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Pinterest’s Big Push Into Video Content

According to Social Media Today, Pinterest has recently acquired Vochi, a video editing app that allows users to edit videos and add effects easily. Pinterest mentioned in its statement that “acquiring Vochi is part of our commitment to helping creators bring more quality video content to Pinterest. Having more inspiring content can provide Pinners with more ways to watch, make and shop creator ideas.”

Image Source: TechCrunch

Before the acquisition, Vochi had around 500k monthly users and is generating around $4 million in annual revenue through subscriptions and add-on features. And acquiring Vochi is a part of Pinterest’s evolving initiative to grow beyond its photo-sharing identity and to push video content on the platform. Pinterest video views has increased more than 3 times in 2020 and more users are getting used to its advanced video features. As a result, by folding in the Vochi team, Pinterest is really trying to earn a place in the growing short-form video business.

Last but not least, Pinterest recently has revamped many of its old functions and added new features that made the platform a bit of everything. For example, Pinterest introduced “Pinterest TV” in November where users can browse and view items at the bottom of livesteams. Additionally, Pinterest also did a series of livesteams featuring celebrities, hoping to reach more audience and expand its digital presence.

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New “TikTok Seller” App Now Available in Indonesia

According to Social Media Today, Tiktok just introduced its “Tiktok Seller” app exclusively in Indonesia, enabling brands on TikTok to manage all aspects of their in-app product listings in a separate and dedicated space.

Image Source: TechCrunch

Tiktok Seller will allow brands to manage their Tiktok shops and listings directly on their mobile phones, making things easier and more accessible. This is a part of Tiktok’s initiative to facilitate E-commerce on the platform and maximise sales performance. And according to TechCrunch, “Indonesia for some time has served as a test market for many of TikTok’s investments in its e-commerce business, thanks in part to the growing adoption of smartphones in the country and a hunger for online services catering to its mobile-first population.” 

TikTok’s latest Seller app launch has highlighted how much social media platforms value E-commerce.��

Source: Statista

According to Statista, worldwide social commerce value has reached $732 billion in 2021 and is predicted to reach $2,900 in five years. Because the number is as lucrative as it seems, it is perhaps not hard to understand why media platforms these days are really trying to improve their shopping functions and modules, competing to be the biggest winner of this e-commerce race.

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Meta’s Failed Giphy Acquisition

Source: Giphy 

According to The Verge, Meta is asked to give up its acquisition of Giphy, a popular GIF-making and sharing website. The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said that the acquisition could potentially harm competition among social media platforms.

Meta announced its decision to buy Giphy in May 2020 for a reported price of $400 million, planning to integrate the massive GIF library into Instagram and other Meta apps. After the acquisition, Giphy would live on as part of Instagram team, and the idea was to make it easier to send GIFs on Instagram Stories and in Direct Messages. 

However, CMA has decided that Meta’s acquisition of Giphy would hinder, limit or even deny other platforms from accessing Giphy, while Facebook and Instagram would have more social traffic benefitting from Meta’s ownership of Giphy. Additionally, CMA was also worried that other platforms would be asked to provide more data in order to access Giphy, which raised concerns about data privacy. Last but not least, CMA believed that Giphy had the potential to rival Meta in the UK advertising market, and the acquisition shuttered the possibility of marketing competition. 

Stuart McIntosh, the chair of the independent inquiry group, said in a statement regarding CMA’s ruling on Meta that “By requiring Facebook to sell Giphy, we are protecting millions of social media users and promoting competition and innovation in digital advertising.” 

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TRUTH, but the Trump version

Since October, Facebook and Meta have earned every bit of public attention, starting from its outage to the whistleblower and then the announcement of Meta. And while Meta is being put in the centre of the public discussion, I wonder how many people have diverted their attention and figured that Donald Trump is making major moves in the social media industry. According to Reuters, Trump is launching his own social media platform named “TRUTH”. This announcement was made in October, and I wonder why nobody is talking about it?

