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American YouTuber FaZe Rug has released his own brand of candy designed to create a user experience for the consumer. FaZe, whose real name is Brian Awadis, launched 1UP Candy – a product designed to appeal to his mainly Gen Z audience – as an experience-driven sweet treat. The 26-year-old YouTuber has 23 million subscribers and has used his following to help launch the first product under the 1UP name. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter The initial product is a sour gummy marketed as the Sour Gummy Challenge as it comes alongside a dare that can win the user money if they complete it. How do you take part in the challenge? To successfully complete it, challengers have to put three sour gummies in their mouths and suck on them for thirty seconds while keeping a straight face the entire time. If they are able to complete it and provide evidence in the form of a TikTok or Instagram post, hashtagged #1UPsourchallenge and accompanied with the Cash App information, users can be in with a chance of winning cash prizes. I Created the Worlds Sourest Candy - SOUR CHALLENGE www.youtube.com Rug explained: “When I was approached to fully engage in developing a new candy that was designed to be fun and social, I jumped all over the opportunity.” He continued: “Anyone who knows me knows I love candy, and I love challenging my family, friends and fans to experience it with me.” In a YouTube video launch, Rug tested the challenge on his friends and family, with two out of three failing and having to use the neutraliser to get rid of the sour taste from their mouths. It is recommended by the company that the challenge is avoided by people who have soft teeth, sensitive gums or gastrointestinal disorders. The co-founder of 1UP, Matt Weiss, said: “Launching 1UP Candy with an experiential sour candy challenge is the perfect way for Rug to reach through the screen — and even create connections among his viewers as they experience the candy together via social media.” Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Bluesky has hit a new milestone as it has passed over one million registered users. The social media platform, created by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, has surged in popularity as an alternative to X after users sought to leave the Elon Musk-owned app. Under Mr Musk, Twitter has been rebranded as X. Bluesky hit the milestone on Tuesday, with Rose Wang, who works on strategy and operations at the platform, sharing a screenshot of the moment it gained over a million users. Bluesky still seems to be in its early stages, taking a careful approach and growing slowly as it caters to its cohort of initial adopters. Choosing this cautious approach, access to the app is extended via a waitlist and through invitations from existing users. The app was first announced by Mr Dorsey when he was still in charge of Twitter, tasking developers to build a “decentralised standard” for social media. “The biggest and long-term goal is to build a durable and open protocol for public conversation. That it not be owned by any one organisation but contributed by as many as possible. And that it is born and evolved on the internet with the same principles,” Mr Dorsey wrote on the app in 2020. Bluesky has seen upticks in requests for signups following Mr Musk’s takeover of X, as the Tesla titan brought about sweeping changes to his platform, including initiating mass layoffs, the removal of blue checkmarks for non-paying users and modifications to content rules. At one point in July, Bluesky had to halt sign-ups due to a huge surge in demand, following Mr Musk imposing limits on the number of tweets people could read on X – a move that was later reversed. Bluesky’s approach to carefully onboard users is also in contrast to Meta’s Threads platform, which has emerged as another one of Twitter’s competitors in recent times. Meta’s decision to cross-promote Threads to existing Instagram users led to the app racking up close to 30 million signups in less than 24 hours, and over 100 million users within the first five days. But even with the recent roll-out of a web app – a much-anticipated feature – Threads’ traffic appears to be on a worrying dip, with its number of daily active users much lower than during its heyday just after it launched. Read More Elon Musk’s Twitter slows down access to rival websites $44 billion and eight months later. It’s finally all over for Elon Musk Musk, Zuckerberg and the bitter battle for the future of social media Volcano discovery could power electric cars for decades, scientists say New invention will lead to ‘battery revolution’, scientists say Putin praises Musk days after report Tesla boss stopped Ukrainian attack

PITTSBURGH--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 27, 2023--

Spotify is the latest streaming service to hike its prices.

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SANTA CLARA, Calif. & HSINCHU, Taiwan--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 14, 2023--

Trailblazers can earn free Honkai: Star Rail June 2023 Twitch drops, including 30 Stellar Jade, by watching any Twitch streamer for two hours until July 5.

Twitter, rebranded as X, is now officially turning Tweetdeck into a paid service and placing it behind a paywall, after slowing down access to rival social media platforms including Meta’s Threads and Facebook. Tweetdeck, which was also rebranded recently to “X Pro”, now requires a Blue subscription to access it. The latest change follows Twitter’s announcement in July that users must be “verified” to access TweetDeck. Non-subscribing users visiting Tweetdeck’s website are now being redirected to a page promoting signup to Twitter’s premium service. Tweetdeck, which allows users to access different accounts and multiple custom feeds, was one of the most popular Twitter third-party apps, and was acquired by the social media company in 2011. Twitter has tried to make its premium subscription more enticing to users with added features like ad revenue sharing, formatting, and higher rankings in conversations. Now it appears the social media company, rebranded as X, is hoping the addition of XPro to this list of added features would attract more premium subscribers. On Tuesday, X also appeared to slow down the loading times of some of the platform’s competitors such as Meta’s Facebook, Instagram, and Threads as well as Substack and news media sites posted to X. Links posted to X from some websites were taking about five seconds longer than usual to load on Tuesday, but the platform began reversing some of the changes restricting quick view of news sites. Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg reacted to a post on the issue with a “thinking face emoji”. “Substack was created in direct response to this kind of behaviour by social media companies,” the company’s founders, Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie and Jairaj Sethi, said in a statement. This is not the first time X, formerly Twitter, has taken decisions to restrict access to rival websites. In December, X-owner Elon Musk announced he would ban “free promotion” of other social media services, and also suspend accounts encouraging users to move to other platforms. This announcement came as the platform’s rival Mastodon was growing in popularity, partly due to users’ discontent with changes made by the Tesla titan to Twitter since his takeover of the company. “We will no longer allow free promotion of certain social media platforms on Twitter,” Mr Musk said before the company decided to reverse its decision. Read More Mark Zuckerberg hits out at Elon Musk for wasting time over cage fight: ‘It’s time to move on’ Move fast and beat Musk: The inside story of how Meta built Threads Elon Musk says he may need surgery before proposed 'cage match' with Mark Zuckerberg Mark Zuckerberg hits out at Elon Musk for wasting time over cage fight Elon Musk reveals more dramatic details of fight against Mark Zuckerberg Mark Zuckerberg reveals his 4,000 calorie diet and large McDonald’s order