Online influencers have become an important feature of social media, and marketers have learned to take full advantage of them, analyzing follower engagement and applying analytics to understand ROI. Over time, influencer-focused marketing has revealed that even the biggest influencers don’t necessarily translate to sales. However, a number of compelling trends are emerging: brands are finding that the followers of nano-influencers are often more engaged, numerous influencers are discovering success with their own product lines, and residential spaces ideal for an Instagram aesthetic have proven effective for marketing. Continue reading The Rise of Nano-Influencers and Other Social Media Trends

According to an Ericsson Mobility report, 5G will have the fastest rollout in mobile history, achieving mass market status in 2020 and available in 40 percent of the world by 2024. As a provider of 5G infrastructure hardware, Ericsson is well positioned to make this prediction, although it tempered its own enthusiasm by warning that, “many challenges lie ahead.” Ericsson based its forecast on the fact that manufacturers are building 5G chips and devices and consumer anticipation for 5G is higher than previous generations. Continue reading Ericsson Forecast: 5G Rollout Will Set New Record for Speed

In a surprise announcement, Amazon revealed that it is making its own chips, dubbed Graviton, for its cloud computing division. Similarly, Google also recently stated its plans to create chips for artificial intelligence algorithms in its data center. Amazon’s chips are likewise targeting its data centers, where the company hopes to better integrate software and hardware, resulting in less expensive services for customers. Typically, companies like Amazon and Google would use AMD or Intel’s off-the-shelf chips. Continue reading Amazon Unveils Graviton, Its Own ARM Chips for Data Centers

Facebook is expanding its Watch Party feature globally, to all Pages and all users. The company debuted the feature to all Groups in July 2018; in the following months, users streamed more than 12 million Watch Parties, which allow remote viewers to watch and comment together in real time. According to Facebook, these Watch Parties have resulted in eight times as many comments as the number generated by non-live videos in Groups, which the company regards as a “key metric” that the feature does indeed encourage engagement. Meanwhile, a new app named Playlist is bringing similar social interaction to music. Continue reading Facebook Expands Watch Party, Playlist Makes Music Social

Digital viewing is growing across age groups as traditional TV viewing declines, according to eMarketer. The researcher estimates that 64.8 million millennials will watch digital video this year at least once a month, a projection expected to reach 66.8 million by 2022. Meanwhile, 59 million millennials are expected to watch traditional TV in 2018, a figure projected to decline in coming years. The trend is growing with Gen X in the U.S. as well; eMarketer projects that 51.8 million (representing more than three-quarters of the Gen X population) will watch digital video at least once a month. And kids 11 and younger? Not surprisingly, 24.2 million with turn to digital viewing this year. Continue reading Digital Viewing Steadily Increases Across Multiple Age Groups

In a strategy shift, Google-owned YouTube plans to make much of its original video programming available for free starting next year. YouTube Originals will be offered as free, ad-supported content, rather than exclusively available via the $11.99-per-month YouTube Premium subscription service (formerly called YouTube Red). YouTube will continue to greenlight scripted productions, but plans to scale back in order to focus on more mainstream celebrity-driven and creator-based reality offerings. YouTube refers to the new strategy of combining ad-supported and SVOD programming as “Single Slate.” Continue reading YouTube Plans to Offer Free, Ad-Supported Originals in 2019

NBCUniversal introduced its Contextual Intelligence Platform, a machine learning-powered tool that places ads in the most relevant spots across its many media properties. The tool examines program scripts, closed captions, and visual descriptions of the program and ads to find the best moment for an advertiser’s spot. The tool also relies on proprietary algorithms to gauge the emotionality of each scene. NBCU is beta-testing the system with three to five advertisers, and plans to release it in early 2019. Continue reading NBCU Testing Machine Learning Tool for Better Ad Placement

