editor, Author at Mediastreet

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The Inevitable Convergence of Social Media, Commerce, and Visual Content

July 6, 2021 No Comments

By Paul Melcher,

You walk through the supermarket aisle until you face various choices for the product you wish to eat. In the case of cereals, it can be 20 or more different options. You reach out and pick one, which you feel is the right decision based on a well-educated process.

In fact, when you make that decision, you are executing on thousands of messages received during most of your entire lifetime—each one with the sole purpose of influencing that decision. In commerce, that purchasing act is called the second moment of truth. The moment when millions of dollars of marketing (at least for cereal companies) is converted into a purchase decision.

Traditionally, the two have been geographically and historically separated. You receive marketing messages at breakfast while reading your daily digest on your phone, and you will be buying in the late afternoon.

Ecommerce, for most of its brief existence, has followed the same schema. Advertising here, shopping there. But not anymore. Everything is converging to one all-encompassing moment of truth at one place and one time, with visual content at its core. The customer journey is now reduced to an instant and one visual.

There are three main steps in a customer journey:

The awareness of the product
The consideration of the product
The purchase of the product

Up to now, they all happened at different places and over time. Now, it’s all converging at one place and time and all within one visual content.

Nowhere can this be experienced more than on social media since we spent most of our time. All platform owe their success and operate with visual content as their core interface. Stage one was to use those visuals to capture audiences. Stage 2 two was to transform those views into advertising; stage three adds a “buy” button: Discovery, conversion, purchase, now all in one image or video.

Instagram displays an ad every 3 to 4 posts and uses retargeting profusely. Each ad contains multiple visuals introducing a product you have shown interest in and leading to a shop now button. That one image or video contains the whole customer journey.

The numbers confirm the story: 81% of people out of over 1 billion use Instagram every month to help research products and services. With an average conversion rate of 1.85 percent, that’s 14 million clicks on a “buy” button of an image every month.

Identical scenario for Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Snap. Photography has a new role, one much harder to master. It has to introduce, convince, and sell all within one frame. It has to capitalize on the instant attention span. With video, it’s an identical challenge, all within the maximum of 60 seconds granted by most social media platforms. For brands, the bar is making the brutal journey feel seamless, which is why they rely on influencers’ expertise. They have mastered converting content into captive audiences and come with built-in trust. All that is needed is the “buy” button.

The product now comes to you, fully packaged with all the information you might need to make a purchase decision, including the cash register. Everything is transformed into an impulse buy, one carefully vetted via retargeting by your shown interest. All compressed in one frame or 60-second video, right next to those party pix of last night shared by you BFF.

Shop and share. The lines are blurred. Your friends, brands, product, purchase, parties are all part of the same flow. Click Like here, click buy there; who is that at my front door? A delivery or a friend? The beginning and end of your buyer journey are all in here, in one frame.

By Paul Melcher

Paul Melcher is a photography and technology entrepreneur based in New York, and the founder of Kaptur, a news magazine about the visual tech space. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. You can find more of his writings on his blog, Thoughts of a Bohemian. Melcher offers his services as a consultant as well. This article was also published here.

Sourced from PetaPixel

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Fed up of influencers not labelling paid posts and flaunting rules. UK’s advertising regulator is now naming and shaming influencers who breach their guidelines.

July 6, 2021 No Comments

By Neha Tandon Sharma,

The world of social media is turning into a school of sorts where teachers (read: rule regulators) will call out the defaulters for failing to follow guidelines. The UK regulator for advertising called Advertising Standard Agency (ASA) has launched a new initiative in a move to make influencers more transparent about what they are paid to promote on their social media. The advertising watchdog has named and shamed social media influencers who failed to disclose paid promotions on their accounts namely Chloe Ferry, Chloe Khan, Jodie Marsh, and Lucy Mecklenburgh.

These names have graced a designated website designed to highlight influencers who fall foul of the rules citing reasons as “routinely failing to clearly disclose when they are advertising to consumers.” interestingly Chloe Ferry, Chloe Khan, Jodie Marsh and Lucy Mecklenburgh all rose to prominence after their appearances on UK reality television shows and now boast hundreds of thousands of online followers and now all will unite again and spotlighted for three months. It is not only influencers who will be watched and controlled, but brands too need to follow all guidelines. “We will also be looking to take action against brands that repeatedly fail to disclose ads or do not provide assurances that they will properly label ads in future,” said the ASA.

