Tech

Shaquille O’Neal emceeing a New Year’s Eve party — and you’re invited to experience it in VR. “The Shaq-tacular Spectacular” is a one-hour special produced for Meta’s VR and social platforms. The recorded event will stream on Dec. 31 in a repeating loop — all night — featuring musical acts, celebrity entertainment and “an epic

British journalist Emma Tucker is the next editor-in-chief of the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires — the first female in the top editorial role at the News Corp business outlets. Tucker, currently editor of the U.K.’s Sunday Times (which also is owned by News Corp), will take over the role from Matt Murray early

Tech mogul Elon Musk, who seems to think of himself as a comedian, unexpectedly showed up Sunday at a stand-up performance with Dave Chappelle in San Francisco. Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX who recently acquired Twitter, was loudly booed by the crowd when Chappelle introduced him by saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, make some

A class-action lawsuit contends that stakeholders in Yuga Labs, the parent company of NFT series Bored Ape Yacht Club and its affiliated digital products, engaged in a conspiracy with celebrities to defraud potential investors. In the complaint, filed Dec. 8 in federal district court in L.A., Yuga partners — including veteran music manager Guy Oseary

Elon Musk’s Twitter is getting ready to relaunch Twitter Blue, the subscription service that now includes the blue check-mark — and this time, it’s taking new steps to prevent a repeat of last month’s fiasco that led to a deluge of “verified” impersonators and parody accounts. Starting Monday, Twitter Blue will be available for $8

Hours before Activision Blizzard learned that the Federal Trade Commission aims to block its $69 billion sale to Microsoft, the video game giant filed a lawsuit Thursday against two California state agencies that have probed allegations of sexual harassment and pay discrimination at the company. Activision’s complaint, filed in Sacramento Superior Court, accuses the California

The FTC filed an antitrust lawsuit seeking to prevent Microsoft from acquiring Activision Blizzard, maker of video-game franchises including “Call of Duty,” “Overwatch” and “World of Warcraft,” alleging that it would let Microsoft “suppress competitors” in the sector. The proposed $69 billion deal, announced earlier this year, would be Microsoft’s biggest ever and the largest

The price of the ad-free version of Disney+ in the U.S. is now $10.99 per month — and that may be more than the market value of the content on the streaming service, according to a recent analysis. As of Dec. 8, Disney+ Premium (with no ads) now costs $3 more per month for new

NBCUniversal, looking to pump up its Peacock subscriber numbers, inked a deal with DirecTV to offer the streamer to the pay-TV provider’s customers. Beginning Thursday, customers of the broadband-delivered DirecTV Stream will be able to add Peacock Premium (with ads) directly to their bill for $2.99 per month, a 40% discount from the $4.99 retail

Cameo is expanding beyond its celebrity roots — with a new slate of kids’ characters that will deliver tykes personalized birthday wishes, holiday greetings and other messages. The company’s new Cameo Kids service (cameo.com/kids) will let parents and loved ones purchase videos for kids at $25 or $30 a pop. At launch, the lineup includes

China-owned streamer iQiyi has been ramping up its use of artificial intelligence across productions as a result of the lasting impact of the pandemic. Kelvin Yau, head of southeast Asia for iQiyi International, told delegates at Singapore’s Asia TV Forum on Thursday that the Baidu-owned streaming service has explored “new opportunities” in AI due to

In a first for the L.A. rock group, the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Californication” video has topped 1 billion views on YouTube. The music video for Red Hot Chili Peppers’ 2000 hit “Californication” — featuring shirtless bandmates Anthony Kiedis, Flea, Chad Smith and John Frusciante and their avatars traversing a fictional open world video-game —

Many fans of Cody Ko and Noel Miller — aka the Tiny Meat Gang — know the two former Vine stars for their freewheeling YouTube video collabs. But the heart of their entrepreneurial endeavors lies in podcasting, and Ko and Miller’s fledgling Tiny Meat Gang Studios is aiming to plant a flag as a next-generation

The motley band of adventurers in Critical Role’s “The Legend of Vox Machina” on Prime Video will be joined by a few famous voices in Season 2. Henry Winkler, Lance Reddick and Cheech Marin will guest star in the second season of the Dungeons & Dragons-inspired adult animated series. Additional guest cast for Season 2

TikTok may be one of the foremost social media platforms in the world, but the service still remains relatively opaque for much of the international TV industry. At Singapore’s Asia TV Forum, TikTok’s global head of sports and gaming Harish Sarma tried to connect the dots between the platform’s audience and how producers and distributors