Image Source: Space Coast Daily 

TRUTH Social will be created through a new company formed by a merger of the Trump Media and Technology Group and a special acquisition company (SPAC). In a written statement included in the press release, Trump said that “I created TRUTH Social and TMTG to stand up to the tyranny of Big Tech.”. According to the official webpage of TRUTH social, the platform is designed to “encourage an open, free, and honest global conversation without discriminating against political ideology.” 

The social media app is set for a beta launch in November and a formal launch to the public in 2020. However, hours after the announcement, Twitter users always found a way to “hack” into the beta site. They soon created mock accounts of public figures like Trump and Mike Pence and posted a photo of a defecating pig. Despite all the technical issues and backlashes, TRUTH social is now available for Pre-Order on Apple Store, and hopefully, its formal version won’t be so vulnerable to misinformation.

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Metaverse Explained

A month ago, Facebook decided to change its company name to Meta and announced its plan on the metaverse, its future version of the internet. At that time, the metaverse was a big vague idea that sounded a bit “irrelevant” to our everyday life. But starting in November, Meta began to release detailed information about this project and has even planned to launch retails and products that help people socialise in the virtual world. So maybe it’s time to get to know what the metaverse really is and how it could change our lives.

What is the Metaverse

It’s a digital universe. Periodt. Oh wait, I should probably throw in more details here because what does “digital universe” even means here? According to Vox, the metaverse allows users to connect, interact and socialise with each other in a virtual space regardless of physical limitations. This is to say that instead of engaging with other people in real life, people can now just plug into their headsets, and they’ll be immersed in a new world where the surroundings and people’s physical appearances are updated virtually. Still confused? Look at the image below, and be quiet because these people are having a meeting in the metaverse.

Image Source:  USA Today

Meta and Retail Stores

Meta is recently discussing the plan to open retail stores that showcase devices that allow people to stay connected in the metaverse. The company has the ambition to open stores all around the world and to introduce people to devices made by the company’s Reality Labs division, such as virtual reality headsets and, eventually, augmented reality glasses. 

Meta has announced this month that Reality Labs is currently working on a new product that can help people feel things in the metaverse, and that is a glove. 

Image Source: Vox

This prototype haptic glove has the potential to create the sensation of pressure, I mean it’s called “touch” in real life. And when being worn with other VR items like headsets or glasses, one is able to feel objects that they see in the virtual world. For example, you can shake someone’s avatar in the metaverse and feel the squeeze.

Why Should We Care

According to Vox, If the metaverse really becomes a thing, then Meta will possess its own operating system and no longer has to rely on Google and Apple to carry out its mobile apps. And without the constraints of Google and Apple, Facebook will have a whole new level of control and influence over the future internet that it doesn’t have today on the mobile web. Meta already owns four of the most used social media platforms, and when the metaverse actually happens, is it possible that people get stuck in the Meta bubble? Think about how much time people have spent on Instagram, and once people enter the metaverse, could there be a way out?

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Holiday Shopping On Snapchat

According to SocialMediaToday, Snapchat partnered with several big brands that allow users to go AR shopping for the upcoming holiday season. The campaign is named “Snap Holiday Market”, which includes brands like Amazon, Coca-Cola, Hollister, Under Armour, Verizon, and Walmart. Enabled by the AR technology, brands are able to build virtual store environments on Snapchat and customers can browse, view and try on items virtually through AR lenses. This improved holiday-themed virtual shopping initiative aims to appeal to businesses that are targeting young customers and is a part of Snapchat’s evolving e-commerce tools. 

Image Source: SocialMediaToday

It’s not Snapchat’s first attempt to partner with brands to improve its shopping experience. In early November, Snapchat has worked with fashion brands like Dior, Tory Burch, and Farfetch to promote its AR try-on functions to facilitate connection with the young generation through more and more immersive virtual try-on experiences and to promote Snapchat’s e-commerce tools. 