Feature Image Credit: Via Instagram / @chloe.khan

By Neha Tandon Sharma

Sourced from Luxurylaunches

In News

5 Content-Marketing Tactics for B2B Ecommerce

July 6, 2021 No Comments

By Nick Brogden,

Not only does content increase a brand’s visibility, but it also educates and persuades prospects to take actions.

The global B2B ecommerce market is valued at $12 trillion, and this number is expected to grow by 17% in 2021. And today, more than 90% of B2B marketers use content marketing to reach, nurture and convert prospects.

This is why content marketing still leads as one of the most popular and cost-effective marketing strategies for companies growing in the B2B ecommerce segment. Not only does content increase a brand‘s visibility, but it also educates and persuades prospects to take actions. The good news, it’s not too late to get started. Here’s a shortlist of steps you can take.

1. Invest in video content marketing

Around 87% of marketers are using video as a marketing tool. People prefer watching videos as compared to reading text. Video is a growing trend, and content marketers should not ignore this.

Video content marketing involves creating and distributing videos to drive profitable actions. Every video should have a story to tell. Hence, start by identifying the needs of your target audiences and select the characters of your story. Make sure your video resonates with your brand values.

Your video story should be created, keeping in mind any one of three goals that are awareness, consideration and decision. Include the top elements in your video apart from characters, such as conflict, resolution, quest, pain points and triumph.

Videos can assist your content marketing in a variety of ways, such as:

Product reviews.
Event videos.
Commercials.
Explainer videos.
Testimonials.
Tutorials.

2. Optimize for question keywords

Question keywords are an excellent way to optimize your content because it educates the prospects and presents you as a trusted brand in the eyes of the buyers. Since the answers are displayed as answer boxes, people value businesses that are returned by Google as featured snippets.

You can find relevant question keywords using tools such as SEMrush, Ubersuggest and Answer The Public. Here are some ways that B2B companies can optimize for question keywords:

Create FAQ pages that answer the most commonly asked questions of the customers.
Follow a question-answer pattern for content creation.
Use relevant question Schema to prepare your content.
Improve the readability of your content. Opt for a Flesh-Kincaid score of above 70.
Offer unique, informative, and comprehensive content.
Add proper product markups to display relevant product information directly on the search results.

3. Leverage the power of linkable assets

PR and content marketing are two sides of the same coin. When your PR and content-marketing teamwork is in sync, they help to improve the overall organic visibility of your website resulting in more traffic and conversions.

For example, a content-marketing team can create linkable assets and contact journalists and bloggers with that specific resource. The key to this is doing something that is timely and relevant right now as to what is happening in the media. Here are some examples of linkable assets:

Case studies.
Infographics and long-form content.
Fresh research and statistics.

4. Focus on remarketing

Remarketing is a content strategy to target prospects who have earlier visited your website. Retargeting helps to:

Generate more repeat visitors.
Improve your branding.
Convert prospects in every stage of the buyer journey.
Increase the flow of leads.

Users who have viewed your content before having higher chances of conversion. Hence, it is the best tactic to maximize the reach of your content.

Depending on user behaviour, a fresh piece of content is sent to influence the buying decision. It can be in the form of email, a PPC ad or a sponsored social media post. Both text and video content formats can be used for remarketing.

5. Partner with influencers

A recommendation from an influencer is a kind of word-of-mouth marketing that increases user trust in your business. The key here is to identify niche influencers who have a strong influence on your target audience.

There are several types of content techniques you can use for influencer marketing, such as preparing guest posts content to publish them on the influencer blog. You can also co-create content with an influencer and publish it on your business blog.

You can collaborate with both micro or macro influencers by finding them on platforms such as Traackr or Upfluence.

Around 94% of successful content marketers always measure their content performance. Anything that is not measured cannot be optimized. Hence, make it a point to measure the ROI of your content promotion efforts.

Here are some of the top metrics for tracking your content marketing investment:

Traffic.
Engagement.
Conversions.
Bounce rate.
Time on-page.
Social engagement metrics.
Dwell time.

Effective content marketing lets you build the user’s trust in your business. People look forward to doing business with a company that is reliable. B2B content marketing requires a more planned approach than B2C content marketing because the buying cycle of B2B audiences is longer.

Lastly, make sure to list your goals, identify the needs of the audience, create quality content and measure the effectiveness of your content at every level of the customer journey. Use the above strategies to take your B2B ecommerce content marketing efforts to the next level.

