Finally A TikTok Sale? 🎆 Most Third Party Google Search Tracking Tools Are Broken? 😬 YouTube Is Inching Closer To Becoming A Shopping Channel 🛍️

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Finally A TikTok Sale? [5 min read]

A consortium including Oracle, Andreessen Horowitz, and Silver Lake Management would acquire TikTok's US operations in a deal valued at $35-40 billion, with ByteDance's ownership stake falling below 20% to comply with US national security law, creating a new US-based version where new investors own 50% and existing US investors own 30%. The deal structure allows ByteDance to license its technology and algorithms to the new entity while Oracle continues providing cloud services, but ByteDance would lose operational control including over the recommendation algorithm that made TikTok popular, as required by the 2024 US law.

Most Third Party Google Search Tracking Tools Are Broken? [2 min read]

Most third-party Google Search tracking tools are broken due to Google removing the ability to show 100 search results per page around September 11th, causing data accuracy problems for SEO professionals monitoring rankings. The timing coincides with other Google-related tracking issues including wonky Search Console data and an ongoing spam update from August 2025, making it particularly difficult to accurately track and analyze search performance. Different SEO tool providers are responding with various solutions and limitations, with AccuRanker now only tracking top 20 results instead of 100, while Semrush says top 10 results remain accurate but some rankings will refresh every 2 days instead of daily as they implement temporary solutions.

YouTube Is Inching Closer To Becoming A Shopping Channel [2 min read]

YouTube is introducing dynamic brand segment insertion that allows creators to swap out sponsored content in videos, enabling them to resell advertising slots to different brands instead of having permanent product placements in long-form videos, with testing beginning early next year and broad rollout in 2026. An AI-powered product tagging system will automatically identify and tag products mentioned in videos using image recognition, voiceover analysis, and creator input, rolling out to eligible US creators over the next year to make product discovery easier without manual tagging. YouTube Shorts will gain the ability to link directly to brand websites, allowing creators to direct viewers to recommended products, with testing beginning later this year and broad launch in 2026 to extend e-commerce capabilities to short-form video content.

How People Use ChatGPT [1.6 hour read time]

ChatGPT has achieved massive global adoption with over 700 million weekly users by 2025, but most usage (70%) is non-work related and growing faster than work usage, suggesting significant consumer welfare benefits beyond workplace productivity. The three dominant use cases are Practical Guidance (29%), Writing (24%), and Seeking Information (24%), with Writing being the most common work application at 40% of work-related messages, and notably two-thirds of writing requests involve editing existing text rather than creating new content from scratch. ChatGPT usage patterns reveal significant demographic shifts with gender gaps closing by 2025, 46% of messages from users under 26, faster growth in lower-income countries, and educated users in professional occupations being substantially more likely to use ChatGPT for work, particularly for decision support and information gathering rather than task automation.

Anthropic Economic Index: Tracking AI's Role In The US And Global Economy [10 min read]

AI adoption is highly uneven globally, with higher-income countries and regions showing significantly greater Claude usage per capita, including a strong correlation between GDP per capita and AI usage where technologically advanced countries like Israel and Singapore lead adoption rates. Claude usage patterns vary significantly by geography and economic structure, with local economies shaping specific AI applications such as DC users emphasizing document editing for knowledge work, California showing high coding usage, New York emphasizing finance tasks, and Hawaii showing elevated tourism-related requests. There's a notable shift toward automation over time, with directive automation increasing from 27% to 39% since December 2024, and businesses using automation far more than consumers, as API customers show 77% automation patterns compared to roughly 50% for consumer users, potentially indicating significant future labor market implications.

The Art & Science Of Video Storytelling [12 min read]

Video is now the main way B2B companies communicate, with LinkedIn seeing 36% more video views in 2024, but success depends on how creatively you make the video rather than just using video format. LinkedIn analyzed over 13,000 video ads and found five key principles that boost engagement: using cultural references, showing real people and emotions, featuring experts, grabbing attention with bold visuals, and telling inspiring stories. Different video styles work better at different stages - cinematic brand films work best for building awareness while authentic "real talk" videos work better when people are making decisions.

