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Technologies like AI and Web3 could eventually unlock blockchain’s full potential. Accounting ARC With Liz Mason, Byron Patrick, and Donny Shimamoto Center for Accounting Transformation Go PRO for members-only access to more Center for Accounting Transformation. View the full article

Technologies like AI and Web3 could eventually unlock blockchain’s full potential. Accounting ARC With Liz Mason, Byron Patrick, and Donny Shimamoto Center for Accounting Transformation Go PRO for members-only access to more Center for Accounting Transformation. View the full article

In the first quarter of 2025, I ran a data study to understand how often Google changes title tags – and why. While it’s well known that Google frequently rewrites titles, I wanted to dig deeper: What factors trigger these changes? Are some pages more prone to rewrites than others? Most SEO professionals develop their own title tag strategies based on a mix of Google’s guidance, industry advice, and personal experience. Yet, when I searched for actual data on how and why Google modifies title tags, I found only one notable case study – by Cyrus Shepard in 2023. That left me with more questions: Does search volume play a role? What about YMYL content? Could brand name usage make a difference? I decided to run my own study. What follows is a summary of my findings, highlighting some of the most interesting patterns I uncovered. Methodology For this case study, I conducted weeks’ worth of keyword research across different categories. YMYL vs. non-YMYL industries. High search volume vs. low search volume. Informational vs. commercial intent. The keyword set ended in the 30,000 range, which I had to pare down for cost reasons and because so many variations produced the same results for the same intent. Some argue that SEO data studies require millions of keywords for statistical significance, but that overlooks the reality that many of those keywords are low-quality or produce highly similar results. I’ve carefully curated this keyword list to ensure that we’re achieving a wide variety of intents and categories and that the quantity of keywords is balanced across categories. For tools, I used: Advanced Web Ranking to track rankings because it offers: An affordable pricing model. API access. Title tag data as returned by Google during fetch. Screaming Frog to crawl each result page on the same day, capturing the original title tags. Any errors in crawling were excluded from the data study results. Only the top 20 search results were included in the analysis. Key quantitative findings Google changes title tags 76% of the time. That’s a 25% increase from Shepard’s study just two years prior. Granted, we used a different dataset and methodology. However, the study is not that complicated, so I believe the comparison is still valid. Keyword usage Among the title tags that were changed, 77% didn’t include the page’s perceived focus keyword. This finding is surprising, as you’d expect pages ranking on the first two pages of search results to include focus keywords in their title tags. One possible explanation is that some of these titles were written with a more creative, reader-first approach rather than a traditional SEO strategy. As a caveat, I used AI to identify the focus keyword for each webpage and then manually reviewed the extracted keyword for accuracy. This presents a small margin of error but is still accurate. How much was changed? Of the title tags that were changed, only 35% of the original words were retained. This is expected, given the brevity of title tags. Analysis by search intent Commercial For commercial pages, keywords are definitely still a big deal. Almost a third (31.91%) of original commercial titles include the target keyword, and Google mostly respects this, keeping keywords at nearly the same rate (31.31%) in what they display. When Google does mess with keyword-containing titles, it keeps those keywords about 30% of the time. The cool part? Google hardly ever adds (1.44%) or removes (2.23%) keywords from commercial titles. This tells me they’re not trying to mess with our keyword strategy – they’re mostly just making titles clearer and better structured. Informational For informational content, it’s a whole different ball game. Only about 6% of original titles even contain target keywords – that’s five times less than commercial content. When Google changes these titles, they barely keep the keywords (just 5.35% of the time), and most (93.81%) of modified informational titles don’t have keywords in either version. This suggests that Google cares little about exact keyword matching for informational content and is way more focused on creating titles that clearly explain the content’s topic. Get the newsletter search marketers rely on. Business email address Sign me up! Processing... See terms. Analysis by YMYL status YMYL content: Google’s safety net in action When it comes to “Your Money, Your Life” (YMYL) content, Google appears to have trust issues – not that I blame them. Before analyzing any results, I suspected that Google would refrain from changing title tags from YMYL pages. But I couldn’t be more wrong. The data shows they’re modifying 76% of YMYL title tags, right in line with the global average. But here’s where it gets interesting: only about 21% of YMYL original titles include target keywords, and Google keeps keywords in just 19.63% of the titles it changes. Most telling? Up to 77.68% of changed YMYL titles don’t have keywords in either version. This makes perfect sense. For content that could impact someone’s health, finances, or legal situations, Google seems far more concerned with making sure titles are accurate and helpful rather than keyword-optimized. Non-YMYL content: A bit more keyword-friendly For non-YMYL content, Google’s still changing titles at the same rate (76.27%), but the keyword story differs. About 28% of original non-YMYL titles include target keywords, significantly higher than YMYL content. When Google changes these titles, it’s much more likely to preserve keywords intact, in 26.35% of cases. And while 71.64% of changed titles lack keywords in either version, that’s still lower than with YMYL content. It seems Google’s a bit more relaxed when the stakes are lower. For content about hobbies, entertainment, or other non-critical topics, they appear more willing to let keyword optimization strategies slide, perhaps because the potential harm from misleading content is less serious. YMYL vs. Non-YMYL: The trust factor The biggest difference between YMYL and non-YMYL handling isn’t how often Google changes titles – that’s remarkably consistent. It’s in how they treat keywords and optimization signals. For non-YMYL content, Google seems to give SEOs a longer leash, allowing for more keyword-focused title strategies. But for YMYL content, there’s a clear shift toward prioritizing accuracy, clarity, and user protection over SEO considerations. This makes sense from Google’s perspective. It can afford to be more lenient with your movie review blog. Still, when it comes to medical advice or financial guidance, it steps in more aggressively to ensure titles accurately represent content. The key takeaway? For YMYL sites, focus less on keyword-stuffing titles and more on creating clear, accurate headlines that reflect your content. Google will change your titles anyway, so you might as well work with their system rather than against it. Why Google changes your title tags (even though you worked so hard on them) The data study reveals several clear patterns in how and why Google modifies title tags in search results. Brand name removal: The title tag trimmer The most common change Google makes is simply removing your brand name. This happens in 63% of all modified titles. Google’s saying, “Thanks, but no thanks” to your carefully placed brand mentions, especially in health-related searches. They seem to prioritize the core content information over your brand, particularly when: Space is tight. They don’t think your brand adds substantial value to searchers. If the query isn’t specifically brand-focused, your brand name is often the first thing to go. Clarity makeover: Making titles make sense About 30% of Google’s title changes are about making your titles more readable or better aligned with user expectations. They’re converting vague statements into clear questions (which may drive higher CTR), making value propositions more obvious, and using more direct language. Google frequently rephrases titles to match how users actually think about topics rather than how you’ve framed them. It’s like Google is your editor, cleaning up your headlines to make them more user-friendly. Length control: Too long, too short, just right Google has no patience for title tag extremes. They’ll truncate overly long titles and expand super-short ones. About 8% of changes fall into this category. The most dramatic examples are those ridiculous SEO-stuffed titles (looking at you, dog bite attorneys with 500+ word titles listing every city and ZIP code) or those uninformative one-word titles that tell users nothing. Google doesn’t seem to care about length, but more about clarity. Dig deeper: What should the title tag length be in 2025? Intent matching: Giving users what they want Google frequently modifies titles to align with user search intent, particularly for commercial queries. They will: Emphasize commercial elements for shopping-related searches. Add qualifying terms that match user expectations. Remove unnecessary fluff that doesn’t serve the primary intent. It’s all about ensuring the title delivers what the searcher is looking for. YMYL: Handling with care For YMYL content, Google takes title accuracy very seriously. While my data didn’t show evidence of this being about content accuracy or potentially harmful information, there were clear patterns: Brand names get stripped. Complex titles get simplified. Unnecessary descriptive elements disappear. Google standardizes title structure particularly for commercial/transactional queries in sensitive categories like health, finance, and legal. Generic title rescue: Adding missing specificity When websites use vague titles like “Our products” or “Nutrition information,” Google adds specificity that helps users understand what they’ll find. This: Improves click-through rates by creating titles that align better with search intent. Sets appropriate expectations about page content. Helps pages compete against more descriptive competitor titles. It’s Google’s way of saying, “Let me fix that for you, since you couldn’t be bothered to write a proper title.” Understanding Google’s title tag rewrites With Google changing over 76% of title tags across the board, we need to accept that creating the perfect title tag is: Less about controlling exactly what shows up in the SERPs. More about guiding Google toward showing something that aligns with our content goals. What’s most striking is the consistency across different content types, industries, and search volumes. Whether you’re dealing with medical content, legal pages, commercial or informational intent, Google’s modification rate hovers remarkably close to that 76% mark. The differences lie not in how often Google changes titles, but in how they change them. For SEO practitioners, this means shifting our approach. Instead of fighting Google’s title modification system, we should work with it by: Creating concise, clear titles between 30-60 characters that Google will likely keep intact. Using different strategies for commercial vs. informational content (keyword-focused for commercial, clarity-focused for informational). Being extra vigilant with YMYL content titles, focusing on accuracy over keyword optimization. Avoiding unnecessary brand mentions in titles unless the query is specifically brand-focused. Testing formats that Google tends to preserve (like “How to” and list formats). The days of keyword-stuffed, brand-heavy titles designed purely for rankings are over. Google will do what it does, so our best strategy is to: Understand the patterns behind their modifications. Craft titles that guide them toward showing something that still achieves our goals, even after they’ve put their spin on it. For the full data study with additional insights, read my complete analysis here. View the full article

