THE VERGE - Tumblr's on-brand creative mayhem has adapted polls into a simple gaming platform. The poll sets challenges for readers at varying levels of difficulty and surrealism. Some of these games are popularity contests. Users have several ways to inform each other of the game’s current status like direct comments, or reblogging.
Tumblr Turned Social Media Polls Into a Game Design Challenge
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Twitter Testing Government ID-based Verification, New Screenshots Show
TECH CRUNCH - Twitter appears to be testing a new verification process for Twitter Blue subscribers that would involve submitting a government ID. Code-level insights reveal a process for sending in a photo of the user’s ID, both front and back, along with a selfie photo to verify their Twitter account.
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Meta Faces Third Lawsuit in Kenya as Moderators Claim Illegal Sacking, Blacklisting
TECH CRUNCH - Meta and its Kenya-based content moderation partners, Sama and Majorel, are facing a new lawsuit in Kenya. In a petition filed today, 43 content moderators allege "unlawful termination" by Sama, whose contract with Meta comes to an end this month after shutting down its content review arm in Jan. They are also contesting alleged discrimination by Meta's new content moderation partner, Majorel, who they claim has blacklisted all of Sama’s previous employees.
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Yalla Announces Unaudited Q4 and Full Year 2022 Financial Results
YALLA - Yalla, the largest MENA-based online social network and gaming company, announced its unaudited financial results for the Q4 and full year ended Dec 31, 2022.
In Q4 of 2022:
- Revenues were $75.1M, representing an increase of 11.2% from the Q4 of 2021.
- Net income was $16.6M, compared with $19.1M in Q4 of 2021.
- Net margin was 22.1%. Non-GAAP net income was $21.7M, compared with $27.6M in Q4 of 2021.
- Non-GAAP net margin was 29.0%.
- Average MAUs increased by 14.0% to 32M from 28.1M in Q4 of 2021.
- The number of paying users increased by 47.8% to 12.5M in Q4 of 2022 from 8.4M in Q4 of 2021.
In the full year of 2022:
- Revenues were $303.6M, representing an increase of 11.2% from 2021.
- Net income was $79.0M, compared with $82.6M in 2021. Net margin was 26.0%.
- Non-GAAP net income was $105.7M, compared with $126.5M in 2021. Non-GAAP net margin was 34.8%.
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Hunch, a Polls-only Social Network That Values the Opinion of GenZ
MONEY CONTROL - Hunch, co-founded by Ish Goel (also the brain behind PlotX, a Web3 gaming startup) is a polls-only and pseudonymous social network to know what friends and people around think on esoteric topics, unconventional, and never discussed. They recently launched Peek, which lets users see insights into the answers shared. Another highlight is 'Hot Take' - this feature gives more information about the most viewed question, most popular user, comment that received the most likes, etc.
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Meta Launches Paid Verification on Instagram and Facebook in the US
TECH CRUNCH - Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta is rolling out Meta Verified on Instagram and Facebook in the U.S. The subscription service, which first launched in Australia and New Zealand last month, allows users to add the coveted blue check mark to their Instagram and Facebook accounts for a monthly fee. Meta Verified costs $11.99 monthly on the web and $14.99 monthly on mobile.
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TikTok's New Feature Lets Users Refresh Their For You Feed and Retrain Their Algorithm
TECH CRUNCH - TikTok is introducing a new "Refresh" feature that lets users reset their For You feed and start fresh to retrain the app's algorithm about content they enjoy. When the refresh feature is enabled, the app will surface content on the For You page as if they have just signed up for TikTok. The app's recommendation system will then begin to surface more content based on new interactions.
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Artifact Co-founder Kevin Systrom on The SVB Crisis, Its Further Impacts and Future of Tech
TECH CRUNCH - Artifact, the new personalized news app from Instagram's co-founders, is another startup whose funding was caught up in the Silicon Valley Bank failure. Unlike many other startups impacted by the bank crisis, Artifact's co-founder Kevin Systrom was in the fortunate position of being able to self-fund their startup, if need be, and was planning to loan the company money to keep it afloat. As it turns out, Artificat's financial crisis was short-lived. Systrom said that after the government took control of SVB, Artifact has since recovered all funds and has no more problems on that front.
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Bannon Ally Guo Wengui Busted for Crypto Fraud. GETTR Funds seized
MASHABLE - Guo Wengui, a Chinese fugitive living in the U.S., was arrested and hit with a series of wire fraud, securities fraud, bank fraud, and money laundering charges. The billionaire fled China in 2014 and has been living in New York. He has been sought by China's government. ~$630M has been seized by the U.S., including GETTR funds. A major part of Guo's alleged fraud was his Himalayan Exchange, a cryptocurrency "ecosystem," that included a stablecoin dubbed the Himalaya Dollar and a crypto token called Himalaya Coin.
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