TECH CRUNCH - Aug 31 - Social commerce startup Flip mixes in user-generated reviews and live shopping shows for beauty, wellness, and health brands to improve the buying experience and opportunity for the creator economy. The Los Angeles-based company closed on a $28M Series A led Streamlined Ventures.
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Flip Bags $28M to Turn Beauty and Wellness Social Commerce
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ByteDance Buys a Top VR Hardware Startup
TECH CRUNCH - Aug 31 - ByteDance is buying up its own VR headset maker called Pico. In March, Pico had raised some $62M in venture funding from Chinese firms, including a $37M Series B. Pico creates both hardware and software for their VR devices and has a substantial presence in China.
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Instagram Will Require Users to Provide Their Birthday
TECH CRUNCH - Aug 31 - Instagram will begin prodding users to share their birthday with the service if they haven't already done so. The move is a part of Instagram's larger goal to create new safety features aimed at younger users. Instagram says users who have not yet shared their birthday will begin to see pop-up notifications when they open the Instagram app.
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Clubhouse Is Adding Spatial Audio Effects
TECH CRUNCH - Aug 30 - Clubhouse's rooms will now be infused with spatial audio to give the app's listeners a richer sense of hanging out live with a group of other people. This feature rolled out to the majority of iOS users, reaching the rest of Clubhouse's iOS and Android users within the next few weeks.
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Google Restores Social Network, Crowwe
VANGUARD - Aug 30 - Nigeria's foremost social media network Crowwe is back on the Play Store and App store for both android and IOS mobile phone users. The Crowwe app which has been described as an instant messaging and financial transaction app comes with a digital mobile wallet functionality capable of enabling users within the platform transfer and receive money while chatting.
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Twitter Is Rolling out Ticketed Spaces for iPhone Users
9TO5MAC - Aug 30 - Twitter rolled out a new way for creators to monetize their content on Spaces named "Ticketed Spaces" to some iPhone users. Users who want to host Ticketed Spaces need to have at least 1K followers and have hosted at least 3 Spaces in the last 30 days. Those who are 17 years old or younger cannot charge for Spaces.
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Betsperts Announces Closing of Series A Fundraising Round
PR NEWSWIRE - Aug 27 - Betsperts has just closed a $6M Series A fundraising round. Betsperts boasts one of the largest sports betting and fantasy sports audiences in the US. The Betsperts Group expects to surpass 1M lifetime downloads shortly into the 2021 NFL season. Most recently, Betsperts acquired Matthew Berry's (ESPN Senior Fantasy Analyst) Fantasy Life App.
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Homegrown Social Network Bharatam Plans to Ride India's Vernacular Wave
YOUR STORY - Aug 27 - Serial entrepreneur Neeraj Bisht launched the social network Bharatam in July 2021. The app has already been downloaded ~9K on Google Play Store. Bharatam aims to create a more localized experience for users and enable discovery and engagement for people and businesses nearby. It recently bagged a grant of $25K from Microsoft's startup program. The app will soon launch on iOS and add 60 local languages by the end of the year.
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YouTube to Roll out Picture-in-Picture Viewing for All US iOS Users
TECH CRUNCH - Aug 27 - YouTube plans to launch picture-in-picture viewing to all iOS users in the U.S. on both iPhone and iPad. For now, YouTube is inviting Premium subscribers to test this feature, which lets users watch picture-in-picture videos in a mini player while browsing other apps.
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Knoetic, a Social Network for CPOs, Raises $18M
VENTURE BEAT - Aug 26 - Knoetic, a startup developing a social and analytics platform for CPO, raises $18M in funding. Founder and CEO Joseph Quan says that the proceeds will be put toward product development and growing Knoetic's workforce across go-to-market and engineering teams.
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Koo's User Base Is Growing at 20-25% Each Month
EXCHANGE4MEDIA - Aug 26 - Home-grown microblogging platform Koo is growing at 20-25% MoM over its existing user base of 10M. Currently, Koo is available in eight Indian languages like Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Marathi, Bengali, Assamese, and Gujarati. It will soon support the Malayalam language as well.
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Discord Could Be Valued at $15B in New Funding Round
BENZINGA - Aug 26 - Dragoneer is expected to lead a $500M funding round for Discord that values the company at $15B. In May, Sony Corp joined Discord and an investor and partner announcing it would integrate a better social experience for its Playstation users.
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Tumblr Turns to Podcasts to Tout Top Trends
THE DRUM - Aug 26 - Tumblr introduces 'Big Week on Tumblr' podcast to condense all the major trends and events of the past week in one bite-sized audio installment. A wide content net will be shoehorned into the weekly bulletin, curated by Tumblr's in-house editorial team, with topics ranging from new releases to 'fandom explosions' and site features.
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YouTube Removed 1M Videos for COVID-19 Misinformation
CNET - Aug 26 - YouTube has since Feb 2020 removed ~1M videos related to coronavirus information, such as false cures or claims of a hoax, CPO Neal Mohan said.
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Announcing LTR Online Workshop Next Wednesday
OPW - Aug 26 - LTR stands for Love, Technology, Relationships. This is where the online social communities and dating industry meet to learn, and share. In September we're doing something special. You wanted a more interactive experience so I'll run an LTR Online Workshop. We have such considerable brainpower at LTR conferences... we'll unlock this, and you'll connect more meaningfully.
This is the first-ever LTR Online Workshop and is on Wed 1st September starting 11:30 am EST (New York). We have a half-hour of networking on virtual tables, 90 mins getting into your most burning challenges and opportunities, and then an optional final half-hour of networking. 2.5 hours all-in.
LTR is free, and by invite only.
If you hold a full-time leadership role at an Internet dating company then you are welcome to join OSCA for free and welcome to join LTR events for free. See the LTR Online Workshop overview and invite page here. Email [email protected] to RSVP for LTR. There are 50 places only this time.
LTR is kindly sponsored by RealMe, vPaaS by Meet Group, and Courtland Brooks
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