TECH CRUNCH - For the first time since going public in 2007, Meta reported a decline in quarterly revenue YoY. The company's revenue was $28.82B, a 1% decrease from $29.07B in Q2 of 2021. On her final quarterly earnings call, outgoing COO Sheryl Sandberg blamed this decline on the decreasing value of the Euro.
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Meta Posts Its First Ever Quarterly Revenue Decline
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Two Manchester Entrepreneurs Have Raised $540K for Their New Social Network
PROFILIC NORTH - Linkup has raised $540k in pre-seed funding, as it seeks to "revolutionise" how people socialise. Set to launch later this year, Linkup is the brainchild of Jack Peagam and Ben Whatson. The free-to-use tool allows users to connect with people in their area, in the moment to make socialising "easy to arrange and enjoy."
by Stephen Chapman
See full article at Prolific North
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Parler Secures Dismissal of 46 Labs' Trademark Complaint
LAW STREET MEDIA - The District of Nevada issued a trademark ruling in favor of defendant social media platform Parler LLC over plaintiff 46 Labs LLC's opposition, finding no likelihood of consumer confusion. The controversy involves the companies' dueling 'P'-shaped logos, which the plaintiff claims look almost identical except for their color difference. The logo 46 Labs has used and registered for Peeredge since 2015 is a stylized blue 'P.' Parler operates a social media platform that launched in August 2018. In connection with the platform, Parler utilizes a red stylized 'P.'
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Instagram Head Responds to Complaints That App Is Turning Into TikTok
AXIOS - Adam Mosseri responded to a slew of criticisms from some of the app's top celebrity users about experiments Instagram is undertaking to make the social media platform more video-focused. The idea is that a more full-screen experience - for both photos and videos - he said is a test and, "might be a more fun and engaging experience" He believes more and more of Instagram is going to become video over time." Mosseri said this shift is occurring in response to user behavior. He also said that the company is going to try to get better at post recommendations as he believes "it's an effective and important way to help creators reach more people."
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Nextdoor Teams up With Verizon on the Big Neighborhood MeetUp
ADWEEK - Neighborhood social network Nextdoor teamed up with Verizon on The Big Neighborhood MeetUp, a monthlong call to action in honor of Neighbor Month in September and part of Verizon's #ACallForKindness campaign, aimed at encouraging people to recognize and build vital relationships with those nearby and to showcase the power of kindness. The two companies will host #BigNeighborhoodMeetUp events in four cities such as Chicago; Houston; Oakland, Calif.; and Raleigh, N.C. A fifth #BigNeighborhoodMeetUp event will be held in New York in October to coincide with Advertising Week NYC.
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TikTok Is Developing Research and Moderation API for Select Researchers
TECH CRUNCH - TikTok will provide select researchers with more transparency about its platform and moderation system. TikTok is developing a research and moderation API to improve access to public and anonymized data about content and activity on its app. The company plans to make API access available to select researchers later this year. The moderation system API will give select researchers a way to evaluate TikTok's content moderation systems and examine existing content on the app.
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JusTalk Spilled Millions of User Messages and Locations for Months
TECH CRUNCH - Popular messaging app JusTalk left a huge database of unencrypted private messages publicly exposed to the internet without a password for months. Millions of conversations and call logs were stored in plaintext. A logging database used by the company for keeping track of bugs and errors with the apps was left on the internet without a password.
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'Operating With Increased Intensity': Zuckerberg Leads Meta Into Next Phase
NEW YORK TIMES - Mark Zuckerberg is setting a relentless pace as he steers his company into a new phase. In recent months, he has reined in spending, trimmed perks, reshuffled his leadership team and made it clear he would cut low-performing employees. Those who are not on board are welcome to leave, he has said. Zuckerberg is trying to push his company away from its roots in social networking and center it on metaverse.
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DatChat Enters Metaverse Development Joint Venture With MetaBizz
GLOBE NEWSWIRE - DatChat announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, SmarterVerse, Inc., has entered into a joint venture with MetaBizz to develop an all-new metaverse named "The Habytat." The Habytat will be a mobile-based social networking metaverse that will use DatChat's Dynamic Content NFT's, patented blockchain digital rights management, and micro blockchain technology. The joint venture will be led by Gianfranco Lopane, who is currently the Head of Business Development at DatChat.
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Shares Bags Another $40M for Social Investing App
ALTFI - Fresh off its $40M Series A funding round in March, Shares has won itself another $90M. The "social-first" consumer investing neobroker was launched in the UK a few months ago after amassing a waitlist of 60K and offers a "social trading" platform aimed at first-time investors. Combining the simplicity of an investing product with several social media features, allows members to track their friends' investments and share their views.
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The Race to Build a Social Media Platform on the Blockchain
TECH CRUNCH - Web3 proponents think they can build a new system altogether that sidesteps the concentrated power of platforms - a decentralized social media (DeSo) ecosystem where users ideally have more ownership over the content they create. DSCVR, a blockchain-based social network built on Dfinity's Internet Computer protocol, has entered the race to build a scalable DeSo platform with $9M in seed funding led by Polychain Capital. Earlier this month, ex-Coinbase employee Dan Romero secured $30M led by a16z to develop Farcaster, a DeSo protocol that allows users to move their social identity across different apps. Another seed-stage startup, Primitives, raised a $4M round in May for its own Solana-based DeSo network. Twitter also funds an offshoot of its service called BlueSky, an open-source DeSo project founded in 2019 that hasn't gone live but is experimenting publicly with its development process.
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:-( Meta Closes Tuned, Its Social App for Couples
TECH CRUNCH - Tuned (downloaded 909k times) is winding down 2 years after it launched. On Sep 19th the app will cease to work. Tuned was a project under Meta's New Product Experimentation (NPE) Team, which was formed to build consumer apps to test features. Tuned is a way for couples to engage; with messaging, quizzes (sharing feelings), and a Spotify integration. [Other social couple apps are Between and Couply]. The NPE team pivoted to making seed investments. NPE debuted speed dating app Sparked, meme creator Whale, personal project app Hobbi, conversational app Bump, music app Aux, audio calling app CatchUp, collaborative music app Collab, live event companion Venue, and predictions app Forecast. The only apps still available in the U.S. on iOS are Move and BARS.
by Kyle Wiggers
See full article at Tech Crunch
Mark Brooks: What sticks. Nothing? A failed experiment for them? Hardly, they will learn enough to know what to include and not include in other Meta apps, and in VR.
This post also appears on OnlinePersonalsWatch
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Twitter's Quarterly Sales Drop and Spent $33M on Pending Musk Acquisition
TECH CRUNCH - Twitter has published its Q2 2022 results, with the social networking giant's numbers falling short of analysts' estimates across user growth and revenues. Twitter also revealed that it spent $33M in Q2 on Elon Musk's pending acquisition.
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Peanut's Michelle Kennedy: Connecting Women Across Each Life Stage
ABOUT AMAZON - Peanut is the first online community to connect women throughout fertility, pregnancy, motherhood, and menopause in a safe and secure environment. Founder Michelle Kennedy built her business with AWS cloud technology and is helping to shape the way women and mothers connect for the better. Peanut now has ~3M users, and this number is growing every day.
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