Scrolling past ads has rarely been enjoyable. But in recent months, people say the experience seems so much worse.
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Scrolling past ads has rarely been enjoyable. But in recent months, people say the experience seems so much worse.
This year’s standouts included shows about a gay paradise in Massachusetts, a mass kidnapping in Mexico and a commune in West Virginia.
The Chinese-owned video app’s ad business is thriving, even as a digital advertising slump hurts Meta, Snap and other rivals.
The two biggest companies behind an internet subgenre — the “chumbox ad” — have joined forces to form a company that will generate $2 billion a year.
For years, Rowan Winch was nothing if not online. Each day his alarm went off at 6 a.m. and he would roll over in his twin bed, grab his iPhone and start looking for memes — viral images and videos — to share on Instagram. He’d repost a handful to his suite of popular accounts before getting into the shower. Afterward, he would keep searching, and posting, until it was time to board the bus for school. On the way to his high school in suburban Pennsylvania, Rowan would curl up in a seat, mining the internet for content. The point was not always quality but quantity. Between classes, at lunch, during study hall, he would keep his social media empire running with new images and videos. (His school has a relatively relaxed cellphone policy.) Rowan’s target, at the time, was 100 posts a day. (By comparison, The New York Times publishes around 250 pieces of original journalism each day, though some of those posts take longer to make.) When he got home, Rowan would turn on his laptop and sit in front of the glowing screen for hours, or flop onto his bed, his phone hovering above his face. His Instagram feed flashed before him like a slot machine. His most popular account, @Zuccccccccccc, taking its name from Facebook’s chief executive, had 1.2 million followers. If his posts were good, his account would keep growing. If he took some time off, growth would stall. Rowan, like most teenagers on the internet, wasn’t after fame or money, though he made a decent amount — at one point $10,000 a month and more, he said. What Rowan wanted was clout.
YouTube’s C.E.O. spends her days contemplating condoms and bestiality, talking advertisers off the ledge and managing a property the size of Netflix.
When an inveterate tweeter and social media hound decided to change his ways, what did he turn to? An email newsletter.
What if stemming the tide of misinformation on YouTube means punishing some of its biggest stars?
Google said it had deleted the accounts and channels of people leaving the comments in question, but acknowledged “there’s more to be done.”
As a writer, I am part of the 35 percent of the American work force that now works freelance in some capacity, either as a main source of income or as some kind of side hustle. This number is growing constantly — 94 percent of the new jobs created in the last decade or so were freelance or contract-based. When we think “gig economy,” we tend to picture an Uber driver or a TaskRabbit tasker rather than a lawyer or a doctor, but in reality, this scrappy economic model — grubbing around for work, all big dreams and bad health insurance — will soon catch up with the bulk of America’s middle class. Major companies now outsource many of even their most skilled jobs, ditching their in-house lawyers and I.T. support teams in favor of on-demand contractors, paid by the hour. More than 18 million Americans are now involved in some kind of direct sales or multilevel marketing scheme, shelling out hundreds of dollars on vitamins or juicers or leggings, then frantically attempting to recoup the money by flogging them to friends and neighbors. Economists predict that by 2027, gig workers of varying descriptions will make up more than half of the work force. An estimated 47 percent of millennials already work in this way.
Google did not notify authorities of the vulnerabilities in Google Plus, which exposed the data of up to 500,000 users.
As Greek yogurt’s popularity soared, Yoplait struggled to market its own version. Then it decided to develop something else: a compelling story.
