There’s nothing more exciting for a new artist than finding out that listeners are starting to learn about and enjoy their music. But using play counts, views, and hits as the only metrics to measure musical success is a bad idea.
Source: Why Play Counts, Views, and Hits Don’t Necessarily Translate To Success In Music | ReverbNation Blog
The dramatic rise of Netflix and other OTT video services has fundamentally changed viewing habits in the US, especially among younger users, but in the short run it can be easy to overrate that change.
Source: The Impact of Streaming Video Is Huge (and Easy to Overestimate) – eMarketer
The user who posted the video, “mike m.,” stands by his baseless theory that a student at the school is really an actor. And he says he’s “not going to stop.”
Source: The Making of a No. 1 YouTube Conspiracy Video After the Parkland Tragedy – The New York Times
It’s a big issue for users and the industry.
Source: How you type with your smartphone can reveal your age – here’s why it matters
Retargeting ads that follow shoppers across sites and devices, asking for personal info and contacts when clicking on a Facebook quiz, or wanting an email in exchange for using “free” Wi-Fi in a public place can all fall under the “too creepy” umbrella.
While methods of music discovery vary drastically from person to person, we here look at few avenues which avid music consumers commonly turn to in their search for fresh tunes, depending on the demographic in question.
Source: How Are Listeners Finding New Independent Music? – hypebot
Snapchat is bringing one of the best recent features of Instagram Stories to its own app, with the ability to add GIF stickers from Giphy to your posts. This is a notable reversal of the typical…
Source: Snapchat adds GIF stickers via Giphy, plus new Friends and Discover screen tabs | TechCrunch
What if you could digitally sculpt a 3D object and share it on Facebook, play with it in virtual reality or insert it into your world with augmented reality? Facebook is polishing up stages one and two today after debuting posts of interactive 3D models in News Feed in October that you can move and spin around.
Source: Facebook’s plan to unite AR, VR and News Feed with 3D posts | TechCrunch
Twitter accounts suspected of having links to Russia were focused on Robert Mueller. But after news broke about the shooting, they quickly changed their focus.
Source: After Florida School Shooting, Russian ‘Bot’ Army Pounced – The New York Times
There’s far more immersive potential in a dedicated VR facility than what’s currently possible in your living room.
Source: In Los Angeles, Dreamscape Immersive’s Location-Based VR Brings You Into a New World | WIRED
While tacking the term “AI” onto a press release can generate buzz, building actual AI products is a big undertaking for most companies.
Source: Why Building AI Products Requires Big Investment – eMarketer
Like the Amazon River itself, Jeff Bezos’s company cuts a powerful, meandering channel through the business landscape, changing every industry it touches.
Source: Amazoned: Is Any Industry Safe?
Shopify and Darkstore helped bring the in-app shopping experience to life.
Source: Nike’s latest Air Jordan sneaker ‘drop’ showcased the potential of Snapchat commerce – Recode
In an excerpt from a new book on Snapchat, Billy Gallagher explains how Facebook fought back against a tiny rival’s challenge.
Source: Copycat: How Facebook Tried to Squash Snapchat | WIRED
Curators are increasingly crafting exhibits with selfie-seeking Millennials in mind. In L.A., a hotbed for the trend on the West Cost, installation shows sell out in minutes.
Source: Museums woo a new generation with ‘Instagram worthy’ art – CSMonitor.com
Why rise to the No. 1 spot when you can just buy it?
Source: Other Sites Have Fake News, So Soundcloud Has Fake Music
In recent years, YouTube’s identity has shifted from a video sharing platform and streaming to a cultivator of subcultures. For fans of any YouTuber or YouTube community, this is not news; but for anyone on the outside, the idea of watching a single creator day in and day out for years is still a strange and foreign concept.
YouTube content creators and their audiences share a far more intimate relationship than television audiences share with even the most iconic characters from some of the longest running shows. The medium itself is far more personal—vloggers sit down and talk directly to the camera, while the viewer takes in the video at eye-level, watching on a laptop screen or, quite literally, from the palm of their hand.
Source: What Miranda Sings’ Short-Lived Netflix Series means for YouTube’s future – Ampersand
The defendants, including Breitbart, Time, and The Boston Globe, warned a loss would “cause a tremendous chilling effect on the core functionality of the web.”
A new way to pay the bills!
Source: Salon is offering readers the option to suppress ads in exchange for cryptocurrency mining power.
In the summer of 2017, a now infamous memo came to light. Written by James Damore, then an engineer at Google, it claimed that the under-representation of women in tech was partly caused by inherent biological differences between men and women. The memo didn’t offer any new evidence – on the contrary, it drew on longstanding sexist stereotypes that have been disproven time and again, and it included only the vaguest mention of decades of research in relevant domains such as gender studies. Given the expansive resources at Google, his omissions didn’t stem from a lack of access to knowledge. Instead, they pointed to an unwillingness to accept that social theory is actually valid knowledge in the first place.
Source: The tech bias: why Silicon Valley needs social theory | Aeon Ideas
