Netflix's ad machine is locking in the next generation #451: The streamer's $3 billion ad business just got its clearest roadmap yet - and it starts with a free gaming app for eight-year-olds...

Netflix's ad machine is locking in the next generation

Jurors candycrush Meta and Google because "we want them to feel it" #456: Cupcakes, gazelles, and a jar of candy convinced a jury Meta and YouTube engineered addiction in children - and it could change the web...

Hours before a jury found Meta liable for harming children, the company filed SEC papers offering executives stock options tied to a $9 trillion valuation.

The incentive scheme is all about growth. Nowhere does it mention safety. #ffs #youreallowedtobemad

Live: Meta loses landmark case for failing to protect kids #455: Court hears Meta put a $270 price tag on teen users - and fought to hook them with addictive features...

Too much shallow reporting of Meta’s landmark court loss today which saw a judge find it harmed kids for profit.

Meta-director-turned-whistleblower Kelly Stonelake explains how greed was the cause.

And I reveal the internal Meta numbers and advertisers that prove it.

Judge says search harms news but publishers can't sue #454: Analysis: Court dismisses five counts brought by US publishers against Google but the ruling gives publishers a map to win...

Google just beat two US publishers in court - but the judge accepted search "self-evidently benefits Google and harms online news sites".
He didn't rule Google's conduct legal. He said publishers framed the case wrong.
Then he told them how to frame it right...
#Google #Antitrust #BigTech

The web's highwayman lands a pay rise but the net's closing in #452: Pichai's $692 million package is to protect the crown jewels, but there's a secret in the small print and a posse on the turnpike...

Google CEO Pichai's $692 million package is one of the largest in history, but there are secrets in the small print, a posse on the turnpike - and the curious case of a dead cockerel... 🐓

AFP's boots on the ground, eyes on the web strategy for Iran #451: Tehran is dark. The internet is cut. Here's the inside story of how journalists on the ground are covering a war the world can't see...

Real journalists are risking their lives in Tehran to get the story out. I spoke to Phil Chetwynd, the editor coordinating their coverage. Read this. Then decide how you feel.

Pinterest just fired a starting gun in a retail media war #450: A hedge fund just bet US$1 billion that a mood board app can out-do Amazon, but it puts publishers bang in the crossfire...

Elliott just bet $1B that Pinterest - 619M users, 80B monthly searches, more commercial intent than ChatGPT - can crack Amazon's retail media empire.
Its entire roadmap eliminates the 1.7B monthly clicks publishers currently receive. The open web is the battlefield. 👇

What the first hot war of the AI era tells me about journalism #449: AI just proved it's the future of news delivery so here are nine ways publishers can build the commercial model to profit from it...

We’re far further down the path to AI being the dominant news technology than I thought. In fact, I think we’ve arrived.

Nvidia's a $4.7 trillion runaway train but who's checking the rails? #447: The chipmaker's running the world but its empire is built on chummy deals, a chip war with China, and a very tiny, very vulnerable island...

7/ 💬 Industrial revolution or house of cards? 💩

Nvidia's a $4.7 trillion runaway train but who's checking the rails? #447: The chipmaker's running the world but its empire is built on chummy deals, a chip war with China, and a very tiny, very vulnerable island...

6/ The seven Big Tech giants fuelling this boom make up roughly a third of America's stock market. The world's never built an economy this exposed. Full analysis.

Nvidia's a $4.7 trillion runaway train but who's checking the rails? #447: The chipmaker's running the world but its empire is built on chummy deals, a chip war with China, and a very tiny, very vulnerable island...

5/ Now layer on the geopolitics. Zero China revenue in next quarter guidance. Every chip made in Taiwan — 180km off China's coast. Taiwan imports 97%+ of its energy. A blockade ends AI overnight. No shots fired. 🤷

Nvidia's a $4.7 trillion runaway train but who's checking the rails? #447: The chipmaker's running the world but its empire is built on chummy deals, a chip war with China, and a very tiny, very vulnerable island...

4/ Big Short guy Michael Burry is calling it "catastrophic." Buying options against Nvidia. Comparing it to Cisco before the dot-com crash. Nvidia was so rattled it sent a secret seven-page memo to Wall Street. 🧨

Nvidia's a $4.7 trillion runaway train but who's checking the rails? #447: The chipmaker's running the world but its empire is built on chummy deals, a chip war with China, and a very tiny, very vulnerable island...

3/ US$53 billion into 170 deals since 2020. When OpenAI's CFO was asked what she'd spend Nvidia's cash on — "Most will go back to Nvidia." 💥

Nvidia's a $4.7 trillion runaway train but who's checking the rails? #447: The chipmaker's running the world but its empire is built on chummy deals, a chip war with China, and a very tiny, very vulnerable island...

2/ But here's the bit nobody wants to say out loud. The entire AI economy is a money-go-round. Nvidia invests in OpenAI. OpenAI spends it on Nvidia chips. Revenue goes up. Stock goes up. Repeat. ♻️

Nvidia's a $4.7 trillion runaway train but who's checking the rails? #447: The chipmaker's running the world but its empire is built on chummy deals, a chip war with China, and a very tiny, very vulnerable island...