By Nick Brogden,

Sourced from Entrepreneur Europe

In News

The on-demand economy will fuel shoppable video

July 5, 2021 No Comments

By Thomas Hobbs

The global pandemic has boosted consumer appetite for shoppable video and accelerated the move towards an on-demand economy.

At The Drum’s Digital Transformation Festival, during a fireside chat, Stuart Heffernan, head of e-commerce at Pernod Ricard, and Nicola Spooner, vice-president of strategy for Unruly, asserted that post-pandemic consumption habits were here to stay and would fuel a shoppable content boom.

On-demand e-commerce

“This past year has been revolutionary for e-commerce,” said Heffernan. “In the space of a year, on-demand retail and players have boomed globally.”

Uber’s acquisition of the drinks delivery platform Drizly, Pernod Ricard’s recent stake in on-demand grocery platform Glovo and the rise of delivery apps in mature e-commerce markets such as the UK all suggest this trend will continue.

Heffernan also remarked: “On-demand will stick around because people get hooked on convenience and are prepared to pay a premium for it. Uber Eats’ alcohol sales have increased significantly – that’s a premium price point for standard products because it is pure speed and convenience.”

Connected TV growth

The two also spoke about the rise of ‘hometainment’ and how it dovetailed with the rise in super-fast, on-demand e-commerce.

Spooner said: “Consumers are accessing more content in an on-demand capacity than ever before. We don’t predict that slowing because now that people have trialled that kind of method of indulging in content, they’re not going to want to let it go.”

She added that while she could foresee a consolidation in subscription services, there would always be a thirst for on-demand quality content. “For brands, that brings an exciting opportunity because we’re delivering a lot of creative shoppable solutions.”

According to a recent study from Unruly, 72% of UK advertisers say connected TV (CTV) is a key part of their video advertising strategy. There is also a huge amount of optimism about the medium’s future, with all media agencies and 77% of brands saying they plan to invest more in CTV during the next 12 months.

The pandemic-induced boom of branded ‘hometainment’ experiences, such as showing how to make cocktails or advice on pairing food and wine, has readied consumers for shoppable content from brands.

Heffernan argued that this would continue to be the case even after lockdowns ends.

“Even if the pandemic has completely gone away by January next year, it will still be cold and wet and I will still be sitting at home. So, if a Jameson brand ambassador reaches me through the right media targeting, then yes, I will engage because it’s something to do on a Wednesday night.”

Unruly’s Spooner said that making branded content shoppable and serviceable by the on-demand apps consumers have grown to depend on during lockdown will induce impulse purchasing.

According to Unruly and research consultancy MTM, 90% of digital advertisers plan to increase their CTV spend in 2021.

“Shoppable content really opens the doors to impulse purchasing,” said Spooner. “If you are watching content around cooking and there is the contextual placement for Jameson’s cocktails or Viejo wines, I – as a consumer – could be inspired and take action immediately.”

From awareness to conversion

Both panellists agreed that TV is no longer about brand-building but about conversion, adding that advertisers should now augment campaigns with shoppable elements.

“There are plenty of ways to add shoppable elements to campaigns,” said Spooner. “It could be a light touch brand bar over the top of an amazing TV creative or an on-screen QR code so that consumers can scan it with their phone, which is location-enabled, and have that experience in their front room in moments.”

Ultimately, shoppable video will allow marketers to build video into every stage of their marketing plan rather than simply viewing it as an awareness boosting tool.

By Thomas Hobbs

Sourced from The Drum

In News

What Are Native Ads & How They Are Helpful To Get Perfect Outreach?

July 5, 2021 No Comments

By Glitch Digital

Native ads are ads that are less obvious than traditional banner or display ads

Native ads are ads that are less obvious than traditional banner or display ads. The content of native ads is embedded into the messaging of the media that it accompanies.

These ads are paid just like traditional ones but are more effective in getting excellent ROI.

This is because people have grown to prefer traditional ones less. After all, they are pushy and interrupts users.

Native advertising is a great way to expose audiences to

There are Three Major Kinds of Native Ads.

In-Feed Ads

Content Recommendation

Native Content

In-Feed Ads

These ads are found on Social Media platforms. Publishers customize the ads to match the look and feel of user-generated content so that when people scroll, they will seem like something naturally occurring on the feed,

Content Recommendation

Content recommendation ads work like this. You pay for your content to be recommended first at the bottom or end of related content.

