The Olympics need to join this century; how niche audiences trump general audiences; using Twitter and other social channels for crisis communications; Facebook downgrades sensational content; Instagram parrots Snapchat; Snapchat welcomes the NFL; the 10 Ikea has way too much fun this week; 10 types of innovation at large companies; who owns who in ride-hailing; audiobook consumption rises; content marketing: thinking like a broadcaster and thinking like a product marketer; the FTC cracks down on nondisclosure; better decision making through mental models; plus our trivia challenge, a new limerick and more.
The International Olympics Committee is stalled in the 20th century, with its outdated media rules, including telling everyone at a dress rehearsal for the opening ceremonies not to take photos; banning GIFs, live video and hashtag use by non-approved entities; and NBC's sexist reason for delaying its coverage.
If you'd like to see which countries and sports are winning the mentions games, have a look at Mention.
Jessica Lessin, founder of The Information, says most media companies are getting it wrong. Her site isn’t shackled to the advertising treadmill the way most traditional are—something that requires the pursuit of massive scale, and prioritizes traffic and clicks above everything else. Sometimes, being satisfied with a highly engaged, smaller audience, is more profitable.
Buzzfeed would be a good partner for Viacom, to give them some solid digital footing against the competition.
Walmart [client] may get a significant boost in its e-commerce war with Amazon when it buys Jet.com. The retail giant already has an excellent grasp of logistics. Adding everything Jet.com knows could be a boon.
There's still a divide between creative and programmatic. Or, creative is from Venus, programmatic is from Mars.
Twitter and other social media play a vital role in crisis communications, including understanding how publics are taking stances against companies during crises. It's imperative for communications teams to be there. Seems like advice from 2009, but such reminders are still necessary.
New York City has a new Chief Digital Officer: Sree Sreenivasan, former CDO of the Metropolitan Museum.
In a much-heralded move, Facebook announced plans to change its newsfeed algorithm to reduce the exposure of clickbait-type links. You won't believe what happens next.
It's just in testing phase at the moment, but Facebook is experimenting with MSQRD filters when users open the app, allowing users in Canada and Brazil to decorate their selfies. Hello? Snapchat-influenced move, anyone? Either way, it's part of Facebook's effort to put video at the heart of its product. And for those of you in Brazil, no Olympic-branded content, please.
There may be ads in Live videos on Facebook soon. The company is testing how short video ads would work during breaks in Live video. You knew it was only a matter of time.
By September, E! Entertainment Network will have five live shows on Facebook. The channel will stream a regularly scheduled show at 4 p.m. PST each weekday. Waiting for Judge Judy to get with the program.
As you've undoubtedly heard, Instagram Stories launched as a way to be more playful with images and videos that last only 24 hours. Facebook's Snapchat competition is looking pretty strong.
There's no doubt that Instagram copied Snapchat - Instagram's CEO Kevin Systrom admitted as much. It's not a legal issue, anyway; you can't trademark or copyright an idea.
But in doing so, Instagram has two inherent advantages over Snapchat: it created an interface that is familiar to users of Instagram (and thus less confusing than Snapchat); and it gave users the same functionality on a platform where their friends already are. Don't expect Instagram to eliminate Snapchat. But it gave Facebook and Instagram users one less reason to leave.
In taking an extraordinary step of going head-to-head wtih Snapchat (who famously refused to sell to Facebook for $3 billion in CASH), Mark Zuckerberg has become this generation's Bill Gates: out to crush the competition. And there's a very good reason for it.
You kids today. You have no idea how difficult it was to Instagram our food in the 18th century.
Twitter wants to make it easier for brands and you - new profiles have a big DM button front and center for customers to use direct messages to address issues with brands. This should unclog a bit of Twitter traffic, and potentially reduce the embarrassment of some brands. But we fully expect disgruntled customers to still hassle brands with @ replies.
New "Unlock Cards' are a new feature that contain images or videos with call-to-action buttons and a customizable hashtag that encourages people to tweet about a brand in order to earn rewards. That's one way to drive brand engagement.
Twitter lost two key communications executives this week: communications chief Natalie Kerris (after only 6 months) and Jim Prosser, head of corporate and policy communication. As the communications team is typically the nerve center of a company, there may be deeper issues afoot at Twitter of which we're not aware. Is this the canary in the coal mine?
YouTube Kids app now supports YouTube Red subscription service features in the US, Australia, and New Zealand, including offline viewing, ad-free videos.
