Super Bowl ads are an event unto themselves. Brands now spend millions both on producing their game day ads and of course on their placement.
YouTube has realized the value of its service in regard to live events such as the Super Bowl, and is offering advertisers the ability to get their hallowed TV spots online early via its AdBlitz platform.
A YouTube channel and separate website, AdBlitz — which has been available for the past seven years — is already seeing brands upload sneak peeks and clips of their Super Bowl 50 ads, weeks before kickoff.
AdBlitz currently features clips from KFC and website builder Wix.com, with more to come. The platform also allows users to vote for and share their favorite game day ads. And, according to Google, it’s been a massive success.
In 2015, people watched the equivalent of 1,600 years of Super Bowl ads on YouTube, with 40 percent of that viewing time taking place before game day. An additional 300,000 hours of ads were watched online during the game itself.
In order to further capitalize on those blockbuster figures, Google today announced that it is launching a real-time advertising tool. The new feature will work across all of Google’s platforms, allowing brands and marketers to run ads timed to big moments during live events. The feature, which is currently in beta mode, was reportedly utilized by a Marco Rubio Super PAC during a candidates’ debate night and will also be applied during this year’s Oscars.
Google is acutely aware that both YouTube and its other platforms act as mere second screens compared to the main event. The numbers, however, prove that may still be enough to attract advertisers. The Web giant claims that advertisers that publish spots online before the Super Bowl accumulate 2.2 times more views than ads scheduled for game day.
Meanwhile, the price for Super Bowl spots has increased a massive 76 percent over the last decade, according to Kantar Media. CBS executives have reportedly revealed that their Super Bowl rate for this year is north of $5 million. All that for a fleeting clip during an already noisy broadcast. No wonder advertisers are seeking out new avenues for their investments.
Discord is trying to push more visibility on the internet for some of its biggest communities, and there's a good chance your messages could end up in a Google Search. The platform is preparing to make conversations from certain public servers searchable on the web, so there's a privacy setting you might want to check before the rollout begins.
According to Discord's official announcement, the changes will roll out in two stages. Starting November 16, qualifying servers will have public web pages featuring automated summaries of conversations. By mid-December, individual messages from eligible public channels could also appear word-for-word in Google and other search engines.
You just opened X and started typing your thoughts. Imagine the jump scare when a hand suddenly pops up on your screen, pointing at the promote button. It doesn’t say a word and simply points. For a growing number of X users, this isn’t a made-up scenario but something they have been seeing since yesterday, and very few of them are amused.
Most of us have learned to tune out the usual in-app upsells, whether it’s a glowing upgrade banner or a pop-up about a premium plan. A floating hand hovering over your draft is much harder to ignore, and that’s probably the whole point.
Scroll through any app for five minutes, and you’ll find someone maxxing something. Their skin, their sleep, their protein intake, even their Friday night on the couch. That little suffix has been everywhere this year, and now it has a trophy to show for it. In a recent announcement, Dictionary.com named maxxing its 2026 Word of the Year.
What are people actually doing when they’re maxxing?