The word of the week is fluctuation – as Facebook’s shares plummet, Snapchat releases a new offering to steer it towards premium ground, and Twitter exercises more vigilance in platform controls.
INSIGHTS
- Facebook’s shares dropped 16% in the midst of a battle to save face over data protection woes. (That’s $18.8 billion USD.)
- Google celebrated upwards revenue as paid clicks grew by 58% in the last year.
- Amazon reported their largest ever quarterly profit on the back of a growing contribution from ad sales.
- Netflix gained an extra 5.2 million subscribers over the last three months.
COOL
- Learn the tricks of the trade from the self-made billionaire founder of video game Fortnite.
- A wireless wand? Why not. Witness Kano’s new way of teaching kids to code with Harry Potter.
DEEP READS
- You no longer need a degree in machine learning to interact effectively with AI. Your natural language processing crash course is here.
- The attention-span generation strikes again, switching to an app instantly if it’s more efficient than the web to make a purchase.
- You can now have Alexa join your car rides with any BMW that has been produced after March 2018. And it’s not just voice interface either…
- If you’re already spending too many hours on YouTube, avoid their new feature – the Explore Tab. Goodbye, lunch break.
FAB FACTS
- People aged 16 – 34 are most receptive to purpose-driven ads that convey a message about important societal issues.
- Facebook overestimated its UK audience between ages 18 and 25 by 2 million people for the 2017 census. If we gave all control to them, would the numbers be more accurate?
- Snapchat cherry-picked 100 brands to buy ‘unskippable’ ad slots in their new private marketplace.
- Twitter introduced a new direct message cap, limiting users to 15,000 messages that can be sent and received within a 24-hour window. Anyone else feeling unpopular?