Google Search will help you set up notifications for when you're mentioned on the web.
If you haven't noticed yet, you'll be seeing a lot more video in your LinkedIn feed, as the company introduced video updates. Limited to their influencers for now, this is another instance of a company embracing video communications.
Snapchat is exploring scannable ads that let people scan an image or barcode on a poster or a website, which later gives them a special deal on a product. If it's not a QR code and it doesn't require downloading another app, it may take off.
How Snapchat grew its ad business by persuading companies to try untested and experimental ad formats.
The NFL is the latest media company to get its own Discover channel on Snapchat this fall.
One company is taking that to heart: Johnson & Johnson has hired a former Dropbox corporate development executive, to approach healthcare technology investments like a tech company.
Former labor secretary Robert Reich says the gig economy is the product and cause of inequality. He says that in order to keep the economy from upending, more benefits are needed.
Airbnb is raising $850 million in its next round, with an expected valuation of $30 billion. Temperature check: Marriott International currently has a market cap of $18.5 billion; Hilton has a market cap of $23.5 billion.
Uber China and its rival Didi Chunxing are merging in a $35 billion transaction - a deal in which Didi showed Uber how the Chinese market works.
So Didi now owns Uber in China and Uber owns 20% of Didi. But ownership gets a little complicated. Softbank, Tencent, Alibaba and Apple also have significant holdings in Didi. And Didi, Alibaba and General Motors all have a stake in Lyft. And Baidu, Microsoft, Google and Saudi Arabia have invested in Uber. If you could follow all of that, it means that Uber owns part of Lyft and Microsoft owns part of Apple. And I'm my own grandpa.
Lyft reached 14 billion rides last month — a 12% increase from the previous year, on a $500 million run rate.
HailO sold 60% of its company to Daimler and merged with MyTaxi, making it one of the largest ride-hailing companies in Europe.
The chief technology officer of Google's self-driving car unit, Chris Urmson, has left.
Say what you will about the beta features of Tesla's Autopilot; it saved a driver's life last week, as it drove him 20 miles to the hospital after he suffered a pulmonary embolism.
That "straddling bus" that's supposted to be the answer to all of China's traffic ills? It's a scam. Here's a clue: it can't make turns, due to the fact that it would congest traffic - and that it's on 300 meters of rails on a street. That's right, rails. It's a train, folks.
MIT has developed "interactive dynamic video." What is it? It's mindblowing.
A prime example of how VR is being incorporated to video games can be seen in Everest VR. We would have branded it as EVRest.
Virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality — what's the difference, really?
Baidu is releasing a new AR platform for smartphones. Baidu is the Chinese equivalent of Google, and given the population of China, expect its new DuSee technology to take off.
Did you doubt that Pokemon GO was successful? The resultant surge in backup battery sales should convince you.
Spotify is following on the success of its Discover Weekly playlist with Release Radar, a 2-hour alrorithmically personalized playlist.
In the era of content marketing, the marketing efforts are at risk of becoming too salesy in nature.
Did you ever stop to think about how your personality aligns with social media content types? Really interesting analysis that lends itself to thinking about executive presence online, as well as how brands position themselves.
Vox Media thinks about stories like products — a unique and different way to think about storytelling.
Jason Falls says your next hire should be a broadcaster: someone who understands both sides of the camera and who can think like a journalist.
Brands still have a problem with authenticity. When you can't figure out how to be authentic, the the next best thing is influencers.
The FTC plans to crack down on celebrity ads in which celebs don't disclose that they're being compensated. This is an increasing problem with celebs on social media; but it also extends to your garden variety online influencer as well.
Don't change your passwords too often; patterns emerge that can make it easier to crack the code.
Internet users in Mexico and Brazil are worried about fraud. Less regulatory structure and and higher fraud rates keep them on guard.
Cross-channel measurement and attribution is becoming increasingly important to marketers.
Publisher data increasingly has an important role to play in inspiring creative thinking.
After months of being harassed by Kanye West, who wanted to be a furniture designer, IKEA let him have it, right in the Swedish meatballs.
If you do have to spend time away from email, you may as well make it entertaining for your correspondents.
Spice it up with some Trump Quotes if you dare.
The best TED speakers come forward with 11 public speaking tips.
For anyone who has cursed a traffic engineer during summer construction, you'll have newfound appreciation for them when you see England's 7-circle magic roundabout.
Go online to follow the games.
Even so, the Committee is lame.