It's been a difficult year to socialize and interact -- especially for college students stuck at home trying to advance their degrees and prepare for their future. Many require interaction and socialization to make the most of their learning.

During its Q1 earnings call, Apple on Wednesday reported its services group generated record revenue of $16.9 billion, thanks to offerings in App Store, cloud, music, video, advertising and payment.

Marketers targeting ads locally have a new type of reference tool. Yelp and Zillow announced a partnership Wednesday naming the top U.S. metro areas for digital nomads, as the prospect of permanent work-from-home agreements becomes more likely.

For marketers still trying to determine what Mother's Day ecommerce sales will look like this year, NetElixir CEO Udayan Bose might have some answers.

Will more ad dollars be pushed into affiliate marketing as Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and others put limitations on third-party cookie tracking? Anthony Capano, managing director of Rakuten Advertising North America, thinks so. He runs the programmatic display, search, and affiliate businesses for the U.S, as well as media services.

A study by Incopro found that a core group of repeat sellers are responsible for a disproportionate share of illicit activity across 34 online marketplaces and social sites. The global economic value of counterfeiting and piracy is forecast to reach $4.2 trillion by 2022.

Sheri Bachstein, Weather Company CEO and GM, Watson Advertising, said all publishers "get one change for consumers to opt in, so the message is extremely important, and it's a dangerous time to rely on instinct, because you only get that one opportunity."

More new businesses opened in Q1 2021 than any time in the past 12 months, although total numbers fell from 2020. Re-openings hit their highest levels since Q2 2020, according to a report released Wednesday. Many are turning their hobbies into businesses, and it's likely that few know the ins and outs of search advertising or social marketing.

2021 is the year of experience for Google. YouTube doesn't seem to follow the same standard (completely), according to Searchmetrics data.

The company last year said when it comes to ranking results in search, it would use page speed and other metrics that reflect how users experience a page or website.