1. YouTube’s Highest Paid Vlogger
7-year-old YouTube Star, Ryan of Ryan ToysReview, has reportedly made $22M this year playing with toys. Talk about a sweet gig for a first grader! Ryan, with 17.3M followers and 26B collective views since 2015, is one of the most influential people online. His earnings, which largely stem from pre-roll ads, make him YouTube’s highest-paid contributor.
“‘Unboxing videos provide the proxy for actually experiencing the joy of receiving and opening something you really desire; this is especially true for items that are out of reach or unattainable,’ says Chas Lacaillade, the founder and CEO of Bottle Rocket Management, which represents many unboxers, although not Ryan.” In his short videos, Ryan unboxes and reviews all the latest toys to hit the market. In Ryan’s most popular video, with 1.5M+ views since Sunday, he opens gigantic eggs with toys from Disney’s Cars and Paw Patrol. “I’m entertaining and I’m funny,” says Ryan when describing his success in a recent NBC interview.
(Source: AdAge, The Hustle)
2. Walmart Bridges the Gap
Walmart is making moves to bridge the gap between its brick-and-mortar stores and e-commerce site. Yesterday, Walmart announced their plan to help facilitate the purchasing experience for its retail store customers no matter the circumstance. Sales associates will be readily available with the new in-store app that allows shoppers to find items not available on store shelves and purchase them from Walmart.com. These items can be paid for directly in the store via the receipt or email they receive after the transaction and can have items shipped to the store or to their home. This is a big step up for Walmart, as Target shoppers have had this capability for over a year and Amazon continues to open up cashierless Amazon Go stores, bookstores, and pop-ups. The company hopes that this new app will aid in the upcoming high-traffic holiday shopping season.
(Source: TechCrunch)
3. #TumblrIsDead
Online blogger site, Tumblr, has announced its ban on all adult content effective Dec. 17. The ban will include all photos of genitalia, along with photos, videos, illustrations, and GIFs of sexual actions. “We spent considerable time weighing the pros and cons of expression in the community that includes adult content,” says Tumblr CEO Jeff D’Onofrio. “In doing so, it became clear that without this content we have the opportunity to create a place where more people feel comfortable expressing themselves.” Their efforts have caused a major backlash with a viral hashtag, #tumblrisdead, and critiques that the company is restricting freedom of expression. The company hopes that these measures will prevent child pornography and sexual abuse content on the internet. Kudos to Tumblr for making the right choice versus the easy one as it’s likely their traffic will dramatically tumble (see tweet).
