Daily Minute Master Series – May 27, 2019

Social Media

Facebook Will Reportedly Launch its ‘GlobalCoin’ Cryptocurrency Next Year

Facebook’s plan, is to build its own transaction network which would facilitate funds transfers across borders, without the need for deals with local banks and/or financial regulators. That could enable Facebook to become a global marketplace, with users in all regions able to quickly and easily make safe, on-platform purchases – which could also extend beyond Facebook and into Messenger, WhatsApp, and importantly, Instagram. Ted Livingston, the founder and CEO of another messaging platform, Kik, published a post on Medium in which he explained how Facebook’s first step will likely focus on helping people who are working in foreign countries to send money to family back home via remittances. Facebook, Livingston says, will focus first on remittances, then adding more and more options for spending money within its apps. This could include bill payment options, food ordering, topping up phone minutes, etc. Facebook’s longer term plans could open up a whole new digital eco-system, which would not only make Facebook a more essential utility for millions – if not billions – of users, but it could also transform the eCommerce landscape entirely.

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Twitter Is Experimenting With Different Ad Loads for Different People

Twitter confirmed that it is testing changes to ad loads in its feed with certain users. A spokesperson for the social network said, “We are always running experiments with our ad experience, including with the various aspects of ad frequency and targeting. We welcome feedback on how people feel about the ads they see via the down arrow on tweets.” Much in the same way other social platforms like Facebook and Instagram operate, not all Twitter users see the same ad load, and factors including how ads influence their use of the platform help determine how many ads they see.

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Snapchat’s Working on New Music Rights Deals to Enable Users to Add Songs to Their Snaps

Snapchat is reportedly looking to establish new rights deals with major music labels, which would enable Snap users to add popular songs to their snaps. Snap is not seeking to build a music-streaming service to compete with Spotify or Apple Music, and is only looking to enable music clip sharing via Snap, providing more tools for users, and more exposure for artists. How, exactly, Snap would utilize song snippets is not clear, but you would hope that the company would be able to provide some creative tools to capitalize on such, and maximize attention.

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Marketing

Google moves hotel pricing chart into the SERP

Google is starting to show hotel price charts in search results. These graphs have been a popular feature of Google travel properties and were tested in search last year. Searchers can use arrows to move forward and back in order to see historical pricing trends for particular hotel properties. Google has been upgrading its various travel properties at an accelerating pace. Travel is a critical vertical, worth hundreds of billions of dollars annually in consumer and business travel spending, according to the U.S. Travel Association. Google’s travel property upgrades and enhanced search results are part a bid for more of those ad dollars, as the company captures an increasing share of consumer traffic and conversions.

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