SCMP - ByteDance has acquired Chinese VR start-up PoliQ, the latest move in the tech giant's foray into the metaverse as interest in the sector continues to grow. PoliQ, the operator of the once-popular virtual social platform Vyou that allowed users to create their avatars, was bought by ByteDance for "tens of millions of yuan." The start-up was absorbed into VR headset company Pico, which was acquired by ByteDance in August last year. PoliQ founder Ma Jiesi is now the head of the social center department at Pico, according to his CV on the Chinese social media platform Maimai.
ByteDance Acquired Chinese Virtual Social Platform PoliQ for Its Metaverse Investments
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WeChat Prohibits Its Users from Using Crypto and NFT Services
BE IN CRYPTO - WeChat will restrict or ban accounts that issue, trade, or finance cryptocurrencies or NFTs. Such digital assets are now considered "illegal business." If a violation is found from one of the accounts, the account will be asked to correct it within a certain deadline. The account can be restricted. Or, WeChat can permanently block the account in question.
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MyConnect Creates a Community for Parents of Children With Special Needs
WEST FAIR ONLINE - MyConnect is an online platform that caters to parents of children with special needs by providing them with a community outlet and a directory of providers, services, and resources. The community is further enhanced by MyConnect's Intellimatch System, described as a "primitive version of AI," which uses data members provide during the onboarding process to match them to local providers and with other parents who have similar concerns regarding their special needs children.
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LinkedIn Is a Major Growth Driver for Microsoft
WEBPRONEWS - It is revealed that LinkedIn is now one of Microsoft's biggest growth drivers. The Business & Productivity segment (comprised of Office Products, LinkedIn, and Dynamics) makes up 32.1% of its total revenue in 2021. While LinkedIn only represents a small percentage at 11% of the selected Social Networking Sites' total users, compared to Facebook and Instagram, which has a higher growth rate in terms of average revenue per user, LinkedIn had a stable average ARPU growth of 23% since 2017. LinkedIn's value to Microsoft is also driven by the results it delivers, providing 4.4x higher cost-per-click than Facebook, 12.84x higher than Twitter, and 0.48x higher than Instagram. Similarly, is 277% more effective at lead generation than Facebook and Twitter.
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Moderators on Reddit Do $3.4M Worth of Unpaid Work Every Year
TECH STORY - A study revealed that the moderation activities done on Reddit by the unpaid moderators are worth a minimum of $3.4M per year. These volunteer moderators make sure that inappropriate content which includes issues such as hate speech, racism, etc doesn't spread without control on the social discussion website. Reddit got ~$100M as revenue in 2019. Therefore, the amount of work done freely by content moderators on Reddit is close to 2.9% of Reddit's annual revenue.
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Lootverse Announces Its In-world Social Media
TRADE ARABIA - Lootverse, the first discovered parallel world, has announced its social media Lootfeed, an alpha product that can be accessed directly from the interactive map by clicking on the news icon on the top bar. Lootfeed stands out from the other similar platforms by using an innovative payment system created to solve issues like spamming, bots, trolls, and many others.
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JobGet Raises $52M With Ambitions to Be the LinkedIn for Shift Workers
TECH CRUNCH - A startup called JobGet is announcing $52M in funding to fuel its ambitions to build a similar kind of go-to hub for a related sector of the labor market: waged or hourly workers. Built specifically for them, JobGet provides them with listings for jobs and an opportunity to connect with others doing similar work; access for recruiters to tap people for openings they might have; and down the line more tools such as training and development to help them along with their own career ladders. JobGet has racked up 2M downloads of its mobile app, with a further 10M using its website.
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Clubhouse Tests Private Groups, Part of a Bid to Regain Relevance
BLOOMBERG - Clubhouse is experimenting with a new feature that lets users join private groups. The feature, known internally as Social Clubs or Houses, would let anyone in a group join the conversation. With Houses, Clubhouse appears to be encouraging friendlier social interaction within private groups of users. Instead of only live, ephemeral audio rooms, members of a House can post in a written group chat, where messages stay visible for a week before disappearing.
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Reddit Upgrades Reddit Talk With a Soundboard, New Discovery Features
TECH CRUNCH - Reddit Talk, the social site's Clubhouse-like social audio product, is rolling out a handful of updates aimed at allowing hosts to better engage with listeners. Among these is a new soundboard for audio effects and a topic selector, that allows hosts to select up to three topics for their talks. It's also testing a way for hosts to start a live show straight from their profile. The company also announced its Reddit Talk Host Program, which helps new hosts have their audio shows found, will kick off on July 11th.
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