FORBES – Nov 24 - Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, social entrepreneur Ana Fontes (a part of the W20) has been working to equip the hundreds of thousands of women who resort to the Women Entrepreneurs Social Network (RME, acronym in Portuguese) to understand how to navigate a fast-moving digital landscape. With multiple initiatives led under what is the first and largest support network for female entrepreneurs and the support from companies including Google and banks such as Santander, RME currently reaches 750k women nationwide. The scope of the organization is now going beyond guidance on how to start and run a business and expanding into a model that includes digital literacy, content, acceleration, mentoring, and capital for female entrepreneurs. RME has raised more than $7.3M to bolster key projects such as a training model that will train ~50k women for the digital economy in the next 24 months.
How a Brazilian Social Entrepreneur Will Train 2 Million Women for the Digital Economy
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Coupals, Networking App for Couples, Set for India Debut
INDIAN TELEVISION – Nov 24 - CouPals, a platform to connect with other like-minded couples will be launched in a phased manner starting with Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi in Jan 2021, followed by the next top 5 metros, India urban and will be gradually rolled out in western countries in the following years. Through its 'precision search' algorithm, it analyses over 50+ interests, age-group, location, community, occupation, details on kids (if any), etc. to serve the relevant proles and get you connected with the perfect prole(s) each time. "Apart from serving the relevant proles, it would also recommend the options for dining, weekend getaways, tailor-made travel itinerary, and more based on interests selection as well as couple tips & therapy through partnerships" said Amit Nevrekar, founder of CouPals.
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Snapchat Launches a TikTok-Like Feed Called Spotlight
TECH CRUNCH – Nov 24 - Snapchat launches a dedicated place within its app where users can watch short, entertaining videos in a vertically scrollable, TikTok-like feed. This new feature, called Spotlight, will showcase the community's creative efforts, including the videos now backed by music, as well as other Snaps users may find interesting. Its algorithms will work to surface the most engaging Snaps to display to each user on a personalized basis. To encourage users to publish to Spotlight, the company will distribute ~$1M every day to Snapchat users (16 and up) who create the top Snaps on Spotlight. This will continue through the end of 2020. Spotlight is live on both iOS and Android in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the U.K., Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, and France, with more countries to come soon.
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Bolo Indya: Homegrown Social Networking Platform That's Gaining Traction
HT TECH – Nov 24 - Bolo Indya is one of the homegrown short video creations, discovery, and sharing platform that has gained traction following the ban on TikTok. Bolo Indya is a Gurgaon-based startup that focuses on Indian languages. Founded in May 2019, Bolo Indya registered a growth of 20-25% MoM before TikTok was banned in India. Immediately after the TikTok ban, the platform registered a spike of 200% growth. The platform currently has ~6.8M monthly active users and ~2.8M daily active users. The company has also seen similarly strong growth in the creators' community as it has 2.7M creators with ~600k videos created daily. The platform has an average of 32 mins daily time spend, which is pretty much on par with other social networking platforms.
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Gab's New CTO Is a Former Facebook Software Engineer
VICE – Nov 23 - Gab, the social network well-known as a safe haven for neo-Nazis and the far right, announced that its newest CTO is a former software engineer who spent more than 7 years at Facebook, Fosco Marotto. With 23 years of experience, he brings extensive backend infrastructure knowledge to help Gab scale.
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SAGSE Match Launches - a Business Networking Platform for the Gaming Industry
HOSTNEWS – Nov 23 - Monografie launched SAGSE Match, the first business networking platform for the global gaming industry. It is a global multilanguage platform, initially presented in English and Spanish. SAGSE Match offers SAGSE Coins, a currency for interacting within the platform. The launch is co-hosted by Play'n GO, Altenar, Golden Race, Latamwin, and GlobalWizards, and journalism support by Yogonet.
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Chatio: Random Video Chats App in 200 Countries
DIGITAL JOURNAL – Nov 23 - Turba Ltd. announces the launch of the Chatio App version 1.3.17, with enhanced interactive elements. Chatio offers a strongly moderated and highly secured platform for users to make live video calls with complete strangers across 200+ countries. With ~100k installs already, Chatio is gaining popularity across the world. It is also possible to use gender-based filters to meet with only males or females according to personal preferences. Yo Seop Choi, the CEO of Turba Ltd., explains that the new app features have been integrated based on the latest research and user feedback.