Amazon is poised to be an advertising behemoth, even as it dominates in online retail, handling almost half of all online sales in the U.S. The company currently holds the No. 3 spot in online advertising, behind Google and Facebook, with a mere 4 percent of the market. But Amazon is on a hiring binge for its advertising division, and, according to eMarketer, is on track to double its ad revenue this year to $5.83 billion. One source of tension is the fact that Amazon’s own products compete with retailers on its site. Continue reading Amazon On Track to Be a Bigger Player in Online Advertising

Unlike Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant and Microsoft’s own Cortana, the latter’s social chatbot Xiaoice (pronounced “Shao-ice”) isn’t constructed simply to answer questions or resolve problems but can also tell jokes, write poetry, and exhibit “empathic computing” abilities. In China, Xiaoice resided on Huawei smartphones and was a weather reader on Dragon TV, a Shanghai TV station. Debuted in China in May 2014, Xiaoice has had more than 30 billion mainly text conversations with 660 million people around the world. Continue reading Microsoft Chatbot Xiaoice Excels at AI-to-Human Engagement

In the process of updating the Joint Strategic Plan for Intellectual Property Enforcement to help combat online piracy, the government’s IP czar Vishal Amin has sent out a call for input. The Motion Picture Association of America has suggestions, chief among them that Internet service providers be forced to take more responsibility for referral traffic from piracy sites. Currently, under the law, ISPs are regarded as neutral networks, but the MPAA wants them to play a role in filtering copyright-infringing content. Continue reading MPAA Proposes Updates to Intellectual Property Enforcement

DAZN, thus far an ad-free sports-streaming service, plans to introduce advertising, but in a format that will prevent the annoyance of frequently repeating ads. This format — called “ad frequency” — can replay the same ad six times within a three-hour game, said DAZN Group executive chairman John Skipper, a former ESPN president. His new model, which will debut in the next six to eight months, will focus on sponsored content and product placement. DAZN targets sports deals to be the “exclusive over-the-top provider.” Continue reading Sports Streamer DAZN to Introduce Less Annoying Ad Model

Amazon is training Alexa to speak like a newscaster, a feature that will roll out in a few weeks. The new speaking style is based on Amazon’s neural text-to-speech (NTTS) developments. The new voice style doesn’t sound human, but does stress words as a TV or radio announcer would. Before creating this voice, Amazon did a survey that showed that users prefer this newscaster style when listening to articles. The new voice is also an example of “the next generation of speech synthesis,” based on machine learning. Continue reading New Alexa Speaking Style Created by Neural Text-to-Speech

Snapchat’s Discover section now features a new channel called “Shop & Cop” that offers an e-commerce experience powered by Shopify. The new channel allows consumers to shop without having to leave the app. It is curated by Snapchat, but features Shopify merchants selling their products. Black Friday and Cyber Monday served as the launching pad for rolling out the feature while offering special bargains. Coco and Breezy, Gymshark, Kylie Cosmetics and Drake’s merchandise shop TourLife are among the 20 brands that have already signed on. Continue reading Snapchat Intros Native Shopping with E-Commerce Channel

YouTube’s global head of music Lyor Cohen recently published an op-ed in the U.K.’s Music Business Worldwide redoubling YouTube chief executive Susan Wojcicki’s impassioned blog posts against the EU Copyright Directive’s Article 13. He insisted that, under Article 13, “artists, labels and the entire music industry … will make less money from YouTube, not more” and that “emerging artists will find it harder to be discovered and heard on the global stage.” The music industry has rebutted his arguments. Continue reading YouTube Doubles Down Against Article 13, Industry Responds

The U.S. government is reportedly pushing for foreign allies to stop using hardware from China-based Huawei Technologies Co. According to people familiar with the initiative, the government is aiming to convince wireless and Internet service providers to avoid telecom equipment that comes from Huawei in an effort to increase security. Washington officials are particularly concerned about countries that host military bases. The U.S. and Australia already have bans in place to curb the risk of cyberattacks. Huawei is the world’s largest telecommunications provider. Continue reading Federal Government Takes Additional Steps to Block Huawei