- Gap Inc. bets big on beauty, accessories: At the Goldman Sachs Global Retailing Conference Thursday, Gap Inc. CEO Richard Dickson called these high-margin “sleeper categories” that its customers want.
- Ulta expands globally with Mexico store openings: The beauty retailer debuted two locations in the country last month and says it is on track to open its first location in the Middle East this year.
- American Eagle’s celebrity marketing drew outcry — and new customers: The brand defended its controversial ads with Sydney Sweeney, claiming the campaign contributed to “unprecedented” customer acquisition.
- Home Depot closes on GMS acquisition: The $5.5 billion deal to acquire GMS, which specializes in drywall, ceilings and steel framing, bolsters Home Depot’s pro offerings.
- Mattel restructures its brand leadership team: The reset includes adding two new roles: chief global brand officer and global head of dolls.
- Target scales back on in-store fulfillment strategy: The retailer will take recent learnings about which stores are “built to fulfill” and apply it to up to 40 more locations by the year’s end.
- Macy’s posts first sales growth in years, but tariffs cast a shadow: More staff and better visual merchandising in stores drove the namesake banner’s improvements, CEO Tony Spring said Wednesday.
- In an experiment, Neelam Tailor, set up teenager TikTok accounts and found that within minutes the female profile was bombarded with eating disorder content, while the male account was bombarded by misogyny.
- A ournalist for CityAM conducted a thorough investigation into a fake journalist and discovered that not only was the story he was pitching fabricated, but the journalist himself was also a fake.
- There are two things you should always have in mind when creating a story, emotion and timeliness.
- ‘I felt doomed’: social media guessed I was pregnant – and my feed soon grew horrifying: My social media algorithms knew I was pregnant before family, friends or my GP. Within 24-hours, they were transforming my feeds. On Instagram and …
- Nepal to block some social media including Facebook: Nepal said on Thursday it would block access to several social media platforms, including Facebook, after they failed to register with authorities …
- Nepal moves to block Facebook, X, YouTube and others: The restrictions come after the social media giants failed to meet state registration requirements, says government.
- Govt to shut down 26 social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube: The government has written to the Nepal Telecommunications Authority to shut down the social media platforms from today. According to a source, a …
- The teen social media crisis is here. What now?: Here’s what percentage of teens actually use social media, how often they’re doing so and why the platforms can be uniquely harmful to them.
- Stacey Dooley explores the rise of social media as a go-to for health advice in new BBC documentary: Stacey Dooley seeks to separate fact from fiction, uncovering the truth behind the biggest health trends taking over our social media feeds.
- Nepal bans Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and 23 other social media platforms, here’s why: Tech News : Nepal has banned major social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and X after they failed to register with the government by the …
- Storytelling on social media: forging the path to tourism destination branding: In the digital era, the emergence of social media has led to a shift in storytelling practices, resulting in an increased focus on researching …
- Nepal orders ban on major social media platforms: “Nepal’s sweeping ban on social media sets a dangerous precedent for press freedom,” said CPJ Regional Director Beh Lih Yi. “Blocking online news …
- We have let down teens if we ban social media but embrace AI: Governments are looking to ban social media for children but can’t get enough of AI – a technology parents are far less equipped to deal with.
- Software giant Atlassian to acquire The Browser Co., a startup offering AI-enhanced web browsers, for $610M.
- An Indianapolis based bankruptcy attorney, named Mark Steven Zuckerberg, is suing Meta over repeated confusion with CEO Mark Elliot Zuckerberg: The attorney is suing Meta for negligence and breach of contract, saying that Facebook shuts down his pages for using a “false name” and “impersonating a celebrity.”
- OpenAI announces AI-powered hiring platform to take on LinkedIn: OpenAI is developing an AI-powered hiring platform to connect businesses and employees. The service will put OpenAI in competition with LinkedIn. OpenAI plans to launch the OpenAI Jobs Platform by mid-2026. The company is interested in expanding into several new markets beyond its core offering.
- Stripe enlists a who’s who, including Anthropic, OpenAI, and Paradigm, to build a new blockchain: Stripe is funding a new blockchain company called Tempo aimed at high-volume processing of stablecoins. It has already enlisted an eye-popping list of partners, including Anthropic, Coupang, Deutsche Bank, DoorDash, Lead Bank, Mercury, Nubank, OpenAI, Revolut, Shopify, Standard Chartered, and Visa, to use or offer the blockchain for everything from agentic payments to remittances. Matt Huang, Stripe board member and co-founder of Paradigm, one of the most prestigious crypto VC firms, has signed on to lead the project. Tempo will be run as an independent company.
- An ant queen mass produces cloned sons of ANOTHER SPECIES: An ant queen from the species Messor ibericus was observed producing cloned males of another species, Messor structor. The two species split about 5 million years ago. When the Messor ibericus queen makes daughters, she mixes her DNA with sperm to create hybrids, but when she makes sons, she erases her own DNA entirely, resulting in males that are exact clones. The queen had stored the sperm of the other species in her reproductive tract, resulting in sons with the other species’ genome.
- Amazon’s Satellite Internet Venture Signs Up Its First Airline: JetBlue Airways has agreed to use Amazon’s Project Kuiper to provide Wi-Fi service for a quarter of its fleet. Customers will gain access to the service starting in 2027. Amazon plans to begin testing a beta version of Kuiper with customers later in 2025 or early next year. Kuiper is pushing to sell future capacity on its network, which is expected to have around 3,200 satellites when built out.
