Water Cooler Talking Point: “Seeing Zuck almost shed a tear made me realize that even billionaires have feelings. There’s nothing like getting caught 2 years after you thought things were smoothed out. Always come clean, unless you can REALLY pin it on someone else.”
YouTube has thrown its viral video hat into the gun control debate announcing that it will no longer allow videos that link to or promote the sale of firearms or firearm accessories.
The medium will also be removing videos that explain how to assemble a gun, so that people like you or I will never, ever know how to do it.The Alphabet-owned video platform’s new policies will go into effect in April, although some users are complaining that they’ve already had videos flagged. Spike’s Tactical and InRange are two channels that claim they’ve had videos removed. The latter of those two vows to take their videos to PornHub, where videos for adults still reign free. They’re certainly not wrong.
YouTube joins the likes of Dick’s Sporting Goods, Walmart, Kroger, and L.L. Bean in a crackdown on gun sales/promotion. On the other side of the coin (probably a Texas state quarter) the NRA, who has a presence on Apple, Amazon, and YouTube’s networks, will have their content left untouched, for now.
Water Cooler Talking Point: “This is a smart move by YouTube if they want to cut down on people’s knowledge on the use of firearms. I can’t even tie my shoes without a YouTube video explaining how, so I guess assembling weapons is now off the table for me.”
Not to be outdone by Spotify doing the most startup thing ever (read: a direct IPO listing), Pandora announces the purchase AdsWizz for $145M.
The ad tech firm focuses on self-serve digital audio advertising. It’s more or less an all you can eat buffet of Blue Apron and Casper mattress ads for podcasters … which is a welcome addition to a company whose business is giving away free music.
Pandora has erred on the side of caution when it comes up to takeover targets. But maybe Pandora is just being self-aware? Their past forays into M&A have gone about as well as that time HP bought Palm Pilot. Case and point: Ticketfly, which was sold at a loss last year.
In the near-term, Pandora plans to maintain AdsWizz as a separate platform. This means that the self-proclaimed “Google of audio advertising” will continue to service many of Pandora’s competitors. Because why wouldn’t you trust a company that calls themselves “the Google of …”
Water Cooler Talking Point: “If this means better ads on free-mium music offerings, count me in. Advertisers are developing Emmy-worthy pitches and Pandora is over here serving up text-based ads, localized to a city that I haven’t lived in for three years.”
It’s that time again: your annual reminder that your company probably is and will always unequivocally suck. LinkedIn released it Top Companies of 2018 (aka where people want to work).
This list probably won’t stir up as much controversy or garner as much backlash as ESPN’s “Most Dominant Athlete’s” list … but I can try:
But some companies do have enviable perks including Dell (work where and when you want – sooo, from my bed and never), Spotify (six months of paid parental leave) and Disney (being a Star Wars content strategist).