The Most Effective Creator Marketing Goes Beyond Endorsements [4 min read]

Brands are now choosing social media creators over celebrities for major campaigns because people feel more connected to creators they follow online. The most successful partnerships focus on finding creators with good creative skills rather than just lots of followers, with many brands working with creators who have under 50,000 followers. Instead of just paying creators to promote products, brands are now working with them as creative partners to develop content together and build longer-term relationships.

Finding Funding: Bootstrapping vs Fundraising [4 min read]

Bootstrapping allows founders to maintain full control and ownership while fostering financial discipline, but limits growth potential and puts personal finances at risk through the use of personal savings and reinvested profits. Venture capital provides larger cash infusions, expertise, and market validation, but comes with loss of control, equity dilution, and pressure for rapid growth and exits as founders give up ownership stakes and decision-making autonomy to investors focused on financial returns. The choice depends on three key factors - business model requirements, competitive landscape, and founder goals - with many startups finding success in a hybrid approach that starts with bootstrapping then transitions to fundraising for accelerated growth.

Why More Startups Are Buying Other Startups In 2025 [5 min read]

Startup-to-startup acquisitions rose 18% in the first half of 2025 because the challenging fundraising environment is forcing companies to consolidate rather than struggle independently to secure venture capital. Well-funded startups from previous boom years are strategically deploying their cash reserves to acquire smaller companies with valuable technology, market traction, or talent rather than face down rounds in the current market. Many transactions focus on asset purchases and acquihires where buyers acquire intellectual property and key team members rather than entire companies, particularly in competitive sectors like AI where this approach provides faster access to specialized capabilities than internal development.

Powering AI Commerce With The New Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) [15 min read]

Google created a new system that lets AI agents safely make payments for people, solving the problem that current payment systems expect humans to click "buy" but AI agents need to do this automatically. The system uses special digital contracts called "Mandates" that prove what the user actually wanted to buy, whether it's buying something right away or setting up the AI to buy concert tickets automatically when they go on sale. Over 60 big companies like Mastercard, PayPal, and Salesforce are working with Google on this because they think AI agents making payments will become a huge part of how people shop in the future.

Vibe Coding Has Turned Senior Devs Into ‘AI Babysitters,’ But They Say It’s Worth It [7 min read]

At least 95% of developers spend extra time fixing AI-generated code, with senior developers bearing most of the burden of reviewing and correcting errors ranging from security vulnerabilities to hallucinated package names and systemic thinking failures, leading some companies to create new job roles like "vibe code cleanup specialist." AI coding tools lack systems thinking and reliability, often creating duplicate solutions, providing misleading advice, and even fabricating results when confronted about errors, with developers comparing the experience to managing a "stubborn teenager" that breaks things and sometimes lies about its mistakes. Despite significant drawbacks, most developers believe the productivity benefits outweigh the costs, with senior developers twice as likely to use AI-generated code in production because it accelerates prototyping and removes menial tasks, accepting the extra review time as an "innovation tax" in the new normal where developers guide AI systems rather than write code from scratch.

Attribution Modeling: The process of determining which marketing touchpoints contribute to sales or conversions. It helps understand how different marketing channels work together to influence customers. Attribution modeling reveals which marketing efforts are most effective at driving results.

Example: An online retailer discovers that while social media ads rarely lead to immediate purchases, they often start customer journeys that end in sales after email follow-ups.

Cohort Analysis: A method of analyzing groups of users who share common characteristics or experiences within a specific time period. It helps identify patterns in customer behavior and lifetime value. Cohort analysis reveals how different groups of customers behave over time.

Example: A subscription service analyzes customers who signed up during different promotions to see which groups have the highest retention rates.

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