If you agree to suffer for content, you might just be able to pay off your parents’ debt.
Of course, the contestants on Netflix or in MrBeast videos are participating voluntarily and are not in mortal danger.
And according to a study from Kaiser Health News and NPR, 41% of American adults have some form of medical debt.
The American Dream is no longer the promise that anyone can get rich if they just work hard enough.
On Sunday, December 17, the day after she and MrBeast posted their videos, Taylor had around 12,000 subscribers, and on Wednesday, December 20, she’s broken 100,000.
From a fan perspective, although there are plenty of ways to follow and connect with artists, these online interactions can be minimal.
Artists will soon also be able to sell new exclusive and limited-edition digital collectibles/NFTs like poster bundles and trading cards.
Medallion is free for artists to use but takes a percentage of all sales on the platform, yet didn’t disclose how much.
Additionally, Medallion is a white-label platform, meaning artists can customize their digital space with their own color theme, background and more.
Artists communicate with fans through social media posts, while fans can reply in the comments.
Microsoft Copilot, Microsoft’s AI-powered chatbot, can now compose songs thanks to an integration with gen AI music app Suno.
From a single sentence, Suno can generate complete songs — including lyrics, instrumentals and singing voices.
Meta has published several of its experiments with AI music generation.
Stability AI’s own gen AI audio lead quit after saying that gen AI “exploits creators,” and the Grammys have banned fully AI-generated song from consideration for awards.
Clarity on the legal status of gen AI music may arrive soon — if not from court decisions.
In the past two years, Breakr has onboarded over 30,000 influencers and managed more than $3.5 million in creator transactions.
Now, to fuel its growth, Breakr has secured an additional $1.9 million at a valuation of $20 million.
There are a number of platforms in the market today that connect creators, brands and content (such as music but other media, too) to build influencer campaigns.
On the music side, artists (or labels) submit music for a particular campaign; and if the music gets selected, it gets promoted to new audiences.
While music marketing is its main bread and butter, Breakr eventually wants to tap into other fields like film and television.
Today, the social magazine app Flipboard is announcing it has also now integrated with ActityPub.
That changed this year, when Flipboard shifted its Twitter integration over to Mastodon and another alternative social app, Bluesky.
All this was in the lead-up to making Flipboard itself a federated social app, a process that’s kicking off today.
As this rolls out, all Flipboard users will have one Flipboard.com account connected to the fediverse, even if they host numerous Flipboard magazines.
Today, Flipboard has over 10,000 publishers of social magazines on its app and over a quarter million individuals who are curating content using Flipboard’s app.
The investment is coming by way of Verdane taking a substantial stake Fountain Venture, the investment vehicle controlled by the founder and current chairman of Meltwater, Jørn Lyseggen.
Joakim Kjemperud, a principal at Verdane, said the deal also gives his firm a stake in an HR firm, Jobylon, although Meltwater is by far the bigger asset.
In that context, it’s notable that Verdane opted to invest in Fountain Venture rather than directly in Meltwater.
That will give Verdane not only the stake in Meltwater, but also a stake in Jobylon and whatever else Fountain and Lyseggen find interesting.
Meltwater built AI in-house and has acquired a stream of businesses in an analytics consolidation play.
Ubiquity, the networking and video surveillance camera maker, has fixed a bug that users say mistakenly allowed them access to the accounts and private live video streams of other customers.
Reports first emerged on Reddit that some customers received push notifications on their phones featuring Ubiquiti account-related information and private video streams belonging to other customers.
Another person said they logged into their Ubiquiti account but were presented with the account data of another customer.
“I logged in and I seem to be someone else,” said one person on the Ubiquiti subreddit.
Ubiquiti is a cloud and technology company that makes routers, network switches, security and video surveillance gear, which can be remotely controlled and operated through its centralized cloud offering.
For anyone experimenting with photography and looking to get out of the smartphone shooting mindset, film and instant photography offer an exciting, tactile starting place.
Okay, we already talked about another of Fujifilm’s instant cameras but this one is in a class of its own.
Like instant photos, film photography is making a comeback — and for good reason.
You could shop online, but browsing in person if you’ve got an old-school store nearby parallels the tactile charm of film photography.
Either way, you’ll help keep film photography shops in business and wind up with a thoughtful, one of a kind gift.
Since the company’s earliest days as an MIT spinoff, Boston Dynamics’ systems have always provided entertainment value.
The Nashville-based firm has created theme park and exhibition animatronics for some of Hollywood’s biggest franchises, including Avatar, Jurassic Park, Marvel and Harry Potter.
A huge benefit for Neon/Animax is Boston Dynamics’ ability to produce robust and untethered autonomous systems at scale.
The world of theme park robots has transformed in recent years, with experiences like Disneyland’s Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge exhibiting robots that intermingle with park goers.
“We are thrilled about the collaboration with Neon and Animax for the development of fully untethered entertainment robots,” Boston Dynamics Chief Strategy Officerf Marc Theermann notes in a release.
Maka, an African fashion and beauty e-commerce platform, has raised a $2.65 million pre-seed round led by Pan-African venture capital firms 4DX Ventures and Janngo Capital.
She said launching Maka began during the pandemic when she was in Ghana and struggled to find inclusive fashion inspiration.
To address the trust element, Maka leverages videos as a means to connect users with trusted creators.
Notably, the platform offers a review option, allowing customers who make purchases to share their feedback through video reviews, usually between 30 and 60 seconds long.
Furthermore, creators can download their reviews from Maka and share them on other social media platforms, earning additional points for each share.