Tesla has flouted some of directors’ most sacred tenets, and shareholders who vote have mostly approvedView the full article

The Hollywood powerbroker has created a global events company to acquire the fair and publishing groupView the full article

The cost of a multistep skincare routine can quickly add up. But have you ever wondered what would happen if you simply stopped? This weekend, a TikTok creator went viral for discussing her controversial “Caveman Method,” which she claims is helping restore her skin barrier after years of picking at her skin. In a video that has since racked up nearly 10 million views, Tia Zakher announced she had cut out everything from her beauty routine—even water. “What you are seeing is dead skin that’s going to flake off eventually while healthy skin forms underneath,” she posted in response to questions about the texture on her face. In a separate video, she explains that the look of her skin is due to “retention hyperkeratosis,” in which the skin holds onto dead cells instead of shedding them immediately, as a result of “years of overpicking and removing texture manually.” While some accused the creator of rage-baiting—pretending not to wash her face, or creating the look with a clay mask and powder just for views (she has since reintroduced water back into her routine)—others were curious about the validity of the so-called Caveman Method. Rather than rely on TikTok diagnosis, Fast Company reached out to aesthetician and skin specialist Dr. Ellie Sateei for her expert opinion. “Washing your face at night isn’t just a beauty ritual—it’s a fundamental part of skin health,” Sateei explains. “Cleansing your face at night is essential, and not just for removing makeup, sunscreen, and pollution, but for allowing your skin to properly repair itself overnight.” While the Caveman Method suggests skipping this step to reduce irritation and reset the skin without interference from products such as retinol and moisturizer—which didn’t exist back in the Stone Age—it’s not backed by science. Sateei warns that it can lead to congestion, dullness, and breakouts, “much like going to bed without brushing your teeth affects your oral health,” she adds. While some claim that a back-to-basics approach helps the skin barrier, the buildup of oil, dirt, and environmental pollutants can actually end up damaging it further. Most people’s skin also doesn’t benefit from a 14-step beauty routine before bed, as some skin-fluencers might suggest. Instead, Sateei recommends a minimal but balanced routine. “Use gentle products that support the skin’s natural processes without overwhelming it,” she says. “It’s about respecting your skin’s needs, not neglecting them.” View the full article

YouTube has long been a go-to advertising platform for B2C marketers, but it’s often still a question mark for B2B brands. I often see B2B professionals on LinkedIn asking, “Has anyone had success with YouTube ads?” or “What’s the best way to approach video advertising for a B2B audience?” YouTube can feel like unfamiliar territory if you’re only used to advertising on Google or social platforms. But that’s starting to change. More B2B brands are waking up to YouTube’s potential, and I couldn’t be happier. I’ve seen firsthand how YouTube can elevate brand visibility, drive engagement, and even accelerate the sales cycle for B2Bs. If you’re still deciding or need guidance on where to start, this article is for you. From video necessity to content strategy and production value – here are the YouTube ad questions B2B marketers ask most, answered. 1. Do we have to advertise with video? Technically, no – you don’t have to do anything. But if you’re ignoring YouTube as an advertising channel, you’re likely missing out on one of the most effective platforms for reaching your audience. Consider this: YouTube has over 2 billion monthly active users globally and is the second-largest search engine in the world. It’s not just for Millennials or Gen Z – Gen Xers alone account for 1.5 billion daily views, with 75% of people aged 35–53 watching at least monthly. If your audience is on YouTube (and they are), testing the platform should be a no-brainer. Dig deeper: 3 YouTube Ad formats you need to reach and engage viewers in 2025 2. Where should we start? Begin by aligning expectations. Even the best one-minute video cannot close a complex B2B deal on its own. What it can do is start a conversation, educate, and build trust – the things that actually move buyers through a long sales cycle. Think of YouTube as an opportunity to amplify your message. 3. What type of video content do we need? It’s tempting to default to “sales pitch” mode and talk at your potential customers instead of to them. But the most effective B2B video content does three things: Answers questions. Builds trust. Educates. Answer questions Use your sales team as a resource and ask them what questions prospects have – and then make short videos that address those questions directly. Better yet, attend sales calls or listen to conversations on the trade show floor to learn what potential customers are thinking. Build trust Do you have any existing customer video testimonials that you can use in your advertising? If not – and if you have written testimonials – ask the customer for the opportunity to update the written testimonial by shooting a short video testimonial interview. Educate Demo your product in action – and show real-world applications and benefits, not just features. Help your audience visualize how it improves their daily work life, simplifies tasks, or cuts costs. These practical insights often carry more weight with buying committees than a walk-through of features. Dig deeper: YouTube’s triple threat – Mastering Feed, Shorts and Skippable ads 4. How should we target our video ads? YouTube’s targeting capabilities are incredibly granular, but that also means it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Here are three targeting examples to illustrate what’s possible. Medical device company Create custom audience segments based on smaller, niche competitor websites that sell the same type of product as you. Avoid broad players like Medtronic, which may dilute targeting. You can also target visitors to specific medical journals or publications that publish content relevant to the type of medical device that you sell. Corporate events company Use in-market audiences like “Event Planning Services” or “Corporate Event Planning.” You can also build audiences around your top-converting keywords that are tied to purchase intent. Biosciences company Create customer audience segments that target websites where you’ve published research or articles, such as BioScience. If your product has frequent updates, consider remarketing or using customer match lists to re-engage existing contacts. Whatever your niche, the key is to test and refine your targeting continuously. Get the newsletter search marketers rely on. Business email address Sign me up! Processing... See terms. 5. How professional do our videos need to be? There’s no one-size-fits-all answer here. Some marketers suggest going for a more casual, “authentic” look, and that can work. But it’s not always the better option. One of our clients ran a less-polished video for an annual event. The video featured handwritten messages on tearaway sheets with an off-screen narrator. It felt authentic, but it also underperformed, with just a 6% view completion rate. In previous years, the completed view rate for this particular event ranged from 39% to 60%. Bottom line: Test it. Let performance – not assumptions – guide your production choices. Dig deeper: Top 6 B2B paid media platforms: Where and how to advertise effectively 6. How long should our videos be? This is the question I hear most – and the answer is: it depends. Your best approach is often to shoot longer videos that you can repurpose. Think of it like writing a blog post. You start with a long-form piece and then slice it into smaller social snippets. That same logic applies here. Don’t let longer videos scare you. I’d take a 5-minute video ad that provides value over a 30-second spot that says nothing meaningful any day of the week. 7. Is it worth having a celebrity spokesperson? Short answer: it can be. I’ve seen B2B clients dramatically boost engagement with the help of a celebrity – the credibility and name recognition can be powerful. But it’s not without risks. Pros More visibility, higher engagement, and an instant trust boost if the celebrity aligns well with your audience. One of our B2B clients recently partnered with a popular, well-known celebrity, and the engagement on our video ads has been transformational. Cons It can be costly. I don’t know how my client landed their celebrity spokesperson, but I imagine it would be cost-prohibitive for many brands. There’s also the reputational risk if the celeb says or does something off-brand. It’s also important to remember that celebrities rarely promote the content themselves. You’re still responsible for distribution. If you have the budget and it makes strategic sense to hire a celebrity spokesperson, go for it. Just go in with your eyes open. Dig deeper: How to overcome the top 3 objections to YouTube video ads 8. Is there anything else I should know? Yes, put your branding at the start of the video. It sounds obvious, but many B2Bs bury their logo or brand name at the end of their videos. That’s a missed opportunity. You’ve only got a few seconds to make an impression – don’t waste them. YouTube is more than a playground for B2C brands YouTube is a smart, scalable channel for B2B brands ready to meet their audience where they already spend time. That said, success doesn’t come from guesswork. It comes from testing. Try different formats, targeting strategies, and production styles. Review your metrics. Adjust. Repeat. Hit record – and see what YouTube can do for your B2B. Dig deeper: How to measure YouTube ad success with KPIs for every marketing goal View the full article

