Logophiles are "devastated" after Dictionary.com deleted their logs of favorited words that they carefully crafted for years. The company deleted all accounts, as well as the only ways to use Dictionary.com without seeing ads —even if you previously paid for an ad-free experience.
Dictionary.com offers a free dictionary through its website and free Android and iOS apps. It used to offer paid-for mobile apps, called Dictionary.com Pro, that let users set up accounts, use the app without ads, and enabled other features (like grammar tips and science and rhyming dictionaries) that are gone now. Dictionary.com's premium apps also let people download an offline dictionary (its free apps used to let you buy a downloadable dictionary as a one-time purchase), but offline the dictionaries aren't available anymore.
Accounts axed abruptly
About a year ago, claims of Dictionary.com’s apps being buggy surfaced online. We also found at least one person claiming that they were unable to buy an ad-free upgrade at that time.
Perplexity's VP of business development told BI that the company is still figuring out which advertising model will work best.
Getty/NurPhoto
Perplexity AI is cautiously growing its ad business.
Its main ad product is 'sponsored follow-up questions,' and it recently introduced a perks program.
Perplexity has a revenue share program with publishers, but its ads business is still nascent.
Perplexity AI is taking a softly, softly approach to building its ad business.
The AI company had a low-key presence at last month's Cannes Lions ad festival in France. Amid the huge multimillion-dollar beach structures erected by tech giants like Meta, Amazon, and Google, Perplexity sent just a handful of executives to meet with current and potential business partners.
Perplexity, a conversational AI-powered search engine, began testing ads last year. Brands such as Whole Foods and Indeed have bought "sponsored follow-up questions," which appear alongside an answer to a user's prompt, encouraging them to dig deeper into the topic. Advertisers themselves don't write or edit the sponsored questions, which are generated by Perplexity's AI.
An example of how an Indeed ad might appear as a sponsored follow-up question on Perplexity.
Perplexity AI blog post
It's a contrast to traditional search engine marketing, where ads typically appear before the organic results.
Speaking to Business Insider at Cannes Lions in June, Ryan Foutty, Perplexity's VP of business development, said the company is still figuring out which advertising model will work best.
He described sponsored follow-up questions as "a really incredible brand advertorial."
"It's additive because you're helping users figure out the next question they need to ask to make a better decision or figure out what they're trying to do versus just trying to put something in your face," Foutty said, adding that 40% of its users click on related questions.
Perplexity advertisers pay on a CPM, or cost to reach a thousand impressions, model. A Perplexity spokesperson said advertising currently comprises less than a tenth of a percent of the company's total revenue, and declined to comment on the company's current ad prices.
In recent weeks, Perplexity has also introduced a perks program, where it provides subscribers to its Perplexity Pro service with offers and discounts from brands including Turbotax, the smart ring company Oura, and hotel booking service Selfbook.
Both Perplexity ads and perks are only active in the US. Foutty said the company was also considering more ways to monetize Perplexity's shopping and travel booking features, which could theoretically include further ad formats.
"It's very manual today," Foutty said, "But when we find something that works for everyone, then it's very easy, naturally, for us to scale it."
Perplexity hasn't released its user numbers, but its CEO, Aravind Srinivas, said the company received 780 million queries in May, up 20% from April. But compare that to Google's AI Overviews, which the search giant said reached 1.5 billion monthly users in May. Google recently brought advertising to more areas of its AI Overviews product, and it's testing ads within its AI Mode, a newer feature where users can conduct deeper research.
With its relatively small scale and only one specific ad format available, Perplexity's advertising offering is only getting tepid interest from marketers for now, said Eric Hoover, director of search engine optimization at the digital marketing agency Jellyfish.
"I don't see strong adoption by users," Hoover told BI. "People rarely click out of 'regular' AI results; I don't see them being eager to click on sponsored ones."
Perplexity wants to build 'long-term incentive' deals with publishers
Perplexity shares a portion of its ad revenue with the publisher partners it uses to help source its answers, which include Time, Fortune, and Der Spiegel.
The company doesn't cut up-front licensing deals with these publishers because it isn't building foundational large language models that require content for training, Foutty said. It does offer these partners access to its enterprise product and APIs that can help publishers embed Perplexity's tech, like conversational search, into their own sites. (Disclosure: Business Insider's parent company, Axel Springer, has a multi-year content licensing deal with Perplexity rival OpenAI.)
