Yahoo announced that content from Tumblr Sponsored Posts will be promoted across Yahoo Gemini and its other, related content streams. Ads and linked content attached to those Sponsored Posts will follow – so you can ask users to follow or reblog you across the Internet, magazines, and mobile experiences. It’s the powerful step that many were waiting for, and it makes Tumblr’s ad platform that much more useful.
Category: Percolate
YouTube Enforces Paid Streaming
YouTube has wanted to roll out ad-free streaming music services for some time, to compete with other, Internet-based streaming services, and it’s going to begin testing this new service within days. The idea is to charge users to watch, listen to, and download music without ads, and the situation looks bleak for independent artists who don’t like the idea: Google has said that it will take any artists and labels who don’t sign up for the service off of the platform entirely – paid or non-paid, traditional video streaming. It’s a bold play from YouTube, and it’s ostensibly a strong-arm of the music industry, owing to the fact that YouTube is now indispensable to the marketing industry at large. If or when the pushback comes, YouTube’s response, if any, will be telling, and could shape the future of streamed media at large.
Beats Music Offers Big Exclusives To Compete With Spotify
When Beats Music announced its streaming music service, many wondered how it would be able to compete with the likes of Spotify and Pandora, the industry heavyweights. Now we have a better idea; after their acquisition by Apple, Beats Music is using its industry clout to gain access to big exclusive singles, like Jay-Z’s remix of “Jungle.” Though Spotify has about 40 times the number of subscribers, Beats has the brand names – and now, it also has industry exclusives to lure new users.
Twitter Creates Dronie Account
In conjunction with the Cannes Lions conference, Twitter unveiled its official @dronie account – a twitter account devoted entirely to selfies taken by drones. The account will be broadcasting selfies taken by drones at Cannes all week, the first of which being a Vine featuring Joel Lunefeld, Twitter’s VP of Global Brand Strategy, and Sir Patrick Stewart. Whether it’s a Cannes-oriented marketing stunt or a permanent way to track droanies, it’s a great way to drum up interest in new technology and Twitter’s integration with it.
Marriott & MIT Look At Hotels As Social Hub
As the emphasis of social networks continues to solidify, Marriott and MIT have begun to reinvent the hotel lobby as a social network. Called Six Degrees, the network matches up strangers in the hotel lobby, when business travelers would otherwise be eating or reading by themselves. The idea is to match people up via background, professional, and personal interests – and it notifies hotel staff, who might organize group activities around the particular mix of guests that week. It’s a socially and technologically forward-thinking method of connecting customers in a new, innovative fashion – and in a professional world built on connections, it’s hard to go wrong trying to facilitate that.
Twitter Video Hashtags Add Media
As the World Cup starts up, Twitter is looking to cash in on the several different advertising campaigns that are being promoted across its social network. To do this, Twitter has partnered with Visa and Adidas to experiment with video hashtaging. The user simply writes in a hashtag, say #allin for Adidas, and a video is automatically embedded into the tweet. It gives Twitter another monetization stream, and allows advertisers to continue to think outside of the box for social media campaigns.
Vessyl Smart Cup Recognizes Liquids In It
Although our Internet of Things week already happened, this new IoT offering is one of the more advanced on the market to date. Called Vessyl, this smart cup knows what liquid is in it – as well as its contents: want to know how many calories are in the beer you’re drinking, or how much caffeine is in your coffee? Vessyl knows, and it can recognize over one thousand different drinks. It’s available for pre-order now, for $99.
Amazon Rolls Out Music Streaming Service
Amazon has been rumored to have been working on a music streaming service for some time now, and today Amazon debuted Prime Music, a music streaming service for Prime members that promises to house over a million songs from over 90,000 albums and playlists. So far, Universal Music Group isn’t participating in the deal, but it’s nonetheless a sign that music streaming services are becoming increasingly important to companies who want to keep users locked in to their media platforms.
Playstation Morpheus Appears At E3
Our virtual reality study might have some surprising conclusions, but what’s certainly concrete is that Playstation officially has skin in the VR game with its Morpheus device. And it’s gotten some attention and a run-out at E3 this year, with celebrities like Conan trying on the device and experiencing a HD VR gaming environment. No matter your gender or level of interest, there’s no denying that virtual reality headsets are a thing of the present as they continue to get more consumer-facing, and prime-time ready.
Can Action Figures Save The Wii U?
Nintendo’s Wii U has been undoubtedly struggling since its launch, with low sales figures and marginal adoption. At E3, Nintendo is not swallowing its pride and is instead trying to salvage the piece of hardware with a new product called Amiibos, which amount to essentially plastic action figures. They also act as physical memory cards and interact with the Wii U via NFC – but will they even be successful? Or will they just be a flash in the pan for the console that appears on its way out?
