Do you know where your drinking water comes from?
In South Florida, drinking water comes from the Everglades, a vast landscape of wetlands that has long filtered the water relied on by millions of people.
But as the Everglades has shrunk over the past century, the regions water supply and water quality have become increasingly threatened, including by harmful algal blooms fueled by agriculture runoff. Now, the water supply faces another rising challenge: saltwater intrusion.
[Photo: South Florida Water District/Flickr/CC BY-ND 2.0]
Protecting South Floridas water hinges on restoring the Everglades. Thats why, 25 years ago, the federal government and universities launched the worlds largest ecosystem restoration effort ever attempted.
Im involved in this work as an ecosystem ecologist. The risks I see suggest continuing to restore the Everglades is more crucial today than ever.
What happened to the Everglades?
The Florida Everglades is a broad mosaic of freshwater, sawgrass marshes, cypress domes and tree islands, mangrove forests, and seagrass meadows all connected by water.
But it is half its original size. In the early 1900s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began installing canals and levees to control flooding in the Everglades, which allowed people to build farms and communities along its edges. The Tamiami Trail became the first road across the Everglades in 1928. It connected Tampa to Miami, but the road and canals cut off or diverted some of the natural water flow in South Florida.
Since then, Floridas economy, agriculture, and population have explodedand with them has come a nutrient pollution problem in the Everglades.
The major crop, sugarcane, is grown in a region south of Lake Okeechobee covering 1,100 square miles thats known as the Everglades Agricultural Area. Nearly 80 tons of phosphorus fertilizer from federally subsidized farm fields runs off into the Everglades wetlands each year. And that has become a water quality concern. Drinking water with elevated nitrogen is linked to human health problems, and elevated phosphorus and associated algal blooms can cause microbes to accumulate toxins such as mercury.
Healthy wetlands can filter out those nutrients and other pollutants, cleaning the water.
Some of the ways the Everglades filters water contaminated with phosphorus. [Image: South Florida Water Management District]
Rain falling in the Everglades percolates through the porous limestone and recharges the Biscayne Aquifer, which supplies drinking water for 1 in 3 Floridians.
But wetlands need time and space to function properly, and the damage from farm pollution has harmed that natural filtering system.
By the 1990s, Everglades wetlands and the wildlife they support hit a critical stress level from elevated concentrations of phosphorus, a nutrient in fertilizer that washes off farm fields and fuels the growth of toxic algal blooms and invasive species that can choke out native plant populations.
The changes led to seagrass die-offs and widespread invasion of sawgrass marshes by cattail and harmful algal blooms. Degraded wetlands can themselves become pollution sources that can contaminate surface water and groundwater quality by decreasing oxygen in the water, which can harm aquatic life, and releasing chemicals and nutrients as they decay.
A vast restoration campaign
Congress approved the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan in 2000 to support reducing phosphorus concentrations by re-creating large wetlands areas to remove excess nutrients and reestablishing more of the natural water depth to bolster native populations.
That restoration effort is making progress in reonnecting wetlands to natural water flows by rehydrating large areas that were cut off. Phosphorus levels are lower in many wetlands that now remain hydrated longer, and in these wetlands freshwater is recharging the aquifer, helping sustain the drinking water supply.
However, delays in critically important components of that work have left some wetlands in degraded conditions for longer than expected, especially in regions near and downstream of the Everglades Agricultural Area, where phosphorus concentrations remain stubbornly high.
An algal bloom spreads in Floridas Lake Okeechobee, at the heart of the Everglades. [Photo: Nicholas Aumen/USGS]
South Florida continues to experience harmful algal blooms from phosphorus reaching rivers and the coast, resulting in fish kills and the deaths of manatees. Red tide can shut down fishing and keep beach-going tourists away, harming local economies. This pollution is estimated to have cost Floridas economy US$2.7 billion in 2018.
The unexpected risk: Saltwater
An unforeseen threat has also started to creep into the Everglades: saltwater.
As sea level rises, saltwater reaches further inland, both in rivers and underground through the porous limestone beneath South Florida. Saltwater intrusion also occurs when wells draw down aquifers to provide water for drinking or irrigation. That saltwater is causing parts of the Everglades marshes, often referred to as a river of grass, to collapse into open water.
The loss of these freshwater marshes reduces the capacity of the Everglades to remove phosphorus from the water. And that means more nutrients flowing downstream, contaminating aquifers and causing harmful algal blooms to form in coastal waters.
The red line shows how far saltwater had intruded into aquifers beneath Fort Lauderdale as of 2019. [Image: South Florida Water Management District]
Scientists have learned that marsh plants need freshwater pulses during the wet season, from April to November, to avoid saltwater intrusion.
For example, saltwater intruded about one mile inland between 2009 and 2019 in parts of the Fort Lauderdale area. More freshwater is needed to push the saltwater back out to sea.
However, the restoration effort was never intended to combat saltwater intrusion.
Reasons for optimism
Despite the continuing challenges, I am optimistic because of how scientists, policymakers and communities are working together to protect the Everglades and drinking water.
I lead part of that restoration work through the Florida Coastal Everglades Long Term Ecological Research program. The effort started at Florida International University on May 1, 2000, the same year the Everglades restoration plan was authorized by Congress.
Our research was used to set the levels of nutrients allowable to still protect the regions water supplies, and we have been working for 25 years to reduce saltwater intrusion and phosphorus pollution to ensure drinking water for South Florida remains both fresh and clean. We continually use our research to inform water managers and policymakers of the best practices to reduce saltwater intrusion and pollution.
As saltwater intrusion continues to threaten South Floridas freshwater aquifer, Everglades restoration and protection will be increasingly important.
Everyone in the region can help.
By rehabilitating degraded wetlands, allowing for more freshwater to flow throughout the Everglades ecosystems, reducing the use of freshwater on lawns and crops, and reusing municipal water for outdoor needs, South Florida can keep its drinking water safe for generations of future residents and visitors. This is something that everyone can contribute to.
Marjory Stoneman Douglas, Miamis renowned conservationist who helped establish the Everglades National Park, often said, The Everglades is a test. If we pass it, we may get to keep the planet.
John Kominoski is a professor of biological xciences at Florida International University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
We all know the Sunday scariesthat creeping anxiety as the weekend winds down. But what you might not realize is that leaders experience it too.
As a CEO, Ive found that the best way to fend off Sunday dread is by fully unplugging. At least once a week, I do a digital detox, shutting off my devices to be fully present with my wife and kids.
Sometimes, we turn on the radio and play board games; other times, we stay in pajamas and take on a new cooking or baking challenge. Its our version of sndagshyggethe Danish idea of embracing cozy Sundays with tea, books, music, blankets, and other at-home rituals.
While personal rituals can help, leaders can also play a role in easing their team members back-to-work anxiety. The question becomes: How can we support employees in making that transition? While theres no silver bullet, Ive found a few strategies that make a meaningful difference.
Leading with empathy
When it comes to facing challenges, togetherness is one of the most powerful antidotes to managing stress.
