Fortnite is back on iOS — well, kind of. Through Nvidia’s streaming game service GeForce Now, mobile users on iOS and Android will be able to play a touch-control version of Fortnite through cloud gaming. Players can now register to join the closed beta test for Fortnite’s new mobile work-around — you don’t need to […]
GoFundMe gets Classy (literally) with acquisition of nonprofit giving platform
GoFundMe announced today that it will acquire Classy, a nonprofit fundraising software company. This is an all equity deal, though the company did not disclose the financials. Anyone can make a GoFundMe, from a local food pantry to a community member in need. But Classy is more specialized, working directly with nonprofits. Since its 2010 […]
Netflix’s ‘Hype House’ shows the dark side of the creator economy
We used to describe celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton as “famous for being famous.” But the TikTok megastars featured on the Netflix docu-soap “Hype House” are famous for being ordinary. Unlike the wealthy offspring of celebrities, this class of superstars shot to stardom virtually overnight, for seemingly arbitrary reasons, all dictated by a […]
Twitter Spaces continues testing podcast-like features
Twitter has been working on Spaces Recordings, a feature that will let hosts share tweets with audio recordings of past Spaces. Now, when hosts share the recordings, they’re able to see how many listeners joined live, as well as how many people replayed the recording after the fact. we’ve been working on Spaces Recordings and […]
The New York Times plans to buy The Athletic for $550M
The New York Times Company agreed to purchase sports media outlet The Athletic in a deal valued at $550 million, The Information reports. This deal comes after months of speculation — at one point, The Athletic CEO Alex Mather approached Axios about a merger, which did not come to fruition. With this deal, the company […]
Not every creator economy startup is built for creators
The inherent tension within the creator economy lies between the promise of financial freedom and the realization this freedom comes at a cost.
Tumblr is at war with Apple over ‘mature’ content on its app again
Hide your “Tony the Tiger”/”Eugene Levy” fan fiction — those phrases, along with hundreds of others, are now banned from Tumblr’s iOS app. Now, any personal blog that flags itself as “mature” is not accessible on the iOS app — users will see a pop-up explaining that the content has been hidden because of “potentially […]
Snapchat knows you want to see what you’d look like in the metaverse
Snapchat released an Avatar lens AR filter today, which makes you look like a Sims character. Or, in more modern parlance, it makes you look like what you’d look like in the metaverse. To use the lens, open your camera in the Snapchat app to scan the QR code on Snapchat’s website, then look at […]
Amazon workers at two Chicago warehouses walk out to demand better treatment
This morning, dozens of warehouse workers at two Amazon facilities near Chicago staged a pre-Christmas walkout during the busiest time of the year to demand better treatment and higher wages. “We have been passed over for raises. We are being overworked, even when there is sufficient people to work here,” a worker at the DLN2 […]
Patreon CPO says the company will double in size in 2022
Creator monetization startups are cropping up left and right as the tech world embraces the fast-growing creator economy. But Patreon, founded in 2013, has been around since before words like “influencer” were in our vocabulary — back when “Tik Tok” was a Kesha song, rather than the social platform that everyone is trying to emulate. […]