Category: News Bytes

The Chinese company that made news on losing its Android license, followed by being slashed by Intel and Qualcomm as well as getting dumped by ARM, now is subject to ban by two more companies – SD Association and WiFi Alliance as part of the US executive order to ban the company. This basically means from now on, Huawei &Honor phones and laptops will not be able to support additional SD or microSD although on existing devices they will continue to work nevertheless.

The World will spend 800 hrs on mobile internet this year.

It is forecast that people all over the world will spend an average of 800 hours on mobile internet this year. By 2021, this number goes 930 hours. On a similar pattern, India’s growth in mobile internet usage went up from 9.4 mins daily in 2013 to 54 mins in 2019. Mobile usage is expected to go upwards with lower data charges, elevated mobile penetration in tier 2 & 3markets, low-cost handsets, 5G networks and inclusion of vernacular content. Marketing investment in mobile technology and mobile-first strategies cannot be ignored and will be mainstream very soon.

Game of Thrones -The watch may have ended by VR has not.

HTC brings the firebrand show Game of Thrones to VR with a game that will take the user “Beyond the wall”, set to launch exclusively on Viveport Infinity. The game transport users to ‘The Wall’, the northern border of The Seven Kingdoms to fight and defend against the army of undead Wights. The game is about 7 to 8 minutes long but depends on how long the user can stay alive.

scUber, Uber’s newly launched Rideshare Submarine.

The king of the taxi service had taken over the roads and skyways and is now venturing to the underwater. “The world’s first ridesharing submarine.”, Uber said while launching it. The one-hour underwater tour will take you to experience the home of 3,000 individual reefs, 900 islands and over 1,500 species of fish.

Infographic show Over Half the Consumers Start Their Online Shopping on Amazon

It is found that compared to 21.8% on Google and 17.2% on a brand’s website, Almost 51% of customers begin their shopping on Amazon. Although this doesn’t mean shopping in a store is stumped. Amazon is a major player in online shopping, and advertising on Amazon is increasingly been seen as a solid investment for retail brands.

In the middle of the epidemic resulting in unemployment figures scaling up everyday and fewer opportunities to bag, LinkedIN has come up with Career Explorer to streamline job opportunities.The tool will analyze a user’s skills and then find suitable job titles that aligns with their interests/capabilities. It will also mention if any additional skills or LinkedIn Learning courses are required to help attain the skills for the job. Also, connections already working in the areas mentioned or can provide an introduction would be highlighted.

Snapchat introduces AR-enabled Friendship Time Capsule
Snapchat launches a new feature that allows friends to create new shared memories through AR if they can’t be together in person. After the second global Friendship study by Snapchat to know how the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting issues have impacted friendship, Snapchat launched The Friendship Time Capsule, highlighting the problems friendships are currently facing in the midst of the pandemic.

Twitter rolls out ArtHouse helping brands create Twitter-first content
To improve brand communication, Twitter India is coming up with ArtHouse that is a range of creative services coupled to assist the brands in creating and optimizing their Twitter content. Twitter developed the concept based on their understanding that connecting to their audiences is the most important thing for brands today, and when they’re competing for people’s attention, the communication style of the brand should resonate with the users.

Workplace by Facebook introduces some updates
As part of its latest updates, Workplace by Facebook rolled out features like ‘dark mode’ that changes the background from white to black in order to reduce eye strain and glare from the screen and to provide comfortable viewing in low light conditions. The “frontline areas’ concept was launched to customize the experience for frontline workers by classifying them based on criteria such as geography, department, etc. “Knowledge Library’ lets users create, save, and share work content like staff benefits, company goals, work policies etc.

Google launches Keen
Google’s Keen, similar to Pinterest, allows users to curate content based on their interests, share collections or find new content based similar to their tastes. Keen can also be used to build a collection of resources on a topic they are well versed with and share it with people who would enjoy the selected content. Users can curate content both for themselves and for other people and the keens can be private or public.

Jio unveils audio-visual training in 10 different regional languages with their Digital Udaan program in India. Jio will work with its users every Saturday assist them in figuring out the features fo JioPhone and the various apps like Facebook and lectures on internet safety. They aim at providing train-the-trainer sessions, training videos and information brochures to help the program. The company is working with Facebook to ensure that relevant modules are used for each city and locality.