Its like heading into a storm in a rowboathaving just one person by your side, paddling with you and understanding your perspective, can make all the difference.
Thats what empathy is aboutdemonstrating to others that you truly identify with and understand their thoughts, emotions, and perspectives.
Empathetic leaders show they care about their employees through words and through actionschecking in with them, actively listening, and acknowledging each persons unique circumstances. The result is a workplace where employees feel psychologically safe, fostering open and honest discussions.
Studies have shown that employees with highly empathetic leaders are more engaged at workand more innovative, too. When a leader listens and genuinely makes an effort to understand their teams perspective, it builds trust and fosters collaboration.
Knowing that this kind of supportive, understanding environment exists beyond the weekend can go a long way toward quelling the Sunday scaries.
Promoting a healthy work-life balance
Respecting each employees need to maintain a work-life balance is an essential part of an empathetic work environment. That means treating employees as individuals, not just cogs in a machine.
I reflect on my own experience when my wife and I had our children. For me, it was crucial to be able to delegate responsibilities and take parental leave. Each time I returned to the office (admittedly a bit tired, as newborns dont care about your sleep schedule) I was ready to dive back in. I aim to offer the same flexibility and understanding to our team members.
Research backs up the idea that supporting employees work-life balance can have a major positive impact. A 2023 survey from the American Psychological Association found that 92% of workers believe its important to work for an organization that values their emotional and psychological well-being.
Studies conducted by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health have shown that when managers are trained to respect work-life harmony, employee job satisfaction increases and turnover decreases.
Offering flexibility based on personal circumstanceswhether that means allowing employees to fully unplug for the evening or weekend, or taking a few hours off to attend their childs soccer gamehas helped us to maintain a low turnover rate at Jotform.
When employees return refreshed, they might not whistle every moment while they work, but they seem genuinely engaged and content to be back at their desks on Monday.
Gamifying the workplace
Its hard to explain why adding a game-like dimension to an everyday activity can fuel motivation, but it does. Why else would brands like Nike and Fitbit offer users personalized feedback, social interaction, and even some friendly competition? Knowing youll earn that badge or publicly top your personal best pushes you to clock that extra mile.
Experts call it gamificationleveraging game-like mechanisms, like the ones youd find in video games, to make real-world activities more engaging.
Gamification has been shown to increase motivation and engagement. It makes employees more willing to take on repetitive tasks, engage in risks, and even fail.
Surveys have found that gamification provides a sense of belonging and connection in the workplace. Employees report being more productive and happier at work. In short, gamification makes work, including the occasional mundane task, more fun.
When employees participate in incentivized tasks, theyre not just motivated, theyre also excited. This excitement helps counteract the Sunday scaries. Instead of dreading the workweek ahead, employees are looking forward to the challenges and rewards of gamified tasks.
Whether its earning points for hitting targets or engaging in friendly competitions with coworkers, the gamified experience gives them something to anticipate.
And with AI making gamification more accessible and fun than ever, theres no reason why leaders cant bring this kind of excitement to the workplace, helping employees feel energized and eager to start their weekon Monday and beyond.
The 2025 NFL Draft is next week, and the front-runner for the No. 1 overall pick, University of Miami quarterback Cam Ward, is an anomaly. In any other year, the top prospect being a journeyman who attended three schools in five years and ended his career by losing the Pop Tarts Bowl would be nearly impossible.
But now it may be the new reality of the college-to-pro transition.
The impact of the transfer portal and name, image, and likeness (NIL) legislation means the traditional “stay or go pro” dilemma is no longer binary. Theres now a third path: Transfer strategically, build your brand, enhance your draft value, and collect NIL checks along the wayall while staying in college.
The age of player mobility and monetization
For decades, college athletes were not allowed to make money in any way, shape, or form related to their sport or likeness without sacrificing their amateur status. That changed in 2021, when NIL legislation empowered athletes to sign endorsement deals, monetize their social media, and collect appearance fees, ending the era in which players could lose eligibility for something as simple as eating too much pasta at a team banquet.
Now, players in marquee positions at top schools can average between $75,000 and $800,000 in NIL dollars annually. In 2024, University of Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders led all college football with $6.2 million in NIL dealssomething that likely factored into his decision to forgo last years NFL draft and return to Colorado for his senior season.
Meanwhile, the transfer portal now allows players to transfer freely between schools without having to sit out a year, as was previously required (think free agency, but for college). Under these new rules, FBS scholarship transfers rose from 1,946 in 2021-22 to 2,303 in 2022-23, reaching 2,707 in 2023-24, according to NBC Sports.
In 2023-24 alone, the total number of NCAA football players across all divisions who entered the portal exceeded 11,000. Already this year, more than 400 players have entered the spring portal since it opened on Wednesday, meaning more players are using it every year to take control of their college careers and future NFL prospects.
Case study No. 1: Cam Ward
Ward and Sanders, this years top two quarterback prospects, took different routes to the draft, yet are each a product of the new landscape.
Ward finished high school as an unknown zero-star prospect who went to the only school that wanted him: the University of the Incarnate Word, an FCS program in Texas. Two years and 71 touchdowns later, having made a name for himself, Ward transferred to Washington State, further elevating his national profile over two seasons before declaring for the 2024 NFL Draft.
The problem was that some experts didnt even consider him a top-100 prospect at the time. So with the opportunity to improve his draft stockand the promise of NIL dollarshe chose to return to school, transferring for a second time in three years, this time to Miami. As a Hurricane, Ward was a Heisman Trophy finalist and won the Davey O’Brien Award, given to the nations top quarterback. He also landed $2 million in NIL deals along the way while positioning himself as the potential No. 1 overall pick, where he is likely to match or exceed the $39.5 million fully guaranteed contract last years No. 1 pick, University of Southern California quarterback Caleb Williams, signed with the Chicago Bears.
According to one NFL evaluator, had Ward stayed at Incarnate Word, as he would have in a pre-transfer portal world, he would likely be a fifth-round pick at best.
Case Study No. 2: Shedeur Sanders
Projected to go as high as eighth overall in the 2024 draft, Sanders, who transferred to Colorado from Jackson State before his junior year, passed on the NFL and returned to college, where he earned $6.5 million in NIL deals.
The Atlanta Falcons selected Michael Penix Jr. eighth overall in that draft. Had Sanders been that pick, we can assume he would have received something akin to Penix Jr.s four-year, fully guaranteed rookie contract worth $22.88 million with a $13.46 million signing bonus. This year, Sanders has been projected to go as high as No. 3 to the New York Giants, with whom he held a private workout this week. Should that happen, he could expect to receive at least what University of North Carolina quarterback Drake Maye received at the No. 3 slot last yeara fully guaranteed four-year, $36.63 million deal with the New England Patriots (with a $23.46 million signing bonus).
If thats how Sanderss chips fall on Thursday, his net gain will be roughly $13.75 million in NFL contract dollars, plus the $6.5 million in NIL money, meaning he will effectively have netted more than $20 million just for staying in school.