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Avatar Social Network IMVU Gets SEC Nod for Token Sale
FINANCE MAGNATES – Nov 20 - The US top regulator issued a No-Action Letter to a cryptocurrency-based startup called IMVU that the SEC's Division of Markets and Trading will not recommend an enforcement action based on a number of assumptions that include, among other things, that the VCOIN tokens will not be traded on secondary markets. Based in Redwood City, California, IMVU is a 3D avatar-based social networking platform. It allows registered users to customize their characters, connect with friends in 3D chat rooms, and make new ones around the world through shared experiences. IMVU also hosts a marketplace featuring a catalog of virtual goods made by ~50k creators.
by Aziz Abed-Qader
See full article at Finance Magnates
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Russian Parliament Given Draft Law to Block U.S. Social Media Giants
REUTERS – Nov 20 - Lawmakers in Russia's parliament presented draft legislation that, if passed, would enable the government to restrict internet access to U.S. social media giants deemed to have discriminated against Russian media outlets. The urgency in adopting the draft law is due to numerous cases of unjustified restriction of Russian citizens' access to information in the Russian media by certain internet resources, including those registered outside Russia. Russia's prosecutor general and the foreign ministry would define which internet resources restrict access to socially important information based on nationality, language or in connection with the introduction of sanctions against Russia or its citizens.
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Cooper, a Private Social Network, Raises $2M
SILICON CANALS – Nov 19 - Amsterdam-based Cooper has announced its international launch and a seed funding raise of $2M. Founded in 2018 by Robert Gaal (CEO) and Emiel van Liere (CTO), Cooper is a private professional network. Both the founders were founders of social consumer platforms, such as Hyves (acquired by TMG for EUR 43.7M) and Wakoopa (acquired by GfK). Cooper helps aspiring talent get introduced to experienced industry experts through people they both trust.
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TikTok Could Surpass 1B Active Users by 2021
AFP – Nov 19 - According to App Annie, TikTok will clock ~1B active users by 2021. It predicts a total of ~1.2B active users every month on the platform. However, these predictions still have to be taken with a grain of salt since TikTok is still at risk of being banned in the U.S.
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JOYY Q3 Results - Revenue up 36%, MAUs Down 4%
GLOBE NEWSWIRE - Nov 18 - Joyy is a global video-based social media platform and the parent company of YY LIVE, BIGO LIVE, Likee, HAGO and YY dating. Q3 net revenue is $926M, up 36% YOY. Net income is $339M, compared to $9.4M in Q3 2019, primarily due to the impact of gain from partial disposal of investments in Huya, a game live streaming platform. Global average mobile MAUs decreased by 4% to 390M, mainly due to the impact of Indian government's measures to block certain Chinese-owned apps, which included Bigo Live, Likee and Hago. Total number of paying users of YY decreased by 4.7% YOY to 4M, mainly due to COVID-19. Mr. David Xueling Li, Chairman and CEO of JOYY, commented, "Despite the negative impact from India blocking certain Chinese-owned apps, our global MAU remained relatively stable, thanks to rapid expansion of our business in other regions, including Europe and East Pacific." Mr. Li continued, "We believe Baidu's strategic acquisition of YY Live is a win-win for both parties, as it will accelerate YY Live's business growth and unlock more value across the domestic entertainment live streaming sector." Baidu said on Monday it is acquiring live-streaming service YY Live for $3.6B in an all-cash deal as the Chinese Internet giant makes a further push to diversify beyond its core search business and play catch-up in video entertainment.
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TikTok Expands Parental Controls
TECH CRUNCH – Nov 18 - TikTok expands its parental control feature set known as Family Pairing to give parents additional tools to manage various aspects of their teen's account as well as their privacy on the social video platform. The new tools will allow parents to set their teen's account to private, control whether their Liked Videos are visible to others, control who can comment on the teen's videos, and even decide whether the teen is allowed to use TikTok's search feature.
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No Child Alone: Children's Social Network to Support Their Socio-emotional Needs
SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY - Nov 18 - Alissa Antle's (a professor in SFU's School of Interactive Arts and Technology) latest research project, an online social network for children called No Child Alone, received a $105k NSERC COVID-19 Alliance grant. She is working in partnership with Curatio, a digital health company. In designing this platform, Antle and her team conduct activities and interviews with children and their parents that involve making as well as dialogue to understand their unique circumstances and socio-emotional challenges. Once children join the No Child Alone online community, their sessions will be moderated by an adult, but the children will have some autonomy to interact with each other and connect directly to resources they might need.
by Tessa Perkins Deneault
See full article at Simon Fraser University
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Yubo, Teen Social Network, Raised $47.5M
TECH CRUNCH - Nov 18 - French startup Yubo, which focuses on young people under 25, has managed to attract 40M users. A fraction of them hang out every day in live-streaming rooms, meet new people and spend money for more features. Yubo expects to double its revenue this year to $20M. The app has recently closed a Series C funding round of $47.5M (previously raised $19.5M) With this funding round, Yubo will expand its team. There are currently 30 employees in Paris, London and Jacksonville. Yubo will open an office in New York.
by Romain Dillet
See full article at Tech Crunch
This post also appears on OnlinePersonalsWatch
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