It is helpful for users in that it suggests content that might be of interest to them.

Native Content

Branded or native content is ad content that has no format and can take various shapes and styles. One example is Power Rangers – it is a show that uses branded characters to subtly but effectively advertise merch, including primary toys.

Here are 7 Excellent Examples of Native Ads.

Anyone can do native ads in different ways that work. Here are seven excellent examples of branded platforms and efficient spaces for running native ads.

Example No. 1: Spotify

Spotify is not only an excellent music app but is a promising opportunity for musicians to find their audience via recommended content. An artist can easily fall onto random playlists that contain songs that are similar to theirs.

Example No. 2: Facebook Ads

When a company “boosts” one of their Facebook posts, it shows up as a native ad on feeds of people who the algorithm decides are interested in such and related topics. For these ads to be effective, they have to be of value and resembling user-generated posts.

Hence, content is one of the most vital parts of creating native ads. Without good content writing, your efforts will be lost.

Example No. 3: Grammarly

Grammarly’s ads look more like writing tips and tutorials than paid ads. They show you how to write in different manners and educate a bit of CRO and SEO copy which interests copywriters.

While most writers today use Grammarly and will need minimal advertising and more convincing, the value they get from the native ads only fortifies brand retention and loyalty.

Example No. 4: Disney and Other Similar Franchises

All Disney movies and shows are branded content designed for you to be loyal to the brand and continue buying their merch and watching more. For example, the Avengers franchise not only sells out tickets and events, but toys are a significant part of their revenue.

On Disney Junior alone, you get hundreds of characters featured to buy as toys on shelves internationally.

The general idea is that people naturally buy into the brand.

Example No. 5: Amazon

Amazon is another excellent space for recommended content. When you search for a keyword or open a product page, you are given recommendations at the bottom.

This seems, but does, help you assess your options and weigh your decisions before buying. At the same time, a paying brand will have the opportunity to expose its product to you in a seamless manner.

Example No. 6: Netflix

Some shows and movies have producers paying Netflix to put them at the top of the recommendation list where appropriate. These paid advertisements play after a move or at the end of a series of a similar genre.

In today’s Netflix culture, where people usually couldn’t decide for themselves, it is widely accepted that most people will just let the recommendation play next.

Example No. 7: This Article

Of course, we want you to know excellent examples of seamless product placement with native ads. However, we want you to know that we are aware that you are aware of what this article may lead to.

Managing ads on multiple platforms is not simple to do. When you have multiple accounts and campaigns, you are susceptible to losing track of others, sometimes vital ones.

We are Brax.io, a native ad tool that allows you to manage your campaigns on multiple platforms. You use us to track your ads in numerous networks properly, show you the metrics, and give you insights without any hassle.

Brax.io is a native advertising platform for bulk management, unified reporting and rule-based goal optimisation across sources. Brax streamlines content syndication across Yahoo Gemini, Outbrain, Taboola, Revcontent and others.

Brax.io A centralised platform to scale content marketing allowing advertisers to focus on the creative process with instant insight into data.

By Glitch Digital

Sourced from INFLUENCIVE

In News

How influencers fit into Twitter’s plans to double revenue by 2023

July 5, 2021 No Comments

By Jessica Bursztynsky

Twitter’s been on a creator-focused tear.

The company announced its first subscription service earlier this month, called Twitter Blue. It now lets people tip select users through the app, and the company acquired newsletter platform Revue to allow creators to publish and monetize newsletters. It’s also rumoured to be close to launching its Super Follows feature, which would allow some users to charge others for select content.

All of this comes after the company set an ambitious goal to double its revenue by the end of 2023 and grow its user base to 315 million daily active users. But it appears creator cuts won’t make a material impact on the company’s revenue anytime soon.

All of Twitter’s current bets in the creator space can be thought of as a type of insurance or a hedge, in case there is a smart way to make money through creator cuts (aside from advertising), Laundry Service head Jordan Fox told CNBC.

“Every platform CEO thinks: what if direct, platform-facilitated creator monetization explodes as a market? What if it goes from a niche offering to a massive revenue driver comparable to or larger than advertising is today? What if we miss it?” Fox later added in an email. “Putting fee structures around this stuff now is the hedge against that scenario.”

Look to Instagram. The social media company said it would temporarily waive fees on its creator monetization products. However, Fox said there’s a reason it wasn’t framed as a free product.

