Category: Social

Instagram has just hit one of its most crucial milestone – one billion users. The news came on the heels of the company’s launch of IGTV or Instagram Television, a long-form video format that takes aim at rival YouTube. It seemed inevitable that Instagram would hit the 1 billion monthly users mark. But what probably surprised people was how quickly the company achieved this. After all, it was just in September of last year that the photo-sharing app reached 800 million users. Instagram now joins WhatsApp and Messenger in the…

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WeChat, China’s favorite social media app, has hit one billion monthly active users. The platform managed to reach the milestone largely due to the popularity of its games and shopping services, particularly during the Lunar New Year in February. Pony Ma Huateng of Tencent, the app’s parent company head honcho, disclosed the impressive figure at a media briefing on Monday. Known as Weixin in China, the mobile app offers more than just messaging services. Users are able to play games, send money, and even book appointments, making the all-in-one platform…

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Instagram is allowing users to buy what they see on Stories without having to leave the app. The photo and video sharing platform recently announced that stickers with the shopping bag icon are headed to Instagram Stories. Tapping on the shoppable tags that caught your eye in a Story will reveal more details about the product. Instagram started testing out this feature in 2016 and offered it to about 20 select retail partners. It quickly proved to be a hit and has since expanded to include regular brand postings on…

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Zuckerberg was recently asked what he thinks are the top 3 qualities an entrepreneur should have when starting a successful business. 1. Focus on Making an Impact in the World “I think if you want to build something great you should focus on the changes you want to make in the world. That to me is number 1. I see too many entrepreneurs decide that they want to start a company before they actually know what it is that they want to build, and to me that seems backwards.” “In…

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Data retention at issue in Washington, facial recognition consent in Illinois. Facebook’s legal struggles continue. As we discussed yesterday, the company faces (and disputes) new allegations that it previously shared user data with smartphone device makers without consent. It was also sued today by Washington state for failing to comply with campaign finance laws. Google was also named in the complaint. Both companies are charged by Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson with not maintaining proper records and information about buyers of political ads as required by state law. The alleged…

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Facebook confirms data partnerships with Huawei and three other Chinese telecom firms.   Raise your hand if Facebook shared user data with you — because the list keeps growing. Days after learning the company had shared user information with at least 60 different device makers — including Apple, Samsung, Blackberry, Microsoft and Amazon — more names from that list have surfaced. The list includes Chinese device makers Lenovo, Oppo, TCL and Huawei. US intelligence officials flagged Huawei as a potential national security threat as far back as 2012, reports The…

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Facebook will no longer be releasing limited-time reaction buttons, which people could use in place of standard reactions or the like button. So those who have been waiting for Facebook to release a ‘pride’ reaction to commemorate Pride month won’t be getting one this year. Last year, during the month of June, Facebook rolled out a rainbow pride flag that people could use to react to posts and/or comments. Facebook has done this several times before. A purple flower reaction button was available for Mother’s Day in 2016 and 2017.…

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Facebook is rolling out the ability for app publishers to include Facebook ads in their ad auctions. This process is facilitated by a technology called header bidding which was introduced last year. Header bidding allows web publishers to put ad impressions up for auction through real-time bidding between ad networks. Previously, Facebook’s support for header bidding was limited to advertising on the mobile web. Facebook now supports header bidding for in-app advertising.

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Up 21% year over year, Twitter’s $575 million in advertising earnings is split evenly between its US and international markets. According to Twitter’s Q1 2018 earnings report, video ads accounted for more than half of the $575 million advertising revenue it earned during the first quarter of this year. Twitter’s total revenue for the quarter was $665 million, a 21 percent increase year over year, and was split nearly evenly between its US market ($347 million) and international markets ($318 million). The $318 million revenue earned from international markets reflected 53…

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Snap Inc. released its quarterly earnings for Q1 2018, reporting $230.7 million in total revenue for the first quarter of the year. Year over year, Snap’s total revenue saw a 54 percent jump — but revenue was down compared to the previous quarter, when it reported $286 million in Q4 2017. CEO Evan Spiegel attributes the loss in revenue to the company’s decision to roll out a major redesign of the app this quarter — separating user content from creator content. “As we have mentioned on our past two earnings…

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