Truth Social put a price on information speed.
Truth Social found a new product to sell: speed. Trump Media launched Truth API, a business feed giving banks and trading firms faster access to posts from ten influential accounts. It launches August 1 with an archive stretching back to 2022. Reuters reported pricing as high as $100,000 per month, though TMTG has not confirmed it. Ads monetize audiences; this product monetizes the few minutes before everyone else catches up.
BandLab bought a licensed AI music studio.
BandLab is buying its way deeper into AI music, carefully. The company acquired Aiode, a studio whose audio models are trained on licensed, traceable recordings and developed with participating musicians. Artists can import a track, add generated performances, revise sections and export stems. Aiode will remain standalone under its current founders. For BandLab, the deal adds licensed AI production to a portfolio already spanning social creation and professional desktop software.
TikTok connected basketball discovery directly to broadcasts and advertising.
TikTok wants to own more of basketball’s journey from clip to checkout. Its new NBA and WNBA partnership combines highlights, creator access, live game discovery and premium ad inventory. GamePlan will direct fans toward schedules and broadcasts, while Pulse Premiere lets advertisers sit beside selected league content. The 2026 NBA Finals already generated 497 million in app impressions and 426,000 viewing referrals. TikTok is no longer satisfied with helping fans discover the game; it wants a cut of everything surrounding it.
X and the music publishers ended their legal war.
X and the music business have called a legal truce. The platform and 17 publishers ended their opposing lawsuits with prejudice, closing claims over nearly 1,700 songs and more than $250 million in alleged damages. X had countersued, accusing publishers of blocking individual licensing talks. Neither side disclosed the settlement terms, or whether a music licence comes next. The courtroom fight is over; the commercial relationship is still a black box.
Overtone raised $18 million to build dating without swiping.
The founder of Hinge is coming back for the swipe. Justin McLeod raised $18 million for Overtone, a voice led matchmaking service backed by FirstMark, Pace Capital and Match Group. Instead of public profiles and endless queues, Overtone plans to learn about users through recorded conversations and offer a limited number of introductions. Match Group is funding a product designed to challenge the interface that made Tinder and Hinge enormous. Sometimes disruption starts with a cheque from the incumbent.
TikTok LIVE secured its first championship boxing broadcast.
TikTok is moving from boxing clips to the whole fight. Amanda Serrano’s August 21 title defence will stream globally through TikTok LIVE Premiere, marking the platform’s first live championship boxing event. The complete card, not just highlights and backstage footage, will sit inside the app. It is a clean test of whether a short form recommendation engine can hold viewers for a full premium broadcast.
Perfect Corp launched one click AI music video production.
Perfect Corp wants to turn every song into a content pipeline. Its new AI MV tool lets YouCam Video users upload or generate music, describe a concept and receive a scene by scene video. A single photograph can become the virtual performer, and the finished clip is built for TikTok or Instagram. The feature lands inside a portfolio Perfect Corp says has passed 1.1 billion downloads. AI video creation is moving from specialist software to the same consumer apps already holding the audience.
PixVerse raised $439 million to move AI video beyond passive clips.
PixVerse just raised enough money to stop thinking in clips. The AI video company secured $439 million at a reported valuation above $2 billion, with backing from Alibaba, Mirae Asset and BlueFocus. It also introduced an AI game engine and real time streaming tools that let viewers interact with generated characters. PixVerse says it has reached 150 million users across 177 countries. The pitch is shifting from “make a video” to “enter a world and change what happens.”
Google turned its office video editor into an AI production suite.
Google Vids is growing out of its office software phase. Google added AI video generation and personal avatars, allowing subscribers to create clips from text and images or generate a digital presenter from samples of their face and voice. The tools are headed to paid Google AI and Workspace plans, with SynthID watermarking attached. Google is putting a production studio inside software companies already pay for, which is bad news for standalone tools charging extra for the same job.
The Texas Rangers replaced a streaming service with a sports social network.
The Texas Rangers changed streaming partners midseason, and chose a social network with games attached. The team moved its direct to consumer broadcasts to BZZR, which combines live video, verified fan accounts and social interaction. Existing subscribers were transferred immediately. The Rangers say the service can support a year round relationship instead of disappearing between fixtures. Live rights are becoming the expensive hook for platforms that really want community, data and repeat engagement.
Meta quantified how the World Cup moved attention across four platforms.
Meta turned the World Cup into a four app attention report. The company said WhatsApp exceeded 30 million messages per second, participating players gained 213.6 million Instagram followers, tournament posts delivered 1.5 billion Thread impressions and Facebook logged more than 80 million related posts. The figures are self reported, but the division of labour is useful: conversation on WhatsApp, fame on Instagram, commentary on Threads and mass participation on Facebook.
Meta committed more than $50 billion to the infrastructure behind its AI products.
Meta’s AI ambitions now come with a $50 billion construction bill. The company expanded its Louisiana data centre project to five gigawatts of planned capacity, enough to support the models powering recommendations, advertising and generative products across its apps. Meta expects more than 1,000 permanent jobs and says $1.6 billion in local contracts has already been awarded. The glamorous AI race still runs on very unglamorous things: land, electricity and industrial scale computing.
The European Union moved toward restricting children’s access to social media.
Europe is moving closer to a common age gate for social media. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said a concrete proposal would follow after the summer, building on recommendations for supervised access below 13 and gradually looser limits for older teenagers. The final ages and enforcement model remain unsettled. But a bloc wide rule could force platforms to rebuild verification, feed design and youth advertising across 27 markets at once.
The United Kingdom opened a formal investigation into TikTok’s child safety systems.
TikTok’s UK child safety systems are now under formal inspection. Ofcom opened an investigation into whether the platform accurately assesses users’ ages and protects minors from harmful material. TikTok disputes any suggestion that it has breached the rules, and the regulator has reached no conclusion. The important bit: age assurance is moving from a policy promise to a compliance system platforms may have to pro