1/ Jensen Huang just opened Nvidia's bank accounts. US$215.9 billion in revenue. US$1 million every two and a half minutes. The most valuable company in human history. 💰

Advertising isn’t broken, it’s stolen by Google and Meta #446: Bob Hoffman's spent decades warning the ad industry it's being conned - now the antitrust trials are finally proving him right...

Google just lost its third antitrust trial.
Judge Brinkema - who's already taken down the CIA and Al Qaeda - is about to rule on remedies.
If she cracks the black box, it rewrites the economics of the open web. 👀

Advertising isn’t broken, it’s stolen by Google and Meta #446: Bob Hoffman's spent decades warning the ad industry it's being conned - now the antitrust trials are finally proving him right...

"Nine of a CMO's 10 biggest priorities are: Keep my job."
- Bob Hoffman, Ad Contrarian
41 years inside advertising. A decade throwing rocks at it. Possibly the funniest man in the business. 🥊

Advertising isn’t broken, it’s stolen by Google and Meta #446: Bob Hoffman's spent decades warning the ad industry it's being conned - now the antitrust trials are finally proving him right...

🤖 Half the web is bots
📰 55% of US journalists laid off
🏜️ 200 counties have zero local news
And the ad industry? Became their unpaid sales force without noticing.

Advertising isn’t broken, it’s stolen by Google and Meta #446: Bob Hoffman's spent decades warning the ad industry it's being conned - now the antitrust trials are finally proving him right...

Google and Meta aren't tech companies. They're ad companies that built tech to monopolise advertising.
$201B. $402B. Together - 45 cents of every ad dollar on Earth. 💣

GDP erodes when Big Tech sucks ad billions offshore #372: World first study in Canada reveals 11,000 media jobs lost and just one per cent of ad spend will remain in five years...

Canada estimates one per cent of media ads will remain in five years as $7.5B is offshored by Big Tech.

The GDP cost is so severe, it's now a matter of sovereignty and a national economic crisis.

It's why you won't get that cancer treatment you need, and why your kids' school is crumbling.👇

'What d'y'all think of my deal?' Publishers react to Zuck's mobster offer #444: "This is one of those existential tests that we’ll look back on in a few years and realise that was the day the game changed...”

Meta's back with a deal for publishers: We'll pay you for AI training but only if you kill the law that protects you.

Classic protection racket. Pay the big guys, starve the small ones, break solidarity, break the law.

Four media execs go on the record...

Meta insiders break cover on Australia's under-16s ban #428: Two former chiefs reveal that Zuck knows how young kids are but chooses growth over safety - and how Australia can reset the world...

The guy who built Meta’s ad machine recently joined me on the Future Media podcast.

Brian Boland told me: “Meta has a near religious belief its product is good for mankind and that justifies an unimaginable amount of harm.”

Netflix’s ad threat and why it's buying backwards #436: The streamer just posted monster ad numbers but now it's shopping for yesterday’s model to fuel tomorrow's growth...

Paramount has upset its offer for Warner. What will be Netflix’s next move?

Big Tech's shifting reliance on ads... rickysutton.substack.com/t/fmi

Google antitrust enforcer's fired - now it's down to these guys #443: Meet the trio tasked with deciding what Google must share - and with whom - after the shock firing of the DOJ's antitrust chief...

Google's antitrust enforcer was fired two days before the committee to break up its search monopoly is confirmed.

Three people will now decide who gets Google's data - and whether the remedy has any teeth.

I've profiled all three.👇

Netflix’s ad threat and why it's buying backwards #436: The streamer just posted monster ad numbers but now it's shopping for yesterday’s model to fuel tomorrow's growth...

Two titans. One trophy. And a newsroom in the middle.

Netflix and Paramount are circling Warner Bros Discovery.

Paramount needs growth as cable's flatlining and streaming margins are tight.

Netflix wants content and a bigger ad business.

CNN's in the middle. Paramount wants it. Netflix doesn't.

Snap’s rare profit comes with a teen-sized asterisk #442: When Wall Street bailed up CEO Evan Spiegel for selling ads to teens, he said it wasn't material - but was that true?

Snap's CEO told Wall Street that revenue from under-18s is not material.
I read 4,796 pages of court filings that show teens 13-17 have the highest revenue per user, account for ~50% of time on the app, and generate $1B+/year.
They're the entire foundation.

Who's making money from Apple News and how? Insiders reveal the growth hacks, the revenues and how it's scaling Apple's fast-growing ad business. rickysutton.substack.com/p/the-fast-g...

Best-selling author Patrick McGeesays Apple relies on Taiwan for chip in all its products.

“Everything’s concentrated in TSMC,” he said. A blockade or invasion would be "a meteor strike on Apple’s business”.

rickysutton.substack.com/p/the-fast-g...

The fast-growing ad business buried in Apple's secret services #439: The best-selling author of Apple in China details how its rising ad ambitions are built on a tinderbox of trust, dependence and tension...

I've gathered insights from the publishers, ad buyers and editors growing Apple News.

They share the deals, growth hacks, ad revenues and whether it can scale to replace search.

I name publishers making tens of millions, and how it's building Apple’s new growth engine - a secretive ad business.