Media

Everyone knows YouTubers and other creators are popular with internet users of all ages. But today, these influencers also have real businesses powered by a range of software tools and service providers who help weave videos, pictures, clips, memes and other types of content into sustainable succes

Myanmar’s government extends its internet crackdown, Microsoft’s lobbying arm blacklists presidential election objectors and Dublin’s Frontline Ventures raises a new fund. This is your Daily Crunch for February 5, 2021. The big story: Myanmar blocks Twitter and Instagram

Tickr, an app that allows U.K. consumers to make financial investments based on their impact on society and the environment, has secured £2.5 million ($3.4 million) in funding lead by Ada Ventures, a VC which focuses on “impact” startups. The cash will be used for product development,

India is restoring 4G internet services in Jammu and Kashmir, a senior government official said Friday evening, 18 months after imposing a sweeping communications blackout in the Muslim-majority region in an attempt to curb the spread of potential backlash over New Delhi’s decision to revoke

Latitude, a startup building games with “infinite storylines” generated by artificial intelligence, is announcing that it has raised $3.3 million in seed funding. The idea of an AI-generated story might make you think of hilariously nonsensical experiments like “Sunspring,”

Mountaintop, a sort of supergroup game development studio founded by veterans from a multitude of other major companies in the industry, has collected a $5.5 seed round from friends and family, and announced that their first title will be a PvP shooter. The company emerged last summer, headed by Oc

Affirm, Afterpay, Klarna, Quadpay. These are some of the big global players in the buy now, pay later (BNPL) movement. They allow shoppers to purchase products online and pay in installments with nominal or no fees, and have become more prominent due to how the pandemic accelerated e-commerce marke

Mobile Premier League (MPL) has raised $95 million in a new financing round, just five months after it secured $90 million as the two-and-a-half-year-old Bangalore-based esports and gaming platform looks to grow in international markets. The new $95 million round, a Series D, was led by Composite C

Remote video podcasting is surprisingly still something of a Wild West these days. Given the massive sums of money currently being pumped into the category — not to mention the fact that pretty much all podcasting became remote podcasting in 2020 — you'd expect there to be a more un

TikTok announces additional steps to fight misinformation, Myanmar’s military cracks down on Facebook and Google’s subsea cable goes online. This is your Daily Crunch for February 3, 2021. The big story: TikTok will downrank ‘unsubstantiated’ claims TikTok ha

Spotify again signaled its interest in developing new ways to monetize its investments in podcasts. In the company’s fourth-quarter earnings, chief executive Daniel Ek suggested the streaming media company foresees a future where there will be multiple business models for podcasts, including,

Myanmar’s new military government has ordered local telecom firms to temporarily block Facebook until February 7 midnight, days after the military seized power in the Southeast Asian nation in a military coup. Several users on Myanmar subreddit reported moments ago that Facebook was already i

The idea of a virtual concert tour might seem tailor-made for the pandemic, but musician Todd Rundgren said he’s actually been thinking about something like this for years. Rundgren told me that he’d become frustrated with our “collapsing” air travel system — exacerbated b

Several high-level Apple services are experiencing issues and outages on Wednesday morning, Apple has confirmed. These issues are impacting a number of consumer-facing services, including Apple Music and Radio, Apple Books, and the App Store platforms across both iOS devices and Mac. For some users