Author: Geek Planet

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,…

The influencer marketing playbook is getting a rewrite—or at least a few new chapters added—as the lines between search and social continue to blur, creating a new frontier for brand discoverability.To be sure, influencers have broken out of the four walls of social media, shaping search results. And the industry has taken notice. Creators are showing up in Google’s “short videos” tab and AI Overview, both of which launched last year, as well as AI Mode, which launched this May. Then in July, Meta notified users that search engines would automatically be allowed to show all photos and videos on…

[Update: Google has inexplicably paused the rollout of Android 17, but says the release will be on track on soon. The original story is as follows.] Android 17 is here, and if you’re among the brave souls who can drive early-stage software, the build is already available to download on Pixel smartphones. Google has just rolled out the first test build of Android 17, and this one brings a few crucial changes.  Google is now shifting to a Canary channel for in-development Android updates, just the way it seeds beta updates through the Canary channel for the Chrome browser. The…

Kendall Gall used to have a good read on what creators should charge. Now, it’s a toss up. Half the quotes the talent agent sees are either inflated beyond reason or oddly underpriced.   Where fees once mapped cleanly to scale — macro, micro, niche — those lines have blurred. Two creators with near identical followings can command radically different rates. With no clear benchmarks, pricing can — and often does — run on instinct, perception and whoever’s holding the purse strings that day. “There’s a lot of variance,” said Gall.  That came through clearly when Digiday spoke with seven other execs.…

Remember that AI personal health coach that promised to act as a trainer and wellness advisor called Fitbit AI Health Coach? Well, Google just took it global. Launched in October 2025 as a public preview for the U.S. Fitbit Premium users, the AI-powered personal health coach is now expanding to more countries, including the U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore. From U.S. exclusivity to global coverage The rollout is still in English and remains in “public preview” status, implying that Google is collecting data and feedback to improve the feature before a broader release. So, if you’re willing to…