Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

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, it’s…

GoPro’s announcement that it plans to cut 23% of its workforce this week didn’t come as a complete shock to anyone who’s been following the wearable camera maker over the past few years. Once a leader in the action camera market, the company has seen its stock fall from highs of more than $93 in 2014 to just 80 cents today. The $10 billion valuation it once boasted is a distant memory. (GoPro’s current market cap is just under $122 million.) Now it’s betting on an ongoing turnaround plan to stabilize the business. Part of that plan involves becoming an even leaner operation. GoPro will lay off 145 of its 631 employees starting in the second fiscal quarter. That wi…

The title cards for British actor Riz Ahmed’s new dramedy, Bait, are a colorful explosion of letters and numbers. If you look a little closer, each one reads like a code hidden in plain sight for you, the viewer, to unravel. Bait is a six-episode series that debuted on Prime Video on March 25. It stars Ahmed (who also created and cowrote the show) as Shah Latif, a struggling actor whose leaked audition to play James Bond incites a media frenzy. Each episode tracks Shah’s exponential spiral as his private life is made public, forcing him to contend with his own identity, belonging, self-worth, and the cultural narratives mapped onto him as a British-Pakistani actor com…

Pedestrians wearing headphones who are unaware of their surroundings pose an accident risk for cyclists—especially if those pedestrians are blasting their favorite tunes in noise-canceling headphones that block out the rest of the world. A new bike bell is designed to pierce that bubble. Škoda, a Czech automaker, calls its new DuoBell an analog solution to a digital problem. It’s a mechanical bell, but the company says its the first to engineer a sound that specifically tricks a headphone’s algorithm. The Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) technology employed in headphones works by detecting outside sound and playing back an inverted signal that cancels it out. The D…

Google’s Chrome is taking browser tabs vertical. The company announced this week that it’s beginning to roll out an option for users to stack their tabs in a panel on the left side of the browser instead of horizontally at the top. For tab hoarders like me—who get lost in a million tabs while trying to remember which favicon went with which website, or who have multiple websites open with the same favicon—vertical tabs will give us more information to determine which tab is where. It even works when you have so many open that you have to scroll to reach the end. The vertical tab interface has two modes: a collapsed version with just the favicons, and an expand…

America’s housing market is finally starting to tip in favor of aspiring homeowners. A new analysis from Realtor.com reveals that nearly two-thirds of the biggest housing markets in the U.S. have now moved into “balanced” or “buyer-friendly” status, while only a quarter of the major markets still favor sellers. That’s in sharp contrast to 2021, when low interest rates and a buying frenzy gave sellers the upper hand in 98% of the top U.S. housing markets. Out of the top metros, only 26% qualify as seller’s markets right now, with a relatively large ratio of home shoppers to housing stock. Of those cities, 46% are in what Realtor.com calls a “balanced-loosening” pha…

This new outdoor fireplace—called the Totem Chiminea—would be at home in an art museum. It stands 5 feet tall, has a bulbous base that tapers into a slender flue, and is coated in porcelain enamel that comes in earthy colors such as sage green and burnt red. When you light a fire inside it, it emits warmth as well as a glow. At $4,500, it is not a casual purchase. But Neighbor, the 5-year-old brand that creates it, has found that many consumers are looking to invest in outdoor furniture that is as beautiful and thoughtfully designed as the pieces within their home. Neighbor was founded in 2020 in Phoenix by three friends—Nick Arambula, Chris Lee, and Mike Fretto—who ha…

Let’s get one thing straight: I love my 2015 Toyota Sienna minivan. But after a decade of navigating dirty dog paws, diaper changes, puking toddlers, cross-country road trips, dystopian Maritime Canadian winters, and more, it might be time to consider a succession plan. So, like reportedly half of American consumers using LLM search today, I recently opened up a chatbot and asked it to help me find a new car. My opening prompt was simple: What is the best vehicle for a family of four, that has to deal with daily commutes, winter weather, all in the $50,000 price range? According to ChatGPT: Best overall: Mazda CX-90 Hybrid Best for reliability and resale:…

