Recent News

RetailMeNot’s Spring Savecation Is Back: Score Unbeatable Travel Deals & Cash Back from Top Brands for Your Next Getaway, March 6-10

Yahoo! Finance  
"This year, travelers are getting a head start like never before, with 54% planning to research and book their trips by the end of March," says Stephanie Carls, Retail Insights Expert at RetailMeNot. "With rising prices, they're looking for smarter ways to save. That's why we're thrilled to bring back Spring Savecation—helping travelers unlock the best deals, stack their savings, and earn cash back, so dream trips can become reality without the financial stress."
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HEAVY.AI and Ookla Partner to Revolutionize Network Analytics with Unprecedented Speed and Scale

Morningstar  
“At Ookla, our mission is to provide unparalleled network intelligence to help improve global connectivity,” said Chip Strange, Chief Strategy Officer at Ookla. “Partnering with HEAVY.AI allows us to push the boundaries of what’s possible in network analytics, enabling our customers to make faster, smarter decisions that can drive meaningful improvements in network performance, consumer experiences, and better business outcomes for our clientele.”
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Ziff Davis Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2024 Financial Results and Provides 2025 Guidance

Yahoo! Finance  
“We believe 2024 marked an inflection point for the Company as it returned to revenue, adjusted diluted EPS, and free cash flow growth,” said Vivek Shah, Chief Executive Officer of Ziff Davis. “We are also excited to introduce a new segment reporting structure that we believe will aid investors in gaining a better understanding and appreciation of our business.”
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A baby now costs more than $20,000 in the first year, research says

Consumer Affairs  
It now costs an estimated $20,384 for a baby's first year, according to research by parenting website BabyCenter, marking an increase from $15,775 in 2022 when the calculation was last made during rising inflation. On average, BabyCenter said parents will spend around 31% of their income on first-year baby expenses. The mounting costs are causing stress: 89% of mothers said finances harm their mental health, according to a BabyCenter survey of 1,399 moms between Jan. 17 and Feb. 3. As a result, a quarter of mothers surveyed said they have decided to have fewer children and another 26% have delayed having more kids.
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T-Mobile takes the crown in rural 5G, leaving AT&T and Verizon in the dust

Phone Arena  
The big three major carriers have been working on expanding their coverage all over the US and a new report from Ookla highlights who's got more when it comes to their 5G network in rural markets...T-Mobile is currently rocking the largest percentage of 5G users spending the majority of their time on its 5G network in both urban and rural markets. Ookla's 5G Availability metric was used for the report, which shows how likely a user, on average, is to have 5G service available...By the second half of last year, T-Mobile recorded its highest 5G Availability score in the US: 89.4% of its users on its 5G network the majority of the time.
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AT&T tops RootMetrics’ national, state network testing for 2H 2024

RCR Wireless  
RootMetrics’ data put AT&T’s network on top in at the national and state-level in its network testing for the second half of 2024 in overall network performance. But Verizon and T-Mobile US beat out AT&T when it came to 5G-specific network testing. The assessment from RootMetrics, which is part of Ookla, was based on more than 3 million tests conducted during the second half of last year, including testing across 125 metropolitan areas, more than 6,600 indoor locations and more than 247,000 miles of drive-testing.
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Ziff Davis to Announce Fourth Quarter and Year-End 2024 Earnings

Yahoo! Finance  
Ziff Davis, Inc. (NASDAQ: ZD) will release its Fourth Quarter and Year-End 2024 Earnings at 6:00PM ET on Monday, February 24, 2025. Additionally, Ziff Davis invites the public, members of the press, the financial community, stockholders, and other interested parties to listen to a live audio Webcast of its Fourth Quarter and Year-End 2024 Earnings Call at 8:30AM ET on Tuesday, February 25, 2025.
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Looking Back to Look Forward: 2024’s Top Email Threats

