Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

Fans are continuing to change the tune of how they consume music. It was recently reported that MTV was going to stop broadcasting five channels, including MTV Music, MTV 80s, MTV 90s, Club MTV, and MTV Live in the United Kingdom, and that the channels would go dark the end of this year. (Its flagship channel, MTV HD, will continue to air reality series.) Local news outlets in Australia, Poland, France, and Brazil have also reported that MTV could shut down music channels in those respective countries as well—leaving some to wonder if the United States is next to shutter those channels. It’s no secret that MTV’s parent company, Paramount Global, has been going…

Listen, I don’t know about you, but I’m generally not so big on listening. I tend to be more of a “words in front of my eyes” kind of guy when it comes to taking in information (which, as I’ve come to learn, also means I’m “an old person” by modern-day standards—hey, I’m okay with that). Sometimes, though, there’s something to be said for sitting back and enjoying an aural experience—or, as the cool kids call it these days, a podcast. Whether you’re seeking out important info or just casually checking out a conversation about tech, comedy, or whatever floats your dinghy, oceans of options are out there that exist only in the form of audio. But what happens when yo…

Shopping for a used car? Hertz is making it easier than ever to buy a car from its fleet: You can now browse, finance, and purchase vehicles entirely online, the company announced Tuesday. The car rental giant has revamped its website, HertzCarSales.com, allowing customers to now browse thousands of vehicles, get a trade-in offer, get prequalified, and secure financing so they complete the purchase entirely online. These changes mean that car buyers no longer need to visit one of Hertz’s 45 retail locations to complete the purchase. “Our new e-commerce platform marks a major step forward in modernizing how we serve our customers with a seamless journey from browsi…

Shopping assistant chatbots were a novelty a year ago. Now, they’re everywhere. After rolling out AI-powered assistants, online retailers and tech companies have been adding more artificial intelligence features to make online shopping easier and more convenient. The latest crop of AI-powered shopping services and tools made their debut in recent weeks, just in time to kick off the holiday shopping season that begins with Black Friday. Here’s a rundown of existing and newly released AI services that can help with your search for the perfect gift in the run-up to Christmas: Retail chatbots Amazon led the way by rolling out its Rufus chatbot in 2024. Other ecommerc…

Miklu Silvanto, Oura’s chief design officer, says incorporating advanced computing power into a tiny ring is a major challenge. It’s just as challenging to make a ring that people will actually want to wear around the clock. So Silvanto, an industrial design veteran who has worked at Apple and Bang & Olufsen, must also think of himself as a jewelry designer. “A ring is such an intimate object,” he says. “You might wear it alongside your wedding ring. You need to think comfort, and beauty, and fashion.” On October 1, Oura launches a new collection of ceramic rings that are more fashion-forward than its previous ones, which resemble metallic wedding bands. Since…

Sunday’s Grammys mark a return to normalcy after the 2025 show was altered to focus on Los Angeles-area wildfire relief efforts. “I think we will see some history-making moments,” Recording Academy CEO and President Harvey Mason jr. told The Associated Press. “With artists being nominated in categories they haven’t been previously nominated in, and a new crop of talent coming through the system this year — I think we’re going to see some really exciting results.” Here’s what you need to know about the 2026 Grammys, including how to stream and where you can see music’s biggest stars walking the red carpet. How do I watch the Grammys? The main show will air l…

Saks Global, owner of luxury retail chains Saks 5th Avenue and Neiman Marcus, has announced the closure of most of its discount outlet stores, Saks Off 5th and Last Call. The store closures come weeks after Saks Global announced that it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Here’s what you need to know about the store closures, including a full list of the locations being shuttered. What’s happened? Yesterday, Saks Global said it would close a majority of its discount outlet stores. While Sak Global is best known for its high-end luxury department store chains, Saks 5th Avenue and Neiman Marcus, the company owns several other retailers, including Be…

’Tis the season for carved pumpkins, god-awful candy corn, and an inevitable workplace costume that lands someone a well-earned talking-to from HR. Halloween is near, which means it’s the perfect time to reflect on a tale from the cubicle that’s even spookier than Tales From the Crypt. It starts with three words that would strike fear in the heart of anyone who’s ever worked in corporate America. Performance. Improvement. Plan. Taken at face value, the phrase sounds gentle, maybe even helpful, like the start of a company-sponsored self-care journey. In reality, a PIP is usually the workplace equivalent of a death sentence, a corporate guillotine that gives “being …