When companies rolled out return-to-office mandates starting in late 2024 and early 2025, labor force participation among mothers of young children fell from roughly 80% in 2023 to 77% by August 2025, reversing years of hard-won gains. Yet if you’re pregnant or postpartum, you have more rights than you may realize, including some that can help you keep your job while growing your family in a way that works for you. For all things working and mom-ing, we always turn to Daphne Delvaux, an employment attorney who represents working mothers, founder of the Mamattorney, and author of the new book Moms in Labor: An Employment Lawyer’s Secrets to Protect Your Baby and Your C…

We talk a lot about visionary leadership. You know, the ability to see around corners, spot emerging patterns, and imagine futures that don’t yet exist. These are all very important activities for strategic work. But something we rarely consider is what happens when the physical instrument of vision itself is under siege. Said more bluntly, what happens when our eyes succumb to the daily assault of screen time? I recently spoke with Dr. Valerie Sheety-Pilon, SVP of clinical and medical affairs at VSP Vision Care, whose organization has spent three years tracking the state of vision health in the American workforce. The data she shared stopped me cold—and it reframed h…

Some Buc-ee’s customers are complaining of pain at the pump—and it’s not the surge in gas prices that’s to blame, but rather the chain’s pay-at-the-pump policy. While it’s common practice for gas stations to require customers paying for gas with cash to prepay with a cashier, Buc-ee’s instituted a new policy in March that affects customers paying with credit or debit cards. Customers paying with credit or debit cards are now required to pay at the pump, and can no longer pay at the register, as reported by the Austin American-Statesman. The new policy is intended to speed up transactions and prevent people from shopping while their car sits at the gas pump. But where do…

For all the advances in data science, artificial intelligence, and behavioral assessments, one hiring ritual remains stubbornly unchanged: the job interview, where candidates are still subjected to awkward brainteasers about golf balls in airplanes, forced to disclose their “biggest weaknesses” to amateur psychologists, asked whether they would keep working after winning the lottery, or made to present to silent panels who seem less interested in evidence of competence than in observing how gracefully applicants endure a mildly humiliating social experiment. Despite decades of research showing that traditional interviews are only moderately reliable predictors of perform…

Travelers will soon face restrictions on how many portable chargers they can carry on a flight as airlines continue to try to reduce the risk of another lithium battery fire aboard their jets. Southwest Airlines announced Tuesday that starting April 20 passengers will only be able to carry one charger on their planes, and they won’t be allowed to put it in the overhead bin or in their checked luggage. The airline already requires passengers to keep their chargers in the open while they are using them, so flight attendants can act quickly if they start to overheat. The new Southwest rule goes even further than the limit of two chargers per passenger that the Internationa…

I recently noticed a paradox among a team of developers. With AI, engineers started writing code faster and getting answers in seconds, yet they also reported feeling more exhausted than before. AI hasn’t actually reduced the amount of work that needs to be done. Instead, it has fundamentally changed its nature. We can now run multiple tasks in parallel and perceive this as productivity. Up to a point, it is. But eventually, managing tools and constantly switching between them becomes more draining than performing the original tasks themselves. In some cases, it even slows down the process of finding a solution. I’ve been managing developer teams for over 15 years…

The most famous dead person to ever wear sunglasses just might be Bernie Lomax. Until now. Because the namesake for the 1989 hit comedy Weekend at Bernie’s was a fictional character, but you dear reader, you are very real. Liquid Death just announced its newest collab, this time with sunglasses brand Pit Viper, to make what its calling “Sunglasses for Dead People.” According to Liquid Death, 87% of people who have near-death experiences report seeing a blinding bright light. That’s not an exact science, but the canned water brand isn’t letting that get in the way of a good bit. Available on Pit Viper’s site for $119, the limited-edition shades feature shatterproof, …

It’s a tough time to own fast-food restaurants. Franchisees for popular chains such as Applebee’s, Subway, and Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen have filed for bankruptcy recently, and another has joined them. Multiple entities associated with Friendly Franchisees Corporation (FFC), owner of 65 Carl’s Jr. locations across California, have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Restaurant Business first reported. Carl’s Jr. was founded almost 85 years ago and is known for its charbroiled burgers. FFC has yet to state whether any Carl’s Jr. locations will close as a result of the bankruptcies. Its founder, Harshad Dharod, owns the five associated entities that filed…

