AOL vs Vivaldi

Paistry founder Alen Nazarian wants to make publisher content dynamic with AI

In an interview with MEEDIA, Alen Nazarian, founder of Paistry and former CTO of SevenOne Media, discusses his startup's mission to make the open web fit for the AI era. Paistry develops a platform that allows publishers and brands to transform their content into intelligent, interactive user experiences, including interactive journalism, new ad formats, and personalized product advice. The company has already conducted pilot projects with two publishers and tested AI agents with various brands. Nazarian emphasizes the importance of publishers retaining control over their content and monetization, rejecting robots.txt as ineffective, and advocating for a federated data network to enable controlled, paid access for external AI systems. He predicts a shift from attention-based advertising to monetizing concrete user needs, with AI agents potentially handling purchases in the future.

• Paistry is a startup founded by Alen Nazarian, former CTO of SevenOne Media, aiming to make publisher content dynamic with AI.
• Paistry has conducted pilot projects with two publishers and tested AI agents with various brands.
• The platform enables interactive journalism, new ad formats, and personalized product advice.

Walmart's Vibe Deal: Meta or Another AOL?

Walmart completed its acquisition of Vibe.co, a self-serve CTV platform, and the deal has prompted discussion about whether Walmart can build a successful advertising walled garden or repeat past failures. The opinion piece argues the combination of Walmart’s retail data, Vibe’s CTV capability and Walmart’s prior TV play via Vizio could create a connected retail-media + CTV ecosystem that drives measurable outcomes for advertisers. The author warns that convenience and self-serve buying alone do not guarantee long-term advantage — scale, audience ownership, cross-platform measurement and deliberate strategy are required to make a walled garden valuable rather than limiting. The article frames the acquisition as a test of whether Walmart’s approach will emulate Meta’s success or become another AOL-like cautionary tale for closed ecosystems.

• Walmart completed the acquisition of Vibe.co; the deal "closed last week."
• Vibe.co operates a self-serve CTV platform aimed at making streaming TV easier for smaller and midsize advertisers.
• Walmart previously moved into the TV screen via Vizio.

Community Project Revives ICQ as 'ICQ Reborn'

ICQ was permanently discontinued on June 26, 2024. A community project, ICQ Reborn, revives the classic ICQ experience—UINs, the iconic "Uh‑oh" sound and a 2002-style interface—and is distributed as a free Windows client (v1.3); there is no official mobile app yet. The project is an independent, fan-run effort not affiliated with the official ICQ owners (Mail.ru Group) and is presented as a nostalgic tech hobby rather than a modern messaging competitor. ICQ Reborn runs on a private XMPP server and currently lacks end-to-end encryption, which, along with potential stability limitations, raises security concerns; users are advised not to share sensitive information on the service.

• ICQ, previously owned by AOL and sold to Mail.ru Group in 2010, was permanently discontinued on 2024-06-26.
• A community project named ICQ Reborn recreates ICQ's classic UI, UINs and the iconic "Uh‑oh" notification sound.
• ICQ Reborn is available as a free Windows application (version v1.3); no official mobile version is currently available.

Vivaldi 8.2: we’ve done the math, and this is the browser you deserve

This release brings more built-in functionality to make your day to day easier, and a strengthened commitment to be there where you need us.