Filmmaker Paul Fox has joined CoMPANY. Fox has helmed the majority of episodes for the Golden Globe-nominated comedy Schitts Creek, starring Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara. Fox is currently directing the new CBC comedy series, Workin’ Moms, created by and starring Catherine Reitman….Oceana Branding has signed director Jan Boon for commercials and branded content. Boon is probably best known for his prowess in documentary-style branding, an example being his short for Samsung titled The Worst Instagram Ever, which took Gold at last year’s Shanghai Film Festival….Innocean Worldwide Americas, headquartered in Huntington Beach, Calif., has expanded its creative team with several key new hires. Jeff Bossin, Michael Everard and Kelly Kliebe join as VPs, group creative directors. Bossin is responsible for developing and overseeing integrated national campaigns for Hyundai. Bossin comes over from Deutsch LA, where he was working with brands including Target, Zillow, PlayStation and Real California Milk. Everard joins Innocean with an extensive background in the automotive category where he’s been a writer and creative director on brands such as Lexus, Honda, Toyota, Mitsubishi Motors, Chevy, and Saturn. He will be co-managing the Hyundai Dealer business at Innocean. Kliebe returns to Innocean from The Garage Team Mazda and has worked at top agencies such as Saatchi & Saatchi, spanning such brands as Mazda, Toyota, National Geographic, Sony, and Charles Schwab. In his new role at Innocean, Kliebe will work directly on the Genesis account. Also joining Innocean are design director Marius Gedgaudas, art director Gabriel Gama, sr. copywriter Alvaro Soto and copywriter Guilherme Grossi. Gedgaudas had previously been at Ignited. The Cannes Lion-winning team of Gama and Grossi join Innocean from TBWA/Raad, Dubai. Soto had most recently been at McCann Peru….Global content studio Pulse Films has promoted Rik Green to executive producer heading up the U.K. Music division, and appointed Alli Maxwell as EP at the helm of the U.S. Music division Green joined Pulse as a music video producer in 2012, and went on to work on some of the studio’s most iconic videos including “Genghis Khan” for Miike Snow (director Ninian Doff), “Nobody Speak” for DJ Shadow & Run the Jewels (Sam Pilling), and “No Reason” for Bonobo (Oscar Hudson). Maxwell is a multidisciplinary creative and EP whose career spans music videos, commercials, branded entertainment, VR and feature films….
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