But Sanders’s gamble carries risk. Recent mock drafts show Sanders sliding, with some analysts predicting he could fall outside the top 10. If that happens, his decision to skip last year’s draft might prove a financial miscalculation, even with his NIL earnings.
This is the calculus today’s college stars faceimmediate pro security versus betting on themselves while earning NIL money. It’s a high-stakes game with career-defining consequences.
Risky for players, good for the NFL
NFL draft analysts project only 55 to 65 underclassmen in the 2025 draft, down from the typical 90 to 110 in previous years. The minimum base salary for NFL rookies for 2025 is$840,000, typical for late-round picks. Many of these players can, according to some NFL executives, likely achieve that in NIL dollars if they return to school. So, more mid-to-late-round picks are betting on themselves and staying in school to improve their stock while earning NIL money.
This shift transforms the later rounds of the draft. Instead of raw underclassmen taking early swings based on potential, teams now find more experienced players who have exhausted their eligibility.
NFL teams are embracing this new reality. The NIL and transfer portal era delivers more polished prospects with real-world business experience from managing personal brands and finances. The transfer portal creates natural experiments demonstrating adaptability across different systems and competition levels. Though scouting becomes more complex with prospects bouncing between programs, teams gain invaluable insights into character development, seeing how players handle wealth and fame before investing millions in draft capital.
Beyond the NFL
While NIL reshapes football’s talent pipeline, its impact on basketballparticularly women’s basketballreveals how different sport economies create vastly different career decisions.
Consider Olivia Miles, who was projected as the No. 2 prospect in the 2025 WNBA draft. Instead of going pro, Miles entered the transfer portal to play one final college season, leaving Notre Dame for Texas Christian University, and taking her lucrative NIL deals with her.
If Miles were selected with the No. 2 pick in this years draft, she would have signed a four-year, $348,198 deal, an average annual value of $87,050. While her NIL valuation is undisclosed, the current top earner in womens college basketball (Louisiana State Universitys Flaujae Johnson) has $1.5 million in NIL deals, far exceeding what Miles would make in the WNBA in 2025.
Delaying her WNBA entry also helps Miles avoid a four-year fixed rookie contract while the league negotiates a new collective bargaining agreement. With the WNBA’s $2.2 billion media deal taking effect in 2026, players are seeking significant pay increases, and Miles is betting that rookies entering next year will receive substantially better compensation than those locked into legacy rookie contracts.
Even USCs JuJu Watkins, perhaps women’s basketball’s most talented player, has no financial reason to rush her ACL recovery and enter the WNBA draft early. Her NIL deals continue during rehab, providing security that previous generations of athletes never had.
Cooper Flagg is a special case
The case of Dukes Cooper Flagg illustrates the stark contrast between men’s and women’s basketball. Flagg, just 18, is expected to be the No. 1 NBA draft pick after just one college season and could earn roughly $13.8 million as a rookie, escalating to $19.2 million by year four. After his rookie contract, he would be eligible for a five-year max extension worth an estimated $328.3 million, and if he makes an All-NBA Team along the way, that max extension would approach $400 million.
If Flagg returns to Duke, experts estimate he could earn between $6 million and $8 million in NIL money. Given his earning potential in his rookie year and the possibility of delaying starting the clock toward a possible $400 million max extension, returning to school would be financially irrational, making Flagg an exception to what has otherwise become a popular rule among prospects.
The future is now
As the landscape continues to evolve and amateurism becomes more professionalized, the relationship between college athletics and pro leagues will follow suit.
The traditional talent pipeline has been reengineered, and it will be on full display at Thursdays NFL draft. Ward and Sanders aren’t just prospects. They’re prototypes of a new business model. Players now operate like startups, leveraging strategic pivots (transfers) and funding rounds (NIL deals) to maximize their valuation before acquisition (the draft). Ward’s journey from zero-star recruit to potential first-overall pick represents the ultimate minimum viable product transformation, while Sanderss $6.5 million NIL portfolio demonstrates the power of calculated patience and brand development.
The talent acquisition game in sports has changed forever. The only question remaining is which teams and players are creative enough to use that to their advantage.
The Trump administration is working to lift regulations on coal-fired power plants in the hopes of making its energy less expensive. But while cost is one important aspect, utilities have a lot more to consider when they choose their power sources.
Different technologies play different roles in the power system. Some sources, like nuclear energy, are reliable but inflexible. Other sources, like oil, are flexible but expensive and polluting.
How utilities choose which power source to invest in depends in large part on two key aspects: price and reliability.
Power prices
One way to compare power sources is by their levelized cost of electricity. This shows how much it costs to produce one unit of electricity on average over the life of the generator.
The asset management firm Lazard has produced levelized cost of electricity calculations for the major U.S. electricity sources annually for years, and it has tracked a sharp decline in solar power costs in particular.
Coal is one of the more expensive technologies for utilities today, making it less competitive compared with solar, wind and natural gas, by Lazards calculations. Only nuclear, offshore wind and peaker plants, which are used only during periods of high electricity demand, are more expensive.
Land-based wind and solar power have the lowest estimated costs, far below what consumers are paying for electricity today. The National Renewable Energy Lab has found similar levelized costs for renewable energy, though its estimates for nuclear are lower than Lazards.
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Upfront costs are also important and can make the difference for whether new power projects can be built, as the East Coast has seen lately.
Several offshore wind farms planned along the Northeast were canceled in recent years as costs rose due to inflation and supply chain problems during the pandemic. Construction costs for the two newest nuclear generators built in the U.S. also rose considerably as the projects, both in the Southeast, faced delays.
Reliability and flexibility matter
But cost isn’t the whole story. Utilities must balance a number of criteria when investing in power sources.
Most important is matching supply and demand at every moment of the day. Due to the technical characteristics of electricity and how it flows, if the supply of electricity is even a little bit lower than the demand, that can trigger a blackout. This means power companies and consumers need generation that can ramp down when demand is low and ramp up when demand is high.
Since wind and solar generation depend on the wind blowing and the sun shining, these sources must be combined with other types of generation or with storage, such as batteries, to ensure the power grid has exactly as much power as it needs at all times.
Nuclear and coal are predictable and run reliably, but they’re inflexiblethey take time to ramp up and down, and doing so is expensive. Steam turbines are simply not built for flexibility. The multiple days it took to shut down Japans Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant after an earthquake and tsunami damaged its backup power sources in 2011 illustrated the challenges and safety issues related to ramping down nuclear plants.
That means coal and nuclear arent as helpful on those hot summer days when utilities need a quick power increase to keep air conditioners running. These peaks may only happen a few days a year, but keeping the power on is crucial for human health and the economy.
In todays energy system, the most flexible generation sources are natural gas and hydro. They can quickly adjust to meet changing electricity demand without the safety and cost concerns of coal and nuclear. Hydro can ramp in minutes but can only be built where large dams are feasible. The most cost-effective natural gas technology can ramp up within hours.
