Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

At the Consumer Electronics Show in early January, Razer made waves by unveiling a small jar containing a holographic anime bot designed to accompany gamers not just during gameplay, but in daily life. The lava-lamp-turned-girlfriend is undeniably bizarre—but Razer’s vision of constant, sometimes sexualized companionship is hardly an outlier in the AI market. Mustafa Suleyman, Microsoft’s AI CEO, who has long emphasized the distinction between AI with personality and AI with personhood, now suggests that AI companions will “live life alongside you—an ever-present friend helping you navigate life’s biggest challenges.” Others have gone further. Last year, a leaked…

Happiness is taking control of a beloved comic strip. Sony is buying a 41% stake in the Charles M. Schulz comic “Peanuts” and its characters including Snoopy and Charlie Brown from Canada’s WildBrain in a $457 million deal, the two companies said Friday. The deal adds to Sony’s existing 39% stake, bringing its shareholding to 80%, according to a joint statement. The Schulz family will continue to own the remaining 20%. “With this additional ownership stake, we are thrilled to be able to further elevate the value of the ‘Peanuts’ brand by drawing on the Sony Groupʼs extensive global network and collective expertise,” Sony Music Entertainment President Shunsuke …

Even as digital and physical threats reach record levels, advances in security and privacy are giving us stronger defenses than ever before. New tools can now scan the wireless spectrum to flag hidden risks, protect faces and voices from AI misuse, map out who has access to sensitive data in real time, and guard large language models against prompt injection and data leaks. Together, these innovations are reshaping how we safeguard both our information and our personal safety. Bastille Networks For keeping tabs on airborne threats Wireless signals are more crowded than ever, from Bluetooth and Wi-Fi to 5G and beyond—and the data they carry is as valuable as anything se…

Peloton is pushing off with a new strategy for making workouts personal and more useful. The at-home fitness company today unveiled a turnaround strategy that it says will overhaul and improve its offerings by relying on AI-powered features. The company’s ultimate goal? Leveraging technology to increase personalization and create a more sticky workout experience and prevent churn, create communities between members that will bind them to the program. The new strategy comes after a rocky few years for the company. Peloton went public in 2019 at a price of $27 per share, but is now trading at $9 after incorrectly predicting demand for its products after a…

The early stages of building a brand are critical. Beyond identifying their audience, brands also have to connect with them while demonstrating their utility. For the five companies recognized as 2025 Brands That Matter honorees in the on the rise category, in four years or less they have managed to do both those things with aplomb. Whether it’s Unrivaled’s unique NIL and athletic proposition for WNBA athletes, Scarlett Gasque’s ability to tap into underserved shoppers, or Alan-1’s efforts to give the arcade game an upgrade for avid players, these brands have proven their strengths. Alan-1 Alan-1 creates arcade and video game products inspired by the 1980s. In …

Apple’s new 13-inch laptop, the MacBook Neo, is a cheap MacBook in the era of expensive PCs, when AI’s endless appetite for memory has caused the price of computers to skyrocket. Its $599 starting price isn’t much more than what a couple of sticks of DDR5 will cost these days. The secret to the low price? The Neo isn’t driven by your typical laptop chipset, but the same architecture inside your iPhone. It’s an iPhone with a 12.9-inch screen and keyboard. But the Neo design is largely based on nostalgia. Its colorful anodized aluminum computer body—a callback to the classic iPod minis and nanos so coveted by gen Z and Alpha—is more a retro-release than something n…

The government shutdown is delaying another major economic report, leaving policymakers at the Federal Reserve with a cloudier picture even as the economy enters a challenging phase of stubbornly persistent inflation and a sharp slowdown in hiring. The Labor Department’s monthly inflation data was scheduled for release Wednesday, but late last week was postponed until Oct. 24. The department is recalling some employees to assemble the data, which was collected before the shutdown began. The figures are needed for the government to calculate the annual cost of living adjustment for tens of millions of recipients of benefit programs such as Social Security. The shutdown c…

There’s a new sheriff in Bentonville. Today, Walmart announced that John Furner will become the company’s new CEO and president, effective February 1 next year, succeeding longtime boss Doug McMillon, who is retiring. McMillon has been at the helm of the retail giant since 2014. Prior to becoming CEO, he led Walmart’s international division for four years, after leading Sam’s Club, a Walmart subsidiary, between 2005 and 2009. “Serving as Walmart’s CEO has been a great honor and I’m thankful to our Board and the Walton family for the opportunity,” McMillon said in a statement Friday. Why is McMillon retiring? “This is the right time to retire because th…

In its latest round of mass layoffs, Amazon is eliminating 16,000 jobs—following a round of 14,000 cuts back in the fall. The tech giant did not cite artificial intelligence in a memo to employees, and Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has previously denied that the company is slashing headcount due to AI. But there’s no denying AI plays a role, whether or not these layoffs can actually be attributed to it. Jassy has explicitly said that adopting AI across Amazon “will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains.” Even though there is limited data to suggest AI is directly responsible for the scourge of layoffs across corporate America, plenty of CEOs have ma…

There’s no shortage of apocalyptic headlines about the future of work in the era of artificial intelligence. For workers, the technology has inflicted anxiety and uncertainty, provoking questions of when, how many, and which kinds of workers will be replaced. Companies have been propelled into a FOMO fury to integrate AI expediently or miss out on efficiency, cost savings, and competitive advantage. The disruption is inevitable, but from where I sit at the nexus of employee mental health and technology, we’re asking the wrong questions. Enhancing, not replacing, humans As CEO of Calm, I have spent the past year visiting with executives and their teams across the co…