Facebook indulges creators with new tools, features for monetizing content

The updates from Facebook aim to help creators earn more and helps advertisers collaborate on branded content easily. Facebook is competing for creators’ attention with YouTube and the new updates are aimed to leverage more creators. New placement options and regions for video ads are some of the features. Creators who meet Facebook’s Monetization Eligibility Standards will get the new feature in its Ad Breaks ad unit. The feature can activate un-interruptive ad formats, like pre-roll or image ads, in video content that may not have a natural break for ads.

Nielsen India launches solution for measuring sales ROIs of digital publishers

In traditional trade heavy markets like India, FMCG retail sales offtake data is available only at monthly intervals. As weekly data is unavailable, there is a gap in robust evaluation of digital media vis-a-vis traditional media. Custom Mix Modeling solution by Neislon will help FMCG advertisers measure sales ROIs of individual digital publishers by adopting same method as for TV and Print. Apart from the impact of ads on platforms on sales, Nielsen can also set up quick tests to evaluate sales impacts of different creatives, ad formats, and placement decisions at a sales ROI level.

Short-form videos a major factor in achieving marketing goals: Justin Halim, Bain & Company

Indians are increasingly using mobile phones and smartphones presence is expected to reach 80% by 2022. Now with the advent of platforms like TikTok, short-form videos are becoming an important platform to get brand messages out easily. Care has to be given to the execution of short-form videos using streamlined content keeping in mind that videos are mostly viewed in vertical formats, often with the sound off.

Jewellery industry has the potential to completely transform into digital

A conclave of jewellery industrialists spoke about the need to adopt technology in the jewellery industry with special emphasis on reinventing brand & advertising strategy in the digital realm. It was pointed out that digitization is the new buzz word and brands need to reinvent their strategies to reach to consumers in the jewellery industry. The trend on digital today has shifted to 3Vs – Video, Vernacular and Voice and jewellery brands need to gear to stay ahead of the game

Last spring, Disney unveiled its Disney+ OTT service, claiming victory over Apple with a presentation that succeeded in all ways that of Apple’s for Apple TV+. Seven months in, Disney has established itself as an essential platform for anyone who is a fan of the brands, of which includes Marvel and Star Wars. Disney+ also raised the bar of people’s expectations from a streaming service with the killer feature, The Mandalorian, a hefty library of Disney series and movies and a very user-friendly interface.

Instagram testing out ‘Reels’ similar to TikTok

Originally known as Clips, and it goes by Cenas in Brazil where it is first being tested. Instagram Reels lets you make 15-second video clips set to music and share them as Stories, with the potential to go viral on a new Top Reels section of Explore. Instagram will have to fight big to compete with its massive competitor, TikTok that has rich features and a community of 1.5 billion monthly users. Instead of starting from scratch like Facebook’s Lasso, Instagram has the advantage of being able to cross-promote Reels heavily to its own billion users.

Google now has Local Stores Option in its Local & Shopping Campaigns

Google’s new ad feature helps local stores to cash in on holiday shopping as well. Come Xmas season, the search for local stores continues to surge with it peaking about 350 times in searches for “local” + “near me” than 10 years ago. When people visit a neighborhood park, museum, local store, or restaurant, Google Maps connects them with the places they’re interested in since people tap on location pins in Maps hundreds of millions of times per week. By featuring your locations, people can add you as a convenient stop along their route to grab lunch, stop in for shopping, and more.

Facebook Pay to Unify Payments Across Platforms.
Facebook has formally announced Facebook Pay, a unified service for payments across its family of apps, including WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger. It supports major credit, debit cards and PayPal, and transactions are processed by partners like Stripe. Facebook Pay uses traditional financial channels and is different from its Libra cryptocurrency project, which has not taken of due to regulatory resistance across the globe

Instagram will likely remove “Like” counts

Instagram will start removing “Like” counts for U.S. users soon. Instagram will hide “Like” counts from public posts in the Feed, on the desktop platform and in profiles. And only the account owner will be able to view the number of likes on a post. This announcement comes as a disruption to the influencer marketing that Instagram is famous for. The change is likely to shake up the influencer market and the ways brands measure success.

