Mixer ends Ninja and Shroud contracts as Facebook partnership beckons
Microsoft is showing the door to its key Mixer streamers, but will its ballsy plot pay off in the long term? As we predicted back in January, 2020 is fast becoming the year for streaming services to really show their mettle. Whether itโs having a captive audience to target in...
Current in Social
BLM protesters weaponising memes against police
The weaponisation of memes is nothing new, but taking on anti-racism has to be its biggest and most significant engagement to date. Digital natives Gen Z are constantly shifting the parameters of political demonstration and discourse to include online spaces. Now a part of our everyday vernacular, memes are used...
Online dating during lockdown- can love thrive while weโre apart?
Lockdown has accelerated the transition of online dating apps to purely online hangout spaces. Should this trend continue beyond quarantine? If modern communication falls broadly into two categories โ the online and the offline โ then where do we place online dating? Pre-COVID, it occupied some strange liminal place between...
The apps empowering BLM protesters right now
Police brutality is the enemy, racial equality is the goal, and technology is becoming the vehicle for change. Many of you wonโt be old enough to recall this with much clarity, but I remember the 2011 London Riots like they happened yesterday. A 29-year-old black man named Mark Duggan was...
Quibi fails to break into the mainstream during lockdown
Huge investment in both star power and content production has done little to establish Quibi among the streaming elite. But does the app have a future? Two months ago, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, veteran execs Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman boldly decided to launch a new mobile-centric...
Facebookโs โDeep Fake Detection Challengeโ returns worrying data
As the 2020 US presidential election looms, social media sites are having to prepare for the inevitable onslaught of political discourse, and detecting defamatory content is high on the agenda. If you keep up to date with Thred, then this definitely wonโt be the first time youโve heard of...
Social media is getting Gen Z to the voting booth
New data suggests that apps such as Snapchat are making a sizeable difference to voting turnouts, which in turn could dramatically shift election results moving forward. One of the biggest challenges in modern politics is getting young people to vote. Millennials and Gen Zers now make up more than a third of eligible voters in the US, yet actual turn out is nearly always lower than experts predict. Bernie Sandersโ...
Amazon-related beauty content is booming on TikTok
TikTok has become an unlikely source of beauty sales for Amazon during the Coronavirus pandemic. TikTok has emerged as a new source for brands struggling during COVID-19 to push sales on Amazon. Looking beyond the potential stigma of selling on a platform that has deterred retailers in the past with the amount of control it exerts over the process of getting products to customers, Amazon is rife with opportunities for...
TikTok adds new donation sticker for creators
The new tool will allow viewers to donate to charities easily and quickly, and TikTok has promised it will match the first $10 million donated over the next month. Stickers have become a cornerstone of social media apps, allowing for easy customisation that brings a unique flavour to your streams, stories, or video posts. Each โstickerโ is a direct URL link to another site or page of the posterโs choice,...
Facebook โMessenger Roomsโ join slew of video streaming apps
With video call platforms reaching record engagement in lockdown, Facebook has thrown its hat in the ring with Messenger Rooms. On Friday, Facebook announced a slew of new video-call features headlined by โMessenger Roomsโ which will allow up to 50 callers in a single session with no time limit. Anyone whoโs anyone in social tech at the moment is looking to take advantage of this new hyper engaged audience as video-calling apps continue reporting...