The big picture, by power source
Over the past two decades, natural gas use has risen quickly to overtake coal as the most common fuel for generating electricity in the U.S. The boom was largely driven by the growing use of fracking technology, which allowed producers to extract gas from rock and lowered the price.
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Natural gass low price and high flexibility make it an attractive choice. Its rise is a large part of the reason coal use has plummeted.
But natural gas has its challenges. Natural gas requires pipelines to carry it across the country, leading to disruptive construction. As Texas saw during its February 2021 blackouts, natural gas equipment can also fail in extreme cold. And like coal, natural gas is a fossil fuel that releases greenhouse gases during combustion, so it is also helping to cause climate change and contributes to air pollution that can harm human health.
Nuclear power has been gaining interest recently since it does not contribute to climte change or local air pollution. It also provides a steady baseload of power, which is useful for computing centers as their demand does not fluctuate as much as households.
Of course, nuclear has ongoing challenges around the storage of radioactive waste and security concerns, and construction of large nuclear plants takes many years.
Coal is more flexible than nuclear, but far less so than natural gas or hydropower. Most concerning, coal is extremely dirty, emitting more climate-change-causing gases, and far more air pollution than natural gas.
Solar and wind have grown rapidly in recent years due to their falling costs and environmental benefits. According to Lazard, the cost of solar combined with batteries, which would be as flexible as hydropower, is well below the cost of coal with its limited flexibility.
However, wind and solar tend to take up a lot of space, which has led to challenges in local approvals for new sites and transmission lines. In addition, the sheer number of new projects is overwhelming power system operators ability to evaluate them, leading to increasing wait times for new generation to come online.
Whats ahead?
Utilities have another consideration: Federal, state, and local governments can also influence and sometimes limit utilities choices. Tariffs, for example, can increase the cost of critical components for new construction. Permitting and regulations can slow down development. Subsidies can artificially lower costs.
In our view, policies that are done right can help utilities move toward more reliable and cost-effective choices which are also cleaner. Done wrong, they can be costly to the economy and the environment.
Erin Baker is a distinguished professor of industrial engineering and faculty director of The Energy Transition Institute at UMass Amherst and Paola Pimentel Furlanetto is a Ph.D. candidate in power systems at UMass Amherst.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Not so long ago, a book deal and a live tour marked the outer limits of how far a hot podcast could hope to expand its horizons. These days, theyre only the beginning. Especially at Wondery, the fast-growing podcast network based in West Hollywood, California.
Wondery has more than 240 podcasts, and more than 55 of them have hit the No. 1 spot on Apple Podcasts. The first book adapted from the networks hit survival podcast Against the Odds is set for publication this June, but a better example of where things might be headed is the line of toys Wondery just launched for the family-friendly science show Wow in the World or the immersive cruise inspired by its Exhibit C true-crime vertical, which is in the works for 2026. As the network continues pushing audio-first intellectual property into uncharted new territory, its starting to look like Wondery can turn podcasts into just about anything.
Weve got this Hollywood-style approach to storytelling, says Nicole Blake, chief brand officer at Wondery, the network that perfected the podcast-to-streaming-series pipeline with scripted pods like Dying for Sex, Dirty John, and Dr. Death. So now, were trying to take a Hollywood-style approach to IP-building and apply it to podcasting.
[Photo: Courtesy Wondery]
The holy grail of branding
Some brands are practically inescapable. Whether youre flipping through channels, stuck in traffic, or taking a Pilates class, they stalk you like prey. Blake has a term for brands like that.
The holy grail is a 360-degree IPsomething the fans are seeing at many touch points, all the time, she says. Its not an on-and-off relationship, its an always-on relationship.
One brand that certainly qualifies is the Harry Potter movie franchise, whose development Blake steered during her tenure as a senior vice president at Warner Bros. in the 2010s. Beyond all the books, movies, and spinoffs, Harry Potters tentacles have extended to clothing lines, food items, Lego sets, video games, theatrical plays, and theme park rides. Though the phenomenon factor of Harry Potter may be singular, the brands breadth exemplifies the inventive approach to market saturation Blake is exploring for Wonderys podcasts.
So far, the show that seems furthest along the path to 360-degree IP is Wow in the World, the kid-focused science series with more than 100 million downloads. Designed in Pixar-fashion to appeal to parents listening along, it has steadily cultivated a devoted following, who call themselves Wowsers. The show has long since spawned the requisite live tours and book deals, along with an array of clothing and accessories that includes shirts, pillows, and backpacks. Where the shows extension breaks new ground, however, beyond a push into the classroom with a Next Generation Science Standards-aligned curriculum, is its new line of STEM kits like an Everlasting Volcano and Dino Dig & Diorama.
Though character-driven pods like Welcome to Night Vale and the D&D-based Critical Role have spun off plush toys and action figures, Wow in the Worlds offerings may be the first line of podcast-inspired toys in the STEM space. (I like firsts, Blake notes.) Wondery partnered with science publishers Thames and Kosmos to launch this first wave of toys last fall, and theyre coming this month to Walmart.
But its not just kids connecting with Wonderys podcasts at such a deep level.
[Photo: Courtesy Wondery]
Why podcasts are poised to become 360-degree IP
That podcasts can become as colossally popular and highly valued as more traditional media is old news. Since Joe Rogan made the first $100 million podcast deal with Spotify in 2020, for instance, several similar deals have followedincluding one last fall between Wondery and NFL star sibling podcasters Jason and Travis Kelce. However, eye-poppingly lucrative deals and astronomic numbers of downloads dont paint the full picture of what popularity means for these shows. The main reason podcasts appear poised to become 360-IP, according to Blake, is because of the unique connection they foster with fans.
Theres a certain intimacy inherent to the medium. It casts a spell on listeners, creating the illusion that theyre quietly participating in an ongoing conversation, rather than overhearing it. When someone falls in love with a podcast, they fall hardas Wondery recently demonstrated with a study on fandom conducted with Dentsu and Edison Research. According to its findings, 71% of podcast fans feel they are friends with the hosts of their favorite shows, while 46% claim they are more a fan of their favorite podcast than any other form of entertainment. The biggest podcasts dont just inspire affinity but loyalty. Their fans are willing to follow them anywhere.
What helps present more branding possibilities, though, according to Blake, is the fact that podcasts follow their listeners everywhere.
“Podcasts, unlike any other media, complement a persons day, she says. You can listen to a podcast while taking a walk, cooking, or doing arts and crafts. They can go with you on every step of your day; and as such, they provide plenty of opportunities for extensions into other areas such as apparel and consumer products.
Wondery spent years coordinating the rollout of a line of toys for the Wowsers to play with while listening to Wow in the World together after school. But the network does not apply the same long-lead approach to product development for each of its shows.
[Photo: Courtesy Wondery]
One size does not fit all
The first step to a successful brand extension for podcast IP, Blake says, is gathering research and insights to understand the DNA of the show and what people love about it. Beyond that, it can go any number of ways. Theres no one-size-fits-all approach to building a podcasts brand.
