It’s been a long year. And there’s a lot to keep straight — what do industry acronyms stand for? How does that affect strategies? With our WTF series, we aim to breakdown what these complex topics mean, so the industry can walk into their meetings prepared for whatever’s next. Catch up below on some of our most popular WTF explainers this year.

(Here’s what resonated in 2023).

WTF is principal media?

The concept of principal media — in which agencies invest in media at non-disclosed prices to resell to clients — was on the rise this year. It became widespread enough that the ANA published a report on it for marketers. Read our explainer here.

Continue reading this article on digiday.com. Sign up for Digiday newsletters to get the latest on media, marketing and the future of TV.

This year was the year many publishers took formalized stances on AI companies, many of which resulted in deals between the two.

The wave was first kicked off by an agreement between the Associated Press and OpenAI in July 2023, then followed by another deal between OpenAI and Politico, Business Insider, Bild and Welt owner Axel Springer.

The deals are usually content licensing agreements, where publishers let the AI companies use their content to train the large language models (often including paywalled content). In exchange, publishers get attribution for that content surfaced on the AI companies’ chatbot or search platforms, as well as access to technology that publishers can use to build AI-powered products and features. 

Continue reading this article on digiday.com. Sign up for Digiday newsletters to get the latest on media, marketing and the future of TV.

While the momentum behind the development of large models might fade, there will be other advances

From Mesopotamia to our kitchen tables, our love affair with games is undiminished

Weapons engineering groups advertised for workers familiar with German and Japanese metalworking systems

US tech group is rolling out a range of artificial intelligence tools to drive engagement

This year's climate was good news for parts of the country's environment, but for some wildlife the weather's effect was negative, the National Trust has said.

Every year, many companies introduce special products based on the signs of the zodiac to celebrate the New Year in Japan. As 2025 will be the Year of the Snake, Apple has now announced a limited edition AirTag with a unique snake engraving.

more…

Holiday season 2024 solidified it: we really need to stop going along with the lie that streaming is better than physical media.

New users? New algorithms? Or something else going on behind the scenes? The story behind the new changes on the social media site

Some incidents may be linked to North Korean IT workers infiltrating tech firms, according to research firm Chainalysis.

Palestinian news outlets have seen a steep drop in audience engagement since October 2023.

After rolling out a round of design updates and new features to the mobile app, YouTube is testing a “Play something” FAB.

more…

The microblogging platform Bluesky announced this week an important new feature for its users – Trending Topics. With the update, people can see what everyone is talking about on Bluesky. However, the feature still has a number of limitations.

more…

When you really probe venture capitalists about investing in AI startups, they’ll tell you that businesses are experimenting wildly but are very slow to add AI solutions into their ongoing business processes.  But there are some exceptions. And one of them appears to be an area known as AI sales development representatives, or AI SDRs. […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Netflix says it had a big audience for its live NFL games on Christmas Day, with Nielsen ratings designating them “the most-streamed NFL games in US history.” The Kansas City Chiefs and the Pittsburgh Steelers notched a 24.1M AMA (average minute audience), while the Houston Texans and Baltimore Ravens hit 24.3M AMA, totaling nearly 65 million total viewers.

Though Netflix buckled under the weight of the more than 60 million households that tuned into the boxing match between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul last month, its systems mostly held up during the two NFL games and star-studded performances from Mariah Carey and Beyoncé.

Netflix has also confirmed it will add a standalone replay of the “Beyoncé Bowl” halftime performance to the service later this week after it registered 27 million live viewers — the game’s peak viewership. Now, the league’s broadcast deal will keep Christmas Day games on Netflix for at least the next two years.

The NBA, which has traditionally aired basketball without competition from the NFL on the holiday, said that despite the competing Netflix broadcasts, its slate of games delivered the “most-watched Christmas Day in five years, averaging 5.25 million viewers per game in the U.S.” All five games up year-over-year, with viewership overall up 84 percent from 2023.

On Wednesday, the NFL offered a preliminary glimpse at viewership, saying the game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Pittsburgh Steelers had already become the second most popular live title on Netflix and that one-third of Netflix’s viewers at the time were watching that game.

Hertz has contacted multiple electric vehicle renters recently with interesting low-cost offers for cars like Teslas, offering them the option to buy their rental EVs instead of returning them. One 2023 Model 3 renter shared on Reddit that they were offered a price of $17,913, which is similar to deals currently showing on the Hertz Car Sales site. However, the rental they were in had about 30,000 miles on it — fewer than other current listings.

Another renter was offered a 2023 Chevy Bolt for $18,442, while a Polestar 2 renter says they saw a $28,500 purchase price. The used cars come with a limited 12-month, 12,000-mile powertrain warranty and a buy-back offer within 7 days.

Asked by The Verge if this was a special offer for EVs or a typical offer for Hertz’s used cars, communications director Jamie Line confirmed the strategy isn’t new, saying, “By connecting our rental customers who opt into our emails to our sales channels, we’re not only building awareness of the fact that we sell cars but also offering a unique opportunity to someone who may be in the market for the same car they have on rent.”

Last year, Hertz decided to scale back its big ambitions to electrify its rental fleet due to low customer demand and repair difficulties on some models, including the Tesla Model 3. Then, in February, Hertz said it would no longer buy Polestar 2 vehicles either before marking 30,000 Teslas to sell off from its rental fleet.

2025 is almost here, and Apple seems to have something special to announce for Apple TV+ on the first weekend of the year. The company has been teasing a mysterious special announcement on social media, inviting people to “save the date.”

more…

Fresh off James Gunn's trailer, we revisited all of the Christopher Reeve DC films—and have some thoughts.

Although Christmas is over, great deals are still available—just look at pCloud, which is offering big discounts on its various plans.