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The GRADIENT: Why Taste Is the New Moat

Macy’s has a cautious outlook for 2026

On Wednesday, Macy’s, Inc. posted its fourth-quarter and full-year results for 2025. The department store giant and owner of Bloomingdale’s and Bluemercury reported a 1.5% growth in comparable sales with net sales of $21.8 billion for 2025. Looking ahead to 2026, however, the company is projecting annual sales to reach $21.4 billion to $21.65 billion,

Annie Atkins on how designing film props is like specialising in forgery

Author and designer Annie Atkins joined us for a Q&A at our first Nicer Tuesdays of the year in London to talk us through her career, beginning at her first design job on BBC’s The Tudors to working with the iconic Wes Anderson and creating her own book Fake Love Letters, which is devoted to

Google Ads Creative Tools Expand, Microsoft Simplifies Bidding – PPC Pulse

Welcome to this week’s PPC Pulse. Updates focus on expanding creative tools in Google Ads and updates to bidding strategies in Microsoft Ads. The newest version of Nano Banana Pro is now available to advertisers in Google Ads. In a separate creative update, marketers spotted an expansion to Google’s Creative Toolkit in the platform. Lastly,

Middle East Conflict Fuels Viewership

This is TVNewser’s basic cable network ranker and cable news report for the week of March 9, 2026. Despite the war in the Middle East affecting the economy, viewers have been less glued to their screens as the conflict continues. This has contributed to double-digit declines in total viewers and the Adults 25-54 demo for

Watch better TV! Get 2 months of Paramount+ for just $2.99 a month

After a long day creating, you need to switch off. But which streaming option to sign up to? There are so many available now that it can be tricky to know where to spend your money. One thing that might help you decide is this deal from Paramount+, which is currently offering subscriptions for $2.99

Google AI Mode Goes Personal, Crawl Limits Clarified – SEO Pulse

Welcome to the week’s Pulse: updates affect how Google personalizes AI Mode, what Googlebot’s crawl limits look like in practice, and what new data shows about AIO click behavior and publisher traffic. Here’s what matters for you and your work. Google Personal Intelligence Now Free For US Users Google expanded Personal Intelligence from paid AI

Walmart says ChatGPT checkout converted 3x worse than its own website

Walmart just ran a real-world test of agentic commerce, and the results weren’t encouraging. Purchases completed directly inside ChatGPT converted at roughly one-third the rate of transactions where users clicked through to Walmart’s site. In other words, moving checkout into the AI interface reduced conversion rates by about 66%. Why this matters: Agentic commerce isn’t

some ballpoint pen bird drawings on antique book pages :: Behance

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What Can Log File Data Tell Me That Tools Can’t? – Ask An SEO

For today’s Ask An SEO, we answer the question: “As an SEO, should I be using log file data, and what can it tell me that tools can’t?” What Are Log Files Essentially, log files are the raw record of an interaction with a website. They are reported by the website’s server and typically include

For Parker Thatch, video is more than just a social media strategy

Livestreaming is more than just a social media strategy for the husband-and-wife team behind the eight-figure luxury handbag and accessories brand Parker Thatch. It’s also a weekly Friday ritual, where they set up a camera and tripod in their Orinda, California strip-mall storefront and log online. The QVC-style streams reach an audience of 179,000 Instagram

These emotionally charged illustrations are here to make your imagination wander

In New York City-based illustrator Xiao Hua Yang’s work, reality isn’t escaped from but gently shifted. Imagination is left to wander, but it always circles back. Inspired by dreams, books, passing observations and the small events in daily life, each piece carries a subtle emotional charge, be it through the motion of a time-lapsed starry

The Content Moat Is Dead. The Context Moat Is What Survives

So, let’s say you spent six months building a resource library: guides, explainers, comparison pages, all well-researched and clearly written, structured for humans who are trying to make decisions. Your analytics show strong engagement, and your team is proud of the work. Then someone asks ChatGPT a question your library answers perfectly, and the response

ABC Halts The Bachelorette After Taylor Frankie Paul Allegations and Leaked Video

ABC is pulling the new season of The Bachelorette from the schedule. Following allegations of domestic violence against this season’s star, Secret Lives of Mormon Wives personality Taylor Frankie Paul, as well as a leaked video of an incident between Frankie Paul and her ex, Dakota Mortensen, from 2023, ABC isn’t moving forward with the

Nvidia’s DLSS 5 announcement shocked even major developers

Nvidia’s unveiling of its new graphics tech DLSS 5 promptly sparked an unusual mix of excitement and ridicule. Nvidia sees the upcoming version of its Deep Learning Super Sampling technology as a game-changing moment for graphics, using generative AI to add lighting detail, materials and other visual touches to enhance frames in real time. However,

I Helped Build the PESO Model Certification® and It Still Humbled Me

Shelly Verkamp helped build the PESO Model Certification. Then she had to complete it. Spoiler: that’s when the real learning started. She shares her journey. The post I Helped Build the PESO Model Certification® and It Still Humbled Me first appeared on Spin Sucks.

Google Expands UCP With Cart, Catalog, Onboarding

Google updated the Universal Commerce Protocol with new Cart and Catalog capabilities, highlighted Identity Linking as an available option, and announced a simpler onboarding process through Merchant Center. The update is UCP’s first since Google launched the protocol at NRF in January. Cart and Catalog are published as draft specifications. Identity Linking is in the

ActiveCampaign extends its AI capabilities with context and scale

ActiveCampaign is expanding its Active Intelligence capabilities with new agent-to-user AI and AI personalization features. The new capabilities expand on ActiveCampaign’s vision for an AI-enabled approach to marketing automation for SMBs. Benchmark your campaigns against your peers ActiveCampaign’s new AI Performance Intelligence continuously analyzes campaign and automation performance against billions of signals across the platform,

MODERN TREE HOUSES :: Behance

MODERN TREE HOUSES “Reconnect with nature” — Editorial illustration — Above the forest floor, a world of wonder awaits. Tree houses have always captured our imaginations : symbols of escapism, endless youthful summers, and a deep-rooted connection to nature. But today, they’ve evolved beyond childhood hideaways into architectural marvels that blend sustainability and cutting-edge design. Whether

How To Use AI To Streamline Time (And Money) Consuming SEO Tasks

SEO, like most organic and non-advertising or paid channels in digital marketing, is labor-intensive. Yes, there are software suites, analytics platforms, research tools, and a number of other things that help in the tech stack. We all have our favorites, and no one is (or should) be doing SEO like I was in 2008 (despite

Brands turn niche news creators into a new earned media engine

Earned media used to mean landing a headline in a major news publication. Now, it’s more likely a mention from a TikTok news explainer or creator-led podcast. As audiences increasingly turn to social media for news — and LLMs challenge publishers’ distribution dominance — some brands are starting to earmark earned media dollars for news-adjacent

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