media storm: december digital trends

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Digital Trends

December, 2014


SnapcashWhat is it?Snapchat announced that you can now send cash to anyone on your contact list through the app. A partnership with Square was formed and all the sensitive information will be passed through Square’s secure servers to protect privacy

How does it work?The user enters their debit card information in the Snapcash settings with some security safeguards. When a user wants to send cash, they just need to start a chat with their friend and type in a dollar sign with the amount they want to pay.

Opportunities?The real names, addresses, and account information associated with those debit cards can be collected by Snapchat, according to its new privacy policy. That info could potentially be cross-referenced with external databases of personal information to give Snapchat a much better idea of who users are and what ads they might want to see.

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Facebook@WorkWhat is it?Facebook is rumored to be coming out with a new product called Facebook@Work which would be aimed at the enterprise and offer capabilities such as newsfeeds, groups, chat, and document collaboration for internal use in businesses. Facebook at Work profiles would be entirely separate from personal Facebook accounts.

How does it work?Facebook@Work essentially allows employees to collaborate via groups, messaging and the news feed. This collaboration tool is a bid to compete with similar tools from Google, LinkedIn and Microsoft

Opportunities?At many companies, Facebook is banned or restricted, meaning those are hours of the day when Facebook doesn't have as easy access to its users. If Facebook can start to understand what these users do from 9 to 5 when they're shut out, there is a ton of market intelligence that any media company would want to find a way to get at.

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Google ContributorWhat is it?Google launched Google Contributor on Thursday, 11/20. The tool lets readers pay their favorite publishers in lieu of seeing ads. The first10 publishers participating in the program include Imgur, Mashable, The Onion, Urban Dictionary and WikiHow, and could be used with any publisher that uses Google Display Network to serve its ads.

How does it work?The user first chooses a monthly contribution ($1-$3). When the user then visits a participating website, part of their contribution goes to the creators of that site. Now, when Contributor members visit those sites, they will see a thank you message where there normally was an ad.

Opportunities?Display ads have long been considered a necessary annoyance that publishers must adopt in order to generate revenue. Readers have to see ads in order to access their media free of charge. However, Google is testing to see if users are actually willing to pay to get rid of ads surrounding their consumption.

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Imgur x Promoted PostsWhat is it?Imgur, which raised $40 million through a venture capital firm earlier this year, has quickly grown to be the destination for viral pictures since its launch in 2009. According to the company, they have more than 150 million users and get upward of 60 billion views a month. They have recently hired Steve Patrizi to grow its native ad business in 2015, who was the former head of partner marketing at Pinterest who also helped build marketing solutions at LinkedIn. In December 2014, Steve Patrizi announced Imgur will likely launch Promoted Posts in July 2015.

How does it work?Imgur has offered Sponsored Posts to advertisers in the past, however Patrizi explained these were mostly experimental. Imgur previously told AdWeek that its native ads had an engagement rate of between 1 percent and 4 percent. Unlike Sponsored Posts, which were usually promoted on Imgur’s homepage, Promoted Posts will pop up after users click on regular content. Also, algorithms will ensure readers won’t see the same ad during the same visit.

Opportunities?Imgur is looking for 10 to 12 partners to test out Promoted Posts, possibly within the media and entertainment, gaming and technology, and consumer packaged-goods umbrellas, as they think they will resonate the most with its audience.

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Nielsen x MOATWhat is it?Moat has formed an agreement with Nielsen to integrate its campaign audience data into its platform

How does it work?Moat will integrate data from Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings into its attention analytics tools, to provide clients with aggregated, anonymous audience demographic data from digital data providers

Opportunities? This is an industry first offering that will give advertisers and publishers the ability to merge OCR audience data with attention signals such as viewability, exposure time metrics, and interactivity. Potential to connect how much these data attention points affect tune in lift.

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Instagram > TwitterWhat is it?Instagram Is Now Bigger Than Twitter With 300 Million Monthly Users

How does it work?Instagram now has 300 million monthly users, picking up 100 million since March. The photo- and video-sharing app has surpassed Twitter's official user count of 284 million. Instagram is set to introduce a number of new features in the coming days, including verified badges for celebrities, athletes and brands. In addition, the app will also start deleting the spam accounts that it’s been deactivating throughout this year, which could affect some users’ follower counts

Opportunities?For years, the social media battle has always seemed to be between Facebook and Twitter. With this huge milestone reached and new advertising opportunities popping up on Instagram, we will start to see a major shift in advertising dollars towards this visual platform

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With Celebrity and Scandal, Mail Online’s U.S. Revenue DoublesWhat is it?Mail Online has generated over $19million in revenue from its U.S. website during the year ending in October which is more than double than what it brought in during the equivalent period a year prior. This revenue comes specifically from digital ad sales alone.

How does it work?This year, Mail Online hired Jon Steinberg, Buzzfeeds former president and architect of its native advertising strategy. He plays a big part in growing sales by introducing a fresh slate of native ad formats. Furthermore, they are continuing to beef up the sales team based on the fact that the site is still not yet completely known to the advertising world

Opportunities?A broad, engaged audience with strong native advertising opportunities. They’ve quickly become a major player in the entertainment/news space.

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media storm: december digital trends

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