Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

Universal Music Group saw its shares (AMS: UMG) rise more than 11% on Tuesday, following a proposal from billionaire Bill Ackman to buy the music giant through his investment firm Pershing Square Capital Management. Pershing Square currently owns a 10% stake in Amsterdam-listed UMG. Despite today’s bump, the stock is down about 15% year to date. UMG has an extensive music catalogue and is home to major recording artists such as Taylor Swift, Bob Dylan, and Bad Bunny. What would the deal mean for UMG? If approved, the deal would offer shareholders €9.4 billion ($10.9 billion) in cash and 0.77 shares in “new UMG” for each share of UMG they currently own. …

Yesterday, astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen became the first humans in over 50 years to see the far side of the moon. Artemis II launched at 6:35 p.m. ET on Wednesday, April 1. The 10-day mission is a slingshot around the moon, paving the way for a moon landing with Artemis IV in 2027. (Artemis III, scheduled for 2026, will test out systems to land humans on the surface of the moon in orbit next year.) While there are satellites around the moon, and rovers and landers on the lunar surface, unaided human eyes have not seen the moon’s surface details since Apollo 17 in 1972. That changed on Monday, April 6. The …

Some leadership lessons only come the hard way. Brené Brown reflects on the skills she wishes she had built sooner—and why they matter more than ever. View the full article

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:…

In the 55 years since Walt Disney World first opened its gates, the theme park has undergone plenty of changes—and in many ways, it’s stayed the same. Some attractions from the park’s opening day in 1971 and the decade that followed have cemented themselves as indisputable classics, like Jungle Cruise and The Haunted Mansion (both of which are iconic enough to warrant their own film adaptations). One such ride is Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, which first opened in the Magic Kingdom’s Frontierland area in 1980. The mine train roller coaster went largely unchanged for more than 40 years, before the park announced that it would close in January 2025 for a year-long reno…

Companies today are facing a paradox they can’t seem to solve: Roles are going unfilled while millions of capable workers remain overlooked. Work has changed. That much is undeniable. Artificial intelligence, automation, demographic shifts, and economic pressure are reshaping how companies operate and who they need to hire. The future of work isn’t on the horizon; it has already arrived. Yet the way most organizations approach hiring and workforce development remains rooted in the past. The consequences are increasingly visible. Job growth has slowed from its post-pandemic peak. Layoffs are rising across sectors. And still, critical roles in healthcare, cybers…

AI is already transforming how organizations operate, compete, and create value, and adoption is accelerating across industries. Businesses that are experimenting with AI and learning how to move from initial ideas to deployment are building the infrastructure to deliver value both now and in the future. Those that are waiting—for the technology to mature, for conditions to stabilize, for someone else to figure it out first—risk finding that a competitor has upended their market before they’ve even begun adapting to this new era. Given the current chaos in global markets and geopolitics, the temptation to avoid change and pursue a defensive strategy is strong. But it …

A lot of people go out on their own after a layoff, especially in the current economy. And when they do, they tend to focus on what they don’t know: how to find clients, how to set pricing, how to market themselves. But a long corporate career also builds some core competencies that translate directly into running a solo business. I spent 15 years in a corporate environment, including a role on an executive team. I pivoted to a new career, and then found myself laid off 18 months later. I made the snap decision to start my solo business the next day. While a lot of aspects of starting a solo business were intimidating, there were things I knew I could do well bas…

Padel has taken the sports world by storm. In a smaller but growing circle, it’s also become a way to date. Much of that runs through Playtomic, a booking app for racquet sports where players join “open matches” with strangers, chat through the app, and meet people they wouldn’t otherwise encounter. For some, those connections carry off the court. “People are meeting each other on the court . . . [and then] grabbing a beer or coffee from the grounds,” says Pro Padel League CEO Michael Dorfman. That kind of interaction is exactly what the app Playtomic is designed to facilitate, and increasingly, to scale. In 2017, co-founder Pablo Carro set out to solve a …

Errands, Target runs, tennis games, and even flying to Europe—these are just some of the things employees have done while taking “soft off days.” The idea of taking soft off days, in which you use a work day to do just about anything else, has become a phenomenon. Videos across social media instruct employees on the best way to take a soft day while assuaging any guilt. While employers might see it as wasting company time, many people believe soft off days are harmless—even needed. So-called “time theft,” the practice of running errands or doing personal matters on the clock, has become widely pervasive since the pandemic normalized remote work. From consciously…

