Author: Geek Planet

As usual, the money is following the attention. In the second quarter, Shorts averaged over 200 billion daily views.  Mark Ballard, research director at Tinuiti confirmed that the typical Tinuiti client buying YouTube Shorts inventory saw their spending increase a little over 11 percent from the first quarter to the second this year. The same goes for Markacy’s clients. The agency’s director of media, Grant Kalfus, said his team is currently pushing YouTube – especially Shorts – across almost every client, and are on pace to roughly double their Shorts investment by year end.  The math helps.  “A big driver…

This year, one of the most important annual shopping events hangs in the balance of how shoppers respond to the threat of tariffs with their wallets, with President Trump’s deadline for trade deals set for Aug. 1. Shoppers are spreading out their back-to-school shopping over the course of the summer and are more concerned about finding the best deal than they were a year ago, according to recent consumer surveys. Retailers have had to change how they market and plan back-to-school events — highlighting when they are keeping prices the same. They have also especially put emphasis on sales events in mid-July as…

Spotify might finally let you swap out that random string of letters and numbers it calls a username. An APK teardown of Spotify’s Android app surfaced new UI text for “Username” and “Edit username,” hinting that editable usernames could be on the way. Android Authority spotted the strings in Spotify version 9.1.20.1132 and noted language that treats the username as a social handle. That’s a notable shift for a service that has been acting more like a social app lately, with features like Jams, Blends, collaborative playlists, and now direct messages and group messaging. Strings point to an in-app editor…

Just yesterday, we were talking about how Google is going straight to Android 17 Beta 1 without going down the Developer Preview route like it usually does, and how the first beta could have dropped yesterday. However, the Alphabet-owned giant seems to have cancelled those plans. Although the Android 17 Beta 1 was scheduled to arrive at 10 AM PT, the company decided to pull the plug on the beta release. In a statement sent to Android Police, Google says that “last-minute changes” have led to the delay. Android 17 Beta 1 is now “coming soon” “Android Beta 1 will…

The creator economy is getting too big for investors to ignore, expected to be valued at $480 billion by 2027, according to Goldman Sachs. That may be why private equity firms are elbowing holding companies and other corporations for a piece of the growing pie. M&A activity is up year over year, potentially positioning 2025 as a new record for creator economy transactions. In the first half of 2025, 52 M&A deals were completed. That figure is up from 30 transactions in the first half of 2024, making a 73 percent year-over-year increase, according to Quartermast Advisors, a boutique M&A advisory…

Anthropologie’s in-house label Maeve is being spun off into its own, standalone brand. How does a marketing team handle that in 2025?By creating new social channels (find Maeve on Instagram and TikTok), investing in CTV, OOH and influencer marketing and writing a Substack (penned by the marketing team and external writers) — before a storefront opens in October in Raleigh, North Carolina. Maeve, an in-house brand to Anthropologie and under its parent company URBN (which includes Urban Outfitters and Free People), joins brands already on Substack as company execs see it as the new approach into editorial — like the media industry itself…

MAINGEAR’s Retro98 is a beige throwback tower that hides current gaming hardware. It’s built for anyone who wants the late-90s desktop look without giving up today’s performance. Prices start at $2,499 for an RTX 5070 build, then jump to $3,499 with an RTX 5080, and $4,999 with an RTX 5090. Retro98 alpha tops the stack at $9,799, pairing an RTX 5090 with an AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D, 64GB of DDR5, and a 4TB SSD. This is also a scarcity play, capped at 38 total units, split into 32 standard systems and six Retro98 alpha builds. The listing calls the systems…

A few weeks ago, Apple announced that it had inked a deal with Google to fix Siri. Or to put it more accurately, Apple will rely on a custom version of Gemini to develop a new version of Siri, one that is faster, smarter, and does a lot more. As per Bloomberg, the transition was supposed to happen with the upcoming iOS 26.4 update, but those plans appear to have been delayed. What’s happening? “After planning to include the new capabilities in iOS 26.4 — an operating system update slated for March — Apple is now working to spread them…

The article was first published by Digiday sibling Modern Retail.A recent report that OpenAI is developing a checkout system within ChatGPT is garnering mixed reactions among founders of retail startups, with some worrying that the system will become “pay to play” in a way that disenfranchises small businesses. On July 16, the Financial Times reported that OpenAI had shown brands a prototype of a checkout function that enables users to complete transactions entirely within ChatGPT. Merchants that opt to receive and fulfill orders this way will pay a commission to OpenAI, according to the publication. When contacted by Modern Retail for this…

The mobile version of NotebookLM app can now turn your documents into AI-generated videos, making it easier to understand dense material without scrolling through long pages of text. The feature, called Video Overviews, is rolling out to the NotebookLM app on both Android and iOS, alongside deeper customization tools for infographics and presentations. NotebookLM is designed to help users work with their own documents, such as PDFs, notes, and study material, using Google’s AI. Until now, the mobile version provided summaries mostly in text or audio form. With Video Overviews, Google is adding a more visual way to consume information,…