Re/wind: We Survived CES (Somehow), Gearing Up for Another Digital Media Arms Race and More

CES is over. You did it. We did it. Mazel tov. Here’s what happened in Las Vegas and elsewhere this week:

1. We went to CES, so that you didn’t have to, and here’s a link to all the stuff we wrote about it. Some highlights: Interviewing the women of the “unofficial” brothel of CES, Intel pledged $300 million to “diversity in the workforce” (after kowtowing to the misogynistic Internet mob of Gamergate last year) and we talked to the unseen and unheard laborers who make CES tick. Can’t wait for 2016!
2. In 2014, brands and media organizations spent lots of time obsessing over publishers like Facebook and LinkedIn, hoping they would be rewarded with pageviews and advertising dollars for their efforts. In 2015, Twitter’s soon-to-be-released video feature, Facebook’s burgeoning video content empire and LinkedIn’s new Medium-lite blogging platform will give content creators even more tools to abuse.
3. “The Interview” is officially Sony Pictures’ top-grossing online movie, bringing in over $30 million after provoking an international political crisis.
4. The Diapers.com guy has a neat strategy to take on Amazon called Jet. Meanwhile, Kickstarter switched from using Amazon Payments to Stripe. Oh, and Amazon apparently has a secret plan to help inventors sell their products on … Amazon.
5. We got some new speakers for our Code/Media event next month, which still has tickets available! The added speakers include Rookie Mag founder and fashion world wunderkind Tavi Gevinson, musician and social media jester Tyler the Creator and YouTube content chief Robert Kyncl.
6. The Great Unbundling begins: You can now get an ESPN Web-only subscription for $20 a month through a new Web-TV service coming from Dish.
7. WhatsApp, the popular messaging service acquired by Facebook last February for the equivalent of the GDP of a small country, hit 700 million global users this week. They couldn’t have done it without you.
8. One of the co-founders of Fab, an online retail company whose fall from grace is the stuff of tabloids, is back with a new online retail company. Bradford Shellhammer’s (great name!) new project looks a lot like Fab, but investors seem to trust that this project might actually go somewhere.
9. After selling a bunch of new phones over the holidays, Apple began the New Year with a record number of App Store sales, nearly half a billion dollars’ worth of purchases in the first week of January alone.
10. New York Times tech editor Suzanne Spector is moving to the paper’s National section. Who will ascend to the Iron Throne of tech journalism? Let us know if you have any ideas!

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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