The weekly nature of some podcasts creates a lot of opportunities for rapid response. Blakes team always monitors how fans react to Wonderys podcasts, ready to pounce on, say, a popular segment or catchphrase that emerges from the Kelce brothers New Heights podcast; or create a special T-shirt immediately after Jason Kelces former team, the Philadelphia Eagles, won the Super Bowl back in February.
Similarly, the team also noticed that fans of MrBallen, a beloved mystery storyteller, were talking a lot on social media about Lungy, a frog character the host developed on the show. It seemed like they wanted more of Lungy, and more is what any aspiring 360-degree IP should have on tap at all times. Wonndery quickly turned around a Lungy the Frog pin, which sold out right away, paving the way for future frog-centric apparel.
Of course, some ideas need more time to incubate. In order to arrive at the planned Exhibit C cruise for 2026an immersive experience for fans of Wondery true-crime shows like Morbid and Scamfluencersthe team had to first experiment. In 2023, the network staged Exhibit C: A True Crime Experience Live at New Yorks Gotham Hall, a sort of podcastapalooza, bringing together an Avengers of in-house true-crime show hosts. The interactive event got such tremendous feedback from fans, it proved the demand existed for even more outlandish events like the upcoming mystery cruise.
Just how far can Wondery push its podcast IP beyond the high seas? According to Blake, anything is possible.
There is nowhere traditional media has been extended, she says, that you wont see a podcast go in the future.
Trying to get from point A to point B? If only it were that simple! With any manner of travel these days, youve got options: planes, trains, buses, ferries, and beyond. And finding the best path to embark on isn’t always easy.
Even finding all the available options can sometimes be a pain. But it doesn’t have to be.
For over a decade, Ive been using a tool that demystifies how to get from one location to another. Its a great way to see all the available travel options in a single spotcomplete with estimated prices and travel times.
Notably, theres absolutely no AI at play here. AI travel tools may be interesting for brainstorming ideas, but this tool will show you only real transportation options with up-to-date information.
Lets get moving.
Psst: If you love these types of tools as much as I do, check out my free Cool Tools newsletter from The Intelligence. You’ll be the first to find all sorts of simple tech treasures!
Google Maps who?
The next time you encounter a complicated web of route options, remember a site called Rome2Rio.
Rome2Rio shows every last possible travel option in a single streamlined place. It even finds routes Google Maps missesthats the main point.
To get started, head to the Rome2Rio website. You can also install the free app for your Android device or iPhone, if you’d rather. Whichever path you pick, you wont need to create an account or jump through any silly hoops to get going.
Just plug in the destination youre starting from, the destination youre headed toand thats it.
Youll instantly see all your options, with prices attached.
Rome2Rio has two boxes to fill out: where you’re starting and where you’re going.
The site will even provide options that string together multiple modes of travel. If the best method available for a given trip is to take a train, board an airplane, and then jump on a ferry, Rome2Rio will tell you.
You’ll see every travel option imaginableand how much it costsin a matter of moments with Rome2Rio.
You can actually book your travel through Rome2Rio, too, but Ive always just used it as a search engine and a starting point for my travel planning.
Ultimately, Rome2Rio is a huge, regularly updated database that does one thing and does it exceptionally well. It even beats most AI-powered travel tools in 2025, assuming you just want to know concrete ways to get from A to B.
Rome2Rio is available on the web, as an Android app, and as an iPhone app.
The service is completely free. (It makes money with ads and affiliate links, if you use it to book travel.)
Rome2Rios privacy policy says the service will never sell your personal information. And again, you dont even need an account to use it.
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If you have investments in the stock market, the past several weeks have probably felt a little worrisome. (And by a little worrisome I mean just barely keeping oneself from sobbing in the bathtub with a pint of Ben & Jerrys.)
U.S. and global markets have yo-yoed in reaction to the current administrations inexplicable tariff wars. And since this market volatility is a direct result of Americas foreign economic policy rather than normal economic fluctuation, its difficult to know what to expect.
Theres no promise of fiscal unicorns and rainbows when we get to the other end of this trade warbut before you cash out your 401(k) and bury the money in your backyard, keep these important facts in mind.
Yes, this does feel different
If it feels like this market turbulence is different from others in recent memory, thats because it is.
The current market instability stems from the presidents tariffs rather than a market crash (like the 2008 housing bubble collapse) or a disruptive global event (like the 2020 COVID-related market downturn).
Thats significant because economists and investors know what to expect from market crashes, which are relatively common and repeat on a somewhat predictable 7-to-10-year pattern, followed by an average recovery time of 1.4 years.
While the 2020 market shenanigans also felt unprecedented at the timesince none of us had ever lived through a global pandemic beforethe recovery within four months of the markets lowest point made it clear that everyone wanted to get back to business as soon as possible post-COVID. In both of those cases, it made sense to HANK TOUGH! and stay the course through the market downturns, since there was a long history of the market rebounding from similar situations.
But our current heartburn-inducing market ride stems from Americas global retaliatory trade war, and we cant necessarily count on the natural rebound that has occurred after every other destabilizing market event in recent memory. Any countries angry about U.S.-imposed tariffs could make long-term financial or policy changes that will continue to affect our domestic market for years. There is simply no way of knowing what long-term effects there will be on our investments.
But there is a precedent
Just because we have never lived through a tariff-triggered market downturn doesnt mean our current situation is unprecedented. Almost 100 years ago, isolationist tariffs introduced by Utah Senator Reed Smoot (yes, that was really his name) and Oregon Representative Willis Hawley exacerbated an existing financial crisis.
You may only remember the Smoot-Hawley tariffs of 1930 as part of the mind-numbing lecture Ferris Bueller missed on his day off, but this act raised import duties in an attempt to protect American farmers and businesses. Unfortunately, the Smoot-Hawley tariffs prompted retaliatory tariffs, and the American economy suffered for nearly a decade.
Thankfully, we are in a much better situation than our ancestors were. The Great Depression started with the 1929 stock market crashbefore Smoot and Hawley teamed up, ammonia and bleach style, to impose tariffs. As of February 2025, the U.S. was enjoying a robust economy with a growing GDP, while the 1930 tariffs introduced by Smoot and Hawley kicked the wounded economy when it had already been sucker punched by the market crash.
The drop in your investment portfolio over the past couple of weeks was nausea-inducing in part because it was falling from a high point. But investors in the 1930s saw their money lose value in the crash and then lose more value from the tariff wars.
No one wants to hear a financial expert say, It could be worseand here are some examples of when it was! However, recognizing that the recent turbulence is rocking an economy that had otherwise been stable can help fend off the worst of the panic.
Planning for the unexpected
Any financial adviser worth their salt will tell you that past performance is no guarantee of future returns, but understanding how markets have reacted in the past can offer some perspective on how markets may react in the future.
