A study from WARC, specialists in marketing effectiveness, has found that global advertising spend is now on course to grow 7.4 per cent this year to $1.17 trillion (€1.45tn), a marked upgrade of 1.2 percentage points (pp) from WARC’s June forecast due to a strong second quarter performance. A further rise of 8.1 per cent […]

Alphabet, the parent company of Google, Waymo self-driving cars and dozens of other subsidiaries, is further investing in would-be satellite direct-to-consumer cellular activity AST SpaceMobile. Google is already a strategic investor in AST SpaceMobile, having participated in a $155 million (€132.6m) investment round alongside AT&T and Vodafone in January 2024. The investment supported AST SpaceMobile’s […]

Sesame Street favourites Big Bird, Elmo and Abby, along with Herb the Dinosaur, are set to join the Blippi-verse in new episodes and music videos heading to the Blippi and Sesame Street YouTube channels beginning on February 3rd. “We’re beyond excited to work with Sesame Street to bring some of their beloved characters into the […]

A study from WARC, the experts in marketing effectiveness, forecasts that global advertising spend is on course to grow 4.4 per cent this year and a further 8.2 per cent in 2024, by when expenditure will have topped $1 trillion (€0.92tn) for the first time. The analysis combines data from WARC’s proprietary survey of media […]

The media industry has entered a period of flux according to WARC. What constitutes a media owner is being challenged by structural shifts in the global advertising market worth $993 billion (€934bn) this year. It is becoming harder for content-creating publishers to remain competitive against data-rich performance channels such as retail media, and sustain publishing […]

YouTube CEO, Susan Wojcicki, is stepping down after nine years in the role. In a blog post, she said she had “decided to start a new chapter focused on my family, health and personal projects I’m passionate about. The time is right for me, and I feel able to do this because we have an […]

Alphabet, owner of Google, has announced it will cut 12,000 jobs, in the latest round of mass redundancies to hit the tech industry. Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said he took “full responsibility” for the cuts, in an internal email. The cuts will affect some 6 per cent of Alphabet’s workforce globally, in teams […]

Mustafa Suleyman, the co-founder of Google’s DeepMind AI lab has left Alphabet to join venture capital firm Greylock Partners, following a turbulent tenure. Suleyman will be a venture partner at Greylock, advising early-stage companies and investing in artificial intelligence start-ups. Suleyman had previously been vice president for AI product management and policy at Google, joining […]

A report from investment bank BNP Paribas forecasts that Google’s Alphabet will grow this year by 4 per cent despite suffering threats over potential iOS privacy events. The bank also suggests that Google Search could even prove to be a beneficiary as marketers shift their advertising budgets to other verticals (e.g. Search and Android-based OS […]

Germany’s Federal Cartel Office the Bundeskartellamt has delivered its decision that Alphabet Inc., Mountain View, USA, and therefore also its subsidiary Google, is subject to extended abuse control by the competition authority. A newly-introduced provision under the German Competition Act (Section 19a of the German Competition Act (GWB)), which entered into force in January 2021, […]