Snap Inc. reported its slowest-ever quarterly growth, with revenue up 6 percent to $1.13 billion year-over-year in Q3. Due in part to a 25 percent spending increase, Snapchat’s parent logged a net loss of $359 million, far exceeding the $72 million loss a year prior. Interestingly, Snap increased daily active users by 19 percent, to 363 million (surpassing analyst predictions of 358 million). Snap, like virtually every social media platform, has struggled to maintain revenue growth since Apple’s 2021 privacy changes made it harder to target ads. Continue reading Snap Adds Users but Experiences Its Slowest Revenue Growth

Apple has unveiled two new iPads — the M2-powered iPad Pro starting at $799, and a reimagining of the flagship iPad that packs an A14 Bionic chip and comes in four colors (pink, yellow, silver or blue), starting at $449. Both ship on October 26, equipped with iPadOS 16, which Apple is making available October 24. The new operating system supports many new features including, on the Pro, a multitasking feature called Stage Manager. Later this year, Apple says the Pro OS will be updated to support external display resolutions of up to 6K. Continue reading Apple Rolls Out iPad Pro with Wi-Fi 6E, M2 Chip, Four Colors

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority has rendered a final decision ordering Meta Platforms to sell its Giphy marketplace for animated GIFs. Meta acquired the U.S.-based Giphy in 2020. The CMA subsequently found the purchase anticompetitive, determining the move would stunt innovation in UK display advertising and limit social media choices for consumers. After Meta failed to decisively win an appeal, the matter went back to the CMA, which this week reaffirmed its earlier decision and ordered Giphy sold. Meta said in a statement it is “disappointed by the CMA’s decision,” but won’t pursue further appeal. Continue reading Meta Says It Will Sell Giphy per UK Competition Unit’s Order

TikTok is launching a new feature called Profile Kit that gives creators the option of displaying up to six videos on other sites. In-app access to off-site link-in-bio landing platforms is a feature of the Profile Kit, with freemium social media landing page Linktree announced as TikTok’s first Profile partner. Some are calling the Profile Kit expansion a savvy way for Tiktok to spread its influence with a light footprint during a time of regulatory scrutiny. Leveraging engagement, TikTok is also launching Focused View, an ad unit that advertisers will pay for only if users engage for at least 6 seconds. Continue reading TikTok Launches User Profile Kit and Intros Focused View Ads

Things were restive at TwitchCon, which wrapped Sunday in San Diego. Content creators were riled up over downsized revenue-sharing, first announced last month. The conference lets gamers and other enthusiasts who use Amazon’s live-streaming platform meet their favorite influencers while brands tout their wares. With over 2.5 million hours of live content streaming daily around the world, Twitch has become increasingly focused on financial sustainability and eventual profitability. But a less favorable revenue split and push toward advertising has proven unpopular with creators. Continue reading TwitchCon: Streamers Object to Revenue-Sharing Reduction

TikTok is debuting new editing tools and one of them, Photo Mode, is drawing comparisons to Meta’s popular Instagram app. “For when you’d prefer to express yourself in formats other than video, we released Photo Mode, a new carousel format available on mobile for photo content that’s ideal for sharing high quality images on TikTok,” the company writes. The launch occurs just as Instagram has begun shifting its emphasis to video, to the consternation of many users, disapproval TikTok may have noticed as it seeks to pick up market share. Continue reading TikTok’s New Toolkit Adds Photo Carousel, Allows More Text

AI image generators like OpenAI’s DALL-E 2 and Google’s Imagen have been generating a lot of attention recently. Now AI text-to-video generators are edging into the spotlight, with Google debuting Imagen Video on the heels of Meta AI’s Make-A-Video rollout last month. Imagen Video has been used to generate videos of up to 25-minutes at a 24 fps, 1280×768 pixel spec. Imagen Video was trained “on a combination of an internal dataset consisting of 14 million video-text pairs and 60 million image-text pairs,” resulting in some unusual functionality, according to Google Research. Continue reading Google and Meta Are Developing AI Text-to-Video Generators