"The model that we're creating on the revenue share side is a long-term incentive," Foutty said. "It's not a one-and-done."
When asked whether any publishers were making serious money from the program, Foutty said it was still early days. The publisher program launched in June of last year.
"We're focused on building the right product before we scale it to everyone," he added.
The relationship between AI companies and publishers can often be fraught, and many are locked in legal battles. Rupert Murdoch's Dow Jones and the New York Post filed a lawsuit last year alleging that Perplexity engaged in copyright infringement by scraping and using their content. Perplexity said last year that the facts alleged in the complaint were "misleading at best" and that it planned to defend itself.
This week, the content delivery network and security provider Cloudflare announced it has begun automatically blocking AI crawlers from scraping the websites it powers unless site owners explicitly opt-in or the AI companies pay.
The author (middle) has become close with his younger neighbors.
Courtesy of Chen Yan
After graduating from Yale, I moved back in with my parents in a low-income building in Brooklyn.
When I was growing up, I became close with all my neighbors who struggled with poverty.
Returning home after living on an Ivy League campus has been confusing.
Four years ago, when people asked me which part of college I was most excited for, I always said having my own room.
Yale's dorms were a welcome change from the living conditions in my Brooklyn neighborhood. On the outside, the place my parents rented looked like any other two or three-family house, but inside, every floor was leased out to multiple families.
My upbringing was many things: love and a chorus of voices that included a Vietnam War veteran, four children, and an expert crocheter. They were all my neighbors — many of them low-income. Every evening, we gathered for communal dinners, sharing stories and laughs. But privacy was never part of the equation.
I left that environment for the private world of the Ivy League, living in dorms that radiated privilege.
And then I blinked, and last May, I graduated. After four years, I stepped out of the privilege, access, and relentless ambition that Yale had afforded me and returned to my family's Brooklyn home.
Moving home after college was a jump back to reality
When I arrived at my apartment after graduation, the first thing I did was hug one of the younger tenants, a 10-year-old girl I consider my sister. She waited for me at the door with flowers — a belated graduation present, she said. Later that evening, with her mother's permission, we took the N train to her favorite spot: Coney Island Beach and Boardwalk.
We had to make a pit stop at Coney's Cones, of course. Inside, she stood on her tiptoes, squinting at the selection of gelato and sorbet. "Eyeglasses," I wrote in my notepad of things to buy for her. I leaned down and whispered, "Don't look at the prices. Get anything."
Once we were seated, I asked how things had been. She told me that they were the same. At school, she enjoys math but dislikes writing, and the staircases in the projects still reek of cigarettes, but at least the neighbor's cat comes by once in a while to play with her.
"It's kind of lonely without you here," she suddenly blurted.
I tried to explain that I had to leave for college, that it wasn't about her. I wanted to say something — to fix her loneliness, her abandonment — but my mouth was just a home for my teeth. I reached for her hand, and we exited the café, heading toward the line to purchase Ferris wheel tickets.
I couldn't help grow solemn. The sad reality of building relationships with other tenants is that there is nothing more we wish than to see each other leave the situation we find ourselves in. No one wishes to live in the projects forever. This means saying goodbye at some point — and leaving loved ones behind.
I'm now thinking more about what it meant to be at Yale
An elite education doesn't guarantee stability or a sense of belonging, especially not for first-generation graduates navigating the job market. We often lack a safety net and carry the weight of family responsibilities. What my Ivy League education does offer is a chance: the foundation to build a future for myself and my family.
Still, many of my neighbors and friends remain where they've always been, caught in cycles of poverty, domestic trauma, and systemic injustice. The pandemic only further crippled those living at or under the poverty line.
College was never the finish line. It was the beginning of a more complicated story — one in which I must navigate ambition with memory, privilege with purpose, and personal advancement with a renewed commitment to support others in my community through their struggles, especially those without access to open doors.
But the truth is, it took a village for me to get to Yale, and many of my greatest supporters were not related to me by blood.
I'm trying to reconcile my future with my family's and neighbors'
Inside the Ferris wheel gondola, just as we were about to reach the top, my apartment-mate proudly took out a fluffy purse that I had bought for her 8th birthday. It was heavy, full of coins. She told me that her mother began paying her 50 cents for taking out the trash or washing the dishes, and one of our neighbors occasionally hires her to water his plants.
