In 2023, viewers watched more than 30 billion hours of shopping-related videos on YouTube, according to the platform, which reports “a 25 percent increase in watch time” for videos that help people shop. The uptick coincided with the introduction of tagging features for creators, and now YouTube is expanding its retail involvement even further by allowing creators to set up storefronts and sell products in-app, as yet another way to monetize the service. The move comes as TikTok seeks to grow TikTok Shop as high as $17.5 billion in the U.S., a tenfold increase. Read more

Google is attacking slow-loading web pages with the new JPEG image encoder/decoder Jpegli, which offers a 35 percent compression ratio improvement using high quality compression settings, the Alphabet company says. The Jpegli JPEG coding library offers backward compatibility via “a fully interoperable encoder and decoder complying with the original JPEG standard and its most conventional 8-bit formalism, and API/ABI compatibility with libjpeg-turbo and MozJPEG,” Google says. The resulting images compressed using Jpegli are “more precise and psychovisually effective” as a result of computations that make images “look clearer” with “fewer observable artifacts.” Read more

Roku has applied for a patent on technology that is said to be able to display ads over any device plugged into your television. According to reports, the patent application describes a system that interacts with devices connected to TVs via HDMI, which could include everything from cable boxes, DVD or Blu-ray players, game consoles, PCs or other video-streaming devices. The patent, filed by Roku in August 2023, was published three months later, but still hasn’t been granted. The idea is to have even more ways to display ads when consumers aren’t actively streaming content. Roku already does so on its screensaver and home screen. Read more

AMC Networks revealed it plans to offer ad-supported versions of all of its streaming services for the 2024-2025 upfront market, as it makes a broader play to provide brands a pathway into each of the company’s video platforms. Concurrent to opening the networks to ads, the company will be offering consumers cost effective bundling options around those niche services in lieu of an umbrella AMC+ plan. AMC is rolling out the changes this week at the 2024-25 Upfronts in New York, where it is also emphasizing an increased horror content quotient. Read more

The Senate and House Commerce Committee chairs have jointly released a bipartisan bill that seeks to protect the personal online data of U.S. citizens. The American Privacy Rights Act aims to set “clear, national data privacy rights and protections for Americans” and establishes a way individuals can sue entities that violate its provisions. The proposed law represents a years-long effort by Congress to establish data privacy regulations. If it passes, it will preempt the various data privacy laws enacted by states including California, Colorado, Connecticut and Tennessee. Read more