Topic: Implications for Advertisers and Publishers
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Google Prioritizes 'Preferred Sources' in Top Stories Search Results
Google has launched Preferred Sources, a feature allowing users in the U.S. and India to customize their news feed by selecting trusted publishers, which then appear more prominently in Top Stories. Users can easily set up preferred outlets via a trending topic search, with changes taking imm...
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A New Era for Search: Understanding Google's Web Guide
Google's Web Guide introduces a semantic approach to search, grouping results into thematic clusters using AI to enhance discoverability and personalization. Unlike other AI search features, Web Guide preserves organic traffic by curating and categorizing existing web content rather than replacin...
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OpenAI's Open Models & the Future of Search
OpenAI has released open-weight models for local use, marking its first major open-source move since GPT-2 and challenging Meta's dominance in the space. The shift toward open AI models coincides with Meta's move toward closed releases, creating new opportunities for researchers and startups glob...
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Google exec: AI isn't stealing search traffic
Google claims AI-powered search isn't reducing website traffic, citing steady external clicks and rising search activity, but lacks concrete data to support this. Google disputes a Pew Research study suggesting AI Overviews decrease clicks on traditional results, maintaining organic click volumes...
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Ex-Destiny Boss: Not All Games Need Live-Service Models
Former Bungie CEO Harold Ryan notes a shift in player preferences away from live-service games toward single-player or shorter-form experiences, signaling a potential decline in the model's dominance. High-profile live-service failures and market data show only a few titles thrive, while mid-pric...
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Ghost Joins Open Social Web in Latest Release
Ghost 6 introduces native integration with decentralized platforms like Mastodon, Threads, and WordPress via ActivityPub, expanding publishers' reach beyond traditional channels. The update includes Bluesky compatibility via Bridgy Fed, alongside new features like real-time analytics, personalize...
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Perplexity AI Accused of Ignoring Website Scraping Blocks
Cloudflare accused AI startup Perplexity of bypassing website restrictions to scrape data, allegedly disguising its bots by altering user-agent identifiers and ASN numbers to evade detection. Perplexity denied the allegations, calling Cloudflare’s report a marketing tactic, but Cloudflare counter...
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Major Newsletter Platform Expands to Bluesky and Mastodon
Ghost now supports content distribution on decentralized social networks like Bluesky, Threads, and Mastodon, expanding reach beyond email newsletters. The platform's new social web syndication and built-in reader, powered by ActivityPub, enable seamless cross-platform publishing and content trac...
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Japan's PC Gaming Boom Slows After 7 Years of Growth
Japan’s PC gaming market, previously a bright spot, shows signs of cooling after seven years of outperforming consoles and mobile, with analysts predicting a shift in trends. In 2024, PC gaming revenue in Japan grew 16.2% to ¥240 billion ($1.7 billion), defying declines in console and mobile mark...
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The Great Decoupling Reshapes Digital Discovery
A quiet revolution called the Great Decoupling reshapes the internet. Search visibility no longer guarantees website visits, as Google's AI Overviews now provide direct answers. Publishers face plummeting traffic, forcing them to adapt: optimize for AI, build unique experiences, or forge direct reader relationships. This fundamental shift redefines the web's core economic bargain.
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Wuchang: Fallen Feathers – A Hit on Steam Despite Criticism
Wuchang: Fallen Feathers launched with strong player numbers (131K peak concurrent) but mixed reviews due to performance issues and regional pricing concerns, particularly on PC. Developers released Patch 1.3 to address optimization, crashes, and gameplay balance, including fixes for VRAM...
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AI Referrals Surge 357% to 1.13B in June
AI-driven web traffic surged by 357% year-over-year, directing 1.13 billion visits to top websites in June, though traditional search engines like Google still dominate with 191 billion referrals. News publishers face declining click-through rates (8% vs. 15%) due to AI-generated summaries, with ...