The past 12 months have been rough for many retail chains. Major names like Big Lots and Joann filed for bankruptcy, resulting in the closures of hundreds of locations. In Joann’s case, those locations are gone for good, while some Big Lots locations have been reopened under new ownership. Unfortunately for another retailer—the fast fashion chain Forever 21—it seems like none of its more than 350 stores in the United States will get a last-minute reprieve. Instead, it now appears likely that all Forever 21 stores in the U.S. will suffer the same fate as Joann’s stores. Here’s what you need to know about the Forever 21 store closings. What’s happened? Earlier this year, a company called F21 OpCo, LLC filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. While you may not have heard of F21 OpCo, LLC, you’ve surely heard of the retailer it operates: Forever 21. F21 OpCo is the licensee of the Forever 21 brand inside the United States (international stores are operated by other entities). As part of its bankruptcy, F21 OpCo announced it would close its Forever 21 locations in the United States unless a buyer could be found. In a memo from F21 OpCo, LLC’s chief financial officer, Brad Sell, posted on the company’s website, Sell said the reasons for the company’s bankruptcy were “rising costs and increased competition from abroad” that has made the company’s “current business model unsustainable.” In a March press release announcing the bankruptcy, F21 OpCo also stated that while it was beginning wind-down procedures for its stores, it would at the same time continue to try to find a buyer. “In the event of a successful sale, the Company may pivot away from a full wind down of operations to facilitate a going-concern transaction,” it said at the time. In other words, Forever 21 could live on if another entity bought F21 OpCo’s operations. But it has not announced a new buyer since then, nor has it responded to requests for comment. More than 350 Forever 21 store closings Throughout April, F21 OpCo held store closing sales at all of its 356 Forever 21 stores in the United States. According to court documents, those sales would “conclude no later than April 30, 2025,” which the documents refer to as the “sale termination date.” That means that as of today, May 1, all Forever 21 stores in the United States are likely to have closed, although individual stores did have the option to extend the sales and stay open for longer. Fast Company reached out to F21 OpCo and Forever 21 for clarity on whether any U.S locations would continue to operate beyond this week, but we did not hear back. The only thing that could have kept any of these stores from shuttering was if F21 OpCo found a buyer, but the company has made no public announcement that it has done so. List of Forever 21 store closings According to its store locator tool, F21 OpCo operated 356 Forever 21 stores across 43 states and Puerto Rico. The states that had the most Forever 21 stores were California, with 57 locations, Texas, with 32 locations, and Florida, with 23 locations. The number of locations in each state is listed below. You can click on a state’s name to be taken to F21 OpCo’s online store locator tool to see each of the individual stores in those states. Currently, the listing for individual stores does not list any of the locations as permanently closed (although recent user reviews on Google and elsewhere have indicated that many have shuttered). Unless F21 OpCo found a last-minute buyer, or unless certain individual stores agreed to extend their sales, it is likely the below locations are now shuttered for good or soon will be. Alabama (3) Arizona (8) Arkansas (2) California (57) Colorado (5) Connecticut (6) Delaware (2) Florida (23) Georgia (18) Idaho (1) Illinois (15) Indiana (6) Iowa (2) Kansas (2) Kentucky (3) Louisiana (6) Maryland (6) Massachusetts (11) Michigan (9) Minnesota (1) Mississippi (1) Missouri (5) Nebraska (1) Nevada (6) New Hampshire (3) New Jersey (15) New Mexico (3) New York (21) North Carolina (10) North Dakota (1) Ohio (9) Oklahoma (2) Oregon (5) Pennsylvania (17) Puerto Rico (5) Rhode Island (1) South Carolina (3) South Dakota (1) Tennessee (6) Texas (32) Utah (3) Virginia (9) Washington (9) Wisconsin (2) Is Forever 21 closing globally? No. It’s important to note that the Forever 21 brand is not going away entirely. The Forever 21 chain will continue to operate in other countries. That’s because Forever 21 is licensed by other operators in those countries and not by F21 OpCo, LLC. In the memo posted on the Forever 21 website, F21 OpCo’s Brad Sell noted that “Forever 21 stores outside of the U.S. will continue to operate business as usual.” But unfortunately for its U.S.-based fans, Forever 21 is yet another American retailer that has succumbed to changing consumer habits and a shifting economic landscape. View the full article

After months of tense negotiations, the U.S. and Ukraine signed a deal that is expected to give Washington access to the country’s critical minerals and other natural resources, an agreement Kyiv hopes will secure long-term support for its defense against Russia. According to Ukrainian officials, the version of the deal signed Wednesday is far more beneficial to Ukraine than previous versions, which they said reduced Kyiv to a junior partner and gave Washington unprecedented rights to the country’s resources. The agreement—which the Ukrainian parliament must ratify—would establish a reconstruction fund for Ukraine that Ukrainian officials hope will be a vehicle to ensure future American military assistance. A previous agreement was nearly signed before being derailed in a tense Oval Office meeting involving U.S. President Donald The President, U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. “We have formed a version of the agreement that provides mutually beneficial conditions for both countries. This is an agreement in which the United States notes its commitment to promoting long-term peace in Ukraine and recognizes the contribution that Ukraine has made to global security by giving up its nuclear arsenal,” Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko, who signed the deal for Ukraine, said in a post on Facebook. The signing comes during what U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said would be a “very critical” week for U.S.-led efforts to end the war that appear to have stalled. Ukraine sees the deal as a way to ensure that its biggest and most consequential ally stays engaged and doesn’t freeze military support, which has been key in its 3-year-old fight against Russia’s full-scale invasion. “This agreement signals clearly to Russia that the The President administration is committed to a peace process centered on a free, sovereign, and prosperous Ukraine over the long term,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who signed for the U.S., said in a statement. Here is a look at the deal. What does the deal include? The deal covers minerals, including rare earth elements, but also other valuable resources, including oil and natural gas, according to the text released by Ukraine’s government. It does not include resources that are already a source of revenue for the Ukrainian state. In other words, any profits under the deal are dependent on the success of new investments. Ukrainian officials have also noted that it does not refer to any debt obligations for Kyiv, meaning profits from the fund will likely not go toward the paying the U.S. back for its previous support. Officials have also emphasized that the agreement ensures full ownership of the resources remains with Ukraine, and the state will determine what can be extracted and where. The text of the deal lists 55 minerals but says more can be agreed to. The President has repeatedly expressed interest in Ukraine’s rare earth elements, and some of them are included in the list, as are other critical minerals, such as titanium, lithium and uranium. What are rare earth elements? They are a group of 17 elements that are essential to many kinds of consumer technology, including cellphones, hard drives and electric and hybrid vehicles. China is the world’s largest producer of rare earth elements, and both the U.S and Europe have sought to reduce their dependence on Beijing, The President’s chief geopolitical adversary. They include elements such as lanthanum, cerium, and scandium, which are listed in the deal. How will the fund work? The agreement establishes a reconstruction investment fund, and both the U.S. and Ukraine will have an equal say in its management, according to Svyrydenko. The fund will be supported by the U.S. government through the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation agency, which Ukraine hopes will attract investment and technology from American and European countries. Ukraine is expected to contribute 50% of all future profits from government-owned natural resources into the fund. The United States will also contribute in the form of direct funds and equipment, including badly needed air defense systems and other military aid. Contributions to the fund will be reinvested in projects related to mining, oil, and gas as well as infrastructure. No profits will not be taken from the fund for the first 10 years, Svyrydenko said. The President administration officials initially pushed for a deal in which Washington would receive $500 billion in profits from exploited minerals as compensation for its wartime support. But Zelenskyy rejected the offer, saying he would not sign off on an agreement “that will be paid off by 10 generations of Ukrainians.” What is the state of Ukraine’s minerals industry? Ukraine’s rare earth elements are largely untapped because of state policies regulating the industry, a lack of good information about deposits, and the war. The industry’s potential is unclear since geological data is thin because mineral reserves are scattered across Ukraine, and existing studies are considered largely inadequate, according to businessmen and analysts. In general, however, the outlook for Ukrainian natural resources is promising. The country’s reserves of titanium, a key component for the aerospace, medical, and automotive industries, are believed to be among Europe’s largest. Ukraine also holds some of Europe’s largest known reserves of lithium, which is required to produce batteries, ceramics and glass. In 2021, the Ukrainian mineral industry accounted for 6.1% of the country’s gross domestic product and 30% of exports. An estimated 40% of Ukraine’s metallic mineral resources are inaccessible because of Russian occupation, according to data from We Build Ukraine, a Kyiv-based think tank. Ukraine has argued that it’s in The President’s interest to develop the remainder before Russian advances capture more. —Samya Kullab, Associated Press View the full article