French luxury goods company Kering said Sunday it is selling its beauty division to L’Oreal for 4 billion euros ($4.66 billion). Under the agreement, Clichy, France-based L’Oreal will acquire the House of Creed high-end fragrance company as well as licenses to create beauty and fragrance products for Kering brands like Gucci, Bottega Veneta and Balenciaga. The companies said they will establish a strategic committee to ensure coordination between Kering brands and L’Oréal. Kering and L’Oréal said they are also exploring joint business opportunities in the wellness and longevity market, combining L’Oreal’s innovation with Kering’s deep understanding of luxury clients. T…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. A recent Zillow analysis suggests it would take a drop of more than one percentage point—to 4.43%—for the median-income U.S. homebuyer to comfortably afford the median-priced U.S. home. And that assumes a 20% down payment, which many first-time buyers are unable to make. Even more striking, in several high-cost coastal metros, not even a 0% mortgage rate would make the median-priced local home affordable for a household earning the local median income. This includes New York, Los Angeles, Miami, San Francisco, San Diego, and San Jose, where taxes, in…

Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. Short screech. Long screech. Static. More beeps. On September 30, one of the most memorable—if not infuriating—waiting experiences since the dawn of the internet went the way of the dodo. AOL finally discontinued its dial-up service. If you grew up in the ’90s, you knew that sound by heart. Some of you also knew to bring a newspaper while waiting for a single web page to load. AOL’s iconic 30-second symphony of screeches and static wasn’t just the sound of connection. It was the sound of anticipation, of mandatory patience in an increasingly impatient world. Today, that pause is all but extinct. Pages load more or less…

Chipotle is officially in its Ozempic era. Today, the brand is launching an all-new High Protein Menu in the U.S. and Canada, which it describes as “a clean menu for the protein movement.” The menu comes with six items, including proteinmaxxed burritos and bowls and a new salad option. The real stand-out, though, is what Chipotle is billing as its “first-ever snack,” but is really just a tiny cup of chicken. The High Protein Cup is a topping-less, four-ounce serving of adobo-seasoned chicken that you could easily hold in the palm of your hand—and it’s a perfect, if somewhat depressing, symbol of the GLP-1 age. For Chipotle, the new menu means embracing two e…

Since our return from Davos, Switzerland, earlier this year, we have been dissecting the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025. The WEF surveyed more than 1,000 companies from 22 different industries across 55 countries to attempt to predict and paint a picture of what work will look like in 2030. The encouraging news is that there are projected to be 170 million new jobs globally by 2030; however, 92 million jobs are expected to be eliminated due to AI automation. That is a net gain of 78 million jobs by 2030. To get a true understanding of why and how this shift will occur, here is a look at the story beneath the story. 4 factors reshaping the glo…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Zillow economists just published their updated 12-month forecast, projecting that U.S. home prices—as measured by the Zillow Home Value Index—will rise 2% between November 2025 and November 2026. Heading into 2025, Zillow’s 12-month forecast for U.S. home prices was +2.6%. However, many housing markets across the country softened faster than expected, prompting Zillow to issue several downward revisions. By April 2025, Zillow had cut its 12-month national home price outlook to -1.7%. In the second half of this year, Zillow began upgrading its fo…

As the U.S. and China battle over technology, tariffs, and global influence, one question still looms for Europeans: what is Europe’s edge? That was the question recently posed by 21st Century, a Copenhagen-based think tank that collaborates with policymakers and thought leaders to explore the future of Europe. According to Johanna Fabrin, managing director and partner at 21st Century, the answer lies in the EU’s regulatory backbone—think GDPR-level data protection, rigorous environmental standards, and food‑safety rules. “From a consumer perspective, knowing that if something is made in Europe, there will not be arsenic in it, there’s that trust that is important,” s…

Meta has prevailed over an existential challenge to its business that could have forced the tech giant to spin off Instagram and WhatsApp after a judge ruled that the company does not hold a monopoly in social networking. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg issued his ruling Tuesday after the historic antitrust trial wrapped up in late May. His decision follows two separate rulings that branded Google an illegal monopoly in both search and online advertising, dealing yet another regulatory blow to the tech industry that for years enjoyed nearly unbridled growth. The Federal Trade Commission “continues to insist that Meta competes with the same old rivals it has for…

Stocks rose in morning trading on Wall Street Friday and further trimmed losses from earlier in the week for several major indexes. The S&P 500 jumped 0.8%, adding to gains made on Thursday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 283 points, or 0.6%, as of 10:05 a.m. Eastern. The Nasdaq jumped 1% and is now on track for a weekly gain. Technology stocks with an focus on artificial intelligence once again led the market. Nvidia jumped 3.4% and Broadcom rose 2.4%. Oracle rose 7% on news that it, along with two other investors, had signed agreements to form a new TikTok U.S. joint venture. Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX each get a 15% share in the popular social video pla…

It’s almost the end of the year, and for many, that means health flexible spending account (FSA) funds are set to expire. FSAs allow employees to set aside pretax money to pay for healthcare expenses such as copays, some medications, and deductibles. But many people aren’t aware that the funds don’t always roll over into the next calendar year after December 31. Sometimes, employers will provide grace periods of up to two and a half months past the end of the year to allow for extra time to use your FSA funds. Others may allow you to carry over up to $660 per year. But 33% of employers have a hard deadline, so if you don’t use your funds by the end of the year, they’r…

For many people, the word sabbatical conjures a very specific image: a long break from work, perhaps time spent on a beautiful beach, maybe a few weeks of rest before returning “recharged.” It’s often perceived as indulgent, impractical, or reserved for academics and executives with generous benefits. That image misses the point. A sabbatical isn’t a more extended vacation. It isn’t an escape from responsibility. And paradoxically, it isn’t even primarily about rest. When well executed, a sabbatical is a deliberate interruption that creates the conditions for identity discovery, integration, and renewal. When done poorly, it can leave people just as disoriented as whe…