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Pew Research on Google AI Search Results Faces Scrutiny
The Pew Research Center study on Google's AI search summaries faces criticism over methodology, sample size, and the dynamic nature of AI results, raising doubts about its real-world accuracy. Google disputes the study, arguing AI-powered search boosts engagement and content discovery, while high...
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Hellraiser's First True Game Adaptation Finally Arrives
Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival is an upcoming survival-horror game that adapts the iconic franchise, featuring Pinhead, the Cenobites, and a sinister cult in a nightmarish world. The game stars Doug Bradley as Pinhead’s voice and follows protagonist Aidan, who wields the Lament Configuratio...
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Evolving News: Digital Shifts, AI, and Trust Challenges (Q & A)
News consumption is shifting from traditional media to social and video platforms like TikTok and YouTube. Personality-led creators now shape public discourse but also raise trust concerns. AI tools and podcasts offer new opportunities, while local publishers face financial and platform challenges. Audiences seek speed, depth, and reliability in a fast-evolving news landscape.
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Switch 2 Dev Kit Shortage May Delay Third-Party Games - Report
The Nintendo Switch 2's limited third-party game announcements may be due to a shortage of development kits, with many studios—including indie and mid-sized teams—still lacking access. Major publishers like Capcom and Ubisoft are also waiting for dev kits, potentially delaying their game releases...
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Google Search Console Now Offers Comparison Mode in 24-Hour View
Google Search Console's new comparison tool allows users to analyze hourly performance metrics against two timeframes: the previous 24 hours and the same day from the prior week. The update provides real-time insights into clicks, impressions, CTR, and average position with visual indicators, ava...
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Subnautica 2 Drama Escalates With Lawsuit and Leaks
Subnautica 2's developers are suing publisher Krafton over creative control and financial disputes, with the game's future now uncertain amid legal battles. The conflict centers on a $250 million performance-based payout and disagreements over the game's readiness, with Krafton claiming leadershi...
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Romero Games Seeks New Publisher After Xbox Layoffs
Romero Games clarified it is not shutting down despite losing publisher funding for an upcoming project, and is seeking new partners to revive the canceled title. Multiple publishers have expressed interest in backing the project, though the original publisher (linked to Xbox layoffs) remains unn...
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How Le Monde Hacked the Subscription Model: 665,000 Subscribers, AI Deals, and Their Secret Sauce
Le Monde is rewriting the rules for legacy media. With a goal of 1 million subscribers in their sights, the French newspaper has doubled its newsroom and revenue by embracing a sophisticated digital strategy.
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Google AI Faces Legal Complaints in UK and EU
Google's AI Overviews feature faces legal complaints in the UK and EU, with publishers accusing it of unfairly using their content without compensation or opt-out options, forcing them to choose between AI processing or search visibility. UK advocacy groups, including The Movement For An Open Web...
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Ready or Not Dev Addresses 'Censorship' Backlash From Fans
Void Interactive clarified that recent visual changes in "Ready or Not" were minor and aimed at platform compliance, not censorship, while preserving the game's gritty realism and core intensity. Players expressed frustration over alleged censorship, but the studio confirmed key missions and grap...
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Cloudflare's Internet Shift Threatens AI Giants' Dominance
Cloudflare now automatically blocks AI web crawlers from scraping data without permission, shifting from an opt-out to an opt-in model to protect its customers. AI bots like GPTBot and ClaudeBot have overwhelmed servers with excessive requests, prompting legal and ethical debates over fair use an...
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$70 Games on Deep Steam Discounts Make Patient Gaming More Rewarding
Waiting for deep Steam discounts on new games has become a cultural shift, as frequent sales make full prices harder to justify, with many titles dropping 50% within months of release. Communities like the Patient Gamers subreddit (750,000+ members) highlight the benefits of delaying purchases, f...
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Publishers Strike Back: Cloudflare Makes AI Crawlers Opt-In
Cloudflare now blocks unauthorized AI web crawlers by default for new websites, shifting control to publishers frustrated with uncompensated content scraping. The company introduces automatic blocking of known AI bots and advanced detection for disguised scrapers, reversing the previous need for ...
