Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

If you’ve been curious about #vanlife but can’t justify dropping $100,000 on a kitted-out camper, a new patent from a Chinese automaker offers a compromise – but you might not like it. Seres, a prominent EV maker out of China, just secured a patent for an in-car toilet that slides out and tucks away beneath the seat. The patent, first reported outside of China by Autoblog, was filed in April of last year, approved last week, and is currently active. The patented design looks practical enough, with a rail system that allows a compact toilet to slide out from under the seat like a drawer and remain hidden from view when not in use. The design is intended to “satisfy…

Employees at Meta Platforms may soon feel like they’re spilling TMI to their employer’s MCI. The parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp is installing new software—reportedly dubbed Model Capability Initiative (MCI)—on its employees’ computers and workstations that will, among other things, track and capture mouse movements and keystrokes in an effort to train AI models, Reuters first reported on Tuesday. It’s all part of a broader effort to develop autonomous AI agents that can perform specific work tasks. A Meta spokesperson confirmed that the company was, indeed, pushing forward with the measure. “If we’re building agents to help people com…

JetBlue replies to customers on social media every day, from assuaging their customer service woes to thanking them for choosing their flights. But one seemingly innocuous JetBlue response may have set a class action lawsuit in motion, after customers became convinced that the airline implicated itself in using surveillance pricing. A social media frenzy JetBlue first drew suspicions of surveillance pricing with an April 18 reply on X to a user complaining about the airline’s prices. “A $230 increase on a ticket after one day is crazy,” they wrote. “I’m just trying to make it to a funeral.” JetBlue replied, recommending that the user “try clearing your cache an…

Beast Industries, the $5 billion media conglomerate founded by YouTube star MrBeast, is being sued by a former employee who says she was sexually harassed, discriminated against as a woman, and fired shortly after returning from maternity leave. The company refutes her claims, saying it has evidence, including Slack and WhatsApp messages, company documents, and witness testimony, that contradict the lawsuit’s allegations. The federal lawsuit, filed on Tuesday in the Eastern District Court of North Carolina, paints a picture of Beast Industries as a boy’s club in which women were excluded from male-dominated meetings, demeaned in front of colleagues, and told to “…

Modern brides need something old, new, borrowed, and blue. But if they’re influencers, add a sponsor to the list, too. Paid sponsored content is commonplace for anyone who scrolls through an influencer’s social media, where you might encounter anything from a lavish vacation to new products to try. But a recent viral discussion on social media has users questioning if the practice has gone too far. “Just saw someone posting their wedding on IG,” a user posted to X, alongside a screenshot of an Instagram quote from content creator Jaz Smith. “The 1st slide was them and the second slide was a photo of CAPITAL ONE CAFE. “I can’t make this shit up. WHEW, is no…

Intel Corporation (Nasdaq: INTC) has long played second fiddle to the more established giants in the AI race. For much of that race, the technology powering the hardware AI needs to run on has been GPUs, like the kind Nvidia excels in making. But as industry focus shifts towards how CPUs can accelerate AI tasks, Intel’s recent earnings report shows the company is starting to benefit significantly, sending its stock price surging today. Here’s what you need to know. What’s happened? Yesterday, Intel reported its first-quarter 2026 financial results for the period that ended on March 28. Those results were much better than analysts had been expecting. The most s…

The parent company of Hinge and Tinder is courting a potential new addition to its roster. Match Group on Monday announced a $100 million investment in Sniffies, a map-based cruising platform for queer men. As part of the investment, Sniffies will continue to be led by founder and CEO Blake Gallagher, the company said. “From the first conversations with the Match Group team, we knew they understood what makes Sniffies different. This partnership is about supporting that, not redefining it,” Gallagher said in a statement on the Sniffies Instagram—which was met with skepticism by followers. Sniffies launched in 2018 and has three million monthly active users v…

Whatever you think about the charitable gifts of MacKenzie Scott, no one would describe them as small. The novelist and philanthropist gave away $7 billion in 2025. That’s more than her ex-husband Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has given away in his entire lifetime. But when Scott penned her end-of-year essay reflecting on her efforts, she wasn’t focused on eye-popping numbers or dramatic gestures. Instead, she wanted to spotlight the impact of small, everyday acts of kindness. America the generous “It’s easy to focus on the methods of civic participation that make news, and hard to imagine the importance of the things we do each day with our own minds and hearts,…

Artificial intelligence is permeating workplaces, changing the nature of jobs of every stripe. Teachers are using it to create lesson plans and grade papers. Marketing professionals are harnessing it to work a room and learn about the needs of potential clients. Product managers are asking AI to serve as an interpreter when technical conversations went over their heads in meetings. Some people who employ AI tools are concerned that widespread use of the technology could erode critical thinking skills, especially among children. They also caution that AI-assisted work needs to be checked carefully because the tools have been known to hallucinate and make mistakes. Here …