Key Takeaways Algorithm Changes: Facebook’s algorithm favors personal connections over business content, significantly reducing organic reach for posts from brands and requiring higher engagement for visibility.Increased Competition: The surge in content shared on Facebook means that businesses must create standout, engaging posts to capture audience attention amidst saturation from ads and user-generated content.Shifts in User Behavior: Users are increasingly drawn to content from friends and family, emphasizing the importance of interactive campaigns and community engagement to maintain visibility.Enhanced Engagement Strategies: Incorporating interactive elements like polls, user-generated content, and visually appealing videos can boost engagement rates and foster deeper connections with followers.Content Optimization: Regularly analyzing performance metrics and optimizing posts with relevant hashtags will help improve visibility and engagement, aligning content with audience interests.Consider Paid Advertising: To counteract declining organic reach, integrating paid advertising and influencer partnerships can effectively expand your brand’s audience and enhance overall visibility. If you’ve noticed a drop in your Facebook post views, you’re not alone. Many users and businesses are grappling with this frustrating trend. As the platform evolves, changes in algorithms and user behavior can significantly impact how many people see your content. Understanding the reasons behind this decline is crucial for adapting your strategy and reclaiming your audience’s attention. Whether you’re a casual user or a brand looking to engage customers, recognizing these shifts can help you navigate the complexities of Facebook’s ever-changing landscape. Let’s explore the factors contributing to this decline and discover actionable steps to boost your post visibility. Overview of Facebook Post Views Facebook post views for small businesses have seen a notable decline recently. This decrease stems from algorithm changes and shifts in user behavior. Facebook’s algorithms now prioritize content that drives engagement, resulting in reduced organic reach for posts that lack interaction. For small businesses, tracking social media analytics becomes vital to understand these fluctuations and adjust strategies effectively. You might notice that posts with high engagement rates often perform better. Engaging content, such as video content and user-generated content, tends to attract more views. Implementing a strong social media strategy that includes community management and audience targeting can help enhance your brand’s visibility. Utilizing social media tools for scheduling and content sharing allows you to maintain consistency in your posting. Incorporating trending hashtags can also boost discoverability. While organic growth remains essential, consider integrating paid ads to expand your reach. Facebook marketing through ads can introduce your brand to new followers and increase brand awareness. Engaging storytelling and a defined brand voice are crucial for creating meaningful connections with your audience. You can optimize social media posts for better engagement by developing a content calendar that aligns with your marketing goals, ensuring that your messaging remains relevant. By staying informed about social media trends, you can adapt your approach to improve engagement and maximize your social media ROI. Reasons for Decline in Facebook Post Views Understanding the reasons behind the decline in Facebook post views is essential for small businesses navigating social media marketing. Key factors include algorithm changes, increased competition, and shifts in user behavior. Algorithm Changes Algorithm changes on Facebook significantly impact your post visibility. In 2018, Facebook modified its News Feed algorithm, prioritizing content from friends and family over business pages. This shift reduces your organic reach, making it harder for your posts to appear in user feeds. Moreover, Facebook now requires posts to be genuinely viewed by users to count as part of the reach metric. This adjustment lowers the perceived effectiveness of your content compared to previous years, making engagement rates critical for success. Increased Competition The rising volume of content on Facebook exacerbates the competition for visibility. With more businesses leveraging social media ads, the News Feed becomes a crowded space. Your posts must stand out among paid ads and user-generated content. Establishing a strong brand voice and implementing audience targeting strategies enhances your chances of engagement. To maximize visibility, consider using attention-grabbing visuals and impactful storytelling that resonates with your audience. User Behavior Shifts User behavior on Facebook has evolved, influencing how your posts perform. Many users engage more with content from family and friends rather than brand messages. This shift underscores the importance of community management and creating highly engaging social media campaigns. Using social media analytics tools can help you track trends and adapt your strategies accordingly. Focusing on content that encourages interaction, such as polls or questions, can enhance your engagement rates and foster stronger connections with your social media followers. Impact on Content Creators The decline in Facebook post views significantly affects content creators, particularly small businesses, by altering engagement dynamics and monetization strategies. Engagement Metrics Engagement metrics have changed drastically. With Facebook’s algorithm prioritizing posts from friends and family over business pages, you may notice a drop in your organic reach. Content that relied solely on follower counts no longer guarantees visibility. Implement more interactive elements, such as polls and questions, to boost your engagement rate. Focus on creating video content and utilizing Facebook groups to establish deeper connections with your audience. Monitoring your social media analytics helps in understanding what resonates with your followers and adapting your content strategy for better results. Monetization Challenges Monetization poses challenges in this new landscape. The decrease in organic reach means you’ll find it harder to generate revenue through traditional means. You might need to invest more in paid ads to maintain visibility among your target audience. Consider incorporating influencer marketing and user-generated content into your social media campaigns as cost-effective strategies for increasing brand awareness. Additionally, building a consistent brand voice and storytelling will resonate more with your followers, fostering community management and customer interaction. Align your content calendar with current social media trends, and track your progress to enhance your overall social media ROI. Strategies to Adapt to Declining Views You can implement targeted strategies to adapt to declining Facebook post views and enhance your small business’s social media presence effectively. Content Optimization Focus on creating visually appealing and engaging content. Use video content, as it currently garners higher engagement rates among users. Prioritize short-form videos and incorporate storytelling elements to convey your brand’s message. Optimize your social media posts with relevant hashtags to increase discoverability. Maintain brand consistency across platforms like Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter to reinforce your online presence. Regularly analyze your social media analytics to identify high-performing content types and adjust your content calendar accordingly. Audience Engagement Techniques Engage your audience through interactive elements. Use polls, surveys, or questions to encourage participation. Create Facebook groups where you can foster community management and customer interaction. Develop user-generated content campaigns to motivate your audience to share their experiences while using your products or services. Utilize social media ads to target specific audiences and increase brand awareness. Leverage influencer partnerships to tap into new user bases and expand your reach. Regularly monitor social media trends and adjust your strategies to resonate with your target demographic, ensuring your small business remains relevant in the competitive landscape. Conclusion Navigating the decline in Facebook post views can be challenging but it’s not insurmountable. By understanding the factors at play and adapting your strategies, you can reclaim your audience’s attention. Focus on creating engaging and visually appealing content that resonates with your followers. Utilize interactive elements and consider leveraging Facebook groups to foster community. Don’t hesitate to invest in targeted ads or influencer partnerships to broaden your reach. Regularly reviewing your analytics will keep you informed about what’s working and what needs adjustment. By staying proactive and innovative, you can enhance your social media presence and drive meaningful engagement. Frequently Asked Questions Why have Facebook post views declined recently? The decline in Facebook post views is mainly due to algorithm changes prioritizing content that generates engagement and interaction, along with increased competition from both ads and user-generated content. How do algorithm changes affect businesses on Facebook? Algorithm changes, particularly those favoring posts from friends and family, have significantly reduced the organic reach for business pages. This means businesses must adapt their strategies to capture audience attention. What can small businesses do to improve their Facebook engagement? Small businesses should focus on creating visually appealing, engaging content, such as videos and polls. Developing a content calendar, utilizing community management, and implementing targeted advertising can also enhance engagement. Are paid ads effective for increasing post visibility? Yes, paid ads can significantly boost post visibility. They enable businesses to reach a targeted audience and gain more engagement, making them an essential part of a comprehensive social media strategy. How important is social media analytics for businesses? Tracking social media analytics is crucial for businesses to understand their audience, adapt their strategies, and effectively navigate any fluctuations in post views and engagement. What role do interactive elements play in engagement? Interactive elements, like polls and questions, encourage audience participation and can greatly enhance engagement rates, making your posts more appealing to the Facebook algorithm. What type of content performs best on Facebook now? Content with high engagement, particularly videos and user-generated content, tends to perform better on Facebook due to current algorithm preferences that prioritize engagement over reach. How can storytelling benefit businesses on Facebook? Engaging storytelling helps brands connect with their audience on a deeper level, fostering loyalty and a sense of community, which is essential for improving engagement and visibility on social media. What should businesses consider when creating posts for Facebook? Businesses should ensure their posts are visually appealing, aligned with their brand voice, and include engaging elements. Regularly monitoring trends and adjusting content strategy is also vital for ongoing relevance. Image Via Envato This article, "Why Facebook Post Views Dropped: Understanding the Decline and How to Adapt" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The Ultimate Ears Wonderboom Play borrows the same compact, round design as the brand’s more expensive models, like the Wonderboom 4, but dials back on a few key features to hit a lower price point. Currently at $36.99 on Woot—its lowest price yet according to price trackers and well below the $89.99 list price (and $59.49 on Amazon)—this deal runs for two days or until it sells out. Ultimate Ears Wonderboom Play $36.99 at Woot $89.99 Save $53.00 Get Deal Get Deal $36.99 at Woot $89.99 Save $53.00 Despite the low price, it holds onto the signature IP67 durability, meaning it can handle dust, splashes, and even short dips in water. And with over 14 hours of tested battery life, it’s built to last through full-day outings. Functionally, it’s stripped down. There’s no fancy stereo pairing, EQ presets, or assistant support. You get a single mono speaker, no companion app, and no mic. The control layout is intuitive, though, with top-mounted volume buttons that are easy to use even if you’ve got the strap looped around your hand. It charges via USB-C and powers down after 15 minutes of inactivity, which helps stretch that already generous battery life. Build-wise, the Wonderboom Play feels solid. The design is clearly meant for travel, and the elastic strap is thick enough to hook onto a backpack or belt loop without worry. Now, about the sound. If you're coming in expecting rich, room-filling 360-degree audio, this probably isn’t the speaker for you. The single-driver setup means sound is directional—stand too far off to the side, and you’ll notice the drop in clarity. It also doesn’t get very loud and reportedly starts to compress if you push the volume too high. That makes it less ideal for parties or big outdoor hangouts where multiple people are listening from different angles. If you just want something affordable and rugged for basic listening without fiddling with apps or customizations, this might be worth considering. Otherwise, if you care about full-room sound or volume punch, something like the JBL Flip 6 might make a good alternative. View the full article