"Wow, you're rich," I said, nudging her playfully.
We laughed, and the setting sun caught our faces. In the distance, the waves rolled back and forth, and I wondered how many more times I'd get to share these moments with her before the world pulled us apart again. I won't let it.
The company is now facing user backlash over the addition, as users, primarily women, are arguing that there should be a way to opt out of DMs entirely, citing harassment concerns.
And now Apple has disappeared another ad campaign, though I don't have any idea why.
This one features Martin Herlihy, the "Saturday Night Live" writer and actor — he's part of the "Please Don't Destroy" troupe that specializes in pre-recorded videos, like this one with Taylor Swift. And the premise is that he's going to teach kids how to convince their parents to buy them a Mac for college. The campaign also came with a kinda clever "Parent Presentation," which you could theoretically download as a PowerPoint and customize in order to close the sale with mom and dad.
The ad went up on YouTube and Apple's site last week, and then disappeared in the last few days.
But you can still see it, for some reason, on the site we used to call Twitter.
Apple just released a 7 minute video and an 81 slide presentation on how to convince your parents to buy you a Mac for college.
The presentation is available on Apple's website as a Keynote, PowerPoint, and Google Slides file. pic.twitter.com/aMQwvBJntR
I've now watched this thing a few times, and I can't imagine what part of the ad offended or worried someone in or outside of Apple. (And yes, I've asked the company.)
If you love conspiracy theories, you could imagine that maybe this is actually a galaxy-brained viral campaign, and that Apple pulled the ad so typers like me would give them free publicity by typing about it. The way some political campaigns will make an incendiary ad that's designed to generate coverage, even if it only runs once.
But I'm not a big conspiracy theory person — the truth is usually much dumber than the theory. And in any case, this doesn't seem like Apple's style, at all.
Amazon Prime Video subscribers aren’t the only streaming customers being subjected to longer commercial breaks lately. Warner Bros. Discovery’s (WBD) Max has increased the amount of commercials it shows to US subscribers from approximately four minutes per hour to about six minutes per hour.
A US support page for Max currently says that subscribers to Max with ads “can expect about 6 minutes of ads per hour.” But PCWorld noticed this week that this differs from what Max used to claim, which as recently as February was “about 4 minutes” of ads an hour, per the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. Some of Max’s geographies have smaller ad loads. For example, WBD's support page for Saint Kitts and Nevis says Max ad subscribers should expect about four minutes of ads hourly.
A 50 percent increase in the duration of commercials that US subscribers see puts Max’s ad load on par with that of Prime Video, which AdWeek reported last week also increased its ad load from four minutes per hour to six minutes per hour. For comparison, Netflix shows four to five minutes of ads per hour, according to earlier PC World reporting, and Peacock shows to five to seven minutes of ads hourly, per The Streamable.
DENVER—Most smart TV operating system (OS) owners are in the ad sales business now. Software providers for budget and premium TVs are honing their ad skills, which requires advancing their ability to collect user data. This is creating an “inherent conflict” within the industry, Takashi Nakano, VP of content and programming at Samsung TV Plus, said at the StreamTV Show in Denver last week.
During a panel at StreamTV Insider’s conference entitled “CTV OS Leader Roundtable: From Drivers to Engagement and Content Strategy,” Nakano acknowledged the opposing needs of advertisers and smart TV users, who are calling for a reasonable amount of data privacy.
“Do you want your data sold out there and everyone to know exactly what you’ve been watching … the answer is generally no,” the Samsung executive said. “Yet, advertisers want all of this data. They wanna know exactly what you ate for breakfast."
Tech support scammers have devised a method to inject their fake phone numbers into webpages when a target's web browser visits official sites for Apple, PayPal, Netflix, and other companies.
The ruse, outlined in a post on Wednesday from security firm Malwarebytes, threatens to trick users into calling the malicious numbers even when they think they're taking measures to prevent falling for such scams. One of the more common pieces of security advice is to carefully scrutinize the address bar of a browser to ensure it's pointing to an organization’s official website. The ongoing scam is able to bypass such checks.
