Instagram is trying to prove itself as a legitimate ad platform by announcing three new marketing tools for brands: two analytic tools named Account Insights and Ad Insights, along with a collaboration platform dubbed Ad Staging. All three features are expected to roll out “over the coming weeks and months”. At the moment, advertising on Instagram is still quite limited in scale, but Facebook, which owns Instagram, clearly has big plans for the platform previously known for its filters and selfies.
Category: Percolate
Breaking News App Uses Proximity Tech Right
After launching its iOS app back in June, NBC’s Breaking News app is now bringing its proximity-based news alerts to the Android platform. It clearly asks for the user’s consent to use location information to enable this feature, and provides them with an easy opt-out as well. The news could be as local as a specific neighborhood or broadened to cover cities in the wake of major stories. The app stands out for offering a highly personalized news experience coupled with well-defined privacy measures.
TV Still Rules, But OTT On The Rise
According to a new global survey conducted by London-based GlobalWebIndex, TV still rules as the No.1 channel for media consumption, taking up 23% of total media time on a global average. The U.S. audience tops the list of most daily TV time with an average of 4.33 hours per day.
However, the study also reveals a rising usurper likely to end TV’s reign. As over-the-air TV viewing continues to rise (now at nearly an hour of daily viewing on average in the US), OTT video service is growing popular, particularly among the young adults. It has reportedly taken up one-third of total TV time among 16- to 24-year-olds across the world. If the viewing preference of young people indicates future media viewing habits, the traditional TV industry will need to keep up.
How To Customize A Car On Twitter
Acura just sent out a new tweet that takes full advantage of the newly revamped Twitter Cards to let users configure their newest sedan model without leaving Twitter. The interactive tweet is part of a large campaign, developed by Mullen, to launch its newest offering, and could indicate the future of advertising on Twitter.
Is SoundCloud Turning Into Spotify-lite?
Following yesterday’s news that Snapchat is planning to add ads to its offering, SoundCloud, the popular audio-sharing platform, is now launching an ad-supported On SoundCloud program to let music and podcast creators monetize the audio they post. The program will have users “see and hear” commercials alongside sponsored tracks. In addition, it announced plans to launch a subscription service to allow listeners to opt out those ads. Essentially, it’s slowly turning into Spotify-lite, just with fewer music licenses. And as long as it doesn’t annoy the users, its popularity will pay off.
Uber Opens Up “Corner Store” and API
Following its experimental campaign to deliver Lay’s-sponsored picnic baskets last week, Uber continues its dive into the on-demand economy by launching “Corner Store”, essentially a grocery delivery service embedded in the Uber app. The service is currently in beta and limited to Washington, DC area.
In addition, Uber also announced its decision to open up an API to let app developer integrate its service into their app. Brands including Starbucks, United Airline, Trip Advisor, and Open Table have reportedly signed up as partners. It is clear that Uber want to be more than just a platform for on-demand car service, and it will be interesting to see if such ambitious extensions will scale.
Why Twitter Tweaked Your Timeline
Compared to Facebook’s ever-evolving algorithm-curated newfeed, Twitter’s timeline has been simple and linear: only tweets and retweets from the accounts you follow, organized in a strict reverse-chronological order. This distinction has become quite obvious in the current news cycle, with Ferguson news dominating Twitter chatter and ALS Ice Bucket Challenge taking over Facebook.
This difference is about to be erased with Twitter indicating it will add “popular or relevant content” to the constitution of timeline. This marks Twitter’s aim to gain more control on the content flow. While users may remain skeptical of such a shake-up, advertisers would no doubt welcome Twitter’s newest tweak, as it offers more freedom for branded tweets to filter through.
Snapchat To Add News And Ads
According to The Wall Street Journal, Snapchat is planning to broaden its offerings with video clips, news articles, and ads. It is reportedly in talks with advertisers and media companies about a service called “Snapchat Discovery” that would support such content.
Such support is certainly nothing new for messaging apps: Kik, for example, has been partnering with advertisers to run campaigns on its multimedia platform for a while now. Before Snapchat can capitalize on its estimated 50 million active users, however, some reliable measurements are needed.
Finally! Roku-Powered TVs Hit The Market
Back in January, we reported from CES 2014 that OTT set box company Roku is teaming up with manufacturers like TCL and Hisense to produce TV sets with built-in Roku service. And now, these models of Roku-powered TVs are finally ready for orders. With support for over 1,500 OTT content channels such as Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, and Amazon Videos, this new breed of TV set could render cable set-top boxes unnecessary and, given time, obsolete.
Why Publishers Are Trying Out “Yo”
Publishers like WSJ and Buzzfeed are dipping their toes into the notorious “Yo” app to tap into its sizable audience. With its newly added functions of embedded links and hashtags, Yo has become more marketer-friendly, and publishers are among the first to take advantage of it. The one-word-only messaging app attracted a considerable amount of users with its simple, gimmicky concept early on, and marketers always follow where the audience goes.