Google has started rolling out a new core search algorithm update named “May 2020 Core Update”. As per Google, the aim of the new update is to improve the quality of search results for the users. The broad core algorithm update would bring a list of changes to Google’s search algorithms and systems. While the update will benefit the end users, websites can expect to witness a fluctuation in their rankings and performances. The update will take several weeks to fully roll out. The last update was initiated by Google in January 2020.

Google Launches New Podcast Manager Tool

Google has introduced a new Podcast Manager tool that enables publishers to listen to the minutes, duration and several other retention analytics. The tool will help pod-casters to understand their audience in a better way so that you can reach across company products. It will provide valuable insights on number of listens per show or episode, number of listens per segment of the podcasts, percentage listened for each episode and anonymized device analytics. However, the tool provides data insights for Google podcast platforms or any other embedded podcast players vetted by the company.

Twitter Begins Rolling Out New Conversation Layout on iOS, Web

In a bid to enhance its user experience, Twitter has begun rolling out their new conversation enhancing feature for iOS and Web. The new layout will align replies with lines and indentations that makes it more clear on who is talking to whom and fit more of the conversation in one view. The platform said that they are experimenting the feature by including icons for like, replay and retweet behind a tap for replies. They have been implementing the feature on a small group of iOS and Web to see how it improves the user experience and engagements within a conversation.

Facebook launches Messenger Rooms

Facebook has launched a new platform, Messenger Rooms, that allows the host to create group video calls and invite up to 50 participants to carry out video conferences. The feature will make it easier to connect with business, close friends and family. In the wake of COVID-19, all the business meetings and family conversations were facilitated by video platforms like Zoom. It appears like the biggest tech giants of the world are bridging the gap for a comprehensive group video platform and taking the competition to a whole new level. The platform is open to all and users do not require to have a Facebook account to access Messenger Rooms.

Covid Trends – Usage of GIF’s witness significant surge

Giphy reports that the usage of GIF discovery platforms had witnessed a 13 percent surge in April this year when compared March and 65 percent when compared to February. The best viewed GIF’s for the month of April expressed positivity and love as the world rattled in COVID-19. Humour became the third popular among GIF’s as people preferred to mix match sarcasm as well. The company stated that their feature ‘Giphy Cares’ helped the audience to find the right words to express their griefs during the pandemic and the channel topped with 1.6 billion GIF views.

The latest feature from LinkedIN enables its users to publish photos and videos for up to 20 seconds long, visible on their profiles for 24 hours. LinkedIn also introduced six localized stickers unique to Indian tradition and work practices along with it. The Stories feature from LinkedIn is an attempt to help members connect over day to day, casual updates and experiences from their work lives and stay connected with their network.

Facebook rolls out mental health resource centre
Facebook introduces ‘Emotional Health’, a centralized mental health resource center on the Facebook app with tips and information from mental health wellness experts to guide and promote mental well-being, globally. To highlight its latest venture, Facebook also came up with a sticker pack on Messenger designed with the WHO, to facilitate conversations around mental health. It also decided to showcase a series of episodes on Facebook Watch related to mental health in collaboration with professionals.

Google to introduce Web Stories feature to Google Discover
Google is now bringing the Web Stories feature to Google Discover and now you can find Web Stories in Google Search and some other supported platforms. Google says, “The Stories carousel, now available in the United States, India and Brazil at the top of Discover, helps you find some of the best visual content from around the web. In the future, we intend to expand Web Stories to more countries and Google surfaces.”

Instagram launches new anti bullying features
Instagram to roll out new anti bullying features to automatically hide comments and remarks that are similar to those that have been reported previously. Users would not be directly exposed to negative comments, but they can still view the comments that are hidden. Tap “View Hidden Comments” to see the comments. Instagram is also considering a comment warning system to include an additional warning when people repeatedly attempt to post comments that are potentially offensive in nature.

