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Cannes Briefing: Creativity is moving beyond the agency model

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Cannes Briefing: Creativity is moving beyond the agency model

Indie devs’ anti-Game Awards trailer trend is going viral

The Game Awards has become a massive platform for the announcement of new games. Reveals this year included Crystal Dynamics’ new Tomb Raider games and Lucasfilm Games and Arcanaut Studios’ Star Wars Fate of the Old Republic (yeah, we’ll believe that when we see a release date). But how much did those developers pay to

Google Gemini 3 Flash Becomes Default In Gemini App & AI Mode

Google released Gemini 3 Flash, expanding its Gemini 3 model family with a faster model that’s now the default in the Gemini app. Gemini 3 Flash is also rolling out globally as the default model for AI Mode in Search. The release builds on Google’s recent Gemini 3 rollout, which introduced Gemini 3 Pro in

Warner Bros urges shareholders to reject Paramount bid

Warner Bros Discovery has told shareholders the Paramount bid undervalues the business and carries significant risks versus its agreed deal with Netflix. Source

Review of the Year 2025: Top 25 Illustration

The art of illustration is thriving in 2025, in defiance of a year where generative AI imagery skyrocketed in its pervasiveness. Taking the top spot is Angelica Frey’s deep dive into the enduring influence of the 2000 game The Sims, where isometric dollhouses of quirky NPCs have inspired creatives for 25 years. Likewise, Luca Bjørnsten’s

Five Ways To Boost Traffic To Informational Sites

Informational sites can easily decline into a crisis of search visibility. No site is immune. Here are five ways to manage content to maintain steady traffic, increase the ability to adapt to changing audiences, and make confident choices that help the site maintain growth momentum over time. 1. Create A Mix Of Content Types Publishers

Offsite retail media’s main hurdle: attribution and measurement

In the latest “every surface becomes shoppable” news, more platforms are inking deals and rolling out shoppable ad formats across the open web. As more media environments become points of purchase, attribution and measurement remain the thorn in the side of commerce execs. In early December, Pinterest announced a partnership with Walmart that allows Pinterest

Last-minute shopper? These unusual gifts will arrive before Xmas

If, like me, you tend to leave everything until the last minute – then here’s your friendly reminder that Christmas is just over a week away. That means there are limited days remaining to get things ordered in and delivered on time if you’re shopping online. Don’t stress just yet. I’ve put together a collection

Apple Safari Update Enables Tracking Two Core Web Vitals Metrics

Safari 26.2 adds support for measuring Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) and the Event Timing API, which is used to calculate Interaction to Next Paint (INP). This enables site owners to collect Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) and Interaction to Next Paint (INP) data from Safari users through the browser Performance API using their own analytics and

Nielsen’s The Gauge Ratings for November 2025

Live sports viewing continues to be a major draw for the broadcast segment, shattering last month’s record and posting its best month since November 2024. According to Nielsen’s monthly gauge report, which provides a snapshot of total TV and streaming consumption, the broadcast segment increased by +0.3% from October to 23.2%. These numbers put the

Review of the Year 2025: Top 25 Photography

As culture becomes even more fleeting, we can see you want to grab onto history. The 2025 top spot goes to our interview with Blur drummer Dave Rowntree on his photographs of the Britpop band’s rise to fame, documenting the mundanities of their pre-fame youth – like nap times and rollercoaster riding. You always wanted

Why Google’s Spam Problem Is Getting Worse

Spam is back in search. And in a big way. Honestly, I don’t think Google can handle this at all. The scale is unprecedented. They went after publishers manually with the site reputation abuse update. More expired domain abuse is reaching the top of the SERPs than at any time I can remember in recent

Google exec says AI search optimization is ‘the same’ as SEO

Google’s Nick Fox, the SVP of Knowledge and Information at Google, said in a recent podcast that doing optimization for AI search is “the same” as doing optimization and SEO for traditional search. He added, you want to build great sites, with great content, for your users. More details. This came up in the AI Inside

MindsEye tops Metacritic’s worst games of 2025 list, raising hard questions for developers

Metacritic has revealed the worst-scoring games of 2025, and sitting at number one is MindsEye, a game that arrived wrapped in promises of revamping how open worlds work and instead crashed headlong into its own hype. Built by Build A Rocket Boy and led by Leslie Benzies, formerly of Grand Theft Auto fame, it was

How AI Search Is Forcing Publishers To Rethink Revenue

Since search engines started sending traffic to websites, the balanced relationship has always served both parties. Publishers allowed search engines to crawl and index and in return search engines sent traffic and readers to the pages. That unspoken agreement allowed publishers to support their work through ads and affiliate revenue. Search engines had content and

Seven trends that will impact media and marcoms in 2026

From AI search and commerce media to measurement and consolidation, we share the seven trends that will shape marcoms over the coming year. Source

“We’re shifting towards real meaning, honesty and IRL community connection”

Through Oh Yeah, a platform which takes a more balanced approach to exploring career change, I’ve heard from many questioning their level of pace and reactivity and wanting real change in their working lives. We’ve been trained for years, if not decades, to go at a certain pace, react fast, and constantly strive for success.

Google AI Mode & AI Overviews Cite Different URLs, Per Ahrefs Report

Google’s AI Mode and AI Overviews can produce answers with similar meaning while citing different sources, according to new data from Ahrefs. The report, published on the Ahrefs blog, analyzed September 2025 U.S. data from Ahrefs’ Brand Radar tool and compared AI Mode and AI Overview responses for the same queries. The authors looked at

Managers are unprepared to lead a human-agent hybrid workforce

The introduction of AI agents into the corporate workforce is not like other technology disruptions. Unlike previous automation, agents are empowered to act autonomously on a user’s behalf, which means work decisions will no longer be entirely made by humans. This represents an enormous leadership challenge. How do managers apply the standard skills of management

Meet the JUZEAR Harrier: A new earphone that skips the hype train to get the tuning right

The JUZEAR Harrier is a new in-ear monitor that feels refreshingly uninterested in showing off. Yes, it has nine drivers per side and eye-catching stone faceplates, but the real story here is its tuning. Why? Because the Harrier is the first IEM that’s officially, “Tuned with Squiglink”; the huge, crowd-sourced library of headphone and IEM

Google Warns Noindex Can Block JavaScript From Running

Google updated its JavaScript SEO documentation to clarify that noindex tags may prevent rendering and JavaScript execution, blocking changes. When Google encounters `noindex`, it may skip rendering and JavaScript execution. JavaScript that tries to remove or change `noindex` may not run for Googlebot on that crawl. If you want a page indexed, avoid putting `noindex`

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