Information Security Buzz  
VIPRE Security Group recently released their latest annual email threat landscape report, “Email Security in 2025: What to Expect from the Evolving Email Threat Landscape.” Drawing insights from the billions of emails VIPRE processed in 2024, the report offers a comprehensive view of last year’s email security threats to help us make sense of the year ahead.
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Castle Connolly Releases Healthcare Accolades for 2025

Morningstar  
"By recognizing institutions with the most Top Doctors, Castle Connolly Accolades highlight the leadership and excellence of these healthcare providers," says Steve Leibforth, Castle Connolly's Managing Director. "For patients, this recognition is a valuable tool in making informed healthcare decisions, knowing they are receiving care from the best in the field."
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T-Mobile is 5G download speed king in new network tests against Verizon and AT&T

Phone Arena  
Ookla's Speedtest Intelligence report revealed that T-Mobile remained the fastest carrier in the United States with a median download speed of 212.77 Mbps, compared to the 95.08 Mbps that AT&T logged, or the slowest Verizon Wireless with 86.23 Mbps. For upload network speeds, T-Mobile's network was also the quickest with 11.45 Mbps and a latency of just 49 ms, the lowest among the three major US carriers.
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BabyCenter releases list of names ‘heading for extinction’ in 2025: See full list

USA Today  
Catherine, Jaden, Anne, Phillip, Jamal and Esteban are some of the names that we'll be seeing less of in 2025, a new survey by BabyCenter has revealed. Other names falling in popularity include Edward, Erin, Kelsey, Cannon and Emery. "To kick off 2025, BabyCenter looked at the names that are sharply declining in popularity and could be headed for extinction this year," the company said in a news release Thursday. "These are the names we expect to see much less of this year as Generation Beta babies are born."
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Castle Connolly Releases Castle Connolly 2025 Top Doctors

Morningstar  
"We understand that patients are increasingly turning to online sources to make informed healthcare decisions," said Steve Leibforth, Managing Director of Castle Connolly. "Our Top Doctors list serves as a trusted tool, helping patients confidently navigate their healthcare journey by connecting them with leading medical professionals recognized for their expertise and commitment to excellence."
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2025 Cybersecurity Trends from VIPRE: SMEs a Target and AI Malware to Fuel Supply Chain Attacks, With Regulatory Burden Amplifying Security Training Urgency

Yahoo! Finance  
2024 saw increasingly sophisticated cybersecurity threats as criminals leveraged all forms of AI to create difficult-to-detect phishing attacks, deepfakes, and ransomware incidents...In 2025, as AI evolves further in sophistication and adoption, alongside the growing burden of data breach costs and regulation – in addition to implementing advanced cybersecurity measures, organizations must prioritize real-world security awareness training...Usman Choudhary, Chief Product & Technology Officer, VIPRE Security Group, offers his thoughts on security trends that will dominate in 2025.
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IPVanish doubles up in security and usability

TechRadar  
IPVanish, one of the best VPN services on the market, just doubled down on its offering with a new upgrade.For starters, the VPN provider now has over twice as many servers available, worldwide, bringing the total to 108 countries. IPVanish said the move is to bolster users' accessibility. The service boost also includes a new Double Hop VPN feature, available across all its Windows, Mac, Chromebook, iOS, and Android VPN apps.
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What To Expect poll finds ‘magic number’ on what parents spend on gifts

MassLive  
In a poll of nearly 500 moms, data shows that many parents plan on spending an average of $173 on gifts per child this holiday season. The poll, published by "What to Expect," reveals the age of a child doesn’t have a strong impact on how much parents are forking out for the holidays...While factors like a parents' salary and how many children are in the home influence how much is spent per child, the “magic number” trends towards an average of $173 per child.
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Ziff Davis Appoints Lori Tansley as Chief Accounting Officer

Yahoo! Finance  
“Lori is a highly skilled executive with deep finance, M&A, and accounting experience at leading companies,” said Bret Richter, Chief Financial Officer of Ziff Davis. “Her expertise and extensive relevant experience will be an asset to Ziff Davis in its continued pursuit of our long-term goals.”
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This is the ‘worst’ birth date of the year, say pregnant moms: ‘It’s too stressful’