Stop obsessing over 500 searches. This week's Ask An SEO shows how to decode keyword intent and turn Google Keyword Planner into an SEO asset. The post Ask An SEO: Should We Optimize For Keywords With High Search Volume Or Competition? appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

Firefox 138 is now publicly available worldwide, and this version brings full support for tab groups, profile management, a quick way to check the weather, and much more. These updates bring feature parity with other browsers and could prompt people to ditch Chrome and switch to Firefox. Here are all the new features in Firefox 138: Tab groups are now available more broadlyMozilla began the rollout of tab groups with Firefox 137, and the company says the feature is now available to almost all of its users across the world. Using tab groups, you can group similar tabs together to bring some semblance of organization to your open tabs. Creating a tab group is easy—just drag one tab over the other to group the two. You can give each tab group a name and a color to spot it faster among your sea of tabs, and you can add more tabs to the group by dragging and dropping. Firefox now has profile managementBrowser profiles allow you to separate your work and personal lives if you're using the same device for both purposes. Other browsers such as Safari and Chrome have profile management, and now Firefox has joined the club. This means you'll be able to set up multiple profiles, whether for different users or different use cases, to keep their bookmarks, tabs, and browsing history separate. This feature is currently being rolled out, so even after updating to Firefox 138, it may be a while before you get access to it. Check the weather right from the address barFirefox users in the US will soon be able to check the weather directly from the browser's address bar. Just type weather in the address bar and the temperature in your current location should show up among the suggestions. This feature is also currently in the process of being rolled out, but it should be available to all Firefox users in the US in the coming weeks. Other improvementsFirefox on macOS and Linux now lets you copy links to background tabs more easily. You can right-click any background tab and copy a link to it right from the context menu. On Windows 11, Mozilla says Firefox uses acrylic-style menus for popup windows in order to match the aesthetic of the operating system, so unfortunately, the feature does not work there. However, there is an unofficial extension you can try instead. The new version of Firefox also has several security fixes, so be sure to update as soon as possible to keep yourself secure while online. View the full article