Google shopping now available freely globally
This latest move by Google will allow products to show in relevant search results across Google Search helping marketers and consumers alike. Google says, ‘We’re bringing free listings to the Shopping tab in countries across Europe, Asia, and Latin America. Just as we don’t charge sites to be part of the Google Search index, listings for participating retailers are eligible to appear in these results at no cost to them. Paid listings will continue to appear in ad slots and will operate in the same way as Shopping ads do today.” It is expected to be launched mid October.

Well that’s it for this week’s digital news! Catch more interesting snippets at Onpageone!

Cannes Lions, a communal event to celebrate the creativity of this world, will honour Mary Wells Lawrence with the coveted Lion of St Mark award this year. She is the founder of Wells Rich Greene in the year 1966, which is touted as one of the first agencies to be found, owned and run by a woman. Lawrence was the first female CEO to be traded on the big board of the New York Stock Exchange. Instituted in 2011, Lion of St Mark is an award facilitated each year at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity for a lifetime of services to creativity in communications.

Snapchat’s new features to facelift advertising in the platform

Snapchat has announced a raft of new features with more emphasis given on advertising. One of the major features is the ‘Snap Original’ running exclusive shows for the audience. The ‘Happening Now’ feature will connect the users with the latest breaking news. The new Snapchat Action Bar will highlight the prominence of the content, foregrounding features like Discover and Snap Map. Experts say that this will help advertisers to run video ads. Snap Map will have business listings as a way to promote small businesses. The landmark technology is evolved for better shared AR experience. Snapchat has expanded its Creative Kit to include AR with dynamic lenses as well.

Facebook introduces new knowledge panel like information boxes

Facebook has introduced a new panel like feature ‘knowledge boxes’ that pops into the user search queries. The information will be sourced from Wikipedia, enabling users to look up to entities without having to leave the platform. The feature is not limited to just entities, but even a search non-entities are listed in these boxes and redirected to the respective pages upon clicking. By providing more information that users typically find only on search engines, Facebook is finding a way to retain their users on their platform. From a brand perspective, businesses can gain more exposure as their information is available on Facebook even when they don’t have a dedicated Facebook account.

Google My Business launches ‘Extra Hours’ for local businesses

As business starts to reopen, Google My Business has introduced a new feature to give local businesses more flexibility with their business hours. Business can now set up “more hours” in Google My Business with special times for seniors, pickup, kitchen, and more. They can even set these hours by day of the week and multiple times per day. This will give more flexibility for the business to streamline their operations after resuming and make sure that they implement regulations on the sideline of Covid-19. The feature has specific services or specials like access, brunch, delivery, drive-through, happy hours, senior hours, and takeout as special categories for adding the extra time.

WhatsApp testing new feature that lets you search for messages by date

WhatsApp is reportedly gearing up to add a new search option in chat windows, wherein users will be able to search for messages by date. The feature is said to be in the earliest, alpha stages of development, so it is likely that it will not come to your devices any time soon. However, as and when it does, it can be a big improvement particularly for those who regularly use WhatsApp at their workplaces. As of now, the initial report says that the search by date feature is being worked on for WhatsApp for iOS. However, WhatsApp is known for maintaining parity between its Android and iOS apps, so when it releases, it will likely be for both versions of the messaging app.

Amul has been staying relevant even today and its new ‘Cookie’ launch employed ambush marketing to break the clutter. As a fresh face in the biscuit market, they entered with guns blazing with a social media campaign on its new range of butter cookies that contain 25% butter, whereas other brands have no more than 3%. The ad further invites viewers to check the nutritional information on the packaging of rival brands and send in pictures, for which they would receive an Amul hamper.

TikTok has launched an awareness campaign aiming to sensitize India’s digital population about safe and responsible use the platforms. The campaign going by #WaitASecToReflect was developed to inspire users to pause for a second and think about their online conduct. The campaign launched as three digital films has been received well on the digital platforms.

The social media giant rolled out a tool that will let you delete your past browsing and prevent it from keeping track of your future clicks, taps and website visits. Also, Facebook is launching a long-anticipated tool that limits what data the social network can gather about you on outside websites and apps. The former “clear history” button will be replaced by “off-Facebook activity.”