New York Post  
“The results are in, and 40% of moms shared that the worst of the worst birthdays is December 25,” revealed study authors from WhatToExpect.com, a virtual pregnancy and parenting hub. “There’s a lot going on at Christmastime,” continued the experts, “and many moms in the What to Expect community have expressed their grievances about late December birthdays, in general."
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Spiceworks Launches 13th Annual State of IT Report: Rising Costs, AI Investments, and Workforce Challenges Take Center Stage

Morningstar  
Spiceworks, a leader in IT insights and solutions, launches its 13th Annual State of IT report, providing a comprehensive outlook on rising costs, workforce demands, and the impacts of generative AI. Released in partnership with Aberdeen Strategy & Research, the report sheds light on essential strategies for IT resilience and growth in 2025. The 2025 report highlights the growing importance of security, the rising cost of IT resources, and the critical need for talent development in the face of skills shortages, providing companies with a roadmap to plan for resilience and innovation.
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RetailMeNot’s Annual Holiday, Cash Back Day, Returns: Unwrap the Season’s Deepest Cash Back Offers November 7-9

Morningstar  
Today, RetailMeNot, a Ziff Davis company, kicks off Cash Back Day, an exclusive shopping event running November 7-9 that empowers RetailMeNot members to kick off the holiday shopping season with thousands of deals and cash back offers of up to 20% from top retailers, including UGG, Tarte Cosmetics, Macy's, Walmart, Viator, Anthropologie, Alo Yoga and more. This three-day savings event makes it easier than ever for shoppers to check off every item on their holiday lists while putting cash back into their wallets at hundreds of their favorite retailers.
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Exclusive: Ziff Davis study says AI firms rely on publisher data to train models

Axios  
Ziff Davis says their analysis of publicly available datasets makes it clear that AI firms rely disproportionately on commercial publishers of news and media websites to train their LLMs. The paper — authored by Ziff Davis' lead AI attorney, George Wukoson, and its chief technology officer, Joey Fortuna — finds that for some large language models, content from a set of 15 premium publishers made up a significant amount of the data sets used for training.
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9 Baby Name Trends To Look Out For In 2025

HuffPost  
“Since we’ve been analyzing baby names and reporting on them for two decades now, we’ve seen a ton of trends come and go,” said Rebekah Wahlberg, a baby name trends specialist at BabyCenter. “The 2025 trend forecast tells us a couple things about the future of baby naming: One, parents are very willing to get playful with their daughters’ names. And two, names are less ubiquitous than ever before ― where there used to be three Sarahs, we now have an Olivia, an Emma, and a Luna. Traditional names are deconsolidating as parents choose from a wider variety of names.”
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Business Email Compromise (BEC) Impersonation: The Weapon of Choice of Cybercriminals, Finds VIPRE’s Q3 2024 Email Threat Report

Yahoo! Finance  
"The findings of this report yet again illustrate the sophistication of criminal tactics. BEC email and phishing attacks are becoming more targeted and convincing," Usman Choudhary, CPTO, VIPRE Security Group, says. "Additionally, malware distribution through malicious spam campaigns continues to pose a serious threat to organisations. These findings stress the critical need for robust cybersecurity measures and ongoing employee education to combat these evolving threats, especially as bad actors gear up for the upcoming holiday season – Black Friday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year."
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BabyCenter releases the most popular baby names for 2024: See which names made the list

USA Today  
Noah, Liam, Oliver for boys and Olivia, Amelia and Emma for girls were among the most popular names for babies in 2024, new research by BabyCenter has found. Noah was the most popular name for boys followed by Liam and Oliver, while Olivia was the most popular for girls followed by Amelia and Emma, BabyCenter said in a news release Monday, adding "'E' names for boys" and names ending with "-lee" or "-lyn" for girls were becoming popular.
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