Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

Digg is shutting down—at least for now. Just two months after relaunching with an open beta, the once-influential social news site says it is pulling the plug while it reassesses its strategy. The announcement came from CEO Justin Mezzell in a message posted to the site’s homepage. The relaunch has been scrapped, he wrote, and the company has decided “to significantly downsize the Digg team.” As the company figures out its next move, Mezzell said, Digg founder Kevin Rose will return to Digg on a full-time basis starting in April. The shutdown marks another twist in the long, uneven history of a platform that once helped define the early social web. Twenty-two year…

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…

After smashing March heat records in 14 states and the U.S. as a whole, the gigantic heat dome that’s baked the Southwest is creeping eastward and may end up being one of the most expansive heat waves in American history, meteorologists and weather historians said. And it’s not going away for awhile, maybe not till the middle of the next week as April starts, said meteorologist Gregg Gallina of the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center. “Basically the entire U.S. is going to be hot,” Gallina said Monday. “The area of record temperatures is extremely large. That’s the thing that’s really bizarre.” This heat dome — in which high pressure is acting like a p…

Automotive companies paving the way for self-driving cars are changing the rules of the road. Robotaxis went mainstream in 2025, delivering millions of rides around the world. Once fledgling startups, these providers have grown into fully mature businesses, and the competition is intensifying, especially between the robotaxi units of two global search engine juggernauts: Alphabet’s Waymo and Baidu’s Apollo Go. This year’s honorees took concrete action toward making the self-driving dream a reality across the world. They differ in approach—from how to build and operate the cars to how they should see and react to the world around them—but share the same goal. Best …

Video game maker Epic Games, the creator of Fortnite, announced on Tuesday it is laying off 1,000 employees, or about 20% of its workforce. (In 2023, Epic cut 830 jobs or 16% of its workforce at that time, per Variety.) “I’m sorry we’re here again,” Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney said in a note to Epic employees, which the company posted on X. “The downturn in Fortnite engagement that started in 2025 means we’re spending significantly more than we’re making, and we have to make major cuts to keep the company funded.” “This layoff, together with over $500 million of identified cost savings in contracting, marketing, and closing some open roles puts us in a more stable …

JetBlue announced Monday plans to give its top-tier credit card a refresh, adding new travel credits, companion perks, and loyalty boosts as airlines and issuers keep escalating what “premium” actually means. The updates to the JetBlue Premier World Elite Mastercard, issued by Barclays, are set to roll out later this spring. The annual fee isn’t changing, remaining at $499 even as new benefits are added. Companion passes, but with a twist The headline addition is a companion pass benefit, a familiar perk that JetBlue is now bringing into the mix. Cardholders can earn a pass worth up to $500 after spending $15,000 in a calendar year, and a second one worth u…

When it comes to deciding on a job, Gen Z isn’t just thinking about paid time off, return-to-office mandates or salary negotiations. They’re checking whether a company will cover GLP-1 weight-loss drugs—and they’re not alone. It’s a benefit that could actually push young employees from one job offer to another. A new ZipHealth survey of over 1,000 workers found that nearly half (47%) of Gen Z said GLP-1 coverage would affect their choices between two similar jobs—that’s compared to 35% of millennials and 36% of Gen X. In more extreme cases, another 7% of workers said they would be open to taking a pay cut if it meant working somewhere that offers GLP-1 coverage. …

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 judge is expected to sentence OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma to forfeit $225 million to the Justice Department on Tuesday, clearing the way for the company to finalize a settlement of thousands of lawsuits it faces over its role in the opioid crisis. The penalty was agreed to in a 2020 pact to resolve federal civil and criminal probes it was facing. If the judge signs off, other penalties will not be collected in return for Purdue settling the other lawsuits. After years of legal twists and turns, the settlement was approved by another judge last year and could take effect May 1. It requires members of the Sackler family who own the company to pay up to $7 billion to s…

Over the past several months, Adobe has been rolling out a steady stream of AI features and platform updates that make brand design more intuitive, quick, and personalized. Its latest addition to that portfolio is a new tool called Asset Amplify that can generate entire websites, social media posts, and print collateral catered toward specific audience segments, like Gen Zers or millennials. Asset Amplify is among several prospective tools, called “Sneaks,” that Adobe will be demoing at its 2026 Adobe Summit conference this week. For Adobe, Sneaks are annual UX experiments, crowdsourced from across the company, that may or may not become actual products based on user …

This September, Tim Cook is stepping down as the CEO of Apple after nearly 15 years. Cook will hand the role over to John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering. Cook shared his thoughts about his successor in a community letter. In it, he called Ternus, “a brilliant engineer and thinker who has spent the past 25 years building the Apple products our users love so much, obsessed with every detail, focused on every possible way we can make something better, bolder, more beautiful, and more meaningful.” He added that Ternus “is the perfect person for the job.” Aside from Cook’s own faith in Ternus to take over his role, the succession makes s…

Burger King is teaming up with Star Wars for a limited-time menu, bringing a galaxy far, far away to its restaurants. The promotion launches May 4—often celebrated as Star Wars Day— at participating US resturants with themed packaging and exclusive items tied to The Mandalorian and Grogu, which arrives in theaters May 22. “Star Wars has shaped generations of fans, and as we head into the release of Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu, we saw an opportunity to bring that excitement straight into our restaurants,” Joel Yashinsky, Chief Marketing Officer of Burger King U.S. & Canada, said in a press statement. The themed packaging includes four collectible …

Starting next year, Deloitte and Zoom are cutting back on some of the most treasured employee benefits, Business Insider reports. Zoom is cutting parental leave from 22 to 24 weeks down to 18 weeks, while non-birthing parents will get 10 weeks instead of 16. As for Deloitte, broader cuts to PTO, pension plans and IVF funding will impact employees in support roles like administrative services, IT and finance. Experts warn that Deloitte and Zoom may be paving the way for other companies to follow their lead. “It legitimizes that action for everybody else,” former Google head of human resources Laszlo Bock told Business Insider. The announced cuts struck a …