIn that candidates were 200 times more likely to get into Harvard University than they were to get a job at the $6.6 billion valuation AI startup ElevenLabs. According to his statistic, out of 180,000 applicants in the first half of the year, only 0.018% were hired by the AI voice agent platform. That figure—extrapolated from a July spike in applications—may have been hyperbole. But it still went viral. And out of tens of thousands of applications, just 132 candidates eventually got the job at ElevenLabs—indeed, much lower than Harvard’s 3% to 4% admission rates. “On average, we’re se…

There are few things more evocative of the free American spirit and the nation’s wide-open spaces than the image of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle zooming down a stretch of empty highway. But while taking one of the legendary hogs for a spin may still be liberating for riders, the company’s independent dealership owners are feeling an increasingly tight financial and business squeeze. A rash of reports in recent weeks have sounded alarms about the troubles Harley dealers face, and the rising number of dealerships closing shop as a result. While Harley-Davidson still counts more than 650 of those locations in operation across the U.S., specialist automotive media warn th…

Understanding the transformative power of AI can significantly impact your content monetization strategies. How do you see AI influencing your blog or YouTube channel? AI Insights: AI's ability to analyze data can reveal what content resonates most with your audience, helping you tailor your approach for better engagement.Content Creation: Tools powered by AI can assist in generating ideas, optimizing headlines, and even drafting posts, saving you time and enhancing creativity.Personalization: AI can help you deliver personalized content to your audience, increasing retention and conversion rates by catering to individual preferences.Monetization Strategies: By leveragin…

Understanding your customers' needs is crucial for any home business owner, especially when it comes to content monetization. How are you currently gathering insights about your audience? AI Tools: Leverage AI-driven tools to analyze customer feedback and social media interactions, providing you with real-time insights.Sentiment Analysis: Use AI to gauge customer sentiment, helping you tailor your content to better resonate with your audience.Data-Driven Decisions: Implement findings from AI analysis to make informed decisions on your content strategy and monetization efforts.Feedback Loop: Establish a continuous feedback loop using AI to refine your approach based on ev…

As a home business owner, understanding the tools that potential clients are using can give you a competitive edge. With 78% of U.S. homebuyers now relying on AI in their home-buying journey, how are you adapting your strategies to leverage this trend? The rise of AI in the real estate market is not just a passing trend; it's reshaping how buyers make decisions. From personalized property recommendations to virtual tours, AI is enhancing the home-buying experience and streamlining the process. Why does this matter? If you’re in the business of content creation or digital marketing, recognizing the influence of AI on consumer behavior can help you tailor your content and…

HarperCollins Publishers and AI-powered animation studio Toonstar have announced a multi-year partnership to co-produce original YouTube series based on HarperCollins titles. It marks the second announcement this week from the book publishing giant regarding a partnership with an AI-centered company. On Monday, HarperCollins division Harlequin said it entered a multi-year agreement to co-produce 40 animated micro-dramas with AI entertainment company Dashverse. Inspired by Harlequin Romance titles, the collaboration launches in April, beginning with an adaptation of A Fairy-Tail Ending by Catherine Mann. The deals highlight how book publishers are turning to …

Some bad news for all the mutual fund managers out there: A new study from researchers at Harvard Business School seems to support the fear that artificial intelligence and machine learning could do their jobs. But here’s the catch—with only about 71% accuracy, depending on how predictable their trades are. The working paper “Mimicking Finance” from Lauren Cohen, Yiwen Lu, and Quoc H. Nguyen, published this month by the National Bureau of Economic Research, finds “that 71% of mutual fund managers’ trade directions can be predicted in the absence of the agent making a single trade.” The paper goes on to say, “For some managers, this increases to nearly all of their…

The life of a junior associate at a prestigious law firm involves hours of research and analyzing contracts. Three years ago, Winston Weinberg found himself buried in these kinds of tasks as a first-year antitrust and litigation associate at O’Melveny & Myers in Los Angeles. And there Weinberg might have remained, diligently climbing the BigLaw ranks from associate to partner, logging thousands of hours of drudgery along the way. Instead, he’s cofounder and CEO of Harvey, the high-flying legal AI platform that’s raised more than $800 million by promising to handle much of this work. “A lot of the tasks junior [associates] do are going to get automated,” Weinberg say…

For the past decade, quantum computing has struggled to balance promise and practicality. While the world’s most advanced systems remain engineering marvels, they’re bedeviled by the same flaw: the fragility of qubits—the fundamental units of quantum data—and the delicate hardware required to control them. A single fluctuation, for example, can collapse a quantum state, invalidating a computation. Most quantum systems also depend on large-scale refrigeration colder than deep space, with cryogenic racks that often occupy multiple rooms. Scaling quantum systems demands exponential increases in cost, energy, and environmental stability. So while the U.N. has designated 2…