Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

Macy’s Inc is moving forward with additional store closures in 2026. According the retailer’s website, 14 stores are closing soon nationwide, with shoppers losing their local Macy’s in 12 states. The development is hardly surprising. In February 2024, Macy’s announced it would shutter 150 “underproductive locations” by the end of 2026, although it has since extended that timeline. The company announced the closures as part of “A Bold New Chapter” that will do three things: strengthen the Macy’s name plate, accelerate luxury growth, and simplify and modernize end-to-end operations. Macy’s also owns Bloomingdale’s, a higher-end department store than its n…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. There was a five-week window this spring during which four different U.S. homebuilders—one of them publicly traded, Tri Pointe Homes—were acquired by Japanese firms. At the time, ResiClub estimated that, once those deals close, Japanese firms would control more than 5.5% of the U.S. single-family homebuilding market. This wave of Japanese firms buying U.S. homebuilders isn’t just a 2026 phenomenon—it’s been building for a decade. According to new construction analytics firm Zonda: Back in 2015, Japanese firms owned U.S. homebuilders that acc…

A few times every month, I push and force my brain to come up with new ideas. The process is counterintuitive. I become bored on purpose. I believe an idle mind connects better dots. I feel guilty every time. But I push through it. I’m supposed to be working. I have a to-do list and emails to respond to. And I deliberately allow my mind to do nothing. This idea is a hard sell right now. People swear by all sorts of productivity frameworks. We’ve built entire work cultures around the idea that idle time is wasted time. So we fill every moment with work or content. With something. Anything to avoid the discomfort of just being. History’s great minds understood the …

An in-person remote position sounds like an oxymoron, but that’s exactly what athletic supplement company Inno Supps was advertising in a LinkedIn job posting that’s gone viral for all the wrong reasons. Though its listing for a senior copywriter was labeled as remote, job seekers were quick to call out the fine print at the top of the job description: “Please apply only if you are willing to eventually work onsite in Henderson, Nevada,” it read. “While this role is listed as ‘remote’ for visibility, it is an onsite position and requires in-office presence.” Inno Supps was apparently looking to capitalize on the gap between the demand and supply for remote work. A…

As operating costs rise and consumers curb spending in the wake of an affordability crisis, restaurants of all stripes are feeling the pinch from multiple directions. Five Guys Burgers and Fries is not immune to such industry-wide headwinds. Even as it has seen its overall U.S. footprint grow in recent years, it has also closed multiple restaurants, including locations in several states so far in 2026. The recent closures have mostly impacted California, but Five Guys restaurants in Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Georgia, and Nebraska have also shuttered this year, according to a review of local media reports, online review platforms, and the Five Guys store …

Wendy’s is feeling blue. Light blue, to be exact. In April, a new design concept accompanied the opening of the burger chain’s 100th store in the Philippines. In addition to its digital-first layout, the new Wendy’s boasts a light blue facade instead of a red one. The refreshed restaurants are now available to franchisees across the company’s international markets. Wendy’s tells Fast Company that locations are also open in Chile, England, and Scotland, but there are currently none in the U.S. The blue color scheme is part of an initiative Wendy’s is calling “Future Fresh” that could make one of the brand’s secondary colors more primary if adopted widely. On the co…

There’s an old joke among economists that goes like this: “You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics.” I didn’t say it was a funny joke. But when labor economist Robert Solow originally wrote those words in 1987, they were certainly true. Personal computers, corporate mainframes, and the first vestiges of the modern internet were all anyone could talk about. Yet productivity wasn’t budging. These whizzy technologies, in short, weren’t earning anyone any money. The phenomenon became known as Solow’s Paradox. Of course, we all know how that story ended. By the mid-1990s, productivity was on a tear, and tech was making lo…

Using your email address as your username has become the standard. In many cases, you simply enter your email address and choose a password. Some services remove the need for a password altogether, allowing you to register using just your email address and a onetime code sent to it. Others offer the option to connect your account directly to your Google or Apple identity. As we scroll, shop, apply, and register across services, our email address quietly becomes our identity everywhere, from shopping platforms to banking to travel. Over time, more and more of our activity starts pointing back to a single account. While it all feels convenient, there is an issue we …

It used to be that my friend Kristin had a vague sense of how her husband’s day went. He’d come home with a story to share or sometimes he didn’t. Sometimes he seemed annoyed, and when he was in one of those moods, she didn’t press. They’d kick their feet up, pour some wine, and talk about the upcoming weekend. Now they both work remote and all of a sudden, she knows a lot more about her husband’s day. “I know how many times he’s opened the fridge,” she told me recently. “Seven times. Seven times before lunch.” She wasn’t angry when she said it. “I love him,” she said. “But I don’t know that I was meant to know this much.” You’re seeing too much I’ve been thi…

We’ve written a lot about how AI is coming for your job. Now AI is coming for your music, flooding streaming platforms with “AI music slop.” But instead of curbing it, Spotify’s CEO Alex Norström is doubling down and embracing AI-generated music—claiming it offers artists protection from piracy, and music-lovers more freedom to listen to and create more of the kind of music they want. Last week, Spotify and Universal Music Group (UMG) announced landmark licensing agreements, paving the way for Spotify to launch a new tool for premium subscribers. The tool enables them to create AI-generated song covers and remixes of their favorite songs from participating artists and…

There’s no clearer sign of anime’s cultural ascendance than the box office haul of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba — Infinity Castle. The film, which hit U.S. theaters two weeks ago, has pulled in more than $555 million globally, including more than $104 million in North America, making it a bonafide hit for Sony Pictures, which distributed it outside of Japan through its anime streaming arm, Crunchyroll. The movie’s success reflects audiences’ growing interest in anime. A survey from market research firm Dentsu found that, 31% of people worldwide said they consumed anime at least weekly, with a full 50% of Gen Z reporting they watch it. That’s translated into a boom i…