Wrap Up: Vine Is Dead, New Privacy Rules, Chatbot Search Engine, Giphy’s 100 Million Users
By Shel Holtz, Communication Strategist, Public Speaker, Author, Trainer, and Advisory Board Member, Society for New Communications Research of The Conference Board (SNCR)
I regularly develop an overview of news stories, posts, studies, and reports designed to help organizational communicators stay current on the trends and technology that affect their jobs. This post is an overview of all the stories that have caught my eye this week. You can read the full version here.
News
Vine is dead—All those Vine creators making a decent (or even terrific) livings are now twisting in the wind as beleaguered Twitter will kill the app in the months ahead. Vines already created will continue to exist, small comfort to those brands have paid to craft their inventive six-second videos. Twitter also laid off 9 percent of its workforce. The takeaway: Some people are in denial, but Twitter is in deep, deep trouble. I suspect it will continue to exist in some form, but its days as a major player are numbered if it can’t figure out (a) what it wants to be, (b) how to attract new users and (c) how to deal with its troll problem. You should continue to post there as it is a key source of news for a lot of people, but it’s definitely not a basket for all your eggs. Note: Pornhub has extended an offer to Twitter to buy Vine and return it to its pre-Twitter NSFW glory. Read more
FCC passes sweeping online privacy rules—Based on the idea that consumers have a right to control their personal information, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission has passed rules that will let consumers bar Internet providers from sharing data they collect including app and browsing histories, mobile location data, health data, financial information, email contents, and more. Companies that use this data could mount a legal challenge. The takeaway: Yet another example of an unsurprising development in an industry that seemed unwilling to implement its own policies that would prevent regulation. The ability to target relevant information to customers will be at risk. Read more
Microsoft plans a bot search engine—Search has ruled for the Web for a long time (in Web years), but that could change as we begin interacting with the web through chatbots—asking natural questions or requests and getting instant answers from AI in the cloud. (“Alexa, how many Oscars did Clark Gable win?”) Getting connected to the right bot still takes some effort, but Microsoft aims to simplify that process with a directory that includes bots from all platforms, not just its own. The takeaway: Forget Bing. Finding bots could be the new search. Google is developing a mobile-only search index, but whether anyone will need it in a few years when bots become our primary interface is an open question. Read more
Mattel goes all in with crowdsourcing—I confess I had never heard of Tongal, but Mattel has entered into a two-year agreement with the company that manages a 120,000-person-strong crowdsourcing community. That community will develop content for Mattel’s brands, including American Girl, Barbie, and Hot Wheels.The takeaway: User-generated content’s stock continues to rise. Authentic fan content trumps slick, glossy marketing. Read more
Instant Articles will support 360 videos and photos—The addition of 360 videos and photos will make Facebook’s Instant Articles more interactive. Instant Articles deliver publisher content at light-speed over Facebook’s mobile app; 360 photos and videos allow users to drag their fingers across the image to explore it in 360 degrees. As a result, news outlets and other publishers will most likely start producing more of these.The takeaway: 360 videos and photos should become a routine part of communicators’ and marketers’ toolkits. Read more
Twitter tests removing usernames (in replies) from character limit—Slowly, Twitter is finding ways that let users take more advantage of the 140 characters available to them. In a test group among some iOS users, the characters in a username no longer counts against the limit when replying to a tweet. The filenames for photos and videos were earlier removed from the character count. The takeaway: Anything that makes it easier to convey a message is good, but it’s a band-aid on stage-four cancer. Little tweaks won’t save Twitter. Read more
Trends
United hires a chief storyteller—One goal of United Airlines’ new chief storyteller is to reimagine the company’s hub as a storytelling platform instead of a marketing platform. Dana Brooks Reinglass—a former Oprah Winfrey Show staffer—will also serve as managing director of digital engagement. Reporting to the SVP of corporate communications with a dotted line to the managing director of marketing and product development, Reinglass will oversee “internal and external social media properties in terms of how the airline engages employees and customers through storytelling.” The takeaway: Chief storytellers aren’t new; some companies have had them for decades. But with solid storytelling skills becoming an important communication competency for social and digital communication, expect to see more companies put an emphasis on it. A search for “chief storyteller” on LinkedIn produced more than 500 results. Read more