Image Source: SocialMediaToday

Snapchat is not the only platform that is actively working on its shopping functions. Instagram Stories is one of the leading tools that businesses use to display ads, and Instagram now covers all aspects of online shopping where brands can work with creators to advertise their products, and brands have a dedicated page for items where users can purchase directly without leaving the app. Last but not least, Twitter is also rolling out new shopping functions called “Twitter Commerce”, enabling Twitter users to save product listings and make purchases directly from tweets. 

Image Source: SocialMediaToday

Shopping on social media is definitely a notable trend for this year, and hopefully, Snapchat’s AR holiday market will give us an insight into how the next wave of e-commerce and social media shopping might look like in the future.

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Instagram Tells You to “Take a Break”

Click to watch the video. Source: Instagram @Mosseri

According to Social Media Today, Instagram is testing out a new user wellbeing function called “Take a Break”. After enabling this function, users can choose the amount of time they want to spend on Instagram before getting an in-app “Take a Break” notification. The time options vary from 10-30min, depending on user preference and for now, it seems like there’s no option to customise the time.

Last month, Nick Clegg, Meta spokesman, mentioned the “Take a Break” function during an interview about Instagram’s negative effect on teenagers and said that this function has a specific focus on young users. He also mentioned that the app is also actively working on new prompts to protect young users from harmful content.

However, this time limit function has been available on Instagram since 2018 where users can go to settings to set up an app time limit. As a result, “Take a Break” is simply building on the already existing function and the question is, just like Apple Screen Time, do you ever stop using apps simply because they tell you to take a break? 

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Facebook Shut Down Facial Recognition System “To Find The Right Balance”, But Meta Said The Opposite

In December 2010, Facebook introduced the facial recognition system that allowed automatic identification of people who appeared in users’ digital photo albums. So if you were or still are a Facebook user, you must have encountered this function where the app identified your friends or you being recognised in other’s photo albums. This technology has allowed Facebook to build a giant repository of digital photos in the past decade, and it has advanced in its accuracy and power throughout time. And this was also what got Facebook into trouble and raised public concerns on privacy. In recent years, Facebook has spent billions of dollars to settle privacy concerns. According to New York Times, Facebook is planning to shut down the facial recognition system and delete a billion people’s “faceprints” this November, saying that it’s a response to “many concerns about the place of facial recognition technology in society”.

Image Source: Michael Nagle / Bloomberg via Getty Images

However, it doesn’t mean Facebook’s parent company Meta is going to stop investing in this lucrative facial recognition technology; but instead, Meta seems more than eager to incorporate it into its latest vision of the internet, that is, Mr Zukerburg’s new baby Metaverse. In the blog post, Jerome Pesenti, Meta’s Vice President of AI, mentioned that the company still values facial recognition tech as a powerful tool, and it will continue to work on the tech. According to Vox, Meta is already actively exploring ways in which it could incorporate biometrics into Metaverse to build a virtual stimulation of avatars. Additionally, DeepFace, the algorithm that supports the facial recognition feature on Facebook, is still kept and considered a valuable asset of Meta. 

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Hello Meta, Bye Facebook.

According to NYT, on October 28th, Facebook announced during its Connect 2021 Event that it’s officially renaming its overarching company as “Meta”.The founder of Facebook (wait, actually it’s Meta now), Mark Zuckerberg, mentioned that since Facebook has acquired and owned so many other apps like Instagram and Whatsapp, keeping Facebook as the corporate name seemed no longer tenable. In addition, the public has speculated that the company made the move to distance itself from the recent political scrutiny and social controversies.

Image: The new Meta logo. Source: Facebook

However, Zuckerberg himself did explain the intention of changing the name of HIS company. With the new name “Meta”, the big blue letter F identity/brand is de-emphasised. The company wants to unify the separate digital worlds and platforms into a universe of “metaverse”, which is deemed the future of the internet by Zuckerberg. According to The Verge, the company is now working on unifying account systems across its social apps and tech devices like Oculus Quest headset, Portal, and any future device. An estimated amount of $10 billion has been spent to build Zuckerberg’s vision of the future internet. When talking to the reporter from The Verge, he mentioned that he’s been thinking about this rebrand since he bought Instagram and Whatsapp, and he realised this year is the time to finally implement actions.

