Very Social Network

Facebook Fined $70 Million in U.K. Over Giphy Merger Breach

WALL STREET JOURNAL - The U.K.'s competition regulator fined Facebook $69.6M, alleging it breached reporting requirements during a continuing review of its proposed takeover of Giphy, a provider of animated images for use in social media. The Competition and Markets Authority said that Facebook had failed to provide required updates outlining its compliance with an interim order the watchdog imposed in 2020, as part of its review of the Giphy deal.

by Anthony O. Goriainoff & Sam Schechner
See full article at Wall Street Journal

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Pinterest Added 'Watch' and Announces $20M in Creator Rewards

TECH CRUNCH - Pinterest added 'Watch,' a vertical video feed, and plans to invest $20M in "Creator Rewards." It also announced a series of expanded creator tools, like the ability to respond to videos with "Takes," support for Amazon Affiliates and more, as well as the launch of original content.

by Sarah Perez
See full article at Tech Crunch

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Reddit's New Branded Merchandise Plan Has Major Expansion Potential

PROMO MARKETING - To celebrate/promote a few specific subreddits and raise some money for their operating costs, Reddit introduced a line of merchandise like T-shirts, stickers and coffee mugs. Reddit has ~2.8M subreddits, some of which have tens of millions of subscribers. Overall, the site has 52M DAU. That's a lot of potential audience for merchandise sales.

by Brendan Menapace
See full article at Promo Marketing

See the top news on Reddit

YouTube Plans Week-long Live Shopping Event

TECH CRUNCH - YouTube plans to test of its live shopping platform with plans to host a week-long live shopping event, "YouTube Holiday Stream and Shop," starting on Nov 15. The event will allow viewers to shop new products, unlock limited-time offers, and engage with creators and other viewers via Q&As and polls.

by Sarah Perez
See full article at Tech Crunch

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Vampr Opens up to the Crowd With Cutting-Edge Investment Opportunity

PR NEWSWIRE - Vampr, social network for creatives, has announced a new equity crowdfunding round seeking to reward its investors with NFTs. Vampr is offering the first 400 investors who commit $500 or more Vampr NFT. At the time of launch, the supply of unique NFTs is near full allocation, with ~$350K of funds already raised from 200 investors.

See full article at PR Newswire

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Telegram Downloads Via Google Play Exceed 1B

UNITED NEWS OF INDIA - It is reported that the Telegram app had been downloaded ~1B times across all platforms worldwide.

See full article at United News of India

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WhatsApp Will Now Give Users Separate Notifications for Message Reactions

DIGITAL INFORMATION WORLD - WhatsApp is adding message reactions to its list of pending features and interface updates, and even allowed certain users to test the feature out with a few beta releases. This latest version of WhatsApp will allow users to get notifications if anyone reacts to their messages.

by Arooj Ahmed
See full article at Digital Information World

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Chingari Unveiled $GARI Crypto Token and NFT Marketplace

EXCHANGE4MEDIA - Short video app Chingari has unveiled its first-ever crypto token $GARI at a public event. It will become the first social network in India to issue crypto tokens. The platform is launching its own NFT marketplace. Bollywood megastar Khan will be the brand ambassador of the NFT marketplace and the $GARI Token reward programme. Chingari had recently raised $19M funding from ~30 venture funds and individual investors.

See full article at Exchange4Media

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Twitter Eyes Canada as Product Launchpad Amid Developer Hiring Spree

BETA KIT - Twitter plans to open an engineering hub in Toronto, the first of its kind for the social media company north of the border. Since its initial announcement of the hub, Twitter has hired 60 new Toronto-based engineers. With 180 Twitter employees now scattered across the country and dozens more roles expected to be filled, the company is looking to make a long-term investment in Canada.

by Isabelle Kirkwood
See full article at Beta Kit

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ZASH Global Media and Lomotif Launch LoMo Records Label and Artist Services

PR NEWSWIRE - ZASH Global Media and Lomotif launched LoMo Records, a Los Angeles based independent immersive record label. ZASH's LoMo Records will partner with artists and creators to provide expert label services and global distribution to breaking new talent from their platform Lomotif and working with other music labels. LoMo Records will be headed by Eli Frank, a Former 12Tone, Def Jam Records, and SB Project A&R Executive.

See full article at PR Newswire

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Clubhouse Gives Musicians a New High-quality Audio Mode

TECH CRUNCH - Clubhouse added a new "music mode", doubling down on its commitment to centering social audio in all its permutations. The new music mode will give musicians who play live on the social network their own special set of tools to optimize sound quality and will hit iOS first before rolling out to Android.

by Taylor Hatmaker
See full article at Tech Crunch

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Instagram Internal Documents Reveal Fear of Losing Teens

CNET - Instagram worried about losing teenage users and designated a large chunk of its marketing budget for touting the service to teens. "If we lose the teen foothold in the U.S. we lose the pipeline," says an internal Instagram memo, which presents a marketing strategy for this year.

by Edward Moyer
See full article at CNet

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DatChat to Run National Marketing Campaign on Barstool Sports

GLOBE NEWSWIRE - DatChat, a communications and social media company that gives users the ability to communicate with privacy and protection, announced a multi-channel, national marketing campaign across the Barstool Sports brand and select franchises. This campaign with Barstool Sports represents an opportunity to reach a large and unique audience dovetailing across content, engagement, and demography.

See full article at Globe Newswire

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Twitter Pulls the Plug on Vibe Checks

MASHABLE - Twitter quietly ended its brief foray into preemptively warning users that things might get "heated or intense" in tweet replies. The feature was initially positioned as a test and appeared part of Twitter's larger "conversational health" initiative.

by Jack Morse
See full article at Mashable

See the top news on Twitter

Announcing Trust & Safety Connect Event on 'Offline Conduct'

VSN - Trust & Safety Connect (TSC) is on Wed 27th October starting 11am EST (New York) and for this quarterly online event we're focused on 'offline conduct.' We have a half hour of networking on virtual tables, then a 45 minute panel with three world-class panelists from EME, Grindr and Inner Circle and moderator Norman Petty, who is head of Trust & Safety at The Meet Group, and then another short networking session. 1.5 hours all-in.

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 TSC (and LTR) events for free. See the Trust & Safety Connect speakers and invite page here. Email mark@courtlandbrooks.com to RSVP for TSC. There are 40 places only.

Trust & Safety Connect is kindly sponsored by RealMe, vPaaS by Meet Group, and Courtland Brooks