TikTok Advertising Projected To Surpass YouTube, Meta Combined By 2027
By 2027, TikTok’s global advertising revenue will surpass the combined ad revenues of Meta platforms and YouTube, and Netflix will have won a small but growing share in the online video advertising space, projects Omdia.
Our Take: TikTok’s journey has made it clear that their model works. This is a platform which offers huge audience reach and potential to advertisers, making it hard to be ignore. By the way, are you following Littlefield Agency there yet?
Apple’s redesigned iCloud.com is something you’ll actually want to use
The new iCloud.com now resembles an iPad’s interface, with apps such as Photos, Mail, Calendar, and Drive organized into widgets of various sizes. You can move the widgets around, or turn them on and off by clicking on the “Customise Home Page” button at the bottom of the display. There, you’ll find a quick overview of the status of your iCloud account, including the cost of your plan and the amount of storage you have left.
Our Take: This is long overdue, but a win’s a win for UX!
Google just made Maps even better for EV owners
Just in time for the holiday season, Google Maps is getting a handful of updates that should make the ever-convenient app even better, especially for electric vehicle owners. First up, if you need some juice and don’t have a ton of time on your hands, you can now filter through EV charging stations on Maps by selecting “fast charging” to find speedy battery life.
Our Take: Roop and his Tesla loves this.
Find your new favorite dish, thanks to Google Search
Google launched two new features to make finding food nearby easier. Now, you can search by dish instead of restaurant on Google Search, and you can use the multisearch tool to find delicious dishes near you. Both features are currently available on the Google app on Android and iOS.
Our Take: It’s great seeing Google roll out all these new (and useful) features as they combat the oncoming threat of TikTok as a search platform.
Instagram Provides the Capacity to Add Music to Still Image Posts
Instagram has added the capacity to add music to still image posts, providing another way to integrate music into the IG experience.
Our Take: Vinyl, tape, CD, digital … social posts? Is this music’s latest reinvention? Sure feels like it as artists careers are launched on social platforms like TikTok and Instagram. This latest integration will only help in that regard.
Meta Launches New Sports Experience in VR Which Could Help to Spark Interest in the Metaverse
This push could be a great way to spark more interest in Meta’s VR offerings – which, after months of criticism and bashing, are in need of a PR boost right now. And while sports experiences have been available in VR for years, this new activation could help to push things forward, and offer a whole new way for sports fans to engage with events.
Our Take: It’s been a slow rollout, but the Metaverse is coming into better focus with announcements like this.
A beginner’s guide to Mastodon, the open source Twitter alternative
As Twitter users fret over the direction that new owner Elon Musk is taking the company, masses of users have hopped over to Mastodon, an open source Twitter alternative. Mastodon was founded in 2016. Unlike Twitter, Facebook, Reddit or any other popular social media site, Mastodon is a nonprofit, meaning that, ideally, its goal is to benefit the public, rather than shareholders. Mastodon might look like a Twitter clone at first glance, but the underlying system behind the microblogging platform is far more complex.
Our Take: Mastodon is experiencing a massive influx of new users from Twitter, but it’s not clear the platform will continue growing at such a rapid rate in the weeks ahead. With now just 1-million users, Mastodon is far smaller than Twitter, which today counts over 237 million monetizable daily active users. And then there’s Hive right behind them.
YouTube Shorts is coming to a TV screen near you
YouTube is bringing its library of vertical videos to wide screens. The video platform has announced that YouTube Shorts will now be available on smart TVs via a shelf on the YouTube app. When YouTube introduced this new format, they optimized the experience for the mobile creator and viewer. Now YouTube is expanding viewing access to Shorts to their fastest growing surface: the TV screen. YouTube is planning to begin running ads on its micro-videos in 2023.
Our Take: Now that the platform’s new viewing experience is in place, we can expect to see a lot of those ad dollars to flow through the TV version of the YouTube app.
TikTok has launched an in-app e-commerce feature
TikTok just launched TikTok Shop in the U.S., where users can now make purchases directly through the app.
Our Take: Currently this feature is by invitation only. Just like other social media apps this shop and purchase feature directly on TikTok should help brands increase sales.