Separate accounts, separate campaigns, or one shared setup? It’s often the first question marketers face when launching Google Ads in multiple countries or languages. The structure you choose lays the groundwork for how well you can: Localize ads. Manage regional budgets. Analyze performance by market. While consolidation simplifies PPC management, it can limit your ability to connect with diverse audiences. Full separation allows for maximum customization but can lead to administrative overhead and missed efficiencies. Striking the right balance is key to aligning effort with impact while maintaining centralized data. Effective localization can be the difference between resonating with international audiences and missing valuable conversions. This article tackles strategies for localizing Google Ads campaigns, from choosing the right account structure to advanced cultural adaptations that drive performance across global markets. Why localization matters: Beyond simple translation Localization goes far beyond basic translation. While translation focuses on converting text from one language to another, localization adapts your message to be culturally relevant and appropriate for your target audience. This includes: Cultural references: Ensuring idioms, metaphors, and examples resonate with the local audience. Purchasing behaviors: Adapting to regional buying patterns and preferences. Visual elements: Modifying images and design to align with cultural expectations. Currency and measurement units: Using local formats for prices, sizes, and distances. Regulatory compliance: Adhering to regional advertising regulations and requirements. Different spellings: For example German is spoken in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, but while Germany and Austria have an “ß”, in Switzerland a double s “ss” is used. Another example is British versus American English, such as “colour” (British English) and “color” (American English). Start with the right account structure The foundation of a successful campaign localization begins with a well-planned account structure. Expanding into multiple markets? How you organize your Google Ads accounts greatly impacts tracking performance, managing budgets, and localizing campaigns. One of the fastest strategies for managing multi-market campaigns is bundling markets that share the same language. This approach streamlines content creation and reduces translation workload. For example: Group all English-speaking markets (U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia) to leverage similar ad copy. Combine Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America. Cluster German-speaking regions (Germany, Austria, parts of Switzerland). Language bundling allows your team to create a single set of compelling ads that can be deployed across multiple markets with minimal adaptation, saving time and resources while maintaining message consistency. While language bundling offers significant efficiency advantages, it does come with trade-offs worth considering. The emphasis on speed and streamlined management sometimes means compromising on certain details: Currency variations: When grouping markets solely by language, you may overlook important currency differences that affect bidding strategies and budget allocations. Exchange rate fluctuations can impact campaign performance reporting across regions sharing a language but using different currencies. Regional language nuances: Even within the same language, regional spelling conventions (American vs. British English, European vs. Latin American Spanish) and cultural references may vary. A bundled approach might not capture these subtle but important distinctions that could resonate more effectively with local audiences. These limitations don’t invalidate the language bundling strategy. Still, they highlight the importance of balancing operational efficiency and market-specific customization to achieve optimal campaign performance across all territories. Currency considerations: The critical constraint While language bundling is fast to implement, it’s essential to remember that Google Ads permits only one currency per account. This limitation often becomes the deciding factor in your account structure, sometimes overriding language groupings. For instance, while the U.K., U.S., and Australia share English as their primary language, they use different currencies (GBP, USD, and AUD respectively). This means you’ll need separate accounts for each, despite the language similarity. Yes, Google has currency conversion functionality. However, it often leads to reporting issues, mixing too many currencies into one account. Consider these strategic approaches: Currency-first grouping: Create accounts based on currency requirements first, then create language-specific campaigns within each account Regional hubs: Establish regional account hubs (e.g., EMEA, APAC, Americas) that balance both currency and language considerations Major market separation: Maintain individual accounts for your largest markets while bundling smaller markets with shared currencies When structuring your accounts with both language and currency in mind: Develop standardized naming conventions that clearly indicate language and currency for each campaign. Create shared asset libraries for language groups to maintain consistency across accounts. Implement cross-account tracking to evaluate performance across language clusters regardless of account separation. Use labels to quickly identify and manage campaigns targeting the same language across different accounts. A well-planned account structure that considers both language and currency gives you a strong foundation. There’s no universal ideal structure for multi-market campaigns. Your approach should be guided by market distribution and business goals. Assess where your volume concentrates. If you have one dominant market with minimal activity in similar markets, bundling makes sense despite some localization sacrifices. However, when significant volume flows across multiple markets, invest in proper market-specific structures that support long-term scaling. The right balance weighs immediate efficiency against future growth potential across your target regions. Setting up localized campaigns in Google Ads When setting up localized campaigns, ask yourself about: Language. Location. Currency. The checklist below can serve as your guide. Language Choose the right language targeting: In your campaign settings, select the specific languages your potential customers speak. Create separate campaigns for each language: Rather than mixing languages, create dedicated campaigns for each target language. Enable language detection: Google can identify a user’s preferred language based on their browser settings and search behavior. Location Geographical targeting levels: Target by country, region, city, or even radius around specific locations. Location groups: Target places of interest, like business locations or your storefront. Advanced location options: Choose whether to target people in your selected locations, those who show interest in your locations, or both. Location extensions: Show your local business addresses alongside your ads. Location insertion: Automatically insert the targeted city, state, or country name into your ad text. Local inventory ads: Display products available at nearby stores to drive foot traffic. Currency Set up currency conversion: Configure your campaigns to display prices in local currencies. Show tax-inclusive pricing: In countries where displaying tax-inclusive prices is expected or required. Offer local payment methods: Highlight accepted payment options popular in each region. Note: If a market has enough volume, you might also want to look into cultural and seasonal localization. Culture Adapt headlines and calls to action: What motivates action varies by culture – some respond better to direct calls while others prefer indirect approaches. Customize imagery: Select visuals that reflect local aesthetics, models that represent your target audience, and scenarios familiar to local users. Adjust value propositions: Emphasize benefits that matter most in each market (e.g., efficiency in Germany, innovation in South Korea). Seasonal Create a localized marketing calendar: Map out important dates and events for each target market. Develop region-specific promotional campaigns: Align offers with local events, such as Diwali in India or Singles’ Day in China. Adjust bidding strategies: Increase bids during peak shopping periods specific to each region. PPC localization pitfalls and how to avoid them Machine translation limitations While Google Translate has improved dramatically, relying solely on machine translation can lead to embarrassing errors: Invest in professional translation: Work with native-speaking translators familiar with marketing content. Conduct back-translation checks: Have a different translator convert the localized content back to the original language to catch potential errors. Run linguistic quality assurance: Have native speakers review ads before launching. That being said, advertisers short on budget can use: Google Translate. DeepL, a German translation engine that uses convolutional neural networks to deliver more natural translations. It’s more of a question of how much volume goes through the translated assets. The more traffic and impressions, the more you want to double-check and have a professional translation. Cultural faux pas Even major brands make cultural mistakes that damage their reputation: Research cultural taboos and sensitivities: Colors, numbers, and symbols can have unexpected meanings in different cultures. Check for unintentional double meanings: Ensure product names and slogans translate appropriately. Review visual elements: Images considered normal in one culture may be offensive in another. Get the newsletter search marketers rely on. Business email address Sign me up! Processing... See terms. Standardizing international campaign management with SOPs When managing Google Ads campaigns across multiple countries and languages, establishing clear standard operating procedures (SOPs) is essential for: Maintaining consistency. Enabling efficient team collaboration. Ensuring scalable campaign management. Well-designed SOPs create a framework that minimizes errors, speeds up campaign creation, and simplifies reporting across your international portfolio. Campaign naming conventions A clear naming convention serves is key to managing campaigns across multiple markets. The most effective approach incorporates geographic, linguistic, and strategic elements in a consistent format: Recommended format: {Country} | {Language} | Campaign Type | Campaign Goal Examples: US | en | Search | Brand DE | de | Display | Awareness CA | fr | Search | Revenue MX | es | Performance Max | Revenue This standardized structure offers several advantages: Enables quick filtering and sorting within the Google Ads interface. Simplifies reporting across regions and languages. Ensures consistent understanding across team members. Facilitates automated rule creation and script implementation. The language code becomes particularly crucial for markets with multiple languages. For example, distinguishing between CA | en and CA | fr for English and French campaigns in Canada ensures clarity in performance analysis and budget allocation. Asset organization procedures Beyond campaign naming, establish clear protocols for organizing ad assets across languages: Asset library structure: Create separate folders for each country-language combination. Maintain consistent subfolder organization for ad types (responsive search ads, image assets, etc.). Include language code in all file names (e.g., product_banner_us.jpg). Documentation requirements Maintain translation glossaries for key brand terms and product names. Document market-specific restrictions or requirements. Record any cultural adaptations made for specific markets. Localization workflow Establish a structured process for campaign localization to maintain quality and efficiency: Translation and adaptation process Define clear handoff procedures between marketing and translation teams. Create templates for providing context to translators. Establish review protocols for culturally-sensitive content. Quality assurance checklist Verify landing page language matches ad language. Confirm currency, measurement units, and date formats are localized. Check that offers and promotions are valid in target markets. Ensure compliance with local advertising regulations. Reporting templates and schedules Standardize reporting to enable clear cross-market comparison and insight sharing: Unified report structure Create templates that normalize metrics across languages and regions. Include a side-by-side comparison of key markets. Incorporate currency-normalized cost metrics. Reporting calendar Establish a consistent cadence for different report types. Define responsibilities for report generation and analysis. Create protocols for sharing insights across regional teams. Implementation strategy When rolling out SOPs for international campaign management: Start with documentation of existing processes across markets. Identify best practices and areas for standardization. Create templates and tools to support consistent implementation. Conduct training sessions for all team members. Schedule regular reviews to refine procedures based on feedback. Well-documented SOPs transform international campaign management from a potentially chaotic endeavor into a structured, scalable process. Clear rules for naming, organizing, localizing, and reporting help your team scale across markets while keeping quality and performance tracking consistent. Automated search term translation script Managing search term analysis across multiple languages presents a challenge for international marketers. Reviewing non-native language search queries often involves tedious copying and pasting into translation tools or depending on team members with language skills, which can slow down optimization workflows. To address this pain point, I’ve developed a Google Ads script that seamlessly exports search terms from search campaigns and automatically translates them into your preferred language within Google Sheets. Getting started with the script To implement this time-saving tool in your Google Ads account: Access the script code and installation instructions here. Make a copy of this Google Sheet. Configure your preferred language settings. Schedule regular runs based on your optimization routine. The setup process takes less than five minutes, but saves hours of tedious work each month while improving your ability to optimize international campaigns effectively. Building scalable international PPC campaigns with a local impact Effective localization in Google Ads goes beyond simple translation to create campaigns that truly connect with local audiences. By following the strategies in this article – from language and location targeting to cultural adaptations – you can boost campaign performance in international markets. Investing in proper localization leads to higher engagement, better conversion rates, and stronger brand perception. In today’s global marketplace, localization isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s essential for successful international advertising. View the full article