DENVER—Ads shown while you're streaming shows or movies are disruptive enough. But there's something uniquely eerie about what you see when a connected TV (CTV) platform fails to sell ad inventory. You may get a black screen accompanied by ethereal music or a confusing thumping beat, alongside a graphic that says something like, "We'll be right back."
Not only are streamers being forced to endure more ad time than ever, but that time doesn't even always benefit streaming platforms or advertisers. For the past six months, AdGood has been working to turn that blank, wasted ad space into messaging for good by helping nonprofits buy ad space for cheap.
During the StreamTV Show in Denver this week, Ars spoke with Kris Johns, CEO and founder of AdGood, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that sells unused, CTV ad space to other nonprofits. AdGood sells unfilled, sometimes donated, ad space at discounted rates, which it says can be as low as about $5 to $6 CPMs (cost per mille, or the amount an advertiser pays for every 1,000 impressions an ad earns). Johns said that CTV CPMs can vary depending on the scenario, with costs ranging from $12 to $15 and higher. Some CTV ad firms peg the average CTV CPM at $35 to $65.
Amazon forced all Prime Video subscribers onto a new ad-based subscription tier in January 2024 unless users paid more for their subscription type. Now, the tech giant is reportedly showing twice as many ads to subscribers as it did when it started selling ad-based streaming subscriptions.
Currently, anyone who signs up for Amazon Prime (which is $15 per month or $139 per year) gets Prime Video with ads. If they don’t want to see commercials, they have to pay an extra $3 per month. One can also subscribe to Prime Video alone for $9 per month with ads or $12 per month without ads.
When Amazon originally announced the ad tier, it said it would deliver “meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers." Based on “six ad buyers and documents” ad trade publication AdWeek reported viewing, Amazon has determined the average is four to six minutes of advertisements per hour.
Fans saw clips of a man riding an alligator in a Kalshi ad.
Kalshi
An AI-generated ad for Kalshi, where you can bet on real-world events, aired during an NBA Finals game.
PJ Accetturo, a self-described AI filmmaker, described his process for creating the ad.
Here's how he used Google's Gemini chatbot and Veo 3 video generator to make the "most unhinged" ad.
A farmer floating in a pool of eggs. An alien chugging beer. An older man, draped in an American flag, screaming, "Indiana gonna win baby." The chaotic scenes are all part of a new AI-generated ad from sports betting marketplace Kalshi, which aired Wednesday during Game 3 of the NBA Finals.
"The world's gone mad, trade it," the commercial's tagline read, following the 30-second collection of surreal scenes.
In a recent thread on X, the ad's director explained how he made the clip for just $2,000.
"Kalshi hired me to make the most unhinged NBA Finals commercial possible," PJ Accetturo, a self-described AI filmmaker, wrote on Wednesday. "Network TV actually approved this GTA-style madness."
Kalshi hired me to make the most unhinged NBA Finals commercial possible.
Network TV actually approved this GTA-style madness 🤣
High-dopamine Veo 3 videos will be the ad trend of 2025.
Accetturo said he made the ad using Veo 3, Google's latest AI video generator. A Kalshi spokesperson confirmed to BI that the company hired Accetturo to make the ad and that it was generated entirely using Veo 3.
"Kalshi asked me to create a spot about people betting on various markets, including the NBA Finals," Accetturo wrote on X. "I said the best Veo 3 content is crazy people doing crazy things while showcasing your brand. They love GTA VI. I grew up in Florida. This idea wrote itself."
He said that he started by writing a rough script, turned to Gemini to generate a shot list and prompts, pasted it into Veo 3, and made the finishing touches in editing software.
To write the script, he said he asked Kalshi's team for pieces of dialogue they wanted to include, then thought up "10 wild characters in unhinged situations to say them." Accetturo said that he got help from Gemini and ChatGPT for coming up with ideas and working them into a script.
A screenshot he posted of this stage of his process showed dialogue like "Indiana gonna win baby" and "I'm all in on OKC" alongside characters like "rizzed out grandpa headed to the club" and "old lady in front of pickup truck that says 'fresh manatee' in a cooler behind her."
Accetturo said he then asked Gemini to turn every shot description into a Veo 3 prompt.
"I always tell it to return 5 prompts at a time—any more than that and the quality starts to slip," he wrote on X. "Each prompt should fully describe the scene as if Veo 3 has no context of the shot before or after it. Re-describe the setting, the character, and the tone every time to maintain consistency."
