Snap unveiled its long-awaited Specs augmented reality glasses today, making them available to consumers after several years of private development.

Why it matters: Snap is betting its future on Specs, but the consumer smart glasses race is getting more competitive, and investors want the company to focus more on growing its core ads business.

🤓 Zoom in: The wearable computer lenses bring the power of AI assistant tools to a 3D augmented reality experience that can be controlled through hand and voice controls.

• With Specs, a user can browse the internet, watch video and interact with various media, without being tethered to any cords or equipment.
• The glasses are built to be much lighter and more consumer-friendly than the developer version of Spectacles, the 3D smart glasses that predated Specs.

💸 Zoom out: Priced at $2,195, Specs are more expensive than some of the smart glasses and virtual reality headsets on the market today.

• Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses are generally priced between $200 and $500. Its "Quest" VR headsets cost anywhere between $300 and $600, not including add-on features.
• Google and Warby Parker plan to launch smart glasses this fall, but they have yet to reveal pricing details.

The big picture: Snap is betting that augmented reality glasses, not smartphones, will eventually become the primary way consumers interact with the world around them.

• But Wall Street has put pressure on the firm to prioritize growing its core ad business before investing too much in the future.
• To ease those concerns, Snap established Specs as a separate subsidiary in January, but activist investors are urging the company to sell or spin off its hardware unit.

👀 What to watch: Snap CEO Evan Spiegel told Axios last year that while the company didn't need to raise funds to launch Specs, it could consider opportunities to accelerate its expansion.

Go deeper.

Despite intense geopolitical instability, global advertising revenue has reached its highest share of nominal GDP on record, according to new data from WPP Media.

🤳 Why it matters: The attention economy has shifted advertising budgets from discretionary to essential spending.

• Brands today see continued ad investment through disruption as critical to remaining competitive, especially as AI lowers the barrier for startups and foreign firms looking to break into new markets.

Zoom out: While there are still concerns about supply chain disruption due to the Iran war, analysts believe marketers have become resilient in response to global crises and are less likely to yank ad spend.

• Brands today have better ways to measure the efficacy of digital ads, driving confidence to spend more, per Kate Scott-Dawkins, WPP Media's global president of business intelligence.
• The digital economy has also expanded the universe of potential advertisers to millions of small and medium-sized businesses globally.
• The latest figures would likely be the highest ever, surpassing the previous peak in 2000, when the dot-com boom ushered in the era of digital advertising. WPP Media began tracking media expenditures globally in 1999.

🇨🇳 State of play: The United States remains the largest advertising economy by far, but China has started to catch up and now represents roughly 20% of the global ad market.

• As China's domestic economy slows, tech and retail giants have looked to global exports to fuel their growth.
• Today, there are more Chinese platforms that rank in the top 10 companies by ad revenue globally than U.S.-based platforms.
• For the first time, no publishers globally are on that list.

The big picture: Advertising has become a critical tool to subsidize consumer access to digital services in the mobile era.

• As a result, more growth is concentrated among Big Tech firms than ever before.
• The top three sellers of advertising outside China — Alphabet, Meta and Amazon — now account for 57.6% of total advertising revenue, up from 43.8% five years ago, per WPP Media.

Share this chart.

A fast-growing ad tech startup is trying to convince Publicis to sell off a significant part of LiveRamp before the ink is even dry on its acquisition.

✉️ Zoom in: Hightouch, an ad tech startup recently valued at $2.75 billion, has offered to buy LiveRamp's identity business from ad holding group Publicis for $800 million–$1.2 billion in cash and stock, according to a letter sent to Publicis' board last week and obtained by Axios.

Catch up quick: Publicis last month announced a $2.2 billion all-cash deal to take LiveRamp private, marking one of the biggest ad tech acquisition agreements since Publicis bought Epsilon in 2019.

Why it matters: Hightouch's proposal reflects concerns across the advertising industry about Publicis owning infrastructure that many agencies, brands and technology providers rely on.

• Almost immediately after Publicis announced the LiveRamp deal, rival agencies and some analysts questioned whether advertisers would start looking more aggressively for alternatives.

🫆 State of play: Hightouch is interested in LiveRamp's identity and data onboarding businesses such as RampID and LiveRamp Connect.

• The company said it is prepared to move quickly through due diligence and complete a transaction if Publicis is interested.

Go deeper.

Fox's $22 billion deal to buy Roku marks a turning point in the streaming wars and a new era for the Murdoch media empire.

🎡 Why it matters: Streaming is no longer a paid subscriber race, but rather an opportunity for entertainment giants to accelerate other parts of their businesses where they have a competitive edge against Netflix.

• For Apple, Amazon, Disney and Comcast/NBCUniversal, that means selling devices, e-commerce subscriptions, parks/movie tickets and broadband, respectively.
• For Fox, it means bringing more eyeballs to its live programming and selling more digital TV ads.