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Cloudflare's AI Crawler Payment Plan Ignites SEO Debate
Cloudflare's new AI crawler payment system has sparked debate in the SEO industry, offering publishers monetization options while defaulting to blocking AI bots unless manually adjusted. The system uses cryptographic authentication and standardized pricing, giving publishers control over AI crawl...
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Cloudflare Now Blocks AI Crawlers by Default
Cloudflare now defaults to blocking unauthorized AI web scraping bots, giving website owners more control and introducing a Pay Per Crawl program to monetize AI data access. The move addresses concerns over AI bots overwhelming websites and publishers' objections to uncompensated content use, wit...
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Cloudflare's New Marketplace Charges AI Bots for Web Scraping
Cloudflare launched Pay per Crawl, a marketplace allowing publishers to charge AI bots for scraping their content or block them entirely, addressing declining search traffic and rising AI-driven consumption. The platform offers a permission-based model, enabling publishers to set terms fo...
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AI Firms Quietly Scraping Web Data: The Hidden Impact
AI web scraping is reducing website visits by providing AI-generated summaries, threatening revenue for content creators and publishers who rely on traffic. AI platforms scrape vastly more content than they redirect traffic to original sources, creating an imbalance where creators receive minimal...
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Ready or Not Adjusts Violence & Nudity for Console Launch
The console version of "Ready or Not" has been adjusted to meet certification requirements, including toned-down violence and modified depictions of child endangerment, while maintaining the core experience across all platforms. To avoid technical issues, the developer unified certain assets acro...
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The AI Divide: Why 70% of Media Campaigns Haven't Evolved (And How the Other 30% Are Winning)
Despite all the AI buzz, 70% of companies still haven't cracked AI in media campaigns. The biggest barriers? Data chaos and system complexity, not job fears. With full adoption expected by 2026, we reveal who's actually winning and what you need to do now.
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Meta's AI Hiring Spree: This Week's Key Updates
Meta is aggressively hiring top AI talent, including OpenAI researcher Trapit Bansal, to strengthen its position in the AI superintelligence race. Travis Kalanick, Uber's former CEO, may re-enter the self-driving car industry through a potential acquisition of Pony AI’s U.S. operations. A federal...
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Google Tests Personalized 'Preferred Sources' for Top Stories
Google is testing a feature in the U.S. and India that lets users select favorite news sources to personalize their Top Stories section in search results. Preferred sources will appear more frequently, marked with a star, while Google’s core algorithm remains unchanged, and users can opt out of p...
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Google's Offerwall Aims to Offset AI's Impact on Publisher Revenue
Google's new Offerwall feature helps publishers diversify revenue streams by offering alternative content access methods like micropayments, surveys, and video ads, with AI-driven optimization for display timing. Early adopters, such as Sakal Media Group, report significant benefits...
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Humble's Capcom Sale: Save on Resident Evil 4 Remake & Dragon’s Dogma 2
Humble’s Capcom Publisher Sale offers deep discounts on popular titles like Dragon’s Dogma 2, Monster Hunter: World, and Resident Evil 4 Remake, with extra savings for Humble Choice members. Beyond Capcom, PC gamers can find deals on upcoming releases like Doom: The Dark Ages and ...
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Google Introduces Offerwall for New Monetization Features
Google launched Offerwall, a new monetization tool allowing publishers to generate revenue through ads, surveys, or micro-payments, with early adopters seeing a 9% revenue increase. Offerwall provides flexible user engagement options (e.g., rewarded ads, surveys, subscriptions) and AI-driven opti...
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Sam Altman Claps Back at The New York Times
Sam Altman criticized The New York Times' lawsuit against OpenAI, particularly its demand to retain user data from private ChatGPT conversations, calling it a fundamental disagreement. The discussion highlighted tensions between AI firms and media over copyright, with courts potentially favoring ...