Accetturo said it took 300 to 400 generations to get 15 usable clips.
"We were not specifically looking for an AI video at first, but after getting quotes from production companies that were in the six or seven figure range with timelines that didn't fit our needs, we decided to experiment, and that's when we made the decision to go with AI and hire PJ," the Kalshi spokesperson told BI. "Given the success of this first ad, we are absolutely planning on doing more with AI."
The spokesperson said the video went from idea to live ad in three days, cost roughly $2,000 to make, and is on track to finish with 20 million impressions across mediums.
Accetturo told BI that he was "paid very well for the project" and now makes a "lot more as an AI director" than he did for live action contracts, which often involved weeks of work before and after the shoot compared to the few days the Kalshi ad required.
"The client got an insane ad for a great rate on a blistering timeline, and I got paid really well, while working in my underwear," he said.
In-game advertising is an $11 billion market, and Orange 142 has released a guide to help marketers unlock the opportunity. Orange 142 released a new best practices guide focused on in-game advertising. The guide is designed to help marketers unlock the full potential of gaming as a marketing channel, connecting with audiences in immersive env…Read More
Samsung Ads, the advanced advertising arm of Samsung Electronics, today announced a major expansion of its award-winning GameBreaks portfolio.Read More
Discord members are biting their nails. As reports swirl that the social media company is planning an initial public offering this year and increasingly leans on advertising revenue, there's fear that Discord will become engulfed in the enshittification that has already scarred so many online communities. Co-founder and CTO Stanislav Vishnevskiy claims he's worried about that, too.
In an interview with Engadget published today, Vishnevskiy claimed that Discord employees regularly discuss concerns about Discord going astray and angering users.
"I understand the anxiety and concern," Vishnevskiy said. "I think the things that people are afraid of are what separate a great, long-term focused company from just any other company."
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Maroon 5 will be visiting major cities across Asia before returning to Vegas to resume their residency in 2025.
Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Live Nation
Maroon 5's Las Vegas Residency and brief tour have come to a close for 2025, but it's not too late to see the band live if you're desperate for tickets. They still have one performance scheduled for the year, and we'll be keeping tabs on any new Maroon 5 tour details as they go live.
Originally formed in 1994, Maroon 5 celebrated 30 years together as they kicked off their Las Vegas residency in the summer at the Dolby Live at Park MGM in 2024. The new tour, referred to in shorthand as "M5LV: The Las Vegas Residency," is an extension of their 16-show residency from the previous year.
We've got you covered if you're looking for how to get tickets to Maroon 5's concert tour. Here's our breakdown of Maroon 5's show schedule, purchasing details, and original and resale ticket price comparisons. You can also browse ticket specifics at your leisure on StubHub and Vivid Seats.
Maroon 5's tour has come to a close so far for 2025, leaving only the band's summer appearance at Dick's Sporting Goods Open left to buy tickets for. We'll keep this story updated with new concert tour details as they go live.
How to buy tickets for the Maroon 5 2025 concert tour
You can buy standard original tickets for Maroon 5's 2025 concert tour on Ticketmaster and Live Nation. However, the quantity of remaining original tickets continues to decrease as each concert date approaches.
How much are Maroon 5 tickets?
With only the Dick's Sport Goods Open left for Maroon 5's 2025 schedule, the most affordable tickets for the band start at $116 from StubHub and $130 from Vivid Seats.
Who is opening for Maroon 5's tour?
Maroon 5 doesn't have any opening acts for its Las Vegas residency concert dates, and the band has not announced any opening acts for its international tour dates.
Will there be international tour dates?
Maroon 5's tour has concluded for 2025, leaving no international tour dates for fans to attend as of writing.
Every time I write an article about the escalating advertising and tracking on today's TVs, someone brings up Apple TV boxes. Among smart TVs, streaming sticks, and other streaming devices, Apple TVs are largely viewed as a safe haven.
"Just disconnect your TV from the Internet and use an Apple TV box."
That's the common guidance you'll hear from Ars readers for those seeking the joys of streaming without giving up too much privacy. Based on our research and the experts we've consulted, that advice is pretty solid, as Apple TVs offer significantly more privacy than other streaming hardware providers.
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