The video chronicles the rise and dramatic decline of digital media giant BuzzFeed. While the company achieved massive success in the 2010s by optimizing its viral content (quizzes, listicles, and Tasty videos) for Facebook’s algorithm, this heavy reliance on third-party distribution ultimately led to its downfall. When Facebook’s traffic began to wane in favor of … Read more
Key Insights Merlin AI The Rise and Fall of Torrenting Origins of Torrenting Developed by Bram Cohen in 2001, BitTorrent allowed users to share files without relying on a single server, making downloads faster as more users participated. The Pirate Bay, launched in 2003, capitalized on this decentralized model, becoming a major hub for peer-to-peer … Read more
My TV Turkish Serials Subreddit receives more than 95 thousand visits weekly, and my colleague Alper Kırklar and I decided to curate an edited volume on Turkish Television Series. The series’ global attraction is definitely unintended, but all over the world, I come across people asking me about a particular Turkish series. So here we … Read more
In Istanbul’s traffic, I listened to long YouTube videos a lot recently, and I came across a series of videos claiming that online piracy is back (such as this one: Piracy 2.0: How the Internet Outsmarted the System). I believe these arguments have validity. Here I outline novel forms of piracy, but I think the … Read more
Here’s a summary of the video “The Streaming War Is Over. Piracy Won.”: Streaming once seemed perfect, offering affordable, convenient, and comprehensive access to media. Netflix, for example, was $8.99/month, and all content was in one place. But between 2020 and 2024, streaming services began raising prices dramatically (Netflix and Disney+ doubled, HBO Max exceeded … Read more