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Judge Rules Anthropic Can Train AI on Books Without Author Permission
A federal court ruled that Anthropic can legally train its AI models on copyrighted books under fair use, setting a precedent for AI companies in intellectual property disputes. The ruling allows AI training on copyrighted material but leaves open a separate trial to assess whether Anthropic used...
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Google rolls out AI features for users in India
Google has launched an AI-powered search feature in India, allowing English-speaking users to ask complex questions and receive detailed responses, with potential for regional language support in the future. The feature offers conversational, multi-layered query responses, competing with AI assis...
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Google Tests AI-Powered Audio Overviews in Search Labs
Google is testing AI-powered audio summaries (Audio Overviews) in its Search Labs program, using Gemini AI to convert text search results into brief spoken clips for easier consumption. The feature, currently limited to English-speaking U.S. users in Search Labs, provides quick audio explanations...
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Outer Worlds 2 Director Explains $80 Game Pricing: 'We Don't Set Prices'
The debate over rising video game prices centers on publishers setting costs, not developers, creating tension between creative efforts and corporate pricing strategies. Adjusted for inflation, current $70–$80 game prices are modest compared to past decades, but wage stagnation and living costs m...
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Should Manufacturers Share in CTV Ad Revenue?
The battle over CTV ad revenue is intensifying as device makers and streaming platforms demand a larger share, while publishers resist, questioning their contribution beyond traditional ad breaks. CTV’s layered ecosystem introduces middlemen (device makers, OS providers) who claim revenue shares,...
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Google Tests Audio Overviews for Search Results
Google is introducing Audio Overviews, an experimental feature that provides spoken summaries of search results using Gemini AI, offering a hands-free alternative for users who prefer listening. The feature, available via Google Labs, includes an audio player with playback controls an...
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Google's AI Search Slashes Publisher Traffic
Google's AI-powered search tools, like AI Overviews, are reducing website traffic for news publishers by providing instant answers that bypass original sources. Referral traffic for major publishers like The New York Times has dropped significantly, with AI summaries replacing the need for in-dep...
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Game Freak Unveils New IP at Xbox Showcase
Game Freak announced Beast of Reincarnation, a new action-adventure game set in a dystopian Japan, releasing in 2026 on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC. The game, directed by Pokémon veteran Kota Furushima, follows protagonist Emma and her dog Koo in a story-driven combat experience. This project i...
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Google Search Console Discover Report Bug Explained
A technical issue in Google Search Console has caused unexpected data drops in Discover performance reports since June 5th, affecting news publishers with reduced or zeroed-out metrics. Google has acknowledged the system-wide reporting glitch, adding annotations to affected charts, but hasn't pro...
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Study: Google AI Overviews Prioritize Major News Sources
New research reveals that Google’s AI Overviews tend to favor major news outlets. 40% of media URLs mentioned in AI Overviews appear in the top 10 traditional search results for the same keywords. This means AI Overviews don’t just pull from the highest-ranking pages. Over 96% of New York Times citations in AI Overviews come from behind a paywall. See also: Google AI Overviews Appear in 18% Of Publisher-Related QueriesLooking AheadSE Ranking’s research shows that only 20.85% of AI Overviews refe...
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Game Companies: AI Insights from 1.5M Gamer Chats
Advanced AI analyzed 1.5 million online discussions to precisely understand gamer sentiment, using large language models (LLMs) to detect nuances like sarcasm and slang. External media, such as Netflix’s "The Witcher" series, significantly influenced gamer sentiment, showing entertainment adaptat...
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Desktop Google Discover Now Features RollerAds
Google Discover is expanding to desktop, offering publishers and advertisers new opportunities to reach broader audiences, given desktop's significant share of global internet traffic. RollerAds, a leading ad network, provides tools like push notifications and direct click campaigns to help publi...
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Sundar Pichai Stands by Google’s AI Search Vision
Google CEO Sundar Pichai asserts AI-powered search (like AI Overviews) won’t reduce web traffic, despite concerns from publishers and SEO professionals about declining organic visibility. Publishers and industry groups (e.g., News/Media Alliance) accuse Google of "stealing" content by displaying ...
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