Commercial rep company Dubay TV, under the aegis of president Dana Dubay, has signed director Jeremy Heslup for commercial representation on the East Coast. Heslup serves as director and EP at Valkyr Productions, which he founded nearly a decade ago. The director’s credits span such clients as Divergent 3D, Land Rover, Wahl Clippers, Zenith Watches, Omaze, Puma, Porsche, a six-part narrative commercial campaign for Vincent Optiek in the Netherlands, and many others. His work has been nominated for awards by the London Motor Film Festival and Automoto Film Festival and featured at the Petersen Automotive Museum, Soho Houses, Monterey Classic Car Show and more. Heslup’s international exploits have seen him make films in Europe, South America, Hong Kong, South Africa, Mexico, Canada and Costa Rica, among other varied locales. On the long-form front, he directed The Last Great Road Race, a feature documentary about the historic La Carrera Panamericana in Mexico….
Growth Brings Growing Pains–and Bots–To Bluesky
Bluesky has seen its user base soar since the U.S. presidential election, boosted by people seeking refuge from Elon Musk's X, which they view as increasingly leaning too far to the right given its owner's support of President-elect Donald Trump, or wanting an alternative to Meta's Threads and its algorithms.
The platform grew out of the company then known as Twitter, championed by its former CEO Jack Dorsey. Its decentralized approach to social networking was eventually intended to replace Twitter's core mechanic. That's unlikely now that the two companies have parted ways. But Bluesky's growth trajectory — with a user base that has more than doubled since October — could make it a serious competitor to other social platforms.
But with growth comes growing pains. It's not just human users who've been flocking to Bluesky but also bots, including those designed to create partisan division or direct users to junk websites.
The skyrocketing user base — now surpassing 25 million — is the biggest test yet for a relatively young platform that has branded itself as a social media alternative free of the problems plaguing its competitors. According to research firm Similarweb, Bluesky added 7.6 million monthly active app users on iOS and Android in November, an increase of 295.4% since October. It also saw 56.2 million desktop and mobile web visits, in the same period, up 189% from October.
Besides the U.S. elections, Bluesky also got a boost when X was briefly banned in Brazil.
"They got this spike in attention, they've crossed the threshold where it is now worth it for people to flood the platform with spam," said Laura Edelson, an assistant professor of computer science at Northeastern University and a member of Issue One's... Read More