Welcome back to The Weekly Download! Let’s kick off another summer weekend with a helping of digital marketing and tech news, shall we?
Twitter’s latest collaboration, the cost of ‘Zoomboming’, YouTube’s $100-million Shorts fund goes live, LinkedIn’s creative expansion, TikTok’s Stories experiment, Friday Fun, and more.
Twitter Partners With News Outlets to Target Misinformation
A new partnership with Reuters and The Associated Press (AP) will help Twitter’s Curation team target misinformation on the platform. Announced in a blog post Monday, the Curation team will collaborate with Reuters and AP to provide credible context to tweets in a timely manner.
This is the first partnership of its kind for Twitter.
The company hopes that the new collaboration will help decrease the time it takes its Curation team to contextualize tweets, adding credible information to the top of the platform’s search results, sharing trustworthy sources about important events, or adding warning labels to misleading content.
Will the new initiative help to crack down on ‘fake news’? Stay tuned!
Zoom Settles ‘Zoombombing’ Lawsuit (With a Hefty Price Tag)
Remember those early pandemic days when reports of ‘Zoombombing’ repeatedly made headlines?
Well, it’s time for Zoom to pay up.
According to TechCrunch, the company has agreed to pay $85 million to settle a lawsuit accusing the video conferencing leader of violating user privacy by sharing data with third parties, leaving a security hole that allowed ‘Zoombombing’ to happen. In many cases, the unapproved intrusions featured offensive imagery, hateful messages, and other disturbing slurs or profanities.
In addition to the agreed settlement, Zoom has promised to take additional security measures to prevent meeting intrusions, including attendee alerts.
YouTube’s $100-Million Shorts Fund Goes Live
In an effort to compete with TikTok’s creator incentive program, YouTube launched its $100 million YouTube Shorts Fund this week – in fact, creators should begin to receive their very first payouts this month.
Each month, YouTube will invite thousands of eligible creators to claim a payment from the fund, ranging anywhere from $100 to $10,000 based on their channel’s viewership and other engagement metrics. To qualify, creators must produce original content (not content reuploaded from other social channels).
There are a few other conditions that creators must meet to be eligible to participate, including being 13 years of age or older, or the age of majority in other countries and regions.
The hope is that the incentive will generate fresh, engaging short-form content on the platform – and away from competing platforms like TikTok.
LinkedIn Acquires Video Tutorial App Jumprope
In a move to expand its focus on video content, LinkedIn has acquired Jumprope, a how-to video app. The company describes itself as “the best place for anyone to create a how-to and export it to every social platform.”
Jumprope allows users to create step-by-step tutorials using videos and images with the help of pre-designed templates and overlays.
Like many other social media platforms, LinkedIn is looking to maximize platform popularity and introduce new, exciting tools to keep people engaged. Jumprope could be a perfect fit for the professional community, giving users a new opportunity to creatively showcase skills, expertise, and more.
TikTok Experiments with 24-Hour Stories
TikTok is jumping onboard the Stories train!
More screenshots of TikTok Stories pic.twitter.com/1PVfgJ9YWT
— Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) August 4, 2021
Much like its competitors, Snapchat and Instagram, TikTok is testing a new Stories format that will allow users to post images or videos that disappear after 24 hours.
A rep for the company said that Stories will give users another way to bring their creative ideas to life, and that they may or may not turn into a permanent feature on the app.
Friday Fun
Have you been following along with #Tokyo2020? The moment two talented athletes decided to share a gold medal has to be one of our favourite heartwarming clips yet!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I24B5AV7tA