DAN Programmatic, powered by Data Sciences Division of the Dentsu Aegis Network in India and AMNET has launched ‘DAN Vision for Creative’, a machine learning and neuroscience-based engine. It will deliver insights into the predicted performance of a creative even before the creative has actually run. The initiative through its sophisticated technology plans to present a visual heat map of effective elements of a creative and forecast its performance based on algorithms that have been trained on the performance of thousands of creative and analyzing millions of elements.

The FMCG giant seeks to “unprogramme” how marketers are gender-biased in its advertising. Mars is bringing a 3 point strategy to improve gender equality trying to “positively influence” society. It plans to take steps to sensitize and unprogramme marketing staff so that content and campaigns are more sensitive and non-biased . As one of the world’s biggest advertisers, Mars steps will be a benchmark for other brands in bringing forward the change.

Facebook will update three of its ad metrics, in an attempt to improve relevance and reach as well as bury some of its lesser-used options. The updated version is said to be a more ‘granular’ ad relevance diagnostics focusing on quality, engagement rate, and conversion rate.

Online retailer market is mainly based on SEO, PPC campaigns and above-the-line ad campaigns. But for international brands, there is an untapped method to increase engagement and conversions via a website, language. Cost and complexity apart, a true multilingual online retail experience created with bespoke content has yields rewarding results

Doodle is experimenting on AMP-enabled dynamic email. AMP for Email, now releasing for Gmail, will transform the perception of marketers and product designers about the inbox. It makes the static email of today into dynamic, web page-like experiences. AMP for Email is rolling out for Gmail, but other major email providers like Yahoo Mail, Outlook and Mail.ru will also vouch for AMP emails.

Government report studying the future of the UK news industry has sounded alarm bells with regard to the dominance of Facebook and Google in the online ad market. Recommendations to improve the status of other platforms included funds towards innovation and improving the news experience.

Users can have access to their games all the time, on any screen of choice as long as it is connected to Stadia and has a stable internet connection. Users can play games at resolutions of up to 4K, frame rates of 60 frames per second, HDR and surround sound.

On the sidelines of COVID-19, Facebook has launched a new feature called ‘Shops’ – a tool that will serve the small business to thrive forward in the retail space which is lately going through a digital transformation. Sellers can list their business using the tool to connect with the customers. They can upload cover images to showcase their retail outlets for the customers. Mark Zuckerburg, the CEO of Facebook said that Shops will play an important role in helping small businesses to cope up with the crisis situation. “They are not going to undo all of the economic damage that has been caused by COVID but I hope that we can at least help build some of the infrastructures that businesses need not only at this moment but going forward as well,” he added in a statement.

Twitter Officially Launches ‘Retweets with Comments’ on iOS

Twitter has made it easier to see retweets with comments, all in one place, in its efforts to help users track and follow conversations on the micro-blogging platform easy and natural. Twitter appears to be toying with is adding a separate counter for retweets that have comments attached to them, as well as a tabbed UI for easily switching between counters once you’ve opened them up. The feature is now available on iOS. The new functionality allows a user to tap on the retweets word on a tweet (not the icon) to see who has retweeted your tweet with/out a comment. The feature is also tested in Android and can be expected to be rolled out soon.

Google is Launching a New Video Series to Help Businesses

Google is launching a new video series to help marketers and businesses get a better understanding of the opportunities and trends surfacing, besides providing basic updates of various products and tools of Google. In their newest series, leading experts and data scientists will look at the evolving data and the current market scenario to find out what business needs to hold on to the moment. It will discover the new strategies and product ranges that will help stand out the brand in the crisis situation. The first volume of the series could be expected to be launched in June. It is expected that the series will surefire the brand strategies to adapt to the post-COVID business environment.

Corona has brought dramatic changes to dating, quotes Tinder

In an interview with BBC, the Tinder Chief Executive Elie Seidman said that the Covid-19 pandemic has brought a drastic effect on the people who used dating apps. The user engagement has been up significantly as Tinder users had made 3 billion swipes worldwide on March 29. During the ongoing lockdown days, there has been a significant change in the behaviour metrics of the users. The popular dating app has recently announced that it will start rolling out a Global Mode feature for the users, where the users will be able to virtually date any other Tinder users from any part of the world. The platform will also allow users to avoid geography filters completely.