Since we can look back to the 1930s and see how other countries reacted to Americas isolationist financial and foreign policyand how the market responded to tariffs being flung back and forth across borders like a game of hot potatowe can make plans and predictions based on the worst-case scenario.
We know from Smoot and Hawley that tariffs often lead to retaliatory tariffs, which can have a negative impact on the market. Even though there is no way of knowing what will happen, its probably a good idea for investors to buckle up for a bumpy ride. Heres how:
Remember that the market will eventually recover
For anyone who is 10 or more years out from retirement, you can feel confident that things will improve. Unless were in a dogs and cats living togethermass hysteria! type of extinction-level event, consider ignoring your 401(k) balance for a little while.
Your investments will do better if you slowly back away from your portfolio and let the market recover.
Forewarned is forearmed
Just because the market will return to some semblance of normalcy without any effort on your part doesnt mean you should do nothing.
Now is the time to shore up your finances by paying off high-interest debt, setting aside money in an emergency fund, finding ways to lower your expenses, and starting some secondary income streams in case of job loss or involuntary retirement.
All of these actions will help your finances whether were in for a long stretch of market nastiness or things are about to come up roses.
Invest conservatively as you get closer to retirement
Your asset allocation is supposed to get less risky as you approach retirement, since that will protect your principal in case of a market downturn at the wrong time. If youre planning to retire in the next few years, you can make sure any new contributions you make to your retirement accounts are invested in low-risk-lower-return assets, like bonds, treasury funds, CDs, or other cash equivalents.
While hese investments arent going to grow like the market normally would, the market also may not grow like it normally would. Stashing your contributions into these kinds of investments will offer you more peace of mind that the money will be waiting for your retirement.
You still have time for market recovery
Once youre no longer in the flush of youth, you may assume you dont have the luxury of investing for the long term. Its not like a 60-year-old can afford to wait out the market like a 30-year-old can. But you can invest like you have decades ahead of you. Because you do!
As you approach retirement and even during your retirement, you will keep a portion of your portfolio invested for the long haul. When you retire, you dont need all of your money right away. Youll keep a significant chunk invested for a longer time horizon, which helps ensure that your money will last your entire life.
How to respond if youre already retired
By far, retirees are the most vulnerable to a protracted market plunge. Going back to work and/or waiting out the market weirdness is generally off the table for retirees, so it can feel like there are no good choices.
But that doesnt mean retirees are helpless in the face of larger economic forces. As with current workers and near-retirees, retirees can make plans now for the worst-case scenario. This might include:
Reducing expenses: This is easier said than done, considering the price of eggs and everything else, but start thinking about ways to downsize your costs.
Selling items: If you have a lifetimes worth of home goods, collectibles, or Precious Moments figurines sitting around, you may want to start selling some off. This could be a good way to increase your retirement income without having to take money from your investments.
Considering a reverse mortgage: Since your home is likely your most valuable asset, a reverse mortgage could be a decent way to access cash from something other than your investments.
Dont panicplan
Panic is the leading cause of selling at the markets low point. Instead of selling off your investments to staunch the flow of tariff-induced anxiety, make a plan instead.
If you assume the market may be bumpy for the foreseeable future, how will that change your financial decisions?
Making investment choices based on that assumption will serve you well no matter what happens. In the best-case scenario, things will recover sooner than expected and this will be a footnote in your investing career. But even in the worst-case scenario, planning for volatility will help you make more rational decisionsand protect you from making your paper losses real by getting out of the market.
It may be a bit of a grim sounding win-win, but its a heck of a lot better than crying into a pint of Chunky Monkey in the bathtub.
In 2017, Nathan Cozzolino started Rose, a farm to edibles brand based in Los Angeles. Cozzolino and his team cultivated organic hemp and marijuana, produced its own low-dose gummies with natural organic ingredients, and sold the product to licensed dispensaries. This structure required overhead that cost upwards of $80,000 a month. Six years in, the brand wasnt able to sell enough products to cover its expenses despite being sold in more than 100 retailers.
That changed in July of 2023 when Rose switched the entirety of its production to hemp. We did it because it was that or go out of business, Cozzolino says. He let go of his cannabis licenses, downsized his facilities, and within 60 days built a website where he could sell directly to customers. Within the first month of online sales, Rose was able to break even. Now, the company is selling more products than its able to make, and Cozzolino and his team can focus on the part of the business they love most: the agricultural and culinary work, and sharing the therapeutic benefits of cannabis.
Being able to sell online directly to our customer in a responsible way has been what Rose has needed to fully realize our potential as a company and to be able to pursue everything that we dreamed of doing, Cozzolino says. And that always brings us back to the farm, investing in the land, and seeing how we can make our product more interesting, starting with the agricultural component of it.
Rose is part of a bigger shift in the cannabis industry toward hemp-derived edibles, which can give users much of the same effects as cannabis-derived THC at lower dosages. As customers increasingly search out low-dose options, theyre finding that these products, from gummies to chocolate to mints and beverages, can be legally shipped right to their door with a few clicks online, circumventing the need to visit a licensed dispensary.
[Photo: Rose]
The recreational cannabis landscape has been rapidly changing in recent years. While flower and vapes still account for the majority of the market, edibles are becoming a fast-growing category, especially in the United States. The market generated $10.6 billion in 2024a figure thats expected to reach $47.1 billion in 2043, according to a recent report from Research and Markets. And within the edibles market, a growing number of brands are using hemp-derived THC, which is biochemically the same as cannabis-derived THC, in their products.
The explosion of hemp-derived cannabis products has helped quicken the normalization of cannabis, says John Kagia, the director of cannabis policy in New York and an industry analyst.
There are a few reasons for this: Cannabis companies have found that low-dose edibles are extremely popular with their customers. Meanwhile, the 2018 Farm Bill that removed hemp containing up to 0.3% THC from the federal list of controlled substances has made it easier for cannabis companies to meet the demand. Brands are betting that curious cannabis users will be intrigued enough by gummies and seltzers to eventually become loyal shoppers and daily cannabis users.
[Photo: Gossamer]
The Edible Future of Cannabis
To people in the cannabis space, the mainstreaming of edibles is a natural next step for recreational and medicinal weed. Theyre very universal, says Verena von Pfetten, a cofounder, with David Weiner, of Gossamer, a cannabis media platform. You don’t have to learn how to roll a joint, you don’t need to buy a piece. Plus, clearly labeled doses make it easy to measure just how much THC youre ingesting. These arent the mystery brownies that might knock you out for an entire afternoon. Gummies account for 72% of the edibles market, and a gummy vitamin is something people are comfortable with, von Pfetten adds.
When Weiner and von Pfetten, who have media backgrounds, launched Gossamer in 2017, they saw an opportunity to make cannabis more accessible to people who were interested in the effects of THC but were alienated by the stereotypical stoner branding or expert-level discussions about strains. Everything was verity or green or canna something, Weiner says. It was just kind of like, surely there’s a more sophisticated way of tapping into this.