If you watched the Super Bowl in 2026, you likely saw Serena Williams share her weight-loss journey on GLP-1 medications in a commercial. Like millions of others around the country, if you’ve ever considered taking one of these drugs, you probably went online to learn more about where you can get them and how much they cost. Online searches for GLP-1 medications like Ozempic and Wegovy have risen dramatically since 2022. Advertisements like Williams’s Super Bowl commercial both reflect and help drive that growing demand. More and more advertisements for weight-loss medications are appearing in people’s daily lives. These ads can be appealing, intrusive, confus…

A new report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center (NSCRC) shows that more students are seeking out an associate degree first over a four-year bachelor’s degree. Surpassing those aged 21 to 24 for the first time, students aged 18 to 20 represent the largest share of first time associate degree earners in the 2024-25 academic year. That academic year, of the 2 million students who earned a bachelor’s degree, 532,464 of them had a prior postsecondary credential—either a certificate, associate or bachelor’s/masters degree. And of those, 419,766 students completed the bachelor’s degree pathway from an associate degree, accounting for the largest perc…

About an hour after the men’s college basketball season ended in Indianapolis with a Michigan Wolverines’ championship on April 6, the team’s coaching staff was already working hard at trying to win the next one. The transfer portal—a digital compliance tool and database to systematically manage the transfer process for student-athletes—opened for Division I men’s basketball players on midnight after the title game, and it set off a firestorm of entries with players seeking massive paydays. However, the public doesn’t actually know for certain who is getting how much money. And in today’s disinformation economy, it’s become a haven for fake news to take the mantle…

Elon Musk has been summoned to Paris on Monday, where investigators are looking into allegations of misconduct related to the social media platform X, including the spread of child sexual abuse material and deepfake content. The world’s richest man and Linda Yaccarino — the former CEO of X — have been summoned for “voluntary interviews,” while other employees of the platform are scheduled to be heard as witnesses throughout this week, the Paris prosecutor’s office said. It remains unclear whether Musk and Yaccarino will travel to Paris. A spokesperson for X did not respond to questions from The Associated Press and Yaccarino’s current company, eMed, did not answer a req…

Changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) begin today in Florida. Program recipients can no longer use their SNAP benefits to purchase soda, energy drinks, candy, and prepared desserts. This is part of a broader effort by the The President administration to give states more control over the public assistance program. Through a federal waiver process, states can now submit a waiver proposal to limit which foods and drinks qualify for SNAP purchases. Twenty-two states have already applied for waivers and received federal approval. Here’s what you need to know. Florida becomes the 10th state to implement such restrictions An estimated…

Nearly two out of three American adults have used an AI-powered search tool in the past six months. But here’s the stat that should keep every product builder up at night: only 15% say they trust the results “a lot.” That gap between adoption and trust is the defining challenge for the next era of AI search. Consumers are showing up, but they are questioning the results. As product builders, we have to ask ourselves an uncomfortable question: Are we building experiences that earn and deserve consumer trust? The Walled Garden Problem Yelp partnered with Morning Consult to survey more than 2,200 U.S. adults on how they use and perceive AI-powered search. The fin…

Picture this: You’re at the gate, shoes pinching after a long walk through the terminal, and you know you packed your flats. They’re right there, somewhere in your carry-on. But getting to them means hoisting the bag onto a bench, unzipping the clamshell, and watching your carefully packed clothes threaten to spill out onto the airport floor. By the time you’ve wrestled the bag back together, your flight is boarding. It’s a scenario that has played out in airports for decades—because for all the advances in materials and wheels and tracking technology, the fundamental architecture of the carry-on suitcase has barely changed. Open from the middle, split in half, dig ar…

The most sustainable piece of clothing you own probably has nothing to do with recycled polyester or organic cotton. It’s the little black dress you’ve worn on repeat for 15 years and the pair of ripped Levi’s 501s you can’t imagine ever throwing away. The harder question—the one the fashion industry has never quite figured out—is how to design something like that on purpose. How do you make a garment someone loves now and will continue to wear for years? This is something Sarah Bonello thinks about constantly as she designs for her new label, The Park. After decades in fashion PR, where she developed a finely tuned sense of what the market was missing, Bonell…