It’s official: the robots are taking over. Taking over the internet, that is. Conspiracy theorists have long discussed the “dead internet” theory, which reasons that online spaces, once entirely populated and filled with content created by humans, have slowly become dominated by bots posing as people. The more extreme conspiracists allege that this transformation is deliberate, with governments and corporations using the bots to manipulate public perception. With the rise of AI since ChatGPT’s debut in 2022, the dead internet theory—or at least some version of it—has sounded more and more plausible. Now, according to a recent study, it’s closer to coming true. …

Bozoma Saint John shares her approach to leadership, emphasizing curiosity as a driving force behind growth, confidence, and long-term success View the full article

Your boss can make or break your job experience: a good boss, smooth sailing ahead. A bad boss? Misery. According to a new workplace study, most employees are dealing with the latter. The research comes from Harris Poll’s Thought Leadership Practice who just conducted its Toxic Boss survey, which included online responses from 1,334 employed U.S. adults. It defined a toxic boss as someone who “exhibits harmful workplace behaviors, including unfair preferential treatment, lack of recognition, blame-shifting, unnecessary micromanagement, unreasonable expectations, being unapproachable, taking credit for others’ ideas, acting unprofessionally, or discriminating against e…

Blue Cross Blue Shield is set to begin issuing nearly $2 billion in payouts to claimants in a long-running class action lawsuit. The payments are expected to begin this month and could see individuals receiving checks worth hundreds of dollars. Here’s what you need to know about the settlement and its massive payout. What is the settlement about? The settlement payout is the culmination of a nearly 14-year legal battle between Blue Cross Blue Shield and its subscribers. Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) operates a federation of health insurance companies under its umbrella. As of 2026, there are 33 such BCBS-affiliated health insurers. Back in 2012, …

Spirit Airlines abruptly ended operations in the early morning of Saturday, May 2 following a failed government bailout for Spirit Aviation Holdings, Inc. The company shutdown left customers stranded—it flew over 50,000 people the day before—and about 17,000 employees without a job, effective immediately. Now, some of those employees have turned to GoFundMe for support during this tumultuous time. Searching “Spirit Airlines” on the donation site leads to campaign after campaign from former captains, flight attendants, and ground staff. Many of the campaigns highlight that the person is looking for new employment, but until then, needs support to stay on their…

As artificial intelligence use skyrockets, tech companies are racing to build data centers, the infrastructure needed to run and teach their models. There are roughly 4,000 data centers around the U.S., with reports suggesting 3,000 more are coming online soon. Just one problem: No one seems to want a data center in their backyard. Communities oppose them because they consume massive amounts of energy and water and pollute the environment. Another concern? Data centers are major eyesores. These complexes can span hundreds of acres and usually feature uninspiring, windowless concrete facades. Built quickly, efficiently, and as inexpensively as possible, their desig…

Wordle, the game originally designed as a gift for the creator’s partner, has been a national obsession for years. Now it’s becoming a television game show. NBC has greenlit a new series centered around the game, which will run in prime time. Today anchor (and self-confessed Wordle megafan) Savannah Guthrie will host. The show will be executive produced by Jimmy Fallon and The New York Times, which owns Wordle. The show is scheduled to premiere in 2027 and casting is underway. If you’re interested in being a contestant on the show, you can apply at wordle.castingcrane.com. (The game will be played in teams of three, so you’ll need to find a couple of buddies or fa…

Naomi Osaka once believed that winning meant saying yes to everything. Over the years of her successful tennis career, though, the four-time Grand Slam champion says that doesn’t ring true anymore. As the new ambassador for vitamin and supplement company Olly’s Mental Health Awareness Month campaign, Osaka got candid about setting boundaries, pushing through fatigue and the success myth she used to believe. “I used to think success meant saying yes to everything that came with it,” Osaka wrote in a personal essay for Fortune. “Now I see it differently. I’ve been able to achieve what I have by holding boundaries.” In the piece, Osaka reflected on her decision t…

Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes were essentially flat in April, another lackluster showing for the housing market during what’s traditionally its busiest time of the year. Existing home sales edged up 0.2% last month from March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.02 million units, the National Association of Realtors said Monday. Sales were unchanged compared to April last year. The latest sales figure fell short of the roughly 4.12 million pace economists were expecting, according to FactSet. Sales have been hovering close to a 4-million annual pace now going back to 2023, far short of the historic norm that is closer to 5.2-million. And hom…

Lakes of digital ink have been spilled on the topic of AI killing traffic to media sites. I’ve certainly poured my share. The basic fear: If your business depends on attracting as many eyeballs as possible to content on a website, AI will detour that gaze and point it toward its own summary of that content, resulting in far fewer people looking your way. There’s still a lot to be resolved with respect to the economics of AI scraping and how publishers will be compensated for that act. But however that plays out, it’s becoming clearer by the day that the battle for attention is slowly shifting to whose information is cited most prominently in an AI summary. AI presence…