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Many major platforms provide personalized year in review features that highlight how users have spent their time over the past year. Spotify Wrapped is the most popular of these summaries, but Apple Music, Snapchat, Deezer, and others also offer them. And now, internet users have a new year-in-review feature to check out this year: YouTube Recap. Heres what you need to know about the video sites year-in-review and how to access itespecially if you’re looking to kill some time while waiting for Spotify Wrapped 2025 to come out. What is YouTube Recap? YouTube Recap is Googles just-announced year-in-review feature for its YouTube platform. The personalized recap displays various metrics about your YouTube viewing habits over the past year. The Recap feature takes the form of a Story, or YouTube Short. As YouTube explained in a blog post, Youll get a set of up to 12 different cards that spotlight your top channels, interests, and even the evolution of your viewing habits, or which personality type you fall into based on the videos you loved to watch! Cards include your top interests, your top channels, and your interests based on video views. If you listen to a lot of music on YouTube, your YouTube Recap will also display your top artists and top songs from YouTube Music. One interesting bit of information comes from a disclaimer that the YouTube Recap displays when you view it. That disclaimer reads AI can make mistakes. This suggests that Google is relying on artificial intelligence to curate and assemble YouTube Recap videos. Discover your YouTube personality Your YouTube Recap video may also feature a personality card that YouTube says reveals what type of personality you have based on your YouTube watch history. The full list of possible personalities includes: The Adventurer: Youre drawn to content that takes you on an exciting journey. The Challenger: Youre drawn to content that shows competition and rising to the challenge. The Changemaker: Youre drawn to content that inspires positive change in the world. The Connector: Youre drawn to content that sparks conversation and builds community. The Creative Spirit: Youre drawn to content that inspires self-expression. The Curious Mind: Youre drawn to educational content that helps you understand the world. The Dreamer: Youre drawn to content that fuels your imagination. The Philosopher: Youre drawn to content that explores the deeper meaning of things. The Self-Improver: Youre drawn to content that helps you grow and reach your potential. The Serenity Seeker: Youre drawn to content that helps you relax and find your inner peace. The Skill Builder: Youre drawn to content that helps you develop skills. The Sunshiner: Youre drawn to content that spreads positivity and good vibes. The Trailblazer: Youre drawn to content thats original and challenges the norm. The Wonder Seeker: Youre drawn to awe-inspiring content that shows extraordinary skills. In its blog post, YouTube says the most common personalities are the Connector, the Sunshiner, and the Wonder Seeker. The least common personalities are the Dreamer and the Philosopher, which YouTube says are more elusive and rare personas. How to access your YouTube Recap 2025 on the web YouTube provides two ways users can access their YouTube Recap. The first is by using any web browser. To access your YouTube 2025 Recap on the web: Go to www.youtube.com/recap and make sure you are signed in. Youll find a Your 2025 Recap is here! banner at the top of the page. Click it. Your YouTube Recap video will open on the same webpage. How to access your YouTube Recap 2025 in the YouTube app You can also access your YouTube Recap directly in the YouTube app on iPhone and Android. Heres how: Open the YouTube app. Tap the You tab. Youll find a Your 2025 Recap is here! banner at the top of the page. Tap it. Your YouTube Recap video will now open in the YouTube app on your smartphone. How to share your YouTube Recap video While people love viewing their year-in-review roundups, many also enjoy sharing them with friends and family. And YouTube makes it easy to share your YouTube Recap video. The caveat here, however, is that you need to share it from the YouTube app. Sharing of your YouTube Recap video from a web browser does not seem to be supported at this time. To share your YouTube Recap video: Open the YouTube app. Tap the You tab. Youll find a Your 2025 Recap is here! banner at the top of the page. Tap it. As the video plays, youll see a Share button at the bottom of the video. Tap it. From the pop-up menu, select the person or app you want to share a link to your personalized YouTube Recap video with. YouTube Recap is available now to users in North America. It will roll out to users worldwide this week.
