Pinterest stock spiked in extended trading Thursday after its 2021 earnings results stressed the company’s first full-year of profit, as well as the first year to tick above $2 billion in annual revenue. Pinterest stock rose 28 percent in extended trading on a better than expected Q4. “We took important steps in 2021 with the launch of our foundational technology to deliver a video-first publishing platform,” Pinterest co-founder and CEO Ben Silbermann said, emphasizing that the company would continue to focus on the new initiatives that helped revenue grow 20 percent for Q4 and 52 percent for the year. Continue reading Pinterest Posts Its First Full-Year Profit on Sales of $2 Billion

TikTok has launched features that offer new ways for content creators to get direct support from their fans, rewards for their creativity, and possible business collaborations. The Creator Next portal enables eligible creators to monetize their content by receiving Video Gifts for their short videos and Tips processed by Stripe. The social platform has also decided to open its TikTok Creator Marketplace (TTCM), launched in 2019, to more creators. Now, TikTok creators with more than 10,000 followers can register in TTCM “to collaborate with brands on opportunities that fit their interests and creative style, opening up new ways to get paid.” Continue reading TikTok Debuts New Tools, Opportunities for Content Creators

Pinterest is advancing its objective of becoming more than an image-sharing site by adding live shopping through an app called Pinterest TV that the company believes will help it become a creator destination. Pinterest TV will offer “a series of live, original and shoppable episodes featuring creators” streaming weekdays beginning November 8 on iOS and Android. Topics will span food, home, fashion and beauty. As part of the initiative, Pinterest is launching a virtual studio complete with producers who will help creators develop content, provide A/V support and become ready for live streaming. Continue reading Pinterest TV Launch Focuses on Live Shopping with Creators

Financial tech company PayPal clarified that it is not currently pursuing a deal to acquire image-sharing social platform Pinterest, shelving reports that surfaced last week, at least for the time being. PayPal stock rose approximately 3 percent while Pinterest shares fell 12 percent on news that the digital pinboard site was not being wooed to the tune of $70 per share, largely in stock, for a deal valued at roughly $45 billion. Assuming discussions were taking place, it’s hard to know if PayPal got cold feet, caving to a mostly negative market response, or decided now may not be the time to grow. Continue reading PayPal Not Planning to Acquire Image-Sharing App Pinterest

Snapchat is blaming Apple’s new digital advertising policy for what it predicts will be a slow Q4. Changes including an iOS rule letting users opt-out of ads make it difficult for advertisers to test campaigns and measure results, Snapchat claims. The prediction came as Snap Inc. released Q3 results, announcing $1.067 billion for quarterly revenue, just short of the $1.07 billion expected. Snap exceed its Q3 goal for daily active users, which hit 306 million, beating by 5 million its Q2 estimate. Despite a 57 percent revenue year-over-year increase, Snap stock value dropped significantly. Continue reading Mixed Snapchat Picture Results in Stock Dive on Q3 Results

PayPal is on an expansion path according to media reports of an offer to purchase of Pinterest at $70 per share in a $45 billion deal, mostly in stock. PayPal as of its most recent quarterly report, issued July 28, had $311 billion in receipts for Q2. PayPal’s share price fell 5 percent on the news, ending at $258.36 per share Wednesday. The move marks a decisive interest by PayPal to stake its claim in the space where content meets e-commerce. Pinterest, meanwhile, has launched a $20 million Creator Rewards fund and added more video features to its site. Continue reading Fintech Giant PayPal Explores $45B Acquisition of Pinterest

TikTok has introduced in-app shopping for the first time in a deal with e-commerce platform Shopify. Previously, users could shop on TikTok only by clicking ads. The move is designed to more seamlessly leverage the influencers aggregated on the meme-friendly video service. Participating Shopify merchants can now trick-out their profiles with shopping tabs that link to products like clothing, makeup and household products featured in TikTok content. Shopify is currently piloting the program with merchants including Kylie Jenner and expects to offer the feature to all e-commerce partners this fall. Continue reading TikTok and Shopify Partner to Pilot In-App Shopping Feature

