Santa Monica-based Snapchat announced a new Monetization Program for content creators this week that will feature expanded revenue opportunities and evolving rewards. Beginning February 1, creators that have at least 50,000 followers and post at least 25 times each month to Saved Stories or Spotlight videos will have the option to place ads in videos that are longer than one minute. Eligible creators would also need to meet one of the following criteria in the most recent month: 10 million Snap views, one million Spotlight views, or 12,000 hours of total view time. According to Snap, Spotlight video viewership is up 25 percent year-over-year. Continue reading Snapchat to Empower Creators with Video Monetization Plan

In a move that may appeal to music fans as well as marketing professionals, ByteDance-owned video platform TikTok just announced the availability of a new promotional feature called “Share to TikTok” that enables users to share music, podcasts and audiobooks from Apple Music and Spotify to TikTok, directly from the share menus of the streaming services. Content shared to TikTok will feature links directing users to the original sources to foster discovery and engagement on the partnering services. The new feature follows the launch of “Add to Music App,” a tool for users to save songs they discover on the TikTok app to their streaming service of choice. Continue reading TikTok Introduces New Feature to Share and Promote Music

Reddit is expanding its keyword targeting advertising program, introducing it in more places and adding AI-powered recommendations to help ads appear in the most relevant environments across the platform. Keyword targeting is now available for feed ads in addition to conversations, which were previously the only placement available. Reddit is also launching an AI feature called dynamic audience expansion that works with keyword targeting to place ads before a wider range of viewers based on the objectives of the campaign. Since going public on the NYSE in March, Reddit has been under pressure to increase ad revenue. Continue reading Reddit Drives Precision in Conversation Keyword Ads Using AI

Snapchat is now placing advertising on its main Chat tab, with Disney signing aboard as the lead partner with “Sponsored Snaps from Disney.” Taco Bell and McDonald’s are underwriting “Promoted Places.” Previously, Snapchat had kept the Chat tab ad-free. Users will now begin seeing “Sponsored Snaps” proffered by brands beside messages from their friends. “These new placements are a natural extension of the way people already engage with businesses on Snapchat and help advertisers expand their reach with the Snapchat community across two of the most widely and frequently used parts of our service,” explains Snap. Continue reading Snapchat Adds Advertising to Chat Tab with Disney a Sponsor

Snap Inc. is leveraging its relationship with Google Cloud to use Gemini for powering generative AI experiences within Snapchat’s My AI chatbot. The multimodal capabilities of Gemini on Vertex AI will greatly increase the My AI chatbot’s ability to understand and operate across different types of information such as text, audio, image, video and code. Snapchatters can use My AI to take advantage of Google Lens-like features, including asking the chatbot “to translate a photo of a street sign while traveling abroad, or take a video of different snack offerings to ask which one is the healthiest option.” Continue reading Snapchat: My AI Goes Multimodal with Google Cloud, Gemini

A newly redesigned Snapchat experience is built around a three-tab user interface called Simple Snapchat. As part of that effort, the social platform is launching more generative video features, including text-to-video as part of the app’s Lens Studio AR authoring tool. Easy Lens allows the quick generation of Lenses by typing text prompts, making it possible to do things like experiment with Halloween costumes or explore looks for back to school. Launching in beta for select creators, Snap says the new features are designed for all ability levels. The company is also updating its GenAI Suite and adding an Animation Library of “hundreds of high-quality movements.” Continue reading Snapchat Is Getting a Redesign and Generative Text-to-Video

Nine months after lawmakers grilled social networks for exposing children to harm, Meta Platforms has announced that Instagram’s teen accounts will be set to “private” by default. Instagram Teen Accounts have built-in protections, limiting who can contact the underage account holders as well as the content they see. “We’ll automatically place teens into Teen Accounts, and teens under 16 will need a parent’s permission to change any of these settings to be less strict,” Meta revealed in a blog post. To avoid leaving teens feeling their wings were clipped, Meta says there will also be new features designed expressly for them. Continue reading Instagram Sets Its New ‘Teen Accounts’ to Private by Default

