MrBeast and Beast Industries have entered a multi-year partnership with Google that will incorporate Gemini and Google Health technology into upcoming video productions. The collaboration
TIME released its 2026 TIME100 Creators list, featuring creator and entrepreneur Alix Earle on the cover while recognizing 100 influential digital voices across social media, podcasting, gaming, fashion and lifestyle. The announcement also confirmed the return of the TIME100 Creators event in New York City later this month. Key Takeaways TIME announced its 2026 TIME100 Creators list recognizing 100 digital creators. Alix Earle appears on the cover of the 2026 TIME100 Creators issue. The list includes creators from fashion, beauty, gaming, podcasting and lifestyle. TIME confirmed the second annual TIME100 Creators event will take place in New York City on July 30. Max Alexander is the youngest creator included in the 2026 list at age 10. The Alix Earle TIME100 Creators 2026 announcement introduced this year’s group of 100 digital creators selected by TIME for their influence across social media and online publishing. The release placed creator and entrepreneur Alix Earle on the cover of the magazine’s latest issue while presenting creators working across fashion, beauty, lifestyle, gaming, podcasting, entertainment and digital media. TIME also confirmed that the second annual TIME100 Creators event will be held in New York City on July 30. The annual list recognizes creators whose work
Two of the most commonly misunderstood small business financing products are the revolving line of credit and the working capital advance. They solve similar problems through different structures, and the wrong choice for the specific use case can cost significantly more than the right one. Business owners evaluating these two products typically focus on the rate comparison and conclude that lines of credit are cheaper. This conclusion is accurate as a rate comparison but frequently inaccurate as a total cost comparison for the specific use case at hand. A revolving line of credit at fifteen percent APR is cheaper than a working capital advance at a 1.25 factor rate only if the business draws the full line amount and holds it for a long enough period that the APR calculation’s annual measurement is relevant to the actual usage pattern. For a business that draws $30,000 for sixty days and then repays, the factor rate product may produce a lower total dollar cost than the revolving line at the same dollar amount for the same period. The product selection decision should be driven by three specific questions rather than by a rate comparison alone: how long will the capital be needed,
TikTok AI literacy initiatives now include a new educational guide, expanded AI-generated content labeling, and plans for an in-app learning hub designed to help users recognize AI-created media. The updates also introduce additional detection measures aimed at improving transparency and reducing misleading AI-generated content across the platform. Key Takeaways TikTok released a new AI literacy guide created with industry partners. An in-app AI learning hub is scheduled to launch in the coming weeks. The platform expanded its AI-generated content labeling efforts. TikTok is testing stronger detection systems for AI-generated spam accounts. The company said it has labeled more than 3 billion AI-generated videos. TikTok has introduced a series of AI literacy initiatives intended to help users better understand and identify artificial intelligence-generated content. The updates include a new educational guide, expanded labeling for AI-generated media, improved detection systems for AI-created spam, and plans to launch an in-app learning hub in the coming weeks. The company said the measures are designed to increase transparency around AI-generated content while supporting responsible use of artificial intelligence across its platform. The announcements also expand TikTok’s existing efforts to identify and label AI-created videos shared by creators and users. What Did TikTok Announce? TikTok announced
Online reputation is formed by review pages, word of mouth, and customer experience, as well as via press coverage. And nowadays, small businesses are dealing with buyer-beware groups, local Facebook communities, screenshots, and comment threads, as well as audience-directed ‘warnings’ that spread before the facts are fully grasped. These spaces can serve a constructive purpose. Consumers require places where they can ask questions; people can be sure to speak up, share their concerns, and warn those they find threatening. Problems originate when consumer awareness increasingly becomes entertainment rather than prevention and insight. Kelly R. Scott, who owns Little Britches, has witnessed this switch-up close. After more than 25 years in children’s retail, Scott’s reputation was shaken when claims about her company spread online. She decided to defend herself in court and won, but the experience made her realize that a legal solution doesn’t overnight change public perception. “The last year, everything changed just for me,” Scott said. “My business was plastered with false online claims that spread rapidly and inflicted real damage. I battled it for 13 months. The result made it very clear what was false, but I’ve learned the hard way that when the truth is on paper,