100 million daily users, 1 billion GIFs per day for Giphy—Still think GIFs are beneath you? Consider Giphy’s milestone: 100 million active daily users grab a GIF every day; the platform is serving up a billion each day. That’s on par with Snapchat. Users connect across a number of sites and apps; Facebook, Slack, and Twitter all connect directly to the Giphy library, which is searchable without having to visit the Giphy site itself. A lot of GIFs are created immediately after news breaks or events conclude; there are already hundreds available from the first games of the World Series, along with some from the most recent episode of Saturday Night Live. The takeaway: People love them. They’re not beneath you or your company’s (or client’s) communication efforts. Read more
Employee ambassador programs pick up steam—They’ve been around for a while (I helped PepsiCo launch its employee ambassador program several years ago), but more and more big brands are getting in on the action. MasterCard has started one; so has IBM. A report from the Altimeter Group finds 90 percent of brands have one or plan to. Even the usually skittish healthcare industry is getting into the act; Humana has nearly 3,000 employees involved in its advocacy program. The takeaway: Is your company in the 10 percent that has no ambassador program or no plans to create one? You may want to rethink that. It’s cheap, authentic marketing when the message comes from a friend, peer, or family member. Read more
Research
Artificial Intelligence will be bigger than social media—AI will transform marketing and communications more than social media has. That’s the view of 55 percent of the CMOs Weber Shandwick surveyed. Sixty percent believe companies will need to compete in the AI space in order to succeed within the next five years. A key challenge: bringing consumers up to speed on AI and conveying the value of their AI-infused products and services. Consumers in China are most knowledgeable about AI; those in the UK understand it the least, according to the survey. American consumers are second-to-the-last in their understanding. The takeaway: How well do you grasp AI and its implications for marketing and comms? I actually think the five-year projection may underestimate the speed with which this train is barreling down the track. Read more
Mobile and wearables
Snapchat views plummet—Snap’s decision to remove autoplay from video has led to a dramatic decline in views of Snapchat Stories, as much as 35-40%. Marketers are not adjusting their strategies in response to the fact that videos no longer play automatically (as they do on Facebook). Some marketers assert that while video views have dropped, engagement hasn’t. Still, the move highlights Snap’s desire to move marketers to paid advertising. The takeaway: While communicators must contend with paid media these days, the idea of ponying up $100,000 and more for some advertising options is out of reach. It’s time to expand your thinking about how Snapchat can support your earned-media goals. I love Cisco’s account featuring employee takeovers to support employer branding. No need for autoplay video there when people fall in love with the content and connect to the account. And don’t forget, Instagram’s Stories is getting great reviews, so you can always shift that tactic to the app that still autoplays videos. Read more
Virtual and Augmented Reality
Google files patent for Mixed Reality headset—A patent filing revealed that Google could be at work on a headset that mixes Virtual and Augmented Reality. Mixed Reality would, for example, allow a gamer to immerse herself in a virtual environment yet still see her own hands, feet, and other objects in the real world. Google’s patent isn’t for games, though; in fact, the device wouldn’t be for the public, but rather for Google professionals, contractors, and trusted independent developers. Intel has also introduced a Mixed Reality device code-named “Project Alloy.” The takeaway: Augmented Reality—where Apple is making its bet—holds more promise than Virtual Reality, but Mixed Reality could be the real game-changer. Read more
As always, I collect material from which I select Wrap stories (as well as stories to report on the For Immediate Release podcast, along with stuff I just want to remember to read) on my link blog, which you’re welcome to follow. If you want to make sure you never miss an edition of the Wrap, along with extra material only for subscribers, sign up for my weekly email briefing.