I was a latchkey kid. Most afternoons, I came home to an empty house, let myself in with my own key, and figured it out—homework and snacks. There was inherent trust from my parents that I’d figure it out, and everything would be alright. You learned fast. If you got stuck, you improvised. If you were scared, you got practical. If you needed help, you decided whether it was “worth” bothering anyone. And if you were the oldest—if you were parentified—you were given responsibilities without guidance, expected to “just know.” Thirty years later, I’m watching middle managers experience the exact same thing. We hand them keys instead of house rules, responsibil…

It’s been an outrageously long wait, but Google will finally allow Gmail users to change their email addresses. Late last year, a support page in Hindi hinted that changes to Google’s account name policy were on the way, but now it’s official. The company posted the news to X, but noted that only U.S. users will be offered the new flexibility for now. To make the change, head to your email settings options and click “change Google Account email.” Your email history and saved data will remain tied to the account, so don’t worry about losing anything. Users can change their Google account names across products like Gmail, Photos, and Drive, but really, email is the…

On a recent stroll by my local Allbirds store in Harvard Square, I had to do a double take. In the window, the brand was advertising its new Varsity collection: a ’70s-inspired sneaker line with a rubber sole and a feminine color palette that weaves together pink, olive green, mustard, and brick red. It’s an unmistakably fashionable shoe that wouldn’t look out of place at New Balance and Saucony, or even Valentino and Celine. Allbirds, which launched in 2014, isn’t known for chasing trends. It has always led with sustainability, starting with the “wool runner” that quickly became a cult sneaker in tech circles. Over the years, it hasn’t strayed far from this original …

One of the most striking aspects of Sarah Wynn-Williams’s best-selling memoir, Careless People, about her years at Meta, is the way she portrays Sheryl Sandberg. Contrary to Sandberg’s carefully crafted public image as a levelheaded advocate for working women and their families, she is shown to be narcissistic, mercurial, and hypocritical. Whether you see Wynn-Williams’s book as an important exposé of Big Tech culture or a hit job by a disgruntled former employee, it’s hard to escape the sense that Sandberg’s public persona was more fantasy than reality. The image of a fabulously wealthy executive and doting mother living her best life every hour of the day was alway…

The rise of OpenClaw, a proactive agentic AI controlled through interfaces more familiar to the average user than tools like Anthropic’s Claude Code, which enthralled early adopters over the holiday period, has been one of the most seismic shifts in the AI world since the release of ChatGPT. By piggybacking on user-friendly interfaces paired with powerful AI agent technology, OpenClaw has pushed AI further into the public eye. Thousands have spun up their own AI agents using the tech, and many of those agents have ended up on Moltbook, a social network where AI agents can post and interact with one another. The platform, which looks a lot like Reddit, was developed by…

The 2002 sci-fi thriller Minority Report depicts a dystopian future where a specialized police unit is tasked with arresting people for crimes they have not yet committed. Directed by Steven Spielberg and based on a short story by Philip K. Dick, the drama revolves around “PreCrime”—a system informed by a trio of psychics, or “precogs,” who anticipate future homicides, allowing police officers to intervene and prevent would-be assailants from claiming their targets’ lives. The film probes at hefty ethical questions: How can someone be guilty of a crime they haven’t yet committed? And what happens when the system gets it wrong? While there is no such thing as an al…

A few years into the AI boom, it’s clear that designers can rely on AI for some things. It can automate tedious tasks in Photoshop that once took up precious time. It can generate images on command (quality be damned!). It can schedule a meeting, respond to an email, and take notes on a Zoom call. But for all the hype, we know that AI isn’t a silver bullet for the real problems creatives face. Far from it. So we wondered: When it comes to design and creative work, in a blue-sky scenario, what do today’s design leaders wish AI would actually take care of for them? We asked nine great designers that very question, and got back some interesting answers. Their…