Lowe’s Foundation is making a major investment in future skilled tradesworkers. On Tuesday, the home improvement retailer announced it would commit an additional $200 million to training 250,000 tradespeople by 2035 through its Gable Grants program, bringing its overall commitment to $250 million. The investment comes amid a rising need for skilled tradespeople driven by a surge in AI developments. According to JLL’s 2026 Global Data Center Outlook report, the global data center sector is expanding by about 14% a year. Over the next four years, nearly 100 gigawatts of capacity will be added, which will require a $3 trillion investment. At the same time, we’re seeing a m…

Getting a seat at the Masters is notoriously difficult, with tickets to the golf tournament only available to the public through an online lottery that has to be entered a year in advance. But the Masters may have an even more exclusive offering than attendance: a limited edition garden gnome potentially worth thousands of dollars. In 2016, Augusta National, the Georgia golf course that hosts the Masters every year, released the first gnome of what is now a coveted set of ten. Each year, the gnome sports a different outfit. Sometimes it’s a golfer, sporting a set of clubs and a sweater vest. Sometimes it’s an attendee, flexing its badge and a signature Masters snack l…

Samsung is saying goodbye to its namesake texting app, at least for United States customers. According to an end of service announcement published on the tech giant’s U.S. support website, Samsung Messages will be discontinued in July. Impacted owners of Samsung smartphones and other gadgets are being asked to switch to Google Messages in the meantime, “to maintain a consistent messaging experience on Android.” All Samsung Galaxy phones run on Google’s Android operating system. To switch to Google Messages, Samsung’s website gives users instructions to download the app from the Play Store, if not already on their phone, and set it as the default. Some people may a…

As a teenager, my Sony Walkman was my most treasured possession. It was a portal to another world that let me consume music in industrial quantities. By the early 1990s, it wasn’t new—Sony invented it in the late ’70s—yetit still held incredible power. Sony sold more than 220 million units globally. When one died, often from overuse, I’d use a birthday or Christmas present to upgrade it, usually with a trip to an electronics store with my Dad. Those places felt mythical. That feeling came flooding back when I visited a big-box electronics store with my kids. Retail is under pressure as e-commerce reshapes how we shop. But my overriding thought was: where did the e…

Book lovers with aging Kindles might want to find a new e-reader soon, as Amazon is discontinuing support for its older devices next month. On May 20, the e-commerce giant is set to cut off support for devices released in 2012 or earlier, notifying active users of the affected devices via email. “These models have been supported for at least 14 years—some as long as 18 years—but technology has come a long way in that time, and these devices will no longer be supported moving forward,” an Amazon spokesperson told Fast Company. While the devices will still be able to power on, users will no longer be able to purchase or download new content for them. Additionall…

One of the biggest barriers people face to their productivity is an inability to focus. Most people are highly distracted and distractable, which makes it hard to sustain the level of attention required to complete complex tasks and to think through difficult problems. Chances are at least part of your problem is self-inflicted. We have created environments with lots of attention-grabbing information. You have learned to seek out that information regularly. Indeed, your brain has timing mechanisms in it, and the desire to check your phone or your web browser may interrupt you at regular intervals, even when you’re trying your best to get something else done. Here …

Below, Nir Eyal shares five key insights from his new book, Beyond Belief: The Science-Backed Way to Stop Limiting Yourself and Achieve Breakthrough Results. Eyal is a best-selling author, former Stanford lecturer, and one of the world’s foremost experts on behavioral design. His previous books, Hooked and Indistractable, have sold more than a million copies and been translated into 30-plus languages. Next Big Idea Club readers can get an exclusive free download of Eyal’s 5-Minute Belief Change Guide at: NirAndFar.com/beyond-belief-live/. What’s the big idea? The best beliefs are both practical and provisional. They offer just enough certainty to act, yet e…