In spite of the weekend’s momentary TikTok shutdown, sales on TikTok Shop didn’t miss a beat.

The hours-long TikTok shutdown on Jan. 18 and 19 did not have a negative impact on the platform’s sales over the weekend. In fact, TikTok Shop sales spiked in the days immediately preceding the ban, as well as on the day that the ban was lifted.

On Jan. 19, the day the outage was lifted, total sales volume on TikTok Shop amounted to $32,064,590, according to data shared by the e-commerce data platform Charm — an over $500,000 jump from the total sales figure of $31,429,366 on Jan. 18, and a nearly $5 million week-over-week increase from the total sales of $27,536,680 on Jan. 12. The post-outage spike in sales was on track with a general increase in TikTok Shop activity that began in the lead-up to the potential ban.

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

Publishing businesses like the Lad Bible Group aren’t supposed to be thriving. They depend on ad dollars and platform traffic in an era where brands are skittish about news and platforms barely acknowledge publishers. 

And yet, Lad Bible Group, known for its youth-focused content, is defying the odds. Its revenue has tripled in five years, soaring from £30 million in 2020 to £90 million today. Advertising has been the driving force, accounting for 98% of the group’s revenue. Meanwhile, its audience surged 19% in the first nine months of 2024, surpassing half a billion people (503 million).

Digiday sat down with Lad Bible Group CEO Solly Solomou to uncover what’s next for the publishing group, which owns titles such as LADBible, SPORTBible, Betches Media, in the year ahead.

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

President Donald Trump was sworn in for his second term earlier this month. During the inauguration ceremony, a coterie of Big Tech CEOs in prominent positions was prominently featured, and observers interpreted this as a bid to curry favor with the current occupant of the Oval Office. 

Among their number was Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, who, despite being the lowest profile of the assembled executives, is arguably in the deepest hot water given the host of battles it faces with the Justice Department and could do with a sympathetic ear in the executive branch of the U.S. government.

Examples include the business-critical search case, where it faces the forced sell-off of the Chrome browser, and in addition to this case, which Google lost but is in the process of appealing, is its ongoing ad tech antitrust trial, where a verdict from presiding Judge Leonie Brinkema has been anticipated for weeks. DOJ lawyers are pushing for a forced sell-off of its sell-side ad tech tools. Many expect the ruling to go against Google, prompting (yet another) appeals process, with the looming uncertainty splitting opinion on how best to position oneself for the resulting fallout.

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

Havas Media Network has kicked off the new year with an acquisition aimed at deepening its sports marketing expertise and diversifying its revenue base.

The media arm of Havas struck a deal to acquire CA Sports, a specialist sponsorship agency based in Spain, and add it to its entertainment-focused Havas Play unit. It’s the first acquisition by the French holding company since it was listed on the Euronext Amsterdam stock exchange in December, following a spinoff from the Vivendi media empire.

According to Jorge Irizar, CEO of Havas Media Network Spain and global COO of Havas Media Network, it’s the first of 10 acquisitions the media group is targeting over the course of this year, and part of a multi-year process to broaden its business model.

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 week’s Media Briefing looks at how the TikTok ban impacted publishers’ onsite traffic and social referrals, as well as what companies like CNN, The Daily Mail and The Washington Post are doing with their short-form video efforts in light of the shutdown drama.

• Data shows the TikTok ban in the U.S. didn’t have much of an effect on publishers’ site traffic, and publishers say they will focus efforts on their onsite short-form video strategies going forward.
• Le Monde leaves X, AI companies to face more litigation from publishers, and more.

TikTok aftereffects

TikTok’s shutdown over the weekend was short-lived, and so was its apparent impact on how people spent their time online. Publishers’ site traffic and social referral traffic did not deviate from the norm, and YouTube Shorts received a miniscule uptick in viewership, for example. 

This is a member-exclusive article from Digiday. Continue reading it on digiday.com and subscribe to continue reading content like this.

He willed St. John’s to overtime, helping them rally from 16 points down for a 79-71 win over Xavier at the Garden.

It's a fine excuse to occasionally watch Oscar-winner Michelle Yeoh kick things, but Section 31 is otherwise a deeply incurious squandering of Star Trek potential.

Players get four chances if they make a mistake, so it is important that you don't rush into an answer.

Today's word has two syllables and might be tricky to solve, so we have some hints to help you out.

Macbeth, William Shakespeare’s iconic play, is being reimagined as an interactive video game with a neo-noir vibe — and it’s being developed in part by the Royal Shakespeare Company. The game, titled Lili, is a “screen life thriller video game” where you’ll have access to a modern-day Lady Macbeth’s personal devices, according to a press release.

“Players will be immersed in a stylized, neo-noir vision of modern Iran, where surveillance and authoritarianism are part of daily life,” the release says. “The gameplay will feature a blend of live-action cinema within an interactive game format, giving players the chance to immerse themselves in the world of Lady Macbeth and make choices that influence her destiny.” It sounds kind of like a version of Macbeth inspired by Sam Barlow’s interactive thrillers.

The Royal Shakespeare Company is making the game in collaboration with iNK Stories, a New York-based indie studio and publisher that also made 1979 Revolution: Black Friday. It stars Zar Amir as “Lady Macbeth (Lili),” per the press release.

Lili is set to release “later in 2025.”

"Jesus saved me from battling severe anxiety, and gave me a peace that makes no sense," the 19-year-old posted on Instagram.

A federal judge is set to hear the first arguments in a multi-state lawsuit seeking to block President Donald Trump’s executive order ending the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship regardless of the parents' immigration status

© Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved

The price to climb the world's tallest peak will soon increase for the first time in almost a decade.

Police say a 28-year-old man from Afghanistan has been arrested suspected of carrying out the attack.

More and more, we are discovering that it’s fruitless to try to explain the hows and whys of what the Johnnies are putting together this season.

A wild soccer brawl resulted in a number of suspensions and fines after the Milwaukee Wave and Tacoma Stars came to an explosive end.

"I'm just simply being transparent and sharing my journey," said Bristowe while opening up about her cosmetic procedures

Justin Baldoni's lawyer wasn't always on his side.  Bryan Freedman—who is currently representing the It Ends With Us director and actor in his legal battle against costar Blake Lively—was hired to...

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored a career-high 54 points and the Oklahoma City Thunder defeated the Utah Jazz 123-114 on Wednesday night.

A software engineer has bought the website “OGOpenAI.com” and redirected it to DeepSeek, a Chinese AI lab that’s been making waves in the open source AI world lately. Software engineer Ananay Arora tells TechCrunch that he bought the domain name for “less than a Chipotle meal,” and that he plans to sell it for more. […]

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