Twitter announced Tuesday that it would increase transparency around ads tied to political candidates on the platform, along with more moderate disclosures for other ads.
Why it matters: Twitter — like Facebook before it — is responding to pressure from lawmakers concerned about the way Russian actors were able to buy ads focused on divisive political issues during the election.
The iconic Lord & Taylor flagship building on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan will soon be WeWork's new headquarters, per the WSJ. The seven-year-old startup is buying the building, which was officially named a city landmark in 2007, for $850 million in a deal that Lord & Taylor's parent company, Hudson's Bay, hopes will help reduce its debt.
Why it matters: The deal is the latest example of the heightened pressures that have slammed the retail industry in recent years. And while retail giants once did well in grandiose shopping spaces, that real estate has now proven to garner more value in serving the needs of millennial workers.
After a 101-year marriage, Sears and Whirlpool are severing ties: America's quintessential big-box department store will no longer sell America's best-selling washing machine or other Whirlpool appliances.
Why it matters: In another sign of traditional retail's existential struggle, the divorce reflects Sears' seemingly inexorable loss of touch both with its shoppers and Wall Street. At a time Amazon is raking in one conquest after another, Sears may be jeopardizing one of its very few remaining strongholds — its hold on the major appliance market.
Forget politics. The culture wars are raging in corporate America, and many CEOs and businesses are grossly unprepared. The war gets ignited by employees, shareholders, customers and social media. The wave of sexual-harassment scandals shows that companies have crime in their workplace. And the new, high-stakes collisions CEOs are getting pulled into include immigration, climate change, diversity and inclusiveness, and whether their ads run on controversial websites.
The problem: Most big companies are run by straight, white men who are unaccustomed to navigating a fast-changing America. And most comms departments were built for 1990s media, with 1990s speed.
A whopping 42% of children ages 0-8 have their own tablet device, up from less than 1% in 2011, according to Common Sense Media's newest national "Media Use by Kids" census.
Key numbers: Families with young children are now more likely to have a subscription video service such as Netflix or Hulu (72%) than they are to have cable TV (65%). 10% of kids age 8 or under own a "smart" toy that connects to the internet and 9% have a voice-activated virtual assistant device available to them in the home, such as an Amazon Echo or Google Home.
Some of the biggest names in conservative digital media are seeing big traffic declines over the past year, according to comScore data pulled by Activate and Axios. On the other hand, business-centric sites, like CNBC, Business Insider, and Bloomberg are seeing big traffic bumps, per the analysis.
Note: Both IJR and the Daily Caller have challenged the analysis. IJR founder Alex Skatell tweeted that his site had cancelled its comScore subscription, while Daily Caller editor in chief Geoffrey Ingersoll said his site uses Quantcast and tweeted screenshots showing Daily Caller traffic compared to last year.
Eatsa, a four-year-old company that operates restaurants without humans interacting with customers, is shutting down five of its seven restaurants (only its two San Francisco locations will remain). The company also said in a blog post that it will shift its focus on getting other restaurants to use its technology.
Target said Monday that its customers want the retail giant to stop the "Christmas creep" — when stores introduce Christmas-themed merchandise long before the holiday's regular shopping season. As a result, Target said it will lay off the Christmas signing placed at the front entrances of their stores until late November, and focus on better recognizing Thanksgiving.
Flashback: The same thing happened this summer when stores began releasing a slew of fall-focused pumpkin-flavored products in July and August. The New York Times called it "Christmas creep, but orange."
This story has been updated to reflect Target is only removing the holiday signing from the front entrance of their stores until after Thanksgiving. Holiday merchandise will still be featured throughout stores beginning in early November.
Megyn Kelly spoke out against her former Fox News colleague Bill O'Reilly on NBC News' Megyn Kelly Today this morning, stating, "O'Reilly's suggestion that no one ever complained about his behavior is false. I know because I complained."
The background: Kelly's assertion comes on the heels of O'Reilly's repeated denials of sexual misconduct during his time at Fox News. A NYT report was published over the weekend detailing his $32 million settlement agreement with a former Fox News analyst over a harassment claim.
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania is well acquainted with the struggles brought on by deindustrialization. The city was once home to America's second-largest steel producer, but its citizens struggled for decades with declining steel employment, before Bethlehem Steel went bankrupt altogether in the early 1990s.
But as the New York Times reports, the city as become a poster child in recent years for the new, e-commerce economy. Its proximity to New York and Philadelphia and its large pool of less expensive labor have made it an appealing place for online retailers to locate their warehouses and fulfillment centers.
Why it matters: Some economists argue that when you account for fulfillment center jobs, the retail industry is actually adding jobs, and that these positions pay better than those in brick-and-mortar stores.
INDIANAPOLIS — In 2013, software industry veteran Chris Baggott sold two companies he helped start. Salesforce bought ExactTarget for $2.5 billion, and Oracle bought Compendium, a business blogging software program. His newest software company, called Clustertruck, aims to disrupt the third-party food delivery companies like UberEats and GrubHub.
How it works: Unlike other food delivery services that pick up orders at restaurants all over town and deliver them to your door, Clustertruck owns the whole operation. Its kitchen makes 160 items, from pad Thai to pizza, and employs its own delivery team. Deliveries are free and are made within 21 minutes, Baggott said.
In her TED Talk earlier this year, Sara DeWitt, vice president of PBS Kids Digital, argued that all that screen time isn't necessarily a bad thing. But DeWitt says a few things got lost in the message. "It's not like blanket all screen time is great," she said in a recent interview with Axios.
The bottom line: There are two things to keep in mind, she says. One is that the right amount of screen time really depends on the kid, and the other is that not all screen time is created equal. The key, she says, is for parents to be proactive.
