Matteo Ornati

Don't believe it? Well, just look at the trend for "vpn" searches in Italy over the last 30 days.

On top of all this, the funniest thing is that we're driving people who "don't trust" the ID check (for privacy or other reasons) into the hands of more or less serious VPN services that could de facto take advantage of this to steal quite a bit of data.

Both Android and Apple have parental control, is it correct to place the burden of checking "downstream" (making it transversal) instead of putting it upstream?

creators) The question raised by Tommasi remains the most interesting: but is it right to delegate to websites an activity that should be done at the device level by parents?

As Flora rightly points out, this situation opens the door to "unfair" competition from those who aren't on that list of 48 (in the case of OnlyFans let's remember that the competitor could become the "father" Patreon again, which was actually the one that created the first subscription platform for

Let's hypothesize that this figure is halved based on lower traffic. Those 75 million would mean lower revenues for the state as well as, I imagine, significant damage for those who make a living as "adult content creators".

Alessandro in one of his latest stories highlighted how in the UK that type of setting led to a 77% drop in visits and, consequently, I imagine an economic decline for creators. With Perplexity I made an estimate that the Italian turnover of OnlyFans alone is around 150 million euros.

In recent days I've really appreciated the analyses made by Matteo Flora and Alessandro Tommasi regarding the limitations imposed on the 48 adult sites targeted by AGCOM which now require "strong" age identification.

i tought it was a call of duty achievement

It definitely triggered a real-time marketing mechanism (yeah guys, this is real RTM done right) that tapped into some major pop culture elements—from Netflix to Halo, all the way to Assassin’s Creed (not that Ubisoft is doing any better, but that’s another story).

From a communication standpoint, it’s an interesting move—no doubt the beginning of an amazing storytelling arc that the Duolingo team, as always, will know how to make the most of.

The king is dead, long live the king!

Duolingo has "killed" Duo, its beloved mascot and the face of many viral social media campaigns.

They announced it on #Twitter (yes, I’ll keep calling it that, dear Elon—deal with it).

Templates will help maintain a consistent visual and textual style—crucial for brand image—while reducing the time spent on formatting and putting more focus on strategy and content quality.

“Spoiler tags” spark curiosity and encourage user interaction, boosting both sharing and overall interest in posts.

get ready for “spoiler tags,” handy for hiding sensitive parts or spoilers, and post templates, which will simplify content creation by making it more coherent and faster to publish.

Some thoughts:

As always, @alex193a.dev Alessandro Paluzzi—arguably the top data miner in the social media world—has found new features in the #Threads code. Meta’s platform is testing functionalities that might bring to mind old-school forums:

However, last night I came across this ad that left me puzzled.
Does it make sense to promote Lynch’s Masterclass just days after his passing?

I imagine the campaign has been running for a while, but maybe a bit of respect and pausing it would have been appropriate.

I’ve always loved Masterclass—it’s such an interesting format (I took Chris Voss’s class on negotiation, which is a gem. Okay, I’m still not that diplomatic when negotiating).

- Other ByteDance platforms, including CapCut, Hypic, Lemon8, and Marvel Snap, are currently blocked.

- Meta (in a decidedly opportunistic move) has announced its own "competitor" to CapCut with "Edits."

- Giorgio Taverniti explained years ago that the legal issue could arise from the lack of approval by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) for the sale of Musical.ly (as happened with Grindr). That would have been a solid legal basis to undo everything.

- The precedent of a forced sale today might target ByteDance, tomorrow DJI, and the day after Spotify? These are all non-US companies.

- Meta (source: DigitalChAdvertising) has been heavily recruiting TikTok US teams over the past few days.
- Inside TikTok (again, DigitalChAdvertising source), everyone seemed calm about the situation.

Some fun facts about the #TikTok ban in the US:

- The ban lasted as long as my patience with my last crush.

- The groundwork for the ban was laid by Trump during his first term; now he’s back to "fix everything." A communication genius.

In the meantime, "the data speaks for itself." Take a look at how WPP is trending on Google Trends:

It will certainly make life harder for recruiters and employer branding teams, as they'll struggle to make the company appear "cool" (I'll skip over the issue concerning Los Angeles employees—if you're interested, check out digitalchadvertising’s Instagram stories about it).

From my perspective, this decision seems like a way to prompt resignations, possibly pushing some employees toward companies where hybrid and remote working (what we call smartworking) remain integral to corporate culture, supporting work-life balance and addressing the rising cost of living.

Since Sir Martin Sorrell's departure, WPP hasn’t been in great shape, gradually losing ground to competitors (first Publicis, and now the soon-to-be "new" Omnicom following its merger with IPG). How should we interpret this move, combined with other tense moments like layoffs and various mergers?

a "mandatory return to office 4 days a week." This move comes in a context where many people, influenced by inflation and post-pandemic flexibility, have chosen to relocate to less expensive areas compared to the major cities where WPP has offices.

Smartworking: End of an Era or a Simple Way to Avoid Layoffs?
Recent news has revealed that WPP, the former number one (Publicis overtook them at the end of 2024, celebrating with Snoop Dogg), sent an email from CEO Mark Read (curiously, he's unmentionable on LinkedIn) announcing

So, dear UGC creators, we either need a new term or, I suggest, a rebranding to BGCC: Branded Generated Content Creator.