In an effort to create a safer environment for teens, social platform Snapchat is providing educators with resources to familiarize them with the app and help them understand how students use it. The company has launched a website called “An Educator’s Guide to Snapchat.” The announcement, timed to the start of the new school year, comes as lawmakers have been pressuring social networks to do more to protect children, with Florida and Indiana going so far as to enact school cell phone bans. Legislators in California and New York have been exploring similar prohibitions. Continue reading Snapchat Puts Focus on Teen Safety Resources for Teachers

Federal regulators have taken the unprecedented step of banning the NGL messaging platform from providing service to users under 18. The action is part of a legal settlement between NGL Labs, the Federal Trade Commission and the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office. NGL, whose niche is “anonymous” communication and features the tagline “Ask me anything,” has also agreed to pay $5 million in fines. An FTC investigation found that in addition to fraudulent business claims about divulging the identities of message senders for a fee, NGL also falsely claimed it used artificial intelligence to filter out cyberbullying and harmful messages. Continue reading Popular Messaging App Banned from Servicing Young Users

Snap Inc. teased a new on-device AI model capable of real-time filter creation in-app using Snapchat. At last week’s Augmented World Expo in Long Beach, California, Snap co-founder and CTO Bobby Murphy explained that the model, which runs on smartphones, can re-render frames on the fly guided by text prompts. Snap’s unnamed prototype model “can instantly bring your imagination to life in AR,” Snap says, explaining “this early prototype makes it possible to type in an idea for a transformation and generate vivid AR experiences in real time.” Continue reading Snapchat Previews Instant AR Filters, GenAI Developer Tools

In a move aimed at launching more accessible Android apps, Google has open-sourced code for Project Gameface, a hands-free game control feature released last year that allows users to move a computer with facial and head gestures. Developers will now have more Gameface resources with which to build Android applications for physically challenged users, “to make every Android device more accessible.” Project Gameface evolved as a collaboration with quadriplegic video game streamer Lance Carr, who has muscular dystrophy. The technology uses a smartphone’s front camera to track movement. Continue reading Google Adds Open-Source Gameface for Android Developers

Messaging app Telegram has added business account features to create a custom start page, listings, maps, hours of operation, chatbot support and more. Anyone can turn their Telegram account into a Telegram Business account, and users don’t need coding skills. Public channels with 1,000 or more subscribers can receive 50 percent of the revenue from ads shown in their channels. Based in Dubai, Telegram says the channels of its global users generate over 1 trillion monthly views. In February it unveiled an ad program that adopted the TON blockchain’s Toncoin as its native currency. Continue reading Telegram Adds Business Features to Challenge Meta, Google

Microsoft-owned business and employment-focused social platform LinkedIn plans to add games and a vertical-scroll feed of short videos. But the career-centric platform will still be all work, even as it adds play. The intent is to have the TikTok-like video feed filled with professionally themed content, and the games will be geared toward relationship building, while also potentially getting people to spend more time using LinkedIn. The video feed is in the test phase, while code hinting at the direction of the gaming feature has been discovered by some astute app watchers. Continue reading LinkedIn Tests Vertical Video Feed, Experiments with Games

Spotify is rolling out AUX, an in-house music advisory agency for brands. “With AUX, we’ll use our deep expertise to counsel brands about how best to use music to enrich their campaigns and connect them with emerging artists to help them reach new audiences,” Spotify announced, joining Meta Platforms, YouTube, Snapchat and others in connecting creatives with brands. AUX aims to provide emerging artists with an avenue to another potential income source, as well as a path to wider exposure, as the idea is to get brands to pay Spotify to access the new service. Continue reading Spotify In-House Agency AUX to Connect Brands with Music

Florida’s legislature has passed a bill banning children younger than 16 from having social media accounts despite some pushback from Governor Ron DeSantis, who said he will be wrestling with whether to sign the measure into law. Due to a procedural requirement, DeSantis will have to sign or veto the proposed legislation before lawmakers conclude the current session in a matter of weeks. He has expressed dissatisfaction with the lack of a provision to let parents override the restriction, which would curtail access to the most popular sites, potentially impacting TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and YouTube. Continue reading Florida Pushes Forward a Social Media Ban for Kids Under 16