Twitch released an open letter announcing changes they will be making in the first half of the year to improve the way ads work for viewers and channels. Up until now, there has been anywhere up to three minutes of ads to sit through before you can view a stream. With the new changes, Twitch plans to apply a picture-by-picture solution, allowing viewers to see the content that interests them upfront without an ad wall. They’ve also announced that they are experimenting with ways to give viewers a notification that ads are coming up with a possible snooze option. We’ll keep an eye out for when these updates start to roll out.
WhatsApp’s Native Mac App Beta is Now Available to All
Last year WhatsApp released a native version for Windows 10 that worked without the need for a smartphone and there is now a version for Mac users to download without restrictions. The new app is optimized for Mac hardware and offers a new interface including three panels to click between chats, archived and starred messages. This new version was built with Mac Catalyst, increasing reliability and speed. The full beta can be downloaded directly from the WhatsApp website.
TikTok Expands Direct Messaging Settings
TikTok has expanded its DM settings, providing users with the ability to choose who they want to receive messages from: everyone, suggested friends, mutual followers, people you’ve messaged, or no one. Prior to this users could only receive messages from friends or recommended users. TikTok continues to roll out and expand its features to stay ahead of its competitors and get users to spend even more time on the app.
Twitter Changed Its Font
Well, sort of. The font itself is still Twitter’s own font, Chirp, it just now uses OpenType stylistic sets to make it easier to differentiate characters – such as a capital I and lowercase L, or a zero (which now has a diagonal line over it) and an o. These changes are only visible in Twitter handles, which will make it easier to weed out impersonators and fake accounts. There will be no more @e10nmusk’s swindling you into buying crypto, hopefully. The change is not yet visible on mobile but users speculate that will only be a matter of time.
looks like twitter is making some attempts to cut down on impersonation accounts by using a new font for twitter handles. note the slashed 0 and the tail on the l. pic.twitter.com/NZRQxjS3XJ
It’s that time of year again! Digital 2023 has landed and holds 465 pages of juicy digital, social, mobile and eCommerce data and trends. With 5.16 billion internet users in the world today, and 4.76 billion social media users, there’s tons to uncover in the report and the in-depth analysis by Simon Kemp. Read our analysis here, and sign up for the webinar here.