Here is our monthly Google Webmaster Report - the May 2025 edition - where I summarize the past 30 days or so of the big organic Google related news in one place. Google did not have any official Google ranking updates but we sure did see several days of intense ranking volatility.View the full article

America’s mid-air dismantling of the global system of trade represents a one-time chance to competeView the full article

Google AdSense has been testing serving and displaying ads within AI Chatbots. Bloomberg reported Google has already begun testing this within AI search apps iAsk and Liner and plans to allow other AI Chatbot providers to include AdSense ads in their chat responses.View the full article

Nigel Farage’s party is bolstered by disillusionment in the country rather than its policiesView the full article

Google has confirmed that Apple will be adding its Gemini AI service to Apple Intelligence by the end of 2025, reports are saying. We knew this would happen but we should also expect Apple to add not just Gemini but other AI services to Apple Intelligence. View the full article

“The apocalypse will start having vermouths and tapas,” a friend told me yesterday. Just a day before, the electricity shut down for all of Spain and Portugal, trapping thousands in subways, trains, and elevators for hours, forcing people to walk miles back to their homes, putting hospitals on backup power, and turning off traffic lights, phones, and credit card readers. It shut down everything. Officials are still calculating the economic costs, but it will be in the billions. As this was happening, I still saw the people drinking in bar terraces too, as I was walking up the street to pick up my son early from school. They were joking and making fun. Others were rushing around in a panic like me, some with their kids, some alone. Lines dozens of people long were waiting for buses that came and passed by, overloaded. After everything passed, many celebrated online how refreshing it was to be living without social media or phones. An analog world felt so nice to those who were ignorant about the ultimate consequences of a total blackout for hours or days. Nobody knew that, if this lasted for more than 24 hours, many people would start dying in hospitals and panic would ensue. In 48, we will be out of water or any food supply chains. And, in 72 hours without electricity, civilization as we knew it would be on the brink. “Without electricity, we go back to the Stone Age. Especially in high density urban centers,” Dr. Sangeetha Abdu Jyothi, assistant professor of computing in University of California, Irvine, told me in a conversation about a potential global blackout years ago. “I can’t even imagine what would happen in an event of this scale.” Luckily, that didn’t happen, but it felt like the beginning of the end to me. When the national blackout started at 12:23, on April 28, 2025, I was at home writing, as usual. I noticed that my internet was off at the same time as everyone else in the country. I shrugged. “The building power is down. Probably they are doing some work again outside,” I told myself. I took a break, had the last cup of coffee still warm in my french press. I noticed my phone’s data was off. An hour later, the internet didn’t come back and my cell connection still wasn’t working. Weird. I went outside and saw people rushing. Some were out of their offices, talking. The doorman didn’t know what was going on and mumbled something about the damn government. Thinking it was just my neighborhood, I decided to go to a café by my son’s school. That’s when I passed by the first traffic light. It, too, was off. At that point I suddenly got extremely worried. A police helicopter zoomed by at low altitude. “This is how the world ends,” I told myself. Where are all the zombies? I wasn’t expecting zombies. Okay, maybe for a split second (The Last of Us Season 2 is intense). A couple years ago, I wrote and directed a short documentary on how a major solar storm—something called a Carrington Event—could take down the entire civilization. The phenomenon made telegraph poles burn down back in 1859 but, today, when everything depends on electricity, experts told me that it would probably cripple our entire civilization. Not for 12 hours. Not for a day. But, for decades, according to the Pentagon and the National Academy of Sciences. John Kappenman, an American engineer with decades of experience in the North American electrical industry, painted a dire picture: “Yes, there would clearly be public health disasters, public service disasters, disasters in the food distribution chain, disasters in the pharmaceutical industry, collapse of hospitals and ERs, payment systems. . . . Everything will fall once you suffer an impact on the most important of all infrastructure, the power grid,” he said. I spoke with scientists from NASA. Everyone told me the same thing. And everyone insisted that we urgently needed to set up better early warning systems and reconfigure power networks throughout the world to make them more independent from each other. We needed to install surge suppression systems capable of absorbing the energy overload from such a solar event, and stockpile industrial transformers, which right now take about two years to make and deliver (most of them, from China, of course!). “It’s not a question about whether we are going to suffer one of these events or not. It’s a question about when it is going to happen,” Holly Gilbert—the former director of the heliophysical science division of the NASA Goddard research center who now heads the High Altitude Observatory of the National Center for Atmospheric Research of the United States—told me back then. A surreal experience So you have to excuse my contained panic when I started to assume the worst—even as, within minutes, the lack of transformers on fire proved I was just paranoid. I could still hear the ambulance, police, and firefighter sirens howling, and I saw the cars starting to pile up in long traffic jams. But drivers and pedestrian alike were incredibly polite and chill. My mind, still searching for a culprit, jumped from solar interference to the war in Ukraine and Putin. Could this be a cyberattack? I got to the café and asked the owner, Francesco, if he knew anything. “My father sent me a message from Italy. I got it in a brief moment of signal,” he said (I guessed and confirmed later that some people had connections that were coming and going because their cell provider had towers with backup power units). “He said that Spain, Portugal, and the south of Spain are down.” It had to be an attack. Well, that, or some monumental incompetence with the power lines. I decided to get my son from school right away. He was startled by the situation and he asked if the Russians could nuke Madrid. I told him no. I told myself yes. I knew a major cyberattack taking communications and power down would be the opening notes of a full war. I walked with him back home, easing his fears and making it all a game. We noticed hundreds of people walking alongside us. People out of their offices. People with kids. Many were carrying big water bottles and supermarket bags. “Don’t forget to fill your bath tubs,” I told a couple. They laughed nervously, thinking I was joking. I wasn’t. Others were carrying suitcases. “Are they leaving” I kept asking myself. Scenes from the documentary kept coming to my mind. “The first people start leaving the city hours after the hit,” the voice over was narrating in my head. I knew that fridges—at homes, restaurants, and supermarkets—were off. With no credit card readers—since there was no cell coverage for the most part—shops were shutting down. Some bars were open (it’s Spain!) but only cash payments were possible. TV and routers went off at homes. Some had solar panels and batteries, so they could still access the internet, while many were in their cars parked in the street listening to the radio, the only source of information. The government had no idea what was happening. The President only appeared to say that he didn’t know anything five hours after the shutdown. This would have been unthinkable in any other serious European country. The national power grid company said electricity may be on in six hours but, for most of Spain, it didn’t come after much later. As we were walking home, I noticed people searching for cell bars. Some of them were texting. I raised my phone trying to find a connection, like a diviner in search of water. My phone showed 5G and two bars. The internet worked for a few seconds and a torrent of messages poured in. Friends. Work. Family. Then I managed to call my brother for a few seconds. The 5G turned to 4G, then 3G then E. Then nothing. I got bits of info from other people and realized how everything I’d learned researching the documentary was becoming a reality. Hospitals were on emergency power. Surgeries got cancelled. I knew that, after 12 hours, we may start seeing generators running out of fuel. Without energy, people on respirators could start dying in the first 24 hours. People who needed dialysis or other electric devices to survive would die in a few days. Blood banks and some drugs would quickly start going bad, too. I learned that some buildings in Barcelona lost water pressure. Without electricity, their pumps couldn’t get water to the higher floors. I already had filled bath tubs and bottles with water. Just in case. After 24 hours, I knew things could get really bad. Logistics would stop. Major distribution centers would stop working. Cities would become rat traps. The water supply be cut off for most part in every city. The admirable civic attitude of the first hours would get replaced by desperation and panic. Supermarkets would be emptied. Elderly people in need of oxygen and care would be at risk. In 72 hours, the experts told me, civilization as we know it would just end. The weird feeling of seeing the world standing still My brain was racing but I put it all aside. I knew this was an extreme case. I learned that the rest of the world was fine. Europe was okay. We were okay. I went back out with my son because I didn’t have a cell signal at home. We went to the park. When we arrived, I saw all the families. At this time, nobody would be at the park on a typical weekday. But, without anything to do, there were parents and their kids, just hanging out, and commenting on what was going on. I overheard that all radios were sold out at Chinese bazaars and shops. No batteries either. And supermarkets were already out of water. But people seemed weirdly calm. It was almost picturesque. My son and I returned home after playing some soccer. We had dinner (luckily, we have a garden and a small grill, so I fired some wood and we had a feast of chorizos and blood sausage before they went bad in the fridge). We watched some Andor on my laptop. He brushed his teeth and went to bed using the light of my iPhone. It was just a little different than normal. He told me “I love you” and “goodnight.” And I went back to wait. It wasn’t until 11:30 p.m. when my neighborhood got the power back. It was a relief, but we still don’t entirely know what happened. We know that it wasn’t an extreme solar weather event, like some rumors from Portugal suggested. That would have fried everything electrical, worldwide. We also know that the European Union and the electrical companies said it wasn’t a cyberattack. The Spanish national power grid company said that 15 gigawatts coming from solar panels disappeared, a sign of what appears to be a terrible design of the power network and the lack of batteries that sustain Spain’s electric network, 71% of which comes from renewable energy. It seems that, for years, the current Spanish government has failed to architect its network to match the amount of solar and wind power we are producing. It’s a dreadful error that will now cost the country billions of dollars. But it was over. Alone in my room at night, brushing my teeth with my battery-powered toothbrush looking at the torrent of news and messages in my revived phone, I couldn’t think of anything else but how mundane everything seemed at that point and, at the same time, how close we all came from dodging the bullet that may one day end modern life as we know it. We got really lucky. Because nobody was ready for this. Not the companies, not the government, not the people—the latter of whom were so civil and nice and, luckily, so naive about how everything could have unfolded. I figured out that the world wouldn’t begin its final days with zombies invading out of nowhere. No, I thought, the zombies this evening are all of us still caught in a stupor. They are the thousands of people spending the night in frozen trains, waiting to be rescued by the military. The people sleeping in their homes after getting drunk with friends or alone. The wandering humans walking miles to their homes. Or this single dad having grilled chorizo with his kid, playing with him, putting him to sleep, and then impatiently waiting for lights and the internet to come back alive, staring blank at a bathtub full of water, planning how we could escape a city of seven million people and head to Cádiz in case things went truly wrong next time. View the full article

