Month: May 2024

Sam Altman’s unseemly obsession with Samantha, the AI operating system/love object in the movie “Her,” has led to a heap of trouble.

“Google as an illegal monopolist will have to pay some penalties,” US federal judge James Donato said Thursday, in a hearing discussing next steps after a jury found the company breached antitrust laws.

The American Privacy Rights Act, already revised since it was unveiled last month, will now move to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which could make additional changes.

Jenny Haggard, global thought leadership lead, Spotify Advertising

The prevailing sentiment in marketing is the shorter the content, the better. In an attention economy, capturing people’s eyes and ears is challenging, so advertisers tend to believe that keeping content brief — no matter the message — promises more views, streams and engagement.

However, one proven exception to this rule is compelling advertisers to think again: podcasts. Research shows that people spend over seven hours per week consuming podcast content and that Gen Zers, specifically, achieve an average completion rate of 80% on podcast episodes lasting over 50 minutes. Ad spend is catching up with this cultural behavior: In 2024, podcasts will surpass $2 billion in ad revenue for the first time, and by 2028, that number will top $3 billion. 

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Ad-supported streaming services are definitely growing. But the marketplace is still in need of more granular industry metrics to determine its specific impact for marketers.

You’ve heard of Copilot. Now there’s “CoPlanner,” a new AI-powered media planning tool Microsoft says will simplify the process for advertisers and agencies. It turns simple text prompts into planning
specs and recommendations.

BirdDog Technologies, Mazda’s partner on the activation, also recently worked with Polestar and Toyota.

Rep. Frank Pallone warned that the bill “could cause social media companies to overfilter content, out of an abundance of caution about legal risks.”

The Chinese-owned app is in serious trouble in Washington, but a survey of US creators suggests TikTok’s influencer economy is carrying on with business as usual.

In an effort to combat hate groups and violent extremism online, anti-extremism group Life After Hate is launching a new channel that is intended to help individuals disengage from violent extremist
groups and hate space on the social messaging and live-streaming platform Discord.