January 28, 2022

Influencers who amass huge followings on social networks like Instagram and TikTok can earn big money through sponsored posts and other partnerships with brands. But promotional opportunities do not come around every day, and often influencers must deal with inconsistent income as brands pay for exposure one month and then opt out the next. That’s why Instagram is testing a new service for content creators that will allow them to charge money to subscribers who will then have access to Continue reading

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January 25, 2022

While iPhones and various Android smartphones dominate the current mobile market, in the early days of these devices no brand was bigger than BlackBerry. This video looks at the history of this once ubiquitous gadget that captured early market share but failed to keep pace with its high tech competitors. 

Questions:

  1. What features made BlackBerry so appealing to businesspeople when it first hit the market?
  2. How did BlackBerry’s resistance to change lead to the downfall of its mobile business?
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January 11, 2022

For decades, Hollywood studios and movie exhibitors abided by the law of the “theatrical window,” the period of time where a film could only be seen in theaters. This window steadily shrank over the years as home video and streaming gained dominance until it was almost obliterated in 2020 as theaters shut down for the pandemic. The fascinating video below looks at the ways that coronavirus changed domestic movie distribution and how theaters could still have a profitable future ahead Continue reading

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January 4, 2022

In August 2018, Apple made history by becoming the first publicly traded company to reach a $1 trillion valuation. Although it took the tech giant 42 years to reach this milestone, its value doubled to $2 trillion just two years later. Then to ring in 2022, Apple’s share price climbed over $186 per share, which turned the iPhone maker into the world’s first $3 trillion company. That’s more than the combined worth of Walmart, Disney, Netflix, Nike, McDonald’s, Exxon Mobil, Continue reading

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November 11, 2021

The September premiere of the latest season of American Crime Story generated tons of press for the Emmy-winning FX show, but unfortunately the network could not transform that media attention into viewership. Despite being one of the most acclaimed dramas in recent years, American Crime Story ranks 15th in the ratings and generates next to no chatter on social media. Of course, that’s likely because this television show only airs on TV: due to a previous agreement with Netflix, American Continue reading

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November 9, 2021

Birchbox launched in 2010 with a business model that was quite novel at the time: for a recurring fee, the company shipped small samples of beauty products to customers every month. The idea was to recreate the experience of shopping at a department store’s makeup counter where customers try out a variety of items before deciding what to buy. Once the subscriptions started rolling in for Birchbox, so did venture capital investment, with the startup raising nearly $100 million in Continue reading

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October 26, 2021

In April, the tech giant Apple made a change to its privacy policy that prohibits advertisers from tracking users without their consent. Analysts predicted that this decision would lead to major changes in the $100 billion mobile ad market led by social networks like Facebook and Snapchat. These fears were confirmed for the latter last week when Snapchat announced that the policy prevented it from measuring the reach of its mobile ads, sending its stock price tumbling by 25 percent. Continue reading

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October 21, 2021

For months, supply chain problems have led to increased prices and long delays that show no sign of ending anytime soon. As a result, industry analysts are recommending that consumers start their holiday shopping as soon as possible if they want their items to arrive by December. While supplies remain low because of factors like jammed ports and truck shortages, demand is expected to ramp up this holiday season as experts predict a 7 to 9 percent increase in retail Continue reading

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October 19, 2021

With more than 1 billion users worldwide, TikTok has become a commercial powerhouse as companies fight for the attention of this enormous user base. Products that go viral on the short video platform are almost guaranteed to see sales skyrocket, leading some stores to create “As Seen On TikTok” sections to corral all these in-demand items together. For example, the New York-based candy store It’Sugar started stocking a brand of fruit-shaped gummies after they appeared in untold thousands of videos Continue reading

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October 5, 2021

More than 3.5 billion people around the world communicate through Facebook and its collection of apps like Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Oculus. But for about six hours yesterday, no one was using these platforms as Facebook disappeared from the Internet. Company representatives said that this outage occurred when “backbone routers that coordinate network traffic” failed and brought services completely to a halt. The total shutdown meant that Facebook could not remotely reset its network, requiring it to send out a Continue reading

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