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E-Commerce
Route 66. The name alone evokes nostalgia for a simpler, freer time in American history, when roadies stopped for a hot dog with ketchup, then drove into ocher sunsets suspended over the Mojave desert. Ever since it was built in 1926, the Mother Road has gained mythical status, drawing millions of visitors from around the world yearning for a taste of old Americathe one before the interstate highway system favored speed over experience. For Rhys Martin, who has spent years on the road with his camera, this isn’t what Route 66 is about. Yes, you can travel back in time and get a glimpse of Americana, but the route isn’t fossilized in the past. It’s very much still breathing. “Route 66 is more than just this 1950s sanitized version of American history,” he says. “It’s diverse, it’s evolving, and I like to say that no matter who you are or where you’re from, somewhere on Route 66, you’ll find your reflection.” Martin, who manages the Preserve Route 66 program at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, is part of a group of advocates and preservationists who want to change the narrative around Route 66 from one that paints the road as a mirror into the past to one that reflects the present, where many communities still live and people still work. [Screenshot: courtesy of the author] His team’s mission has now culminated in Route 66 Rewind: a browser-based experience that lets users drive across 33 landmarks along the route from their own (virtual) vintage car or motorcycle. You can steer the wheel, pick a radio station, and see how the Midpoint Cafe or the U-Drop Inn looked in previous decades. [Photo: Kansas Historic Route 66 Association] The experience was codeveloped by Google Arts & Culture with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and is part of a larger storytelling hub that lives on the Google Arts & Culture platform. The team turned archival photographs into videos using Googles AI video generator Veo, composed the radio music using music generation model Lyria, and wrote the radio commentary using Gemini. The result is a sim road trip that uses AI in the best possible way: to direct the narrative back to people, and highlight the human experience that continues to shape the route today. [Screenshot: courtesy of the author] Route 66: A corridor of stories Martin first saw the road through the lens of a camera. Growing up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, he’d heard of Route 66, but he knew only the broad strokes. Then one day in 2013, he hopped into his late father’s Mustang and drove to Miami, Oklahoma, to photograph the Coleman Theatrea 1929 vaudeville theater with a facade “so ornate it had no business being in the town of Miami,” he recalls. The surprising discovery had him wondering: What else was on the highway? Martins curiosity led him on a two-year road trip across Route 66 that grew into a decade-long love affair with the people he met along the way. “Eventually I realized it’s a corridor of stories,” he says. One of the biggest misconceptions about Route 66 is that the destinations along its route have faded into ghost towns. The construction of the interstate highway system in the 50s and 60s, followed by the decommissioning of the route in 1985, no doubt stripped many of these towns of their purpose. As travel evolved and car speeds got faster, the need for frequent gas stations and motels diminished. The government divested. People left towns. But not everyone left. In Tulsa, entrepreneurs like Mary Beth Babcock have spent years revitalizing stretches of the road. In 2019, she transformed the historic Pemco gas station into a souvenir shop called Buck Atoms Cosmic Curios, complete with two very on-brand, 20-foot-tall mascots that double as roadside attractions. That same year, Dutch entrepreneur Sebastiaan de Boorder and his wife, Anna Marie Gonzalez, renovated the 1919 Aztec Motel in Seligman, Arizona, which reopened as the Aztec Motel & Creative Space in 2021. “There is so much development still coming to Route 66, and most of it is mom and pops who’ve always dreamed of having a business on Route 66, Martin says. [Photo: Arizona Preservation Foundation] Today, the American dream that once defined Route 66 looks different. Some might say it doesn’t exist at all. But for Martin, it lives on along the Mother Road. “I agree that the American dream doesn’t quite hit like it used to,” he tells me, “but on Route 66, you still find people who have bought into the cliché that Route 66 means freedom, and they are adding their story to this highway that’s now entering its second century.” [Screenshot: courtesy of the author] AI fills the gaps of archival memory Route 66 is now approaching its centennial. Next year, various destinations along the route will burst into caravans and car parades to celebrate the route’s legacy. But for the team behind Route 66 Rewind, the goal isn’t just to celebrate the past but to galvanize the next generation. “Preservation creates,” says Martin, noting that anytime a building is preserved, it