The surge in online shopping due to COVID-19 allowed e-commerce giant Amazon to raise its advertising rates in May 50+ percent from a year earlier. The leap, as reported by Marketplace Pulse, is more grist for lawmakers trying to require Amazon to pay higher taxes. Amazon is expected to reap about $578 billion this year, according to eMarketer. The increased competition is leading even big brands like Procter & Gamble and Clorox to spend “billion-dollar advertising budgets” on Amazon to fend off smaller rivals. Continue reading Amazon Advertising Rates, Revenues Jump Due to COVID-19

COVID-19 drove consumers to online shopping, with eMarketer reporting that global e-commerce sales grew to $4.28 trillion in 2020, from $3.35 trillion the previous year. Many advertisers shifted spending to social media platforms, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, which said that such ad revenue grew 16.3 percent to $41.5 billion last year and represented almost one-third of all digital advertising. Now Snap, Facebook, Pinterest and TikTok have debuted ads that use augmented reality to market products. Continue reading Snap Unveils New AR Features for Advertisers, Pushing Trend

Pinterest allows users to “pin” photos and videos onto boards, helping them to “discover ideas through images,” especially those pinned by people or companies that they follow. It uses neural networks, which make millions of calculations quickly, to surface and suggest the images that people will like. According to Pinterest senior vice president of engineering Jeremy King, this tool is responsible for “nearly 100 percent” of the company’s growth. In Q1, Pinterest’s AI-powered formula drew in almost 480 million people. Continue reading Pinterest: Neural Networks Boost Ad Sales and User Growth

Pinterest has been moving away from its identity as a social network and making moves toward e-commerce. Now, the company is introducing Idea Pins, which it calls “an evolution of Story Pins, with a fresh name to better match the uniqueness of a product that empowers creators to share long-lasting ideas and not ephemeral stories.” Similar to the Stories feature common with other apps, Idea Pins consist of video clips up to 60 seconds that users can tap through. New publishing tools to create Idea Pins include video-first features, editing tools and updates. Continue reading Pinterest Rolls Out Idea Pins, Like Stories But Not Ephemeral

Although image-sharing service Pinterest has been less reliant upon influencer culture than Instagram and other social media platforms, that began to change when it introduced Story Pins and creator profiles. These features were intended to make it easier for high-profile users to build a following and showcase their projects. Now, Pinterest is unveiling a $500,000 Creator Fund to pay a small group of influencers to create content for the platform. With this initiative, it joins TikTok and Snapchat in paying creators. Continue reading Pinterest to Foster Influencer Content with New Creator Fund

A new report from the Pew Research Center found that 72 percent of U.S. adults use social media, a number that has been stable over the past five years. The survey drilled down into use of a variety of individual sites and apps, finding that YouTube and Facebook still are dominant, with 81 percent and 69 percent respectively of those surveyed reporting using those sites. YouTube and Reddit were the only platforms that saw “statistically significant” growth since 2019. Forty percent said they ever use Instagram. Continue reading Pew Research Study Finds Social Media Use Remains Stable

Pinterest held a first-ever partner and advertiser summit to promote video, shopping, and making trend data actionable, all key agenda points for 2021 and beyond. In 2020, it added 100+ million monthly active users worldwide, reaching a total of 459 million, a 37 percent year-over-year increase. In Q4, revenue rose 76 percent year-over-year to $706 million, and 2020 revenue grew 48 percent to almost $1.7 billion. Video played a “meaningful” percentage of that revenue, said global head of sales Jon Kaplan. Continue reading Pinterest Focuses on Video Marketing, Trend Data, Shopping

Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has identified Apple as one of the company’s biggest rivals, even as it posted record-breaking revenue and profit in Q4. The two companies have clashed over data collection, app-store fees and, most recently, Apple’s plan to enable users to opt-out of data collection by third-party apps. That disadvantages Facebook, which has become an online advertising giant. Zuckerberg noted that Apple’s move will interfere with Facebook’s ability to target ads to its 1.85 billion daily users. Continue reading Zuckerberg Anticipates Broader Competition with Rival Apple