“What if the market becomes huge, and Instagram wants or needs to participate economically? They need to be ready for that, unlikely as it may seem today,” Fox said. Currently, more than 50 million people globally consider themselves creators, according to a report from venture firm SignalFire, and it’s the fastest-growing small business segment.

It’s a creator’s world

Every social media giant has started making bets on creators.

Instagram chief Adam Mosseri recently told CNBC that its parent company, Facebook, wants to have millions of creators making a living through its family of apps. Snapchat will allow users to tip some of its most popular creators, and the company regularly pays people for posting popular content on its short-form video service. Pinterest also introduced a creator fund for a small group of users.

Despite the subscription business model serving as one way to diversify Twitter’s revenue streams, the company still makes most of its money from ads. According to its first-quarter earnings report, advertising makes up more than 86% of Twitter’s revenue.

“Twitter’s core revenue stream will remain its ads business for the foreseeable future. Any money made from creator cuts will be supplementary income for the company,” Jasmine Enberg, eMarketer senior analyst at Insider Intelligence, told CNBC in an email.

EMarketer said it expects Twitter’s worldwide ad revenue to grow 28.7% to $4.03 billion in 2021, after traffic acquisition costs. A social media company’s ad inventory only has value when people voluntarily spend hours a day on the platform. And people do that, mainly, to view content posted by creators.

“Twitter’s value proposition to advertisers is its highly engaged user base. Creators are major drivers of user engagement on social media, and Twitter’s new creator-focused features can help the company attract and retain creators. The end goal is to boost user engagement in order to incentivize advertisers to invest more in the platform, thus increasing Twitter’s ad revenues,” Enberg added.

Social media companies still need creators. And they need them more than the artists need the social media companies.

“You see a lot of experimentation right now where the platforms are flirting with trying to directly monetize creators, but they also don’t want to overstep and alienate them,” Fox said.

That means that while these social media companies want to bring in supplemental revenue through creator cuts, they have to tread carefully. If a company, for example, takes too much of a cut, a creator could decide to focus their time on other apps. The social media company could then, in turn, lose that person’s stream of content and not make a cut of revenue and miss out on advertising dollars.

“For creators whose stock in trade are words and ideas, Twitter has always been the centre of the universe, and they’re making smart strategic decisions to keep it that way,” Fox added.

Feature Image Credit: Amal KS | Hindustan Times | Getty Images

Twitter CEO and Co Founder, Jack Dorsey addresses students at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), on November 12, 2018 in New Delhi, India.

By Jessica Bursztynsky

Sourced from CNBC

In News

Where Your Social Media Strategy Needs A Reboot

July 2, 2021 No Comments

By Stephanie Burns.

Your brand likely has room for improvement on the social media front. Contrary to popular belief, your social media pages are not for boasting testimonials, showing off new products with their descriptions, or selling on every post. It’s okay if that’s what you’ve been doing, because we haven’t really had examples of too many businesses who are playing the social media game in the right way. Your new motto needs to be: ‘value first, sell second.’ Think of your social media pages as that one of your salespeople that makes friends with everyone first, then casually mentions what they’re selling when it feels appropriate.

Yes when, and only when, it feels appropriate. No, this doesn’t mean that you’re leaving money on the table or confusing followers. This means that you’re building a loyal brand. That means you are always giving value first, which gives potential customers an incentive to follow your page. Once you can get their attention and prove how you can help them, they will trust you, and then buy from you. It’s really that simple. Here’s how to do a thorough reboot to make sure you’re doing everything you can to build trust first.

1. Offer Sneak Peeks Of Value

Just like items at a grocery store get sold when there are free samples, the best products and programs aren’t entirely coveted. Think of it this way: imagine that you have an online course that’s about building a viral TikTok strategy. You don’t get customers to buy by solely talking about what they’ll get from the course. You do, however, get customers to buy by sharing a few of the entry-level tips on your social media, letting them apply them, and letting them get the results. Their thought process will be: “If their free content helped me this much, I can only imagine how much their paid content will.”

This is an approach that Gee Bryant, the founder and CEO of X28 Fitness, lives by. He’s self-educated on the social media front, and found that offering value through tutorials of key workouts on his company’s instagram page, have really paid off.

“Not only does this content strategy show potential participants what they get from working with us, but it fosters community. It creates something that current participants can follow along with and show up for. Our goal is to excite anyone who sees the content so much that they’re not satisfied with just a quick 20 second clip of these groundbreaking exercises.”