An expansion push for short-form video service TikTok has proven costly for parent ByteDance, which saw losses triple to more than $7 billion in 2021, according to an internal document leaked from the private company. ByteDance revenue grew by almost 80 percent in 2021, to $61.7 billion, and the company did manage to eke out an operating profit for Q1 2022, reports say, a significant benchmark. TikTok crossed the one billion subscriber threshold in less than five years — faster than any other social media firm. The company’s latest stock buyback plan puts its market valuation at $300 billion. Continue reading TikTok Parent ByteDance Sees Losses Rise but Shows Profit

As it continues trying to close its $44 billion sale to Elon Musk, popular social networking service Twitter is taking steps to update its image, introducing multimedia posts for Android and iOS users, who can now augment text with photos, GIFs and videos in a single tweet. Previously, each tweet only accommodated one type of media, though multiple attachments of a single format were permitted. Simultaneously, the company has begun rolling out the “edit” button to U.S. subscribers using the premium Twitter Blue platform, which price increases from $2.99 to $4.99 this month. Continue reading Tweets Go Multimedia, Edit Button Rolls Out for Twitter Blue

Meta Platforms is expanding its advertising inventory with new units in Facebook, Instagram and Messenger. Advertisers now have a new way to feature ads on Instagram’s Explore page, which displays content based on user preferences and routines. The Profile pages for all adult Instagram users will also carry advertising and select influencers will be eligible to push ads into their feeds as a way to potentially earn revenue. Messenger is going to use machine learning to program ads to likely purchasers. And Facebook Reels are getting “post-loop ads,” which creators and brands can slot between short videos. Continue reading Facebook, Instagram and Messenger Offering New Ad Units

Delaware Chancery Court judge Kathaleen McCormick says she expects the trial in Twitter’s lawsuit against Elon Musk to continue as scheduled, beginning October 17, despite a letter his attorneys sent Twitter management saying the mercurial Tesla chief intends to go through with his proposed $44 billion acquisition if the social media company drops its lawsuit against him. In a Wednesday filing, McCormick said the court expects Twitter’s delayed deposition of Musk, scheduled for today, to proceed as planned. However, as of last night it was reported that Musk and Twitter agreed to postpone the billionaire’s deposition. Continue reading Twitter Fate Still Vague After Musk Reaffirms Intent to Acquire

Adobe is taking artificial intelligence to the mass market in Photoshop Elements 2023 and Premiere Elements 2023. The new releases incorporate Adobe Sensei AI-powered features to enable intuitive, streamlined workflows and Step-by-step Guided Edits. The a la carte Elements line has been called “affordable” and “casual.” Adobe describes the overall package as “simple for users at any skill level,” leaving the door wide open for sophisticated features. Adobe says the smaller, lighter Elements 2023 packages offer improved speed and stability, installing 35 percent quicker, with a 50 percent baseline launch-time improvement.  Continue reading Adobe Elements Touts Consumer AI in Photoshop, Premiere

TikTok is said to be partnering with Los Angeles-based TalkShopLive to handle its live shopping initiative in North America after an in-house UK effort produced lackluster results. Due to hit the U.S. in time for the holiday season, TikTok Shop will be built on technology and support from TalkShopLive as it positions live-stream shopping hosted by influencers, brands and retailers selling products on the short-form video platform. Launched last year, TikTok Shop UK was the ByteDance company’s first such effort outside of Asia, where it is available in countries including Vietnam, Singapore and the Philippines. Continue reading TikTok May Team Up with TalkShopLive for a Holiday Launch

Twitter is the latest social media company to emulate TikTok by introducing an infinite video scroll. Tapping a video will expand it to full screen, which Twitter is calling its “immersive media viewer.” Once opened, users can then scroll up to start browsing. Tapping the back arrow exits the viewer and takes you back to the original tweet. And Twitter is making it easier to find “some of the most popular videos on Twitter” by adding a video carousel in the Explore tab “alongside Tweets and Trends.” The updates are rolling out beginning now, starting on iOS in English-speaking countries. Continue reading Twitter Emulating TikTok with Its New Scrolling Video Viewer

Google is the latest tech giant to be swayed by the influence of TikTok and Instagram as it reimagines a more visual, discovery-centric type of search. That was major media’s takeaway from the third annual Google Search On event, which continued the trend of trying to find more intuitive ways to search, namely visually and vocally, by snapping a photo or asking your phone a question. Thanks to advances in artificial intelligence, the Alphabet company says it is “going far beyond the search box to create search experiences that work more like our minds.” Continue reading Google Search Reinvention Focuses on Visuals and Discovery