[Photo: Gossamer]
The marketing around edibles tends to be approachable, with brands playing into the deired effect that someone might want to achieve, like better sleep, more energy, or relaxation. The customer we want to reach, and that we believe is actually the largest customer base across the board, doesnt make their lives revolve around cannabis; they incorporate cannabis into their lives, von Pfetten says. And so how can we help them do that?
Gossamers online store, which began offering hemp-derived edibles in 2024, sells everything from THC tinctures to gummies to pre-rolls. The bestsellers are, by far, one- and two-milligram products.
[Photo: Rose]
The Business of Edibles
Edibles also make business sense for cannabis producers. The THC in these products can be derived from hemp, a variety of the same plant species as marijuana that contains a lower concentration of THC.
The 2018 Farm Bill legalized the industrial production of hemp containing up to 0.3% THC. It also declassified the plant and cannabinoids derived from it, as a controlled substance. This means that products made with hemp can cross state lines and dont need to be sold in regulated dispensaries, opening the market to states where recreational marijuana use is prohibited so long as they dont have regulations against hemp.
Despite more states legalizing recreational cannabis, companies in this space havent been growing as quickly or as easily as they anticipated. Just 27% of cannabis businesses are profitable. The regulated adult-use market across the country is fragmented, with each state having slightly different rules about retail. Since hemp- and marijuana-derived THC are biochemically the same, edibles brands have been switching to hemp-derived THC in their products, which has helped their businesses remain viable.
A significant advantage that the hemp-derived ecosystem has is centralized production, Kagia says. It’s much cheaper for these brands to build in one place and ship nationally than to build in every individual market like they would have to do in the adult-use space. Additionally, Kagia is seeing the strongest growth in demand for hemp-derived edibles in states that have not legalized medical or recreational marijuana.
What the industry needed was to be able to have a small operation, with little overhead, still working in a regulated way using third party labs for testing, Cozzolino of Rose says. But they needed to be able to sell directly to their customers without a storefront and with an online business the way the rest of the world works.
The most popular edibles brands have also quietly shifted to hemp-derived THC for their low-dose edibles, including Wyld (the best seller in most states); Kiva, a portfolio of brands that makes chocolates, gummies, and mints; the chewables brand Sundae School; and Cann, the beverage company.
The move is paying off. Aaron Nosbisch, the founder of Brez, a maker of beverages infused with hemp-derived cannabis and mushrooms, posted on LinkedIn that 83% of its sales were DTC and that the brand is pacing to make over $50 million in revenue this year.
[Screenshot: Edibles.com]
Selling Edibles, Without the Dispensary
With more edibles on the market, the retail landscape is changing, too. Before, these brands were at the mercy of dispensaries, which often paid wholesale prices based on the amount of THC in a product and not the overall quality of experience. (For example, a package of 20 microdose gummies from Rose retails for $40 and has 20 mg of THC total while a tin of pre-rolls with 1,635 mg THC total sells for $45 at MedMen.) Additionally, the brand communication could be uneven depending on how familiar dispensary staff was with a product. It wasnt the best environment for low-dose options.
Most brands from the get-go have said, we think people want a lower dose edible, von Pfetten says. And then the struggle has been getting dispensaries and the general industry on board with selling them at that price point. The hemp-derived market allowed brands to sell the products that they always wanted to make direct-to-consumer.
And despite big investments in retail design, dispensaries remain alienating for some shoppersor just inconvenient. The experience that retailers are providing is not speaking to individuals, Cozzolino says. Meanwhile, gas stations and corner stores have also begun to sell these products, leading to confusion about what is actually being sold and how safe it is.
This is still such a young market that we don’t yet have a good sense ofhow consumers are processing the difference between these two products, Kagia says, referring to hemp-derived THC and marijuana-derived THC.
Von Pfetten compares the public level of knowledge about the cannabis industry and all the products available to skincare in the 1960s. If you talked to women about AHAs, retinol, salicylic acid, and hyaluronic acid, I think most women would be like, What the fuck are you talking about? I use cold cream, she explains. We are just barely getting to that point in cannabis. People are like, oh, weed gets you high, but then you start talking about CBD, CBG, and terpenes and PHC. So there’s all this education that needs to happen in order for customers to really understand the benefits of the products, and a lot of that education is happening online.
[Screenshot: Edibles.com]
In addition to direct-to-consumer sales, online shops specializing in edibles, like Gossamer, are now entering the marketplace to balance a trustworthy, reliable retail experience with convenience. You still need some guardrails, von Pfetten says, noting that a fully DTC market isnt sustainable since brands need multiple points of discovery. How do I know that this is vetted and curated?
Edible Arrangements, the fruit basket company, launched Edibles.com, a marketplace for hemp-based THC products in March. It now sells to customers in Texas, which has not legalized recreational cannabis, and is using its existing franchise locations as delivery hubs. It essentially layered another product onto its logistics infrastructure. It plans to expand to Florida, the Carolinas, and Georgia next. Soon, Edibles.com will also build a physical retail location in Atlanta.
An interesting strategic thing for us to solve is how do we alleviate some of the barriers to entry and how do we give trust and education to our consumers that will then translate into permission to say, You know what, maybe I will try these products, says Thomas Winstanley, the chief marketing officer for Edibles.com. Because if it’s coming from Edible Brands, then maybe I can take it a little bit more seriously than what I see at a gas station.
[Photo: Rose]
The Complicated Future of Hemp-Derived Edibles
While hemp-based edibles continue to gain popularity, some states are beginning to regulate the product, citing public health concerns. Meanwhile, cannabis interest groups are lobbying the government to regulate hemp-based products and close the loophole in the Farm Bill, as U.S. Cannabis Council (USCC) Executive Director Edward Conklin wrote in a letter to Congress last year. The alcohol industry is also lobbying for more restrictions on hemp-based edibles.
As states roll out more regulations around hemp-derived THC, the online shops and brands have stopped shipping to them. In 2023, Washington State created a new law that said any product containing THC is considered cannabis and must be sold in licensed dispensaries. In September of 2024, California enacted temporary emergency regulations to ban hemp products with detectable levels of THC and recently extended the policy to June 2025. In New York, where edibles constitute 15% of licensed cannabis sales, there are now potency limits on the sale of hemp-derived edibles. Anything over one milligram per dose, or 10 milligrams per package, must be sold in a dispensary. According to Kagia, New York set the limits based on potential intoxication risk.
Kagia hopes that there is more clarity on the federal level about the production and distribution of hemp-derived THC products as a matter of public health and safety and for business efficiency reasons, too.
It would be unfortunate if we ended up with another patchwork national model for hemp-derived products just as we have for the adult use ecosystem, he says. I don’t think it serves the cannabis economy writ large to have these bifurcated models where functionally the same products can be sold in one context but not in another. And so we are looking forward to robust discussion with our national lawmakers on the governance of hemp-derived cannabinoids moving forward.
