We Are Social’s Monday Mashup #364

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We Are Social
Facebook launches episodic content service, Watch

Rumours around Facebook’s video content offering have been circulating for some time, and we now know a lot more thanks to an announcement from the social media giant last week. It has now unveiled ‘Watch’ – a video tab in its mobile, desktop and TV apps that surfaces channels, or ‘Shows’, with live or recorded episodic content. What kind of viewing delights can we expect from Facebook? The platform hopes to produce around 40 original shows, from publishers including NASA, Mashable and MLB. Those already announced include ATTN’s Heath Hacks, which stars Jessica Alba and focuses on healthy living issues and Conde Nast’s Virtually Dating, where two people are set up on a virtual reality blind date.

Facebook removes accidental clicks on ads
Advertisers have, quite rightly, had enough of paying for accidental clicks from clumsy thumbs. Facebook has taken this on board, and announced that it won’t be charging for those clicks in its Audience Network. Facebook categorises an unintentional click as one when a user bounces back after two seconds or less.

Instagram will allow friends to join Live broadcasts
Instagram’s Live broadcasts are set to become a lot more social, with the announcement last week that the platform is testing the ability for users to invite friends to join their broadcasts. Instagram says the feature should roll out globally “over the next few months.”

RIP Facebook’s Lifestage and Groups apps
Facebook has shutdown two stand-alone applications. Lifestage was aimed at teens, and allowed users to create video profiles and view videos posted by other users at their schools. Groups, which launched in November 2014, allowed Facebook users to access all of their groups from a single location. They are not the first apps that Facebook has cut – other casualties include Paper, which closed last June, and Slingshot, which bit the dust in December 2015.

Bad news for Snap at Q2 results

Taking on the disappointing quarterly results baton from Twitter is Snap, whose Q2 earnings report was a rather depressing read. User growth rate had slowed from Q1 and it failed to reach the predicted 175 million daily active users mark, instead adding 7.3 million to reach a total of 173 million. It also failed to reach Wall Street’s revenue estimates and lost $443 million this quarter – four times more than in the same time period last year. Wall Street reacted accordingly, and on Friday Snap closed at $11.83 after losing 14 percent of its value in a single day’s trading. Instagram Stories has been blamed for investor skepticism of Snap – the feature already has 250 million daily users, over 75 million more than Snap.

YouTube allows messaging and sharing in mobile app

YouTube’s sharing feature in its mobile app is now available to users worldwide, allowing them to send friends videos and chat from within a new tab. The feature, which had a ‘soft launch’ in Canada and Latin America, aims to transition some of the social activity that takes place around videos, back into YouTube.

Pinterest rolls out video ads for all advertisers
Pinterest is after some of the video advertising $$$, by rolling out video ads to all advertisers. It’s been testing the feature for a year with brands like Kate Spade New York and Universal Pictures. According to reports, Pinterest is aiming to hit $500 million in revenue this year, up from $300 million in 2016 and video ads will be crucial to nailing this lofty ambition. The platform is taking a proactive approach to potential measurement issues too, by working with Moat and Nielsen to allow marketers to vet metrics through third parties.

Lonely Planet launches Trips app
Lonely Planet has gone back to (mobile) basics with the launch of a new app called Trips. The company has recently been experimenting with new tech like voice-activated speakers and 360-degree video, but Trips is editorially-led, aiming to help visitors browse user-generated inspiration for future trips. If you think it sounds a bit like Instagram, you’re not the only one. Lonely Planet says it’s more of a “complementary place for users to create their own guides in a “glossy magazine” fashion”. For example, if someone is interested in taking a road trip, they can use the app to browse through the curated list of road trips that might be of interest to them.