activates the connection people had with it while helping young people engage with the conversation. “That’s how you inspire the next generation to add their story to this long history.” [Screenshot: courtesy of the author] With its AI-powered features and fun UX, Route 66 Rewind presented itself as a way to make history exciting for younger people. But when the team sat down to convey said history, they realized they didn’t know how many of these places looked in their heyday, beyond a few archival photographs. AI became a way to fill in what Amit Sood, the founder and director of Google Arts & Culture, calls “the gaps of archival memory.” The Google team worked with the National Trust team to collect black-and-white photos and written accounts they could use to prompt AI, cross-referencing each output with experts at the Trust. [Screenshot: courtesy of the author] The resulting videos act as miniature time capsules of a bygone era. In Collinsville, Illinois, you can follow ketchup bottles stream past on a conveyor belt inside the now-defunct Brooks Foods ketchup factory. In Lebanon, Missouri, you can peek inside the now-closed Munger Moss Motel, its iconic neon sign flickering under a 1960s sun. [Screenshot: courtesy of the author] But as Sood points out, these dreamy snapshots inspire you to preserve, too. The hope is that the AI-powered vision of, say, the Threatt Filling Stationthe only Black-owned-and-operated gas station during the Jim Crow erawill pique your interest enough for you to visit the storytelling hub and learn about the craftsmen who are now working to restore the building’s “giraffe-stone” exterior. [Screenshot: courtesy of the author] Next year, Route 66 is likely to be designated a National Historic Trail. The designation, which is being championed by members of both the U.S. House and Senate, could help preserve the historic route, boost tourism, and support local economies ahead of the highway’s centennial celebration. In the meantime, perhaps the AI-powered platform will galvanize tourists both domestically and from abroad to get on the road and see how the myth lives on. “The goal is to keep the car rolling down the street and get more people engaged,” Martin says. “It’s going to be a big party [next year], but that’s definitely not the end. Its the start of the next 100 years.”
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E-Commerce
Generic store brand groceries can increasingly be found in the pantries, fridges, and freezers of Americans across all income groups. Once designed to communicate value and affordability, a new generation of private labels designed for high earners is driving sales. Among households earning more than $100,000 a year, 82% say they’ve increased the frequency of buying store-brand groceries “often” or “very often,” according to a report from Alvarez & Marsal Global, a consulting firm. That’s compared to 74% of households earnings less than $100,000 a year who also say they’ve increased their store-brand grocery purchases. Grocers have rebranded and grown their portfolio of private label brands over the past several years to cater to consumers pressed by inflation, and it’s paid off as the highest-earning shoppers make up an increasingly large share of the economy. The report attributed the steep increase among the highest-earning Americans to “improvements made in private label products.” [Photo: Walmart] Nowhere is this more true than Walmart, the leading grocer since 2019, which launched a new private label called Bettergoods in 2024 that includes products that are plant-based, organic, or gluten-free. These products intentionally cater to the Whole Foods shopper with bright, well-designed packaging. The company reported quarterly revenue of $179.5 billion, up 5.8%, and said high-income households were part of the reason why. “We continue to benefit from higher-income families choosing to shop with us more often,” Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said on the company’s earnings call late last month. Upgraded, design-ified generic brands aren’t just boosting high-income shopping, though. The report found 68% of shoppers across all income groups believe store brands offer quality that is as good or better than national brands, and switching to store brands was the No. 1 way shoppers said they cut their grocery bill. [Photo: Aldi] Those trends are shaping the industry. Albertson’s says it’s aiming for private labels to eventually account for 30% of its business, Aldi put its name on all its products for the first time, and Amazon debuted a new branded online grocery store with packaging that makes good use of its new font, bright colors, and white space. With high-income households driving so much spending, industries from airlines to produce are especially catering to the shoppers with high-end products and premium experiences. At the grocery store, though, the success of private labels proves that when it comes to cooking dinner, even the highest-earning among us are looking for a good deal.
Category:
E-Commerce
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