Chances are you’ve had a bad boss at some point in your career. Research shows that up to 65% of employees would take a new boss over a pay raise, and roughly half of people who quit their jobs cite their manager as the main reason for leaving. Bad bosses are not just annoyances; they’re productivity drains, engagement killers, and mental health hazards. They create toxic cultures, stifle growth, and often drive the best people out while promoting dysfunction. So why do we keep ending up with them? Companies have long tried to solve the “bad boss” problem. They spend billions on leadership development programs, executive coaching, and increasingly, AI-powered feedback tools promising to “upgrade” managers. These efforts are not entirely futile—some leaders do improve—but the overall return on investment remains disappointing. Gallup data still shows that the majority of managers are ill-equipped to lead. Why? Because leadership, like character, is hard to change—and even harder to scale. But maybe we’ve been asking the wrong question all along. Instead of trying to fix bad bosses after the fact, why don’t we focus on choosing better ones from the start? Just as we put considerable thought into selecting a romantic partner—considering compatibility, values, and long-term potential—we should approach choosing a boss with similar care. After all, your boss will profoundly influence your well-being, career trajectory, and daily experience. Mistakes can happen, but they are often avoidable if we learn to recognize the right signals. Here are three evidence-based principles for picking the closest thing to a “perfect” boss, or let’s just say a decent, good, beneficial boss . . . Forget charisma—embrace boring competence Charisma is the dating-app profile picture of leadership: seductive, memorable, and often misleading. It dazzles in job interviews, town halls, and all-hands meetings. But over time, the same charm can morph into attention-seeking, volatility, and narcissism. Many of the most inept and destructive bosses I’ve encountered (and studied) had an abundance of confidence and not nearly enough competence. They were high on style, low on substance—and their teams suffered for it. So how can you spot them? Watch for grandiosity (“I transformed the whole department”), name-dropping, and overconfidence in interviews. They often talk more about themselves than the team. They may even be entertaining—until you’re the one cleaning up the mess after their impulsive decisions. Now contrast this with the “boring but effective” boss. They’re calm, measured, and often underwhelming in first impressions. They may not blow you away in the interview, but they show deep knowledge of their domain. They talk about collective achievements, not personal triumphs. They ask questions, take notes, and actually listen. Competent bosses focus on execution, alignment, and people development—not just self-promotion. They might not get all the credit, but they usually deserve it. If charisma is what you want on day one, competence is what you’ll thank yourself for choosing on day 100. Find someone who will make you better The best bosses act more like coaches than commanders. They don’t just assign tasks—they challenge, stretch, and support their people. As leadership expert and scholar Herminia Ibarra put it, modern leadership is less about giving answers and more about “asking the right questions, enabling others to learn, and creating a space for people to grow.” If your prospective boss can’t describe how they develop their team, it’s a red flag. Here are a few questions you can ask in interviews or informal chats to gauge their orientation toward people development: “Can you tell me about someone on your team who’s grown significantly under your leadership?” “How do you help people identify and build on their strengths?” “What does success look like for someone in this role six months from now?” Great bosses will answer with specific stories, not generic platitudes. They’ll talk about feedback, mentorship, stretch assignments, and talent reviews. Mediocre ones will deflect or talk mainly about output and control. A boss who’s committed to your growth is worth their weight in stock options. Prioritize personality over raw talent We often assume that because someone is highly talented, they must be great to work for. But talent may have gotten them the job—not kept them good at it. Their personality, however, will determine your everyday experience. That’s why personality should matter more to you than their résumé. What traits should you look for? Empathy, emotional intelligence (EQ), integrity, curiosity, humility, and self-awareness. These are the foundations of psychological safety, trust, and good judgment—all of which drive high-performing teams. Fortunately, you can assess many of these in a conversation: Empathy: Do they ask about your interests, listen actively, and respond to your cues? Integrity: Do they credit others, admit mistakes, and avoid overpromising? Curiosity: Do they ask insightful questions, or pretend to already know everything? Humility: Do they share what they’re still learning or areas they’re working on? Self-awareness: Do they acknowledge past feedback or their leadership style, do they know how they are seen by others? A talented boss may impress you in a presentation. A great personality will make every meeting more human—and every tough moment more bearable. In the end, personality is the key to predicting your boss in the future: we are what we repeatedly do, and if you can work out what makes your boss tick, you will be better at dealing with them in the future, even if you have to make an effort to adjust. The perfect boss may not exist—but the right boss for you does. Choosing wisely can mean the difference between dreading Mondays and loving what you do. So don’t just focus on salary, benefits, or brand names. Consider the person who will shape your day-to-day experience and your long-term growth. Remember: charisma fades, competence compounds. Find a boss who builds others, not just their own reputation. And never underestimate the power of empathy, integrity, and humility—they’re not soft skills, they’re superpowers. After all, your boss may not be your spouse, but you’ll probably spend more waking hours with them than almost anyone else. Choose accordingly. A boss isn’t just a job title—it’s a lifestyle choice. Pick the wrong one, and you’ll spend your best years decoding passive-aggressive emails and starring in a workplace reality show where the villain wins every episode—and you’re the unpaid emotional labor. View the full article

In early March, it was leaked that Google Ads will be rolling out channel reporting for Performance Max campaigns. Well, now it is official, Google said they are introducing "'­new'¬'­ channel-level'¬'­ reporting'¬'­ in'¬'­ Performance'¬'­ Max" plus, "full'¬'­ search'¬'­ terms'¬'­ reporting'¬ and'¬'­ more'¬'­ detailed'¬'­ asset'¬'­ reporting'¬'­ that'¬'­ show'¬'­ you'¬'­ all'¬'­ the'¬'­ metrics'¬'­ for'¬'­ individual'¬'­ assets.'¬"View the full article

Google is testing showing favicons logos in its shopping ads, in the carousel of sponsored product results. Ginny Marvin, Google's Ads Liaison, confirmed this with me on X last night.View the full article

Google is testing showing AI Overviews on the right hand side of the search results page. I am not sure if this is specific to local queries and a replacement of sorts for the local panel, I hope not.View the full article

Fall comes as The President’s tariffs knock consumer sentimentView the full article