The Best of an Ad Lot 🤑📜

👀 TLDR

In this week’s What’s Appening, we discuss the news that Meta is projected to overtake Google in ad revenue. An incredible achievement, but does all this ad money mean we overlook Mark Zuckerberg’s expensive mistakes and vanity projects? We also have news on Apple’s impending launch of smart glasses, OpenAI’s latest acquisition, Nikita Bier’s promise to drive down clickbait on X, and lots more!

🎬 Our Top Take

📱📵 Meta – Company Projected to Exceed Google in Ad Revenue for First Time

It remains one of the most salient facts in the tech industry that, despite its extraordinary influence in the lives of billions of people globally, Meta remains, at heart, an advertising company. Even in this era, where it has seen some success with its VR gaming gadgets and Ray-Ban smartglasses, approximately 99% of its massive income comes from advertising. Now, it has reached – or, at least, is predicted to reach – an important milestone, overtaking Google in ad revenue. It’s a significant passing of the baton between two of the architects of the modern web, yet we continue to find Meta’s dependence on ad revenue intriguing. It has spent (wasted?) SO MUCH money on other projects, not least the multi-billion-dollar disaster of the Metaverse. Right now, it’s splurging billions on AI data centers and tools, the latter of which, hilariously, includes an AI version of Mark Zuckerberg himself, who will interact with and guide Meta’s employees. Meta is probably right to get positioned in the AI race, but it’s hard not to think that investors forgive Zuck for his many vanity projects because he is so darn good at making money from the most annoying ads on the web. #MetaTopsGoogle Read more here.

📲 App of the Week: Rash ID

We’ll start this post with a disclaimer: Always consult your doctor after getting healthcare advice from AI. That said, there is a growing number of useful AI tools that can help with basic care and advice, and one that feels particularly useful for peace of mind is Rash ID, which uses AI to analyze photos of skin rashes and provide a diagnosis within minutes. It also comes with a built-in AI dermatologist called MUM. We see it as the type of tool to use when you CAN’T make it to the doctor right away; not your endpoint diagnosis. Again, though, bear in mind that even popular tools like Rash ID can get it wrong. Check it out on iOS here and Android here.

🧐 Stat of the Week: 24K Steps

📈📉 Golf – Green Jacket Winner McIlroy Is All In on Fitness Tech

We hope you enjoyed the thrilling conclusion to the Masters as much as we did, but were you following Rory McIlroy’s every step? Because he certainly was. The 6-time Major winner is actually an investor in Whoop, the fitness band that seems to be en vogue with athletes globally. So, we got plenty of insights on Rory’s ‘journey,’ including his 24,000 steps and his heart rate at the most critical moments. As an aside, we did see a thought-provoking golf-related statistic this week: Namely, that golf courses in the United States use 30X more water per annum than data centers. #RorysStory Read more here.

🗞️ Other Stories

📍 Meanwhile at 3Advance

30 for 30 is back for 2026. The pitch is simple: you’ve got a vibe-coded prototype (or just an idea that won't leave you alone), and we've got a full product team ready to turn it into something real. 30 days, $30k, one proper V1. We've seen what happens when this clicks – and it's pretty fun to watch. If you're sitting on something that's almost there, here's your nudge: 3advance.com/v1 🚀