metaverse

AI-equipped consumer products keep failing; why the newsletter boom might be nothing but spam; and retaliatory tariffs hit America where it hurts.

The in-game advertising market’s stagnation is both unsurprising and frustrating. The onus is on the gaming industry to make gaming an essential channel for advertisers, rather than a nice-to-have.

Meta continues to tinker with its business model as it deals with the new European regulatory environment. Plus, Government officials liberally used location-tracking software Locate X in criminal investigations dating back to 2018.

Roblox CEO David Baszucki said advertising “will not be material this year” during the company’s Q1 earnings call on Thursday.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg cautioned that it will likely take years before Meta’s generative AI products, including Meta AI, are ready for monetization.

Despite forceful calls for a shakeup of the digital ad business from the main stage at the Possible conference in Miami this week, the online ad industry remains locked in a harmful holding pattern.

SuperAwesome CEO Kate O’Loughlin discusses how contextual targeting makes it less risky for brands to market to kids and teens, and whether advertiser priorities for reaching young consumers are shifting after years of metaverse hype.

The vast majority of advertisers who buy ads in video games (91%) no longer consider gaming to be an experimental media channel. But ad spend in games still lags behind audience engagement.

If you’re an ad tech or martech vendor thinking about pitching a marketer, then Kamal Bhandal, global VP of brand and consumer experience at Invisalign, has some important advice for you.

In today’s newsletter: Users’ rare anime collections disappear as Sony consolidates Funimation and Crunchyroll; Instagram and Threads stop promoting political content; and why Fortnite is winning the metaverse.