- How I solved a distributed queue problem after 15 years: Reddit used a simple and scalable queue architecture to record upvotes that scaled well, but broke in all sorts of tricky ways. The company eventually moved to durable queues, which enabled failed jobs to resume from their last completed step, meaning no data was lost when there were program crashes. Durable queues work by combining task queues with durable workflows, which helps reliably orchestrate workflows of many parallel tasks. Architecturally, they resemble conventional queues, but use a persistent store as both message broker and backend.
- China’s DeepSeek Preps AI Agent for End-2025 to Rival OpenAI: DeepSeek is developing an AI model designed to carry out multi-step actions on users’ behalf with minimal direction. The system is meant to learn and improve based on its prior actions. Since its R1 model, the Chinese upstart has only put out minor upgrades. While local media attributes R2’s delay to DeepSeek’s determination to get it right, others have speculated about various glitches in training or development.
- Atlassian agrees to acquire The Browser Co. for $610 million: Atlassian has agreed to acquire The Browser Company for $610 million in cash. The companies aim to close the deal in Atlassian’s fiscal second quarter. Atlassian plans to take Arc’s SaaS application experience and power user features, Dia’s AI and elegance, speed, and sort of svelte nature, and Atlassian’s enterprise know-how, and work out how to put all that together into Dia. Established in 2019, The Browser Company competes against some of the world’s largest companies, including Google and Apple.
- PostgreSQL 18 eyes analytics boost and distributed future: PostgreSQL 18, set to be released later this month, will introduce a new asynchronous I/O subsystem that will allow read statements to be called from disk more quickly.
- iPhone 17, the ‘thinnest iPhone ever,’ and everything else we’re expecting out of Apple’s hardware event: Apple’s new hardware event will start at 10 AM PT on September 9.
- Why The Browser Company is being acquired to bring Dia to the masses: Atlassian will provide The Browser Company with the resources to keep building without compromising its values.
- Neuralink expands to Canada with successful brain implants in spinal injury patients: Two people in Toronto have received Neuralink brain implants.
- AI traffic isn’t converting better than search. Amsive analyzed 54 websites and found organic traffic converted at 4.6% vs. 4.87% for LLM referrals – a difference that wasn’t statistically significant. LLM visits also made up less than 1% of sessions, compared to nearly a third from organic search. Google has claimed AI referrals bring more qualified clicks, but this is the second study to challenge that. Bottom line: Organic search still dominates. LLM traffic might grow, but it’s not replacing search anytime soon.
- Salesforce still sees a place for live customer service agents after massive cuts: The company slashed about 4,000 customer service agents as its use of AI picked up, but CEO Marc Benioff still expects people and AI to work together.
- Consumer sentiment declines as price sensitivity persists: Consumers are tightening their purse strings and prioritizing essentials while cutting back on discretionary goods.
- Best Buy, Uber Eats partner on same-day delivery, scheduled drop-offs: Shoppers can use the Uber Eats app to have electronics delivered from over 800 of the retailer’s locations.
- Nike reframes ‘Just Do It’ as ‘Why Do It?’ to engage next-gen athletes: The brand is working to realign around sports and encourage young athletes in a climate marked by sociopolitical contention and economic pressure.
- Snap’s new app ad formats aim to lower CPAs, drive reach: Among the new offerings are Playable App Ads that allow Snapchat users to try a mini version of an advertiser’s game without leaving the app.
- Why Checkers and Rally’s are keeping the pedal to the metal on value: CMO Scott Johnson explains why the sister chains’ social team can post without an approval process to speed up cultural reaction time.
- TikTok Shop isn’t just another sales channel; it’s a fast-moving ecosystem built on authenticity, momentum, and creator-led discovery. A clear 3-stage roadmap is emerging for digital marketers ready to tap into TikTok’s commerce engine. Whether you’re just launching or already seeing traction, knowing which stage you’re in is the difference between spinning your wheels and scaling with purpose.
- Meta advertising has quietly but radically changed. And if your campaign structure still resembles what worked five years ago, chances are you’re wasting budget without realizing it.
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Facebook Is Trying To Make Pokes Happen (Again)
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YouTube Announces Expanded Content Hosting Deal With Sesame Street: The deal will bring more young viewers to the app.
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X Faces Regulatory Pushback Over In-Stream Payments Plan: Elon’s “everything app” vision may have to take a back seat once again.
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Meta Shares Tips on How To Optimize Holiday Campaigns: Some pointers for your Facebook and Instagram marketing efforts this holiday season.
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X Launches Holiday Marketing Hub To Steer Brands’ Efforts: Some handy tips for your holiday campaigns.
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TikTok Offers Movie Ticket Sales In-App, Powered by Fandango: A new expansion of TikTok’s in-app shopping options.
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LinkedIn Expands Company Page and Recruiter Verification: The updates will provide more assurance for LinkedIn users.
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Threads Launches 10K Character Text Expansion for Posts: Now you can add more context to your Threads updates.
TLDR: Social Media Headlines – 5 September 2025
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Nightmare King
Imagine jou ma skep jou kos in \’n bakkie…en die bakkie ry weg.
Fiend Oblivion
Fun South African Fact: Towns like Franschhoek and Stellenbosch boast world-class wine farms in beautiful settings.