📺 How it works: The merger would make Fox the owner of the top digital TV operating system in the U.S.

• Fox could promote its content and apps to the 100 million global households that subscribe to Roku. It would have global distribution to leverage in sports rights deals.

Zoom in: The deal would also see Fox owning one of the largest advertising video on-demand networks, The Roku Channel, which combined with its AVOD network Tubi would create a digital ad behemoth.

• For Roku, the deal offers an exit at a notable premium from its typical trading price as it continues to face serious competition from well-funded tech giants like Amazon and Google.

Reality check: The acquisition of Roku marks a landmark shift for Fox, broadening its focus from content to distribution. But it's a risky bet.

• Fox shares plunged following the news, as investors grappled with the possibility of stock dilution and what it would mean for the company to manage a low-margin hardware business.
• Roku's value also stems from its neutrality across content providers, and that could face pressure under Fox's ownership.

Zoom out: The agreement represents the biggest bet made by Lachlan Murdoch since he was named Fox's chair and CEO in 2019.

• Most companies have accumulated lots of debt trying to scale their streaming networks, but Fox never tried to compete in the subscription streaming wars, focusing instead on its free streaming alternative Tubi.

💰 The bottom line: The company, which sold its legacy entertainment assets to Disney in a $71 billion deal in 2019, has been sitting on a pile of cash for years, waiting for the right moment — and asset — to pounce.

Share this story.

The U.K. plans to ban children under 16 from major social media platforms starting in 2027, joining a growing international effort to restrict minors' access.

Why it matters: Britain's model would follow — but go even farther than — that of Australia, which in December became the first country to restrict social media access for those under 16.

🏛️ The big picture: In the U.S., kids' online safety regulation has faced an uphill climb in Congress. But cities and states have proposed their own measures to regulate minors' social media use, like age verification provisions, school cellphone bans and time limit rules.

🇬🇧 State of play: The U.K. proposal, which would bar kids under 16 from certain social media platforms, should be implemented in spring 2027, per a government fact sheet.

• The ban would cover Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and X, per a statement. However, the government does not plan to restrict messaging services like WhatsApp and Signal. It would also block functions like livestreaming and the ability for strangers to communicate with children.

🌍 Zoom out: Several other countries — including Canada, France and Spain — are also pushing measures to curb minors' social media access.

• Approaches vary. While some countries, like Indonesia, have implemented more blanket regulations, a Brazilian law requires minors under 16 to link their social media accounts to a legal guardian.

Share this chart.

People Inc., one of America's largest publishers, has acquired Hot Luck, an Austin-based food and music festival co-founded by famed pitmaster Aaron Franklin, People Inc.'s executive vice president of food and home content Eric Handelsman told Axios.

🪩 Why it matters: The deal is part of People Inc.'s broader push to bring live experiences to its portfolio of lifestyle brands.

• The company expanded its flagship Food & Wine Classic to Charleston in 2024. It plans to expand Travel + Leisure's World's Best Summit to London this year.

The big picture: People Inc., formerly IAC, has moved aggressively to build direct relationships with consumers to offset any digital traffic declines from changes to online search traffic from chatbots.

• As part of that effort, the company has recently offered to buy out the remaining stake in MGM Resorts International that it doesn't already own.

Go deeper.

Marvel sees 2026 as a landmark year for the Spider-Man franchise, and it's inked a new USA Today partnership as a critical part of its engagement strategy, Marvel executive editor Nick Lowe told Axios.

Why it matters: For Marvel, the partnership expands the comic studio's footprint to a much broader audience of puzzle players and casual consumers.

• USA Today hopes the partnership will help grow its subscriber base as its USA Today Play expands beyond its core offerings of puzzles and games to comics.

🕷️ Zoom in: USA Today is adding 1,000 Marvel digital comics and an exclusive new, vertically formatted Marvel Infinity series, "Spider-Man Today," to its consumer gaming platform USA Today Play, the company's senior vice president of content monetization Caroline Harris tells Axios.

• The new, specially created comic will start Wednesday and publish weekly for subscribers for the next 47 weeks.
• Subscribers to USA Today, and/or its stand-alone USA Today Play platform, will also get unlimited access to a catalog of 1,000 digital comics from Marvel, including X-Men, Captain America, Black Panther, Fantastic Four, Guardians of the Galaxy and Captain Marvel.
• Nonsubscribers can explore a curated weekly selection of comics.

🍿 What to watch: "Spider-Man: Brand New Day" hits theaters this July.

• The second season of "Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man" is scheduled to debut on Disney+ this fall.
• Marvel will publish the 1,000th issue of Spider-Man's flagship comic series this September.

Go deeper.