NextCommerce
Analysis
Cheap Deals Aren’t Fixing Fast Food’s Value Problem
Low-priced menus can generate attention, but diners are judging the full meal, experience and price—not a promotional item in isolation.
NextNow / Section
NextCommerce
Retail, media, marketing and the evolution of consumer behavior.
NextCommerce
Analysis
Social Platforms Lose Their Attempt to Stop Thousands of Addiction Lawsuits
The 9th Circuit dismissed an early appeal from major platforms, allowing more than 3,000 federal cases to continue without deciding the allegations.
Next
News Brief
Politico Is Expanding Energy Coverage With Five Newsletter Products
Politico is packaging the growing energy-policy beat into five newsletters, with four reserved for its premium Pro subscription service.
Next
Developing
Australia Reopens the Fight Over How Big Tech Pays for News
A revised Australian proposal would tie payments from large digital platforms to local advertising revenue, reopening a fight over who funds journalism online.
NextCommerce
Analysis
AI Recommendations Have a Visibility Problem. Better Ratings Aren’t Enough.
A new preprint found that 85.6% of restaurants, cafes and bars in two Bali markets were never recommended by ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Perplexity. The strongest signals for inclusion were tied to documentation, not star ratings.
NextCommerce
Analysis
Cracker Barrel’s New CEO Inherits a Brand Trust Problem
David Deno takes over Cracker Barrel after a failed identity overhaul became a national controversy. The next design challenge is not modernization. It is rebuilding permission to change.
NextCommerce
News Brief
IAB’s New Video Standard Could Reshape Media Buying
A proposed two-layer taxonomy would classify video by viewing experience and impression-level signals across CTV, social, retail media and other channels.
NextCommerce
Developing
Iran’s Hormuz Demands Raise New Shipping Cost Risks
Tehran’s six conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz tie commercial passage to wider military, sanctions and financial negotiations.
NextCommerce
Analysis
DoorDash Wants to Own the Delivery Stack, Not Just the Marketplace
DoorDash’s order volume is still growing quickly, but the more consequential shift is underneath the marketplace: a delivery network increasingly designed to choose among human couriers, robots and drones order by order.
NextCommerce
Analysis
The Box Office Is Up. Moviegoing Still Hasn’t Recovered.
U.S. box-office revenue is running ahead of last year, but attendance remains far below 2019. The recovery is increasingly being driven by higher ticket prices, premium formats and event films rather than a broad return to moviegoing.