2. Give The Vision–Then Let The Consumer Shop It

When it comes to physical products, there may be some confusion around how to offer value. In this case, your job on social media is to craft a vision on social media for the potential customer. For example, if you’re a home décor and furniture brand, piece together some of your products to create a vision of how they all tie together. A brand that does this beautifully is Anthropologie’s living section. High quality photos of fully set tables or complete living room sets paint a picture for followers – who may follow just to get inspired, rather than because they’re currently looking to move or redecorate.

The trick here is not to come across salesy in the caption and disrupt the allure. Instead, utilize Instagram’s ‘shop’ feature, where you can tag the products within the frame, and users can shop directly in the app. This presents a massive opportunity, as statistics find that 130 million Instagram users tap on ‘shop’ tags every single month. Appeal to their curiosity and make them tap.

This can also be done by showing how the product works. For example, if you have a gua sha and facial massage company, create video content about what a proper gua sha technique can look like. Create images that exacerbate key traits of the brand experience: in this case, a ‘spa night,’ or even just a mini spa day within a morning routine. All of this creates an experience and a vision for the viewer that will be enticing.

3. Find Value In Your Wheelhouse To Give

In true ‘value first, sell second’ form, consider that not all of your posts need to centre around your product or your service. Get creative within your wheelhouse. For example, if your service is catering, create some videos teaching viewers how to put together the perfect veggie tray or charcuterie board for guests. Many entrepreneurs shy away from this, worrying they’ll teach users too much, and they won’t need them anymore. The opposite is true. If someone sees your video, makes a stellar charcuterie board and it’s a smash hit, you bet she will become a loyal follower and likely hire you eventually.

Most solely think about business social media strategy as a form of marketing or sales across Instagram squares. It’s not like that anymore. The brands that are taking off are those that are creating value-first content. In a “me first” world, remember that every consumer is primarily wondering, “How does this value ME?” So, when you adhere to the ‘value first, sell second’ motto, you will always win.

By Stephanie Burns

Stephanie Burns is the founder of The Wyld Agency, an amplification and visibility agency focused on building the legacy and personal brands of company founders. With a background in brand building, media buying, strategy and entrepreneurship, Stephanie has wide experience with an eclectic portfolio of industries. After being a contestant on the Wheel of Fortune, Burns used her winnings to launch her previous company, Chic CEO, an online resource for over 100k female entrepreneurs. With an MBA in Marketing, she’s also a contributor to Forbes Women and Entrepreneur, as well as featured in notable press outlets like Inc., Fast Company, Wall Street Journal, Fox Business, Amex Open, Cosmo, New York Times, among others.

Sourced from Forbes

In News

Facebook tests ads in virtual reality headsets

July 2, 2021 No Comments

Sourced from BBC

Facebook has begun displaying ads in its Oculus virtual reality headsets, despite the founder of the platform saying it would never do so.

In what the social network described as an experiment, ads will begin to appear in a game called Balston with other developers rolling out similar ads.

It said it would listen to feedback before launching virtual reality ads more widely.

It also revealed it is testing new ad formats “that are unique to VR”.

In 2017, shortly after Facebook bought Oculus, creator Palmer Luckey told the Next Web: “We are not going to track you, flash ads at you, or do anything invasive.”

But in a blog on Oculus’s website, the firm said: “We’re exploring new ways for developers to generate revenue – this is a key part of ensuring we’re creating a self-sustaining platform that can support a variety of business models that unlock new types of content and audiences.”

Users will be able to hide specific ads or those from a certain advertiser and Facebook promised that its privacy policy would remain the same.

“Facebook will get new information, like whether you interacted with an ad, and if so, how… for example, if you clicked on the ad for more information or if you hid the ad.”

It encourages customers to share their feedback via the Oculus support page.

Barrier to adoption?

Last month the firm began testing ads in the Oculus mobile app.

Leo Gebbie, an analyst with CCS Insight, said the move was unsurprising.

“Ultimately Facebook is built on advertising revenue and if there was any expectation that it wouldn’t build it out into virtual reality, then that is a little naive.”

Oculus Quest 2 headsets start at £299, and in the US are also offered for $299, and that price means it is being sold at “incredibly low or even loss-leading margins,” said Mr Gebbie.

This could mean Facebook becomes the dominant player, as others are unable to compete.