Rebrand isn’t rare. Google has done that in 2015 where it rebranded itself under a new parent company, Alphabet, in order to differentiate its internet searching business better. However, the rebrand of Facebook seemed less “reconstructive” for now since only the name has changed and Zuckerberg still remains chief executive and chairman. But the public is definitely curious about what’s the company’s next move on "dominating" the social media sphere. 

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IGTV Is Gone, But Not Really

Instagram has recently merged IGTV (long format video) with feed videos (short format videos) and combined them into the brand new “Instagram Video” format. IGTV was first introduced in 2018 and had its own app. It was dedicated to long videos that could be up to an hour, and Instagram wanted it to be the equivalent of Youtube, but on a mobile device. In 2020, Instagram added the IGTV function to its main app, and users could access the function directly from the Instagram homepage. 

However, IGTV didn’t perform as well as the company expected since short videos seemed to capture the attention more effectively, and Tiktok was THRIVING during COVID. As a result, Instagram introduced the Reels (up to 60s) function whose lengths are similar to Tiktok videos and wanted content creators to use this function as an alternative to Tiktok.

Photo Credit: Jeff Chiu

As a result, now one can post videos on Instagram in two ways. The first is through the feed/post function, where you click the “plus” sign on the main page(the same way you post a picture), and you can upload videos that are up to an hour. The second way is to post it on Reels, where you click the film sign at the bottom of the main page, and you get to create short videos that are up to a minute. So basically, Instagram is now differentiating its video content based on its length. And this move to merge IGTV has hinted at how long videos are not ideal for content creators or advertisers on social media since Youtube is still their go-to option. In addition to this, Instagram also said the newborn “Instagram Video” will allow users to directly edit or tag people/brands in videos, which will help content creators monetize their channels. 

Instagram’s frequent attempt to expand and optimise its video functions has shown how much it wants to grow beyond a photo-sharing platform and how videos are becoming more relevant and “profitable” for content creators to survive the creator economy in 2021.

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Facebook’s Outage Concerned and Frustrated the Advertisers

On Monday, October 4th, Facebook and its family of apps blinked out for more than 5 hours, and billions of users who heavily relied on their products lost access to all kinds of services. While the users might be annoyed since they were unable to send messages or refresh the page, the advertisers and marketers whose entirely revenue counted on ads on Facebook seemed more frustrated than ever. Mr Herrmann is a media buyer who managed around 800 million dollars in ad spending each year. During the Facebook outage, one company that advertises solely on this platform has witnessed its revenue plunge 70% compared to the same period from last week. At another company that spends $40,000 a day on ads, its sales also went down 30%. 

Image: Facebook Announcing its Outage on Twitter 

While Facebook has explained the interruption later on Monday and the internet traffic went back to normal, many advertisers have become more aware of and concerned about Facebook monopolising the advertising industry. Facebook(including its family of apps like Instagram) advertising used to be a game changer. It is one of the best platforms to reach audiences, and roughly 98% of Facebook’s revenue came from advertising. However, the outage this Monday and the disastrous financial consequence it has inflicted on companies have led the advertisers to rethink if they should put all their ad investment into one single company. Now there are still a lot of businesses that place ads exclusively on Facebook, and Mr Dobbin, who’s also an ad manager, said to New York Times that “This is a perfect example of why you can’t rely on a single channel to bring in all of your revenue.” This has also shown that many companies are now thinking about diversifying their advertising channels and platforms. As a result, the ads placement/optimisation/deals will become more competitive for media companies like Facebook and Twitter in the future, with more companies joining the competition(like Spotify), let’s see who will be the biggest winner…  

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“Hello, Did Someone Just Mention Social Media? “

Bonjour!!! This is going to be Tina’s blog for Business of Media Fall 2021. 

Wanna know more about social media and its rapidly changing landscape? This is the right place:)))) 

To be continued....