Reddit vs. Meta: No social company makes money from ads quite like Meta
WallStreetBets Ticker RDDT began trading on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday, as Reddit became the first social media platform to go public since Pinterest in 2019, with investors aggressively u...
Tik, Tik, boom: New bill leaves TikTok’s future in the balance
Tok of the town As you might have heard from news sites, broadcasters, or even TikTok’s CEO himself while scrolling through the app, the House of Representatives passed a bill on Wednesday requiring ...
The other 'gram: Mysterious messaging platform Telegram keeps growing
The other ‘gram The biggest social media company you’ve (probably) never heard of is nearing a billion users. Telegram, a global social media and messaging giant that only ~1 in 4 Americans are actua...
Deja Mu: Why Temu bought so many Super Bowl ads
I think I’ve seen this ad before… Online marketplace Temu ran the same ad so much during the Super Bowl broadcast that news publications can’t agree on whether it aired 5 or 6 times, as the Chinese-o...
Unwrapped
Play in, pay out According to a new report from the world’s largest streaming service, Spotify paid the music industry more than $9 billion in total throughout 2023, adding that the “figure has nearly...
Streaming wars: Disney takes a step back
**Disney-** Netflix has extended its lead as the supreme streaming service by subscribers, with Disney+ reporting the loss of 1.3 million customers in the final quarter of 2023 after adding a $3 pri...
Ghosting: Snapchat is back to racking up losses
Disappearing profits Snap Inc., the parent company of Snapchat, revealed another quarter in the red yesterday, taking the ephemeral messaging service’s cumulative loss to some $10.8 billion since 20...
Instagram vs. Reality: Why Meta can afford to burn billions on the metaverse
Most companies could never dream of burning $40bn over 3 years developing a new product. But, then again, most companies don't have a business that has churned out $163bn of operating profit to fund t...
Logged on: Meta is still finding new users for its social media empire
Happy Birthday Facebook Facebook has officially left its teenage years behind, with the social networking platform that started in a Harvard dorm room celebrating its 20th birthday on Sunday. Just a ...
Generational support: YouTube’s popularity knows no limits
UsTube While there’s a lot of talk about generational divisions in everything we do, from how we work to whether we switch subtitles on when watching TV, it turns out that there’s at least one great ...
Stop the music: Universal pulls its songs from TikTok
The sound of silence The world’s largest record label, Universal Music Group (UMG), has started pulling its music from TikTok, after the 2 heavyweights failed to sign a new deal following extensive c...
Following Suits
2023 was a weird time for streamers: an elongated writers’ strike left the once-bottomless content well at risk of running dry ; certain platforms stumbled in their efforts to become profitable ; and ...
Gripped: Netflix is slamming $5bn down for rights to WWE
Raw power Netflix is teaming up with WWE as it furthers its foray into live streaming, signing a punchy $5 billion deal to become the exclusive home of the weekly flagship Raw show from January 2025 ...
r/IPO: Reddit's hoping to go public in March
IPO forum Social media platform Reddit has confidentially filed paperwork for its long-awaited public listing , aiming for a potential debut in March, after a series of failed attempts at an IPO that...
Slipping streams: Twitch is wildly popular, but remains unprofitable
Put bluntly Last week, online streaming platform Twitch announced it would be laying off over 500 workers, or some 35% of its workforce, with CEO Dan Clancy conceding in a post-announcement stream : ...
Cup Fever
Quencher thirst The first TikTok product craze for 2024 has come in an unusual form: a reusable water bottle from a 110-year-old company. The latest drop (Dec 31) of Stanley’s Quencher cups — a Starbu...
Unwanted: Meta's battle with inappropriate content is never-ending
Meta’s added measures Meta announced yesterday that it will introduce a range of new restrictions and policies to improve teens’ experience on Facebook and Instagram, aimed at ensuring the content th...
X marks the spot: Fidelity has cut its valuation of X again
Xcavated Elon Musk’s X (the platform formerly, and often still, known as Twitter) has shed ~72% of its value since the billionaire took over, according to a monthly fund disclosure from investment gi...
Extremely online: American teens' social media habits
Screen teens A new survey has found that maybe the older generations were right after all: teenagers these days really do spend all of their time on their phones. Nearly half (47%) of teen pollees ag...
Tucker+
Tucker+ Tucker Carlson has announced he’ll be launching his own streaming service — Tucker Carlson Network — this week , less than 8 months after his shock ousting from Fox News back in April. Fans o...