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TURNED OFF BY AUTO-PLAY: Charles Arthur, tech editor at The Guardian newspaper, has tweeted about how to limit auto-play video ads on Facebook to Wi-Fi only, via iPhone settings. Presumably, the same settings exist on Android. There has been a lot written about how auto-plat videos, which play silently as users scroll through their News Feed, might annoy users on Facebook. The enormous amounts of data these videos might consume is one major concern. (Charles Arthur)
WHAT'S AT STAKE WITH SOCIAL MEDIA VIDEO ADS?: In one word, alot. Video ads are key to Facebook's strategy of peeling away ad spend from TV, and to lure big-name and big-budget brand advertisers the social network needs to provide video formats that allow brands to tell their stories in a TV-style fashion. Facebook has been pricing these ad units aggressively. But the jury's out on whether they will work