Cannabis companies are cautiously watching the space. Von Pfetten believes that dispensary customers will and should continue to shop in licensed facilities for high-dose edibles but as long as the right guardrails in place are in place in terms of shipping, age gating, and vetting, someone should be able to buy a one-milligram or a two-milligram edible online or receive it direct in a store.
To Cozzolino, the regulatory discussion about low-dose edibles is missing the fact that these products are about a culture of cannabis, not intoxication. If the people regulating [cannabis] try to force us back into a three-tiered system, then they’re inhibiting that and ultimately they are decreasing the value of what people in the world can experience with cannabis, he says.
So while low-dose edibles might be the future of cannabis, anxiety about the category looms. Luckily, theres a gummy for that.
With music streaming, users have gotten used to being at the mercy of algorithms. But French music streamer Deezer is making it easier for its subscribers to make the algorithm work for them.
The company unveiled an update to its mobile experience that doubles down on its emphasis on personalization and sharing to set it apart from larger competitors like Spotify and Apple Music.
The new features were introducing today give users more control over their algorithm, greater flexibility to personalize their experience, and easy ways to share content with their friends, even beyond Deezer, CEO Alexis Lanternier said in a press release.
Rolling out over the next two months, the update includes enhancements to Deezers Flow feature, more options for interface personalization, a monthly Spotify Wrapped-style listening roundup called My Deezer Month, and a universal sharing function to share songs with users on other music platforms.
With Flow, listeners can set certain songs as favorites and ban others, effectively steering the algorithm in the direction they choose. From there, they can even tune in to specific moods, like chill, sad, or party.
The apps interface can be personalized as well. Deezer had previously rolled out a personalized homepage to a subset of users, but now all subscribers will have the ability to decide what they see featured on their Favorites page, making it easier to navigate to their preferred tracks, playlists, and albums. Users can further customize the way the app looks with photos and stickers for their playlist covers.
For fans of Spotifys annual Wrapped feature, My Deezer Month ups the ante with more frequency, providing a monthly breakdown of users listening habits delivered in highly shareable form. This feature builds on the strong engagement growth the platform said it saw in 2024 for its annual wrap-up, My Deezer Year. Alongside its full-year earnings in March, Deezer said engagement and social media shares of the feature were up 27% and 75% year over year, respectively, in 2024.
But what fun would these features be if you couldnt share them? The apps Shaker feature has long allowed users to make playlists with users across platforms; now they can also share tracks with users on different platforms thanks to Deezers unique universal sharing link.
The company has stepped up efforts to stand out in a competitive streaming landscape with both users and artists. In 2023, Deezer was one of the first platforms to adopt what it calls an artist-centric payment model that set a minimum number of monthly streams a song needs before it can start earning royalties (Spotify followed suit with a similar policy later that year).
It has also invested in AI tools, including AI-powered playlists and a tool for identifying AI-generated songs, which Deezer says make up roughly 18% of all songs submitted to streaming platforms. So far Deezer is also the only music streaming service to sign the Statement on AI Training that promises not to allow its music data to train AI models.
Generative AI has the potential to positively impact music creation and consumption, Aurélien Hérault, Deezers chief innovation officer, said in a press release. But we need to approach the development with responsibility and care in order to safeguard the rights and revenues of artists and songwriters while maintaining transparency for the fans.
If real Easter eggs arent your thing this weekend, you may find hunting for digital ones more enjoyable. And there are some cool ones to find at your fingertips, provided you have an iPhone or Mac. Apple has packed the iOS and macOS operating systems with several fun little references, many harking back to the legacy of the company or other companies in the tech industry.
Microsofts Blue Screen of Death
This one’s been around for a while, and it’s a fan favorite.
The Finder on your Mac can show other computers connected to the same network. These computers are represented by icons. If the connected computers are other Macs, youll see icons that accurately represent the shape of the computer, such as a modern MacBook Pro or even an old G4 iMac from the early 2000s.
But if the connected computers are Windows PCs, youll see the same icon for them all: an ugly beige CRT monitor with the infamous Windows Blue Screen of Deaththe screen PC users see when something has gone seriously wrong with the Windows operating system.
The icon choice is Apples subtle dig at its once archnemesis, and it has been an Easter egg in the Macs operating systems for a few decades now.
iPhone Voice Memo app icon
In this case, the Easter egg is an iPhone app icon itself. The waveform in the Voice Memos app icon may not be just a random glyph. Instead, SiliconRepublic says, the waveform’s shape is the one you get when you use Voice Memos to record the word Apple. In my tests, its pretty accurate, but your mileage may vary depending on how you enunciate words.
Safari Reading List icon
Apple has snuck a few direct references to Steve Jobs in its operating systems. The first can be found in the Safari app on iPhone. Open up Safari and then tap the bookmarks icon at the bottom of the screen.
See the Reading List icon in the center of the pop-up? Those are a pair of eyeglassesbut not just any. They look remarkably identical to the round spectacles Steve Jobs made iconic.
Record label with Steve Jobs’s phrases
Theres another reported Steve Jobs reference in Apples software. This one is in macOS. If you open the System Settings app, click Users & Groups, and then click on your profile picture to edit it, youll notice that under the Suggestions folder full of icons, you can select an icon of a record turntable.
Well, if you go to where the icon image file is actually stored in macOS (Macintosh HD>Library>User Pictures>Instruments) and open the Turntable.heic file, youll see the record on the turntable lists four tracks on its label: 1. Magic 2. Revolution 3. Boom! 4. Unbelievable. These were all words Jobs frequently exclamed during his keynote speeches and demos, notes iDropNews.
Heres to the crazy ones
Next to its seminal “1984” ad, Apples most iconic campaign was probably Think Different, from the late 1990s. That campaign features a poem called Heres to the crazy ones.
Apple has commemorated that poem in two places in its operating systems. The first is in the System Settings app in macOS. Click on the Display preferences panel, and you’ll notice the text size adjustment icons display the opening text from the poem.
Heres to the crazy ones can also be found printed on the pages of the open book emoji found in iOS and macOS.
Let It Snow (in the Apple Store app)
Finally, back in 2021, Apple snuck a little Easter egg into its Apple Store app for iPhone, noted AppleInsider. If you type in let it snow in the search field of the Apple Store app, the app will then display digital falling snow across your screen. While this Easter egg isn’t a direct reference to Apple, it’s a fun one to trigger during the winter holidays.
A history of Apple Easter eggs
During my research for this story, I consulted several older Apple Easter egg roundupssuch as the ones published by iDropNews, MacRumors, and Mental Flossto make sure that I had forgotten any big ones. I discovered that Apple has actually removed a fair amount of them from its operating systems.
These removals include former Easter eggs that allowed you to play Tetris in the Terminal app or watch Star Wars reenacted in ASCII. There also used to be a Bitcoin Easter egg in macOS, but Apple has now removed that, too. I also remember from back in the day that when you typed evil empire into the OS X Dictionary app, you would find the entry for Microsoft. But that seems to be gone from macOS now, too.
In other words, it seems like Apple has been cracking down on Easter eggs in recent years, so enjoy the above while you can.
