The wealth of streaming services now available is proving to be hard on New Zealand’s broadband infrastructure, and, according to the NBR, Chorus, the largest network operator, recently said traffic increased by 40 percent on its network between January and April. Playstation is also getting on the act (in the US, at least) with Vue, and it’s launched an ad showing a number of situations where using new technology is a no brainer.

Virtual reality systems Oculus Rift and Microsoft’s Hololens have been getting plenty of attention recently. And while it remains to be seen whether humans will be happy to strap something to their face (or whether they’ll plug technology straight into their DNA, as is being predicted), what’s clear is that they are willing to give augmented reality a whirl. And retailers from Walmart to Freedom Furniture to New World to Lego are all trialling it.

As Apple gets ready to take on the established streaming services with its new musical moves, Spotify has created a clever feature called Taste Rewind that acts as a musical time machine and shows users how the music of the past has influenced the music of today.

In March, the story broke that Yahoo would be releasing all of its editorial staff as part of a restructuring process that would create five new roles, which these previous staff members could apply for. Until now, the regional executives in charge of this restructure have not commented to the media about what the changes have entailed or why the the website had decided to rethink its business operations. After several requests for interviews, Yahoo 7 chief executive for Australia and New Zealand Ed Harrison recently chatted to StopPress about the changes and what they mean for the company.

The Webby’s celebrate the best digital work done over the past year. And this year, along with Grey Goose, it created a site showing 50 of the best ideas. It also wanted to celebrate the creators, so, as part of that campaign it caught up with the founders of Refinery 29, Vine, Giphy, Cool Hunting and Harry’s. And they had plenty of advice for anyone working in the digital arts.

First coming to prominence with guerrilla advertising campaigns and video jockeys for electronic musicians, projection mapping is now an oft-used method to promote products from major companies such as Porsche, Sony and Nike. Artistic collective, Skullmapping, however, are taking it to a whole new level.

Wanaka is a place well renowned for its beauty, with its crystal blue lake, mountainous terrain and great slopes. And while stunning promotional imagery for the town is common to see, it’s not as often we get to see a hyper-fast compilation of the township through 4,000 images carefully stitched together by an experienced videographer, here’s Lake Wanaka Tourism’s latest marketing approach.

After Joseph Parker dominated the German champ last weekend and won in the second round, Burger King had to honour the pledge it made to its new mascot (under duress) and sell Whoppers for $2. And Parker’s thunder face has returned.

Generally speaking, it’s not a good idea to take advice from advertising. And especially not alcohol advertising. But you can make an exception for this ad for Finlandia Vodka.

Having a local to show you around always makes a city more enjoyable. And, following on from various ads showing urbane men having urban adventures, Heineken’s latest campaign via Wieden + Kennedy Amsterdam shows how crucial a knowledgeable insider can be.

Big data is a massively over-used term and, for many, too abstract to be useful. But “customer engagement provider” Thunderhead, which is set to launch in this part of the world soon, decided to create a very literal version of the term for its brand ad and, unlike any other research company ever, it’s embraced man-on-man breastfeeding to attract chief marketing officers.

Nielsen and the ABC have recently released their respective breakdown of the readership and circulation figures. As has come to be expected, the downward decline has continued for the weekly publications, with each of the publications surveyed in this category suffering year-on-year dips in readership. However, there was also good news for some of the publications included within the survey.

Social media marketing agency Socialites released its ‘SnapAuckland’ compilation today as part of its revolt against Snapchat’s ‘Auckland Life’, which it says failed to do the city justice. News of Socialite’s endeavor to remedy the situation and Aucklanders’ disgruntled reaction to Snapchat’s previous attempt blew up, with Snapchat Miami catching wind of the story and pushing word out through its own channels.