Instagram head Adam Mosseri said the rise of AI-generated content is likely to increase demand for authentic human creators, offering new insight into how the platform views artificial intelligence and creator identity. Speaking during an episode of Lenny Rachitsky’s podcast, Mosseri also explained why Instagram intends to label AI-generated content rather than remove it, outlining the company’s current approach to transparency. Key Takeaways Adam Mosseri said AI-generated content could increase the value of human creators. Instagram plans to identify AI-generated content instead of filtering it out. Mosseri said users continue to value the people behind the content they consume. Instagram expects AI to create both opportunities and challenges for the platform. The comments were made during an episode of Lenny Rachitsky’s podcast. The discussion centered on how artificial intelligence is changing content creation across social media platforms. Addressing concerns about the rapid increase in AI-generated images, videos and digital personalities, Mosseri said he believes authentic creators will remain important because audiences seek more than the content itself. According to Mosseri, Instagram has long viewed creators as valuable because users connect with the individual behind each post. He said people are interested in a creator’s perspective, motivations and personal point of
YouTube creator and entrepreneur MrBeast has been announced as a guest shark for ABC’s Shark Tank Season 18. The upcoming season will feature him alongside several guest investors and the show’s returning panel, adding another television appearance to his expanding business portfolio. Key Takeaways MrBeast will appear as a guest shark on ABC’s Shark Tank Season 18. The new season is scheduled to premiere this fall. Several guest sharks from business and entertainment will join the show’s regular investors. The returning panel of permanent sharks will continue to evaluate entrepreneur pitches. MrBeast’s appearance follows continued growth across his business ventures beyond YouTube. The MrBeast Shark Tank announcement adds one of YouTube’s most recognizable creators to ABC’s investment series for its upcoming 18th season. Jimmy Donaldson, widely known as MrBeast, will join the show’s lineup of guest sharks, expanding the roster of entrepreneurs and business leaders who evaluate investment pitches. ABC confirmed that Donaldson will appear during Season 18, which is scheduled to premiere this fall. His participation places him alongside Beast Industries CEO Jeffrey Housenbold and several other guest sharks invited to join the series throughout the season. What Did ABC Announce About MrBeast’s Role? ABC announced that MrBeast
By: Editorial Staff, STAGE IIX Every day, business owners are told the same thing. Post more. Show up more. Stay consistent. Never let the algorithm forget you. The advice is everywhere. Create more Reels. Jump on trends. Batch 30 days of content. Be on every platform. Share more of your life. Stay visible. None of that advice is inherently wrong. But when it becomes your entire marketing strategy, it creates something far more dangerous than inconsistent posting. It creates burnout. According to business strategist and digital marketing expert Jordan Reynolds, the problem isn’t social media itself. The problem is that businesses have been taught to think like content creators instead of strategic brands. After more than a decade building businesses, leading marketing for a large, established company, and helping businesses across multiple industries grow their brands, Reynolds has noticed the same pattern again and again. The businesses that grow sustainably aren’t focused on creating as much content as possible. They’re creating the clearest strategy. “Content should support your business. It should never become your business.” We’ve Confused Visibility With Growth Photo Courtesy: Kaleigh Cox Somewhere along the way, social media stopped being a marketing tool and became the job. Business
For many years, organizations focused on attaining performance through systems, processes, and technology. They made large investments in efficiency. However, employee disengagement, burnout, and leadership issues increased during the same period. The reason is simple. Business results are created by people. Now, with AI moving into every corner of the enterprise, that truth is being tested and proven again. AI can hold infinite knowledge. It cannot lead a team through change, sit with someone’s grief, or know when to push and when to pause. That is wisdom, and wisdom is metabolized, not downloaded. This is the idea behind ThriveWell Partners, a leadership and organizational development consulting firm founded by DeAnne Aussem. With over 25 years of global business experience and over 4,000 hours of executive and leadership coaching, Aussem has an impressive track record of supporting leaders, teams, and organizations in achieving higher levels of performance without compromising well-being. At a time when companies are rethinking leadership, culture, and employee experience, and racing to adopt AI faster than they’re preparing their people to lead alongside it, ThriveWell Partners is helping organizations build workplaces where people can thrive and perform. The Leadership Challenge Organizations Can No Longer Ignore Organizations tend to