“The long-term goal is for Oculus to be a platform for virtual reality and augmented reality, with Facebook keen to get as many people as possible using it,” he said.

But, he noted, there would probably be a backlash against ads on the headset.

“Facebook doesn’t have the best track record on privacy and there is a concern that it will continue to push the boundaries and creep towards something that is invasive.”

Piers Harding-Rolls, research director of games at Ampere Analysis, said VR offered big opportunities for the tech firms.

“If people are spending more time using this technology, those that dominate the online advertising opportunity – including Facebook and Google – want to be well-placed to take advantage of any shift in consumer habits, so that they can follow the audience with their advertising networks.”

But they needed to be careful about balancing advertising with a good user experience, he warned.

“While there is nothing exceptional about having advertising in games, the intimate and immersive nature of VR means that the consumer experience is likely to feel a lot different and that might represent a barrier to adoption.”

Sourced from BBC

In News

Trump joins video platform Rumble that competes with Google’s YouTube

July 2, 2021 No Comments

By Ryan Lovelace,

President Trump joining the video platform Rumble marked the beginning of his digital return after bans against his accounts have restricted his access on Facebook, Twitter and Google-owned YouTube.

In joining Rumble, a YouTube rival, Mr. Trump is attempting to redefine his social media persona, from that of an outcast muzzled into silence by the tech giants to that of a defiant outsider challenging the status quo.

Followers should not expect to see pithy blog posts on Rumble like they would on Twitter. Instead, the user experience is more akin to YouTube, with short video clips and broadcasts. The first video from Mr. Trump‘s account featured a live broadcast of his Saturday rally in Ohio.

Rumble, buoyed by an influx of users and cash, particularly from conservatives, has mounted its own insurgent campaign against its much larger rival, Google.

Rumble has roughly 30 million monthly users and has grown its user base by 10% month over month, said Rumble founder Chris Pavlovski last month. That’s up from 800,000 monthly visits in August, per the Wall Street Journal.

Rumble has sued Google for antitrust violations in federal court and recently scored a large undisclosed investment from a group including billionaire Peter Thiel and conservative author J.D. Vance. Mr. Thiel, founder of PayPal and Facebook’s first outside investor, supported Mr. Trump‘s first presidential bid and Mr. Vance is considering running for the Republican nomination for a U.S. Senate seat from Ohio.

Rumble’s detractors say it does not share the ideological commitment to free speech that was the hallmark of social networks Parler and Gab that similarly sought to compete with established tech companies. Parler and Gab featured microblogging posts similar to Twitter that have attracted right-leaning audiences as fears grow of censorship by more prominent platforms.

Gab founder Andrew Torba criticized Rumble for allegedly changing its terms of service on the day Mr. Trump joined to include new policies about hate speech. John Matze, Parler’s fired former co-founder, piled on and questioned Rumble’s motivation for securing Mr. Trump‘s digital presence.

“I wonder how much equity or money Rumble had to give … The same Rumble that runs entirely on Google ads, Google analytics, etc … [that is] big tech,” said Mr. Matze in a post on Gab. “Not that I think Trump‘s brand is worth anything anymore.”

Before his exit at Parler, Mr. Matze spoke favorably about what Mr. Trump‘s joining Parler would mean for the upstart platform. Last June, he told The Washington Times his platform would likely have trouble scaling if Mr. Trump suddenly joined Parler.

Mr. Pavlovski did not respond to questions about Mr. Trump‘s addition and the criticism from Gab and Parler’s founders. Last month, Mr. Pavlovski said he was more interested in competing with large incumbent platforms than mixing things up in American politics.

Rumble‘s competitor YouTube also has not written off restoring Mr. Trump‘s access. Twitter has permanently banned Mr. Trump and Facebook has extended its ban until at least 2023, but YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki said in March her platform would end the former president’s suspension after determining the risk of violence had ceased.

YouTube and Google did not answer requests for comment

Feature Image Credit: AP Photo/Tony Dejak

By Ryan Lovelace

Sourced from The Washington Times

In News

VR needs a better business model, but advertising isn’t it

July 1, 2021 No Comments

By Nick Statt

It’s too early for VR ads. Facebook found out the hard way.

Facebook’s quest to experiment with advertising in virtual reality took on the familiar three-act structure of tech backlash.

