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TL;DR
In a hurry? Here's our pick of the top news items of the week.
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This week, OpenAI released its newest AI models, o3 and o4-mini, both of which can uniquely “reason” through uploaded images. (Tech Crunch)
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The US Department of Justice won its antitrust case against Google, which accused the company of operating a monopoly in the advertising technology industry. (The Verge)
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OpenAI is looking to build its own social media app focused on images created via its various image generation tools. (The Verge)
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Just under a quarter of UK companies reduced their marketing budgets this year, driven by declines in main media, market research and other paid-for marketing. (Marketing Week)
Audiences
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75% of US internet users listen to digital audio at least once a month, with adult listeners spending an average of 1 hour and 25 minutes a day with digital audio. (EMarketer)
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72% of global consumers say they use traditional search for travel less than in the past, adopting new technologies like AI that reduce friction throughout the purchase journey. (Snapchat)
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Canada watches more true crime than any other country, with 60% of Netflix subscribers tuning in to 20 or more minutes of true crime content. (Media Play News)
Platforms
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TikTok launched a live test of its new feature “Footnotes” which allows users to add fact-checking notes and contextual references to videos with questionable claims. (Social Media Today)
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Instagram announced the rollout of "Blend," a new feature that lets users create a custom, personalized reels feed to share with friends. (TechCrunch)
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Meta’s change in approach to political content appears to be driving more referral traffic from the platform, with new data showing that referral traffic from Facebook is up 74% YoY for some of the biggest publisher sites. (Social Media Today)
Content
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In March, the NCAA tournament helped drive an increase for traditional cable, the Oscars stood out for broadcast, and in a competitive month of high-profile streaming releases, the top programs in March were represented by seven different streaming platforms. (Nielsen)
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“A Minecraft Movie” scored $80M in its second weekend of release and remained at No. 1 at the box office as five new movies opened in theaters. (Variety)
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5.3M people in the US watched the season 2 premiere of "The Last of Us," up from 4.7M for season 1. (Gamespot)
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Jimmy Fallon has plans to create a marketing agency and fill it with creative and clever executives in a new NBC competition series titled “On Brand.” (Variety)
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Video industry revenues in Australia across TV, VOD and theatrical are projected to increase to $12.3B in 2030. (World Screen)
Tech &
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The latest viral ChatGPT trend is doing "reverse location search" from photos, as the newest models are good at deducing cities, landmarks and even restaurants and bars from subtle visual clues. (Tech Crunch)
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xAI announced a “memory” feature for Grok that enables the bot to remember details from past conversations with a user. (Tech Crunch)
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Copilot Vision, Microsoft’s AI assistant feature that can interpret what’s on your screen and help you use apps, is now available for free use within the Edge browser. (The Verge)
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OpenAP launched a new cross-publisher technology solution, Open Identity, to streamline streaming video’s identity data. (Adweek)
Location-based
entertainment-
Less than two months before the music festival was set to take place, Fyre Festival 2 announced it will postpone this year with no new date announced. (THR)
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Legoland Shanghai Resort will begin trial operations in June and will formally open to the public in July. (Shine)
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Universal Orlando opened its third and final Epic Universe hotel, the Universal Helios Grand Hotel, described as the crown jewel of Universal Orlando’s hotel collection. (Blooloop)
Travel &
hospitality-
Nearly a third of global travel buyers expect business travel volume at their companies to decline in 2025, averaging a 21% decrease in travel volume and $88B less in travel spend. (Hotel Dive)
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American Airlines announced that it is partnering with FIFA for the 2026 World Cup, offering flights and promos to fans and teams during the tournament. (Skift)
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United Airlines plans to reduce US domestic flying by 4% later this year due to weakened air travel demand. (Travel Weekly)
Gaming
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After previously pausing US pre-orders due to tariffs, Nintendo confirmed a new pre-order date for the Switch 2 (April 24) and revealed that the price of the console will remain unchanged. (gamesindustry.biz)
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Assassin's Creed Shadows debuted at number two on global revenue charts for March 2025. (gamesindustry.biz)
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Gaming industry mergers and acquisitions rose to $6.6B in Q1 of 2025, their highest level in over a year, driven by activity in the mobile sector. (Pocket Gamer)