UTA creator economy leaders said digital creators are increasingly building long-term businesses that extend beyond traditional sponsorships, outlining how intellectual property, diversified revenue streams, and broader entertainment opportunities are reshaping creator careers. The discussion provides insight into how talent agencies are adapting their approach to creator representation. Key Takeaways UTA executives said many creators are expanding beyond traditional brand sponsorships. Intellectual property has become an important part of long-term creator business strategies. Agencies are helping creators pursue multiple revenue opportunities across entertainment and consumer businesses. Diversification beyond social platforms was identified as a priority for long-term career growth. AI presents new opportunities, but executives said authentic audience relationships remain essential. Ali Berman and Raina Penchansky, co-heads of the Creators division at United Talent Agency (UTA), discussed how representation for digital creators has expanded beyond negotiating sponsorship agreements into supporting broader business development. Their comments came during a recorded interview at the Cannes Lions advertising festival. According to the executives, creator careers have become increasingly multifaceted compared with earlier stages of the creator economy, when sponsorships and endorsement agreements represented a larger share of many creators’ businesses. They said many clients now pursue projects across multiple entertainment and commercial sectors instead
The underwriting technology that determines whether a business loan is approved has changed more in the past five years than in the prior fifty. Business owners who understand how the new models work have a practical advantage in every application they submit. Underwriting is the process by which a lender assesses the risk of a loan and determines whether to extend credit, at what amount, and at what price for that specific borrower profile. For most of the history of business lending, this process was performed by human underwriters reviewing assembled paper documents and applying judgment calibrated by experience, training, and regulatory guidance. The process was inherently slow because document assembly took days or weeks, human review took additional time, and the judgment required for consistency was inherently variable across different underwriters evaluating similar situations. It was also systematically biased in specific ways documented by decades of lending research. In 2027, the leading direct lenders have replaced the majority of this manual process with AI-driven underwriting systems that evaluate applications in seconds rather than days, using real-time data streams rather than historical documents, and applying consistent decision rules rather than variable human judgment. This transformation has produced faster decisions, more
In a creator economy obsessed with reach, FitLocal is making a contrarian bet, that the most valuable voices in fitness aren’t the mega-influencers with millions of followers, but the local trainers and gym owners who actually change lives in person, and that their authenticity is the content advantage no algorithm can manufacture. The Austin-based platform connects people with local gyms, personal trainers, and in-person classes. But what’s caught attention in the creator space isn’t just the product. It’s how the company has grown. Instead of buying audiences or chasing viral trends, FitLocal built its presence by putting real trainers on camera and letting their stories carry the brand. Authenticity over reach The centerpiece of FitLocal’s content strategy is a series called “Meet Your Trainer,” in which the team travels to local gyms, sits down with coaches, and tells their real stories, the path that brought them to training, their philosophy, the community they’ve built. There’s no polished influencer sheen. In fact, one of the company’s most-viewed posts openly jokes that the team are “absolutely not professionals when it comes to social media.” That rawness is the point. In roughly six months, FitLocal crossed more than one million organic social media
