What are the most popular types of YouTube videos in 2021?

Article | February 19, 2020

Sometimes the statistics around how many people are streaming music – and how many are paying for it – can lead to confusion and misinterpretation. Recently, for example, we’ve seen one story suggesting that Amazon was “on course to overtake Apple Music” based on comparing an Amazon figure from January 2020 with one from Apple that hadn’t been updated since June 2019. Another story claimed that “Pandora has overtaken Apple for second spot” in subscriber rankings, which mistakenly compared the former’s number of active listeners (most of whom don’t pay) to the latter’s paid subscriber count.

Article | February 19, 2020

Ever since the adoption of VR gaming to the gaming market, it sure has seen upheavals—disruption by significant players in the industry like PSVR, Rift, and the Vive. PSVR has been the best-selling VR headset ever since its launch, selling over 5 million units on December 31st, 2020. While these numbers portray PSVR as successful, its hardware is lacking behind, and still, no sign of upgrades has been hinted by Sony. Speaking of which, a lot of gamers have long been waiting for a hardware upgrade or a hardware sequel—PSVR 2—from Sony, but very little or nothing has been said on this matter.

MEDIA AND BROADCASTING

Article | February 19, 2020

The market disconnect between the proliferation of independent content creators and the consolidation of brand IP into the hands of ever-fewer major players is growing increasingly stark. On the one hand, independent artists are the fastest-growing sector of the music market. User-generated content (UGC) has proved a huge success during lockdown for the likes of TikTok and Roblox. The traditional brand celebrity spokesperson has ceded ground to the influencer, and even they to the micro-influencer. Content proliferation has driven increasingly niche content to niche audiences, finding smaller fan bases to resonate with instead of attempting the now nigh-impossible cut-through to mainstream popularity. This is the paradox of small: the long tail accounts for a growing share of content consumption, but the fractional economics of on-demand environments means that those in the long tail earn too little to be economically sustainable. Access to the means of distribution may have been democratised, but access to meaningful rights income has not.

MEDIA AND BROADCASTING

Article | February 19, 2020

Playing virtual reality video games is a blast—but it also takes work. If you simply want to kick back, relax, and experience some mind-bending visuals without thinking too much, why not try watching Netflix in VR? It's ridiculously easy to do, even if you don't have state-of-the-art equipment. There are three primary methods, depending on what kind of device you're working with: fire up the Netflix VR app on Android, set up mirroring with your iPhone, or simply download the Netflix app from your preferred Oculus device. Here's What You'll Need VR headset: No matter your budget, there's a virtual reality option for you. On the pricey end, there are sophisticated VR headsets like the Oculus Quest 2, which starts at $299, and the HTC Vive Pro Eye, which retails for $799. We've included a few other options in the gallery below, too. If you're looking for something less expensive, there's the $99 Google Daydream View system (discontinued, but you can still find them here and there), the Samsung Gear VR headset (which the manufacturer has also discontinued in the U.S., but you can find it on Amazon for $128), and the $25 Google Cardboard viewer (although you may want to purchase an additional head strap for it).