Month: February 2018

Facebook is putting its money where its mouth is when it comes to supporting local news publishers, putting $3 million toward helping some of them boost their digital subscription totals. Head of news partnerships Campbell Brown announced in a blog post that the Facebook Journalism Project launched a $3 million, three-month Local News Subscriptions Accelerator,…

A company called Blade wants to take that computer off your desk and stick it in the cloud.

In a piece written for Harper’s Magazine, Tom Robbins, my literary personal Jesus, tells a story about one of the musicians that plays on Big Mama Thornton’s recording of “Hound Dog.” This, as he relates it, was the musician heard barking at the end of the song. When asked about this seemingly inspired moment, the…

Major brands have been distancing themselves from the National Rifle Association following the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. on Feb. 14. In the last week, shooting survivors and gun control advocates have encouraged airlines like Delta and United, car rental companies like Avis, National and Enterprise, insurance companies like MetLife…

During John Landgraf’s 14 years at FX, no single creator has contributed more to the network’s legacy than Ryan Murphy, Adweek’s reigning TV Creator of the Year. Murphy’s groundbreaking shows for the network include Nip/Tuck, American Horror Story, Feud, American Crime Story (whose second installment, The Assassination of Gianni Versace, is currently airing) and the…

After eight years without a chief operating officer, Square business lead Francoise Brougher will become Pinterest’s first on March 12. Why add a COO now, after going without one since it was founded in March 2010? “We think it’s the right time in our business to benefit from a world-class operations leader,” Pinterest said. “There…

Today, Ogilvy further tied its fortunes to Hogarth, parent company WPP’s group of in-house production companies. Worldwide chairman & CEO John Seifert announced that the two networks would form a new “global partnership” by consolidating their respective services into “a new studio ecosystem” that combines Hogarth’s production capabilities with Ogilvy’s creative and client services teams…

YouTube announced a series of updates to its YouTube Live livestreaming platform. Replays of Live videos now feature chat replay, allowing replay viewers to read the conversation as it originally unfolded during the livestream. YouTube will also roll out English-language automatic captions for livestreams in the coming weeks. Automatic captioning was originally launched in 2009…

How do you advertise space-age transportation technology that doesn’t exist yet? By taking a long, nostalgic look at what came before it. That’s the approach taken by Micky Coyne and Pete Harvey–two independent creatives who’ve been working directly with Hyperloop Transportation Technologies and its CMO, Robert Miller–in an evocative, beautifully shot 1:20 spot rolling out…

Funny or Die released a poignant PSA today in partnership with nonprofit Rise, tackling the #MeToo movement. The PSA takes a somewhat dark approach by using the popular board game Guess Who? to address the pervasiveness of sexual assault not only in Hollywood, but across the country. In typical Funny or Die fashion, the PSA…