Beauty brands that first gained attention through creator videos are moving into major retail channels, where online demand can be tested through store traffic, product discovery, and repeat purchases. Recent moves by Rhode, Rare Beauty, Sephora, and TikTok Shop show how social media visibility is becoming part of the retail beauty playbook. Key Takeaways Beauty brands with strong social visibility are moving from TikTok and Instagram discovery into major retail channels. Rhode launched at Sephora in the U.S. and Canada on September 4, 2025, after more than 2 million unique searches across Sephora’s site and app. Rare Beauty expanded to all Ulta Beauty stores nationwide and Ulta.com on February 1, 2026. Sephora launched My Sephora Storefront in 2025 to let U.S. creators build shoppable product pages inside Sephora’s platform. TikTok Shop continues to shape beauty commerce while applying product requirements for beauty and personal care sellers. Beauty brands that gain traction on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube are no longer staying only inside social feeds. The For You Page can introduce a product to shoppers, but retail gives those shoppers a place to test shades, compare formulas, and buy through familiar channels. That shift is becoming clearer across the U.S. beauty
Mechanical watch assembly remains one of the most labor-intensive stages in modern watch production. Even as CNC machining and automated polishing systems became more common across China’s manufacturing sector, final assembly still depended heavily on manual sequencing, component fitting, and repeated inspection. According to data from the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, global wristwatch exports exceeded CHF 26 billion in 2023, reflecting sustained international demand for both quartz and mechanical products. Much of the lower- and middle-tier production connected to that market continues to rely on Asian manufacturing networks, particularly in Shenzhen and Guangdong, where OEM and ODM suppliers handle component production, assembly, and private-label manufacturing for overseas buyers. Within that manufacturing structure, Billow Time Watch Co., Ltd. developed into a Shenzhen-based OEM and ODM watch manufacturer specializing in third-party production. The company traces its origins to 2004, when the original factory began operations with 23 workers and eight machines. Early operations reportedly centered on polishing, drilling, and quality inspection processes rather than full-scale assembly. Public material published by the company states that the original structure did not yet include CNC machining, engineering departments, or international trading functions during its first years of operation. The company’s early production work
By: Peter Thompson When people think of Jimmy Buffett, they often think of music, beaches, relaxation, and a lifestyle built around enjoying the moment. But behind the songs and the laid-back image was something Scott Landes sees as far more strategic: a businessman who appeared to understand branding at a level many companies still work to achieve. For Scott Landes, author of Jimmy Buffett Brand Genius, the realization that Buffett was not simply a musician with commercial success came from watching what happened after the music expanded beyond the stage. As restaurants, hotels, resorts, and merchandise began appearing, Scott noticed something important. These businesses were not built around Jimmy Buffett as a celebrity. They were built around the feeling his audience already connected with. The focus was not on selling a person. It was on creating a world people wanted to enter. That was when Scott saw that Buffett’s success was not a vanity project. It appeared to be a carefully built business strategy centered around authenticity, emotion, and understanding what customers truly wanted. The Power of Selling an Emotion, Not a Product One of the key lessons from Jimmy Buffett’s career is that people rarely become loyal to products
A roof replacement is one of the largest exterior projects a homeowner will ever take on, and the experience can swing wildly depending on the contractor running the job. In the Vancouver, WA, and Portland, OR markets, where heavy rain, wind, and moss create some of the toughest conditions for exterior work in the country, the gap between a well-run install and a chaotic one shows up quickly. Closing that gap is what Jack Divine set out to do when he founded Valiant Roofing in 2018. Now a 40-plus person operation serving homeowners across the Pacific Northwest, Valiant Roofing has grown from a startup into a roofing contractor in Vancouver, WA known for documented processes, in-house crews, and a 4.9-star average across hundreds of verified Google reviews. The company also handles gutters, siding, decks, windows, and Tesla Solar Roof and Powerwall installations. The underlying philosophy is consistent across every project. The team treats the install like a production process, not a one-off job. Photo Courtesy: Valiant Roofing, LLC Why Pacific Northwest Weather Shapes Every Roof Replacement The Vancouver and Portland corridor is a notoriously difficult environment for roofing. Annual rainfall averages above 40 inches in many neighborhoods, wind events knock