Until recently, Peter Attia was best known as a wellness influencer and a newly appointed contributor at CBS. He hosts a popular podcast, boasts more than 1.6 million Instagram followers, and wrote a best-selling book about longevity. That image cracked this week when it was revealed that Attia’s name appears more than 1,700 times in the latest Epstein files release. As the emails circulated on social media, longtime followers of his methods, along with medical professionals, reacted with outrage. “Peter Attia being Epstein’s concierge doctor is by far the weirdest crossover,” one X user wrote. Another one X user quipped: “Peter Attia’s stress level right now…

Single this Valentine’s Day? You’re not alone. New research from The Harris Poll shows that nearly half of Americans (46%) are not in relationships—many of them on purpose. The report, shared exclusively with Fast Company, calls it a “cultural revolution,” where people are using singlehood as a way to prioritize their agency rather than focusing on traditional relationship expectations. Not everyone is staying single, but 80% of Americans say you don’t need marriage to be happy. In fact, singles are more likely than those in relationships to say they live a fulfilling life. More time for friendships—or careers The idea of what makes a fulfilling relationsh…

What should you do if you wake up in the middle of the night and can’t fall back asleep? This is one of the most common—and frustrating—forms of insomnia. It turns out there’s a biological reason for it. And there are things you can do that may help you drop off again quickly. If you’re an entrepreneur or business leader, this may have happened to you more than once. Starting a business and being responsible for a team of employees means you may have a lot to worry about. In the middle of the night, those worries seem to grow more powerful and harder to set aside or ignore. You find yourself stuck going round and round in an endless cycle of negativity. Pretty soon, i…

I revisited my definition of strategy several years ago and realized recently that I hadn’t written about it—just presented it privately to executive teams in the context of my strategy work with them. I decided to rectify that oversight by writing this Playing to Win/Practitioner Insights (PTW/PI) piece on it called Revisiting my Definition of Strategy: Compelling Desired Customer Action. And as always, you can find all the previous PTW/PI here. Need for a DefinitionFor any field to develop, the terms used in the field must be defined. Otherwise, participants can’t discuss the field intelligently, and it is therefore hard for the field to advance. I experienced that phen…

Once the king of the chicken sandwich, Popeyes faces a lot of competition for the crown these days. Ascendant fried chicken hotspot Raising Cane’s exploded in growth last year, knocking off KFC to become the third most-popular fast food chicken chain in the U.S. behind Chick-fil-A and Popeyes. Meanwhile, upstarts like Dave’s Hot Chicken and Hangry Joe’s Hot Chicken & Wings are growing fast and eyeing a similar trajectory. Popeyes once inspired feverish hordes and all-day lines for its top-selling chicken sandwich, but it’s been a rocky ride as of late. Popeyes parent company Restaurant Brands International (RBI) just reported its quarterly earnings, and In the…

If talent is the oxygen of a company, succession planning is the life-support system. Yet too many organizations treat it like an org chart exercise, waiting until someone resigns or retires before scrambling to find a replacement. When a leader walks out, the ripple effects are immediate: strategy stalls, teams lose momentum, and culture wobbles overnight. The bigger problem? Most companies aren’t ready when it happens. According to DDI’s 2025 HR Insights Report, only 20% of CHROs say they have leaders prepared to step into critical roles, and just 49% of those roles could be filled internally today. That means most organizations are closer to a leadership cr…

Seven people have been arrested in the investigation of a stunning heist at the Louvre Museum in Paris, but the lavish, stolen jewels that once adorned France’s royals are still missing. In the days after the theft, a handful of experts warned that the artifacts valued at more than $100 million (88 million euros) could be melted or broken into parts. If done successfully, some say those smaller pieces could later go up for sale as part of a new necklace, earrings, or other jewelry, without turning too many heads. “You don’t even have to put them on a black market, you just put them in a jewelry store,” said Erin Thompson, an art crime professor at the John Jay Col…

Quickfire question: Who, in a business, should be responsible for AI? Most of us would assume the tech side of an organization should hold the bag: the CTO, CIO, CDO, CMO or perhaps even a new chief AI officer. And while this direction certainly made sense in the early wave of AI adoption—when it was still a mere tool—the rise of agentic AI (read: autonomous, intelligent agents that behave less like gadgets and more like colleagues) forces us to rethink our assumptions. Which means we should be asking whether AI should be treated as a technology or as a member of the team. And if it’s the latter, is HR actually the role best positioned to oversee it? WHY HR IS…