The test was announced on June 16 and caused reasonable concern among critics and players over the ensuing three days. By Monday of last week, the only game developer signed up to test ads — Blaston maker Resolution Games — pulled out. It leads us all to wonder why none of the smart people in charge at Oculus didn’t see this coming.

The test crashed before it even started. It’s now unclear how Facebook intends to proceed, but players have made their voices heard loud and clear.

Resolution was the first to break the silence. “After listening to player feedback, we realize that Blaston isn’t the best fit for this type of advertising test,” the developer wrote on Twitter. “Therefore, we no longer plan to implement the test.”
The developer was fast becoming a focal point of the criticism, suffering a barrage of one-star reviews for Blaston (a $9.99 game) on the Oculus Store. “Blaston is getting uninstalled forever and I’m not gonna buy a single game from this company from now on,” wrote one enraged fan.
Facebook gave a feeble defence of the test, saying in a statement, “Ultimately, opening up new revenue streams for devs will help us to unlock new types of content on the Oculus platform and offer products at consumer-friendly prices.” Resolution may now shift the ads to its free-to-play game, Bait!

VR and advertising have had a rocky relationship. This was Facebook’s most high-profile attempt to test the advertising waters with its VR platform, and it’s been a resounding failure. A cursory look at the history of Oculus should have told Facebook executives this was bound to happen.

Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey said in 2014, following the Facebook acquisition announcement, “We are not going to track you, flash ads at you, or do anything invasive.” Luckey is no longer at the company, and Facebook is now controversially forcing users to link a Facebook account with their Oculus profile by 2023.
While video games have included more and more in-game ads over the years, players associate those ads with free-to-play mobile games more than any other category. Premium, non-VR games have instead resorted to brand tie-ins and other forms of more subtle marketing. Ads in VR, however, have long carried a dystopian flavor.
It seems inevitable that the coveted combination of VR and the metaverse will contain ads, yet Facebook’s reputation makes the format extremely unpalatable, especially on a pricey headset and within paid games.

VR’s business model is an open question right now. That’s increasingly true as Facebook, an advertising company, is becoming the biggest force in the fledgling market, scooping up the most popular developers for its Oculus platform in a way that resembles its push to control digital communications technologies a decade ago.

Earlier this month, Facebook bought its fifth major Oculus developer, Population: One studio BigBox VR. Facebook now owns the makers of many of the most popular games on its platform, raising concerns it’s establishing close to a monopoly on the software side of VR long before it goes mainstream.
Facebook could, if it chooses, begin experimenting with business models on its first-party VR titles, making some free to play and filling them with ads. There are plenty of other options, too, from subscriptions to more bite-sized indie experiences priced like paid mobile apps.
But without the financial safety net of Facebook or Sony, few VR developers can find success right now due to how nascent the market is. That gives Oculus more control to set the terms for how VR software monetizes going forward.

Facebook’s primary issue is presiding over a dominant VR ecosystem that costs a lot to operate, doesn’t make a lot of money and is mostly made up of enthusiasts who aren’t sympathetic to pragmatic arguments about how to grow and fund the market. This audience right now is mostly distrustful PC gamers for whom getting in bed with Facebook is akin to a deal with the devil.

All of this is in conflict with Facebook’s strategy of giving away stuff for free and funding it with targeted ads while hoping users respond to its business model with apathy. It’s not clear how the Oculus platform evolves from here if Facebook isn’t willing to continue floating it for years or doesn’t find a more consumer-friendly mechanism for extracting money. It is still early days for VR, but perhaps a bit too early to rely on advertising to pay the bills. Let’s hope there’s a better way.

Overheard

“In this light, the solution seems simple: Organize the video games industry. If there were a video game developer’s union as powerful as the Writers Guild, with agreements with all the major publishers, game development would be a vastly different career, and many of those problems seemingly endemic to game production might suddenly seem less intractable.” —The New Republic’s Alex Pareene laid out a smart, impassioned defense for unionizing the dysfunctional game industry in his review of Jason Schreier’s new book, “Press Reset.”
“Respect and tolerance are keystones of our company’s culture and we were distressed to discover that an event meant to be fun and engaging for participants had instead caused offense for some attendees.” —Sniper: Ghost Warrior developer CI Games apologized for a San Diego press event in which journalists were invited to participate in mock firefights again enemies based largely on Arab and Muslim stereotypes. The company, based in Poland, said it was unable to oversee the event directly due to COVID-19 travel restrictions.

Feature Image Credit: Resolution Games