BuzzFeed is axing 12% of its workforce, or around 180 staffers, in a bid to cut costs as the digital media company faces headwinds including an ad-spending pullback and the completion of its integration of Complex Media. “In order for BuzzFeed to weather an economic downturn that I believe will extend well into 2023, we

VidCon, the fan and industry event producer celebrating YouTubers and other digital creators, unveiled the first round of featured creators confirmed to its flagship convention in Anaheim, Calif., in June 2023. Creators scheduled to appear at the 12th annual event, to be held at the Anaheim Convention Center from June 21-24, 2023, include: Anthony Padilla,

Lizzo was the Queen of TikTok this year, as millions of users learned the choreography for “About Damn Time” and engaged with her other songs and videos. TikTok users also pushed “Jiggle Jiggle” and the “It’s corn!” kid to the top viral trends on the app in the U.S. Lizzo, who has 26 million TikTok

Apple Podcasts released its year-end rankings of the top series, episodes and channels — with true-crime podcast publisher Audiochuck sitting at the top of several of the lists. Audiochuck, the Indianapolis-based network founded by Ashley Flowers (pictured above), was the top free channel on Apple Podcasts for the second year in a year. Its flagship

Howard Stern said during the Dec. 5 episode of his SiriusXM radio show that Kanye West has reached a level of antisemitism where it’s almost like he wants to be “a white man in the Nazi party.” It was Stern’s first show back since West had an antisemitic meltdown on Alex Jones’ “Infowars” talk show.

“What is your next move, Jedi?” Followers of Cal Kestis’ epic journey in a galaxy far, far away will finally get a taste of “Star Wars Jedi: Survivor” in action this week.  Respawn Entertainment, Electronic Arts, and Lucasfilm Games will debut the official gameplay trailer for the highly-anticipated entry in the series at the Game Awards

Jay Shetty is embarking on his first world tour, Variety has learned exclusively. The bestselling author, podcast host, social media sensation, life coach and former monk has announced tour dates for “Jay Shetty: Love Rules” in 2023. The tour is described as a 90-minute experience where Shetty will lead the audience through live meditations, experiments

Warner Music Group has punched its way into the free, ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) segment, with the launch of a trio of genre-based channels exclusively on the Roku Channel. The new channels from the music company — WMX Pop, WMX Rock and WMX Hip-Hop — are now available to stream for free on the Roku

“Better late than never,” Dolly Parton tweeted with a wink Sunday in announcing that she had joined TikTok The 11-time Grammy winner debuted her TikTok profile, @DollyParton, and released “Berry Pie,” a Holiday baking ditty drawing from traditional bluegrass styles, exclusively on TikTok as a sound for fans to use in their own videos. Her

Panellists at influencer convention CreatorWorld outlined four major shifts happening in the online video space in recent years. CreatorWorld is held under the umbrella of the Singapore Media Festival. Niche content is becoming more successful. Creators who create specific niche content will have a big opportunity to break out, according to Alex Dwek of Nas

Noodle, an elderly dog that found a huge following on TikTok for predicting whether it would be a “bones” or “no bones” day, died Friday evening, his owner announced. Jonathan Graziano, the owner of Noodle, shared the news through TikTok, along with a tribute to his beloved pug. “I’m so sorry to have to share

Two years after the fact, Elon Musk — Twitter’s megabillionaire new owner — promoted the release of documents showing the company’s internal deliberations about blocking the New York Post’s account over its reporting on Hunter Biden. The new disclosures, touted as “The Twitter Files,” were posted in a lengthy Twitter thread by investigative reporter and

It’s a business of authenticity and ingenuity, populated with born entrepreneurs, talented artisans and experienced business owners. The growing marketplace for unscripted TV related to food, home, design, beauty, health, wellness and related subjects was the focus of Variety’s inaugural Lifestyle Leaders breakfast gathering featuring conversations with “Property Brothers” stars Drew and Jonathan Scott and

Elon Musk kicked Kanye West off Twitter after the rapper-entrepreneur tweeted an image of a Nazi swastika embedded inside the Star of David. Musk, the mega-billionaire who bought Twitter about a month ago, said late Thursday that West’s account was suspended for “incitement to violence.” West’s boot from Twitter, where he had more than 32

While video-based platforms like TikTok and YouTube hogged most of the attention and optimism at influencer convention CreatorWorld, industry insiders had wildly differing views instead on the future of Twitter, the embattled social news service. Alex Dwek of Nas Company is betting on the outsized personality of Twitter boss Elon Musk, and the nature of