After-work drinks are a nice way to bond with colleagues in your 20s and 30s. But, as people get older, different circumstances can necessitate more planning, and new avenues for making friends at work. Take Olga Valadon, 54, whose last corporate role was as chief of staff at Deloitte. “Both I and the people I became friends with faced different pressures, whether from work or family commitments,” says Valadon. “We were running around all day chasing our tail to fulfill these needs, often leaving too little time or energy for anything that was just for us.” It’s no surprise that, as people age, family obligations become a significant barrier to making friends. Bi…

If you’ve been avoiding giving feedback to someone on your team, you’re not alone. You’re in good company. Well . . . common company, at least. Most managers aren’t avoiding feedback because they don’t care. It’s because it feels awkward and uncomfortable, and they’re hoping things will somehow get better on their own. Spoiler alert: they almost never do. I’ve seen this from multiple angles—as an employee, a manager, an employment lawyer, and someone who spent years in HR—and the cost of avoiding feedback is almost always higher than the cost of the conversation you didn’t want to have. What Happens When You Keep Waiting On the legal side, this patter…

Upwards of 80% of HR professionals are women. When I first came across that number, what unsettled me wasn’t the stat—it was how quickly my brain accepted it. Of course HR is mostly women. That’s the department where “people” and “culture” live. Where feelings are attended to. The nurturing department. The moment I noticed I’d reached for that word, I realized the number wasn’t showing me a labor-market pattern but, instead, my bias—about which work is considered feminine, and which workers get feminized in the process. The chief human resources officer holds one of the most impossible jobs in the C-suite. They’re asked to be the company’s emotional infrastructur…

Shares of Bed Bath & Beyond Inc (NYSE: BBBY) are surging this morning, a day after the company reported its Q1 2026 results. Despite the company reporting a loss for the quarter, BBBY stock is significantly higher, as many investors see evidence that the once-iconic home goods retailer’s turnaround efforts are finally showing results. Here’s what you need to know. What’s happened? Yesterday, Bed Bath & Beyond reported first-quarter results for its fiscal year 2026. While many will recognize the company due to its “Bed Bath & Beyond” name, the firm actually owns several businesses under its corporate umbrella, including Bed Bath & Beyond, O…

Cancer has a way of touching lives without warning. Nearly everyone in our community has a story—someone they love, someone they’ve lost, or someone still fighting. At MG2, that shared reality is why Swing for the Cure to benefit the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center has become so deeply meaningful to us. It isn’t just a charity event. It’s a collective response to something that has affected so many of us personally. Swing for the Cure began as a golf tournament, but it quickly became much more. Driven by the loss of his first wife, Patricia, our former CEO Jerry Lee believed that no one should lose a friend, family member, or loved one to breast cancer. That conviction …

Oprah Winfrey’s podcast is headed to Amazon. Winfrey’s production company, Harpo Entertainment, struck a multiyear deal to give Amazon-owned Wondery exclusive distributing and advertising rights to “The Oprah Podcast,” the companies announced Monday. Under the agreement, Winfrey’s podcast will expand to two new episodes a week starting this summer — and Wondery will distribute the show’s audio and video across Amazon platforms. Under the deal, Amazon has also obtained rights to the library of the widely-watched “The Oprah Winfrey Show” — which ran from 1986 to 2011 — as well as the talk show host’s book club and “Favorite Things” franchises. No financial terms of the a…

New York City has its obvious icons: The Statue of Liberty; Milton’ Glaser’s I “heart” New York logo; yellow cabs. Lesser known, but no less iconic, is the city’s compost bins. You know a NYC compost bin when you see one. Dirt brown, with a bright orange clasp, they roll out on recycling day, filled with gloriously stinky food scraps. NYC distributed the large brown bins for free in 2024, but not every household got one before the sanitation department OK’d using any bin (55 gallons or less) for composting. Now the bins have been shrunk down to the scale of your kitchen, and we have to admit: We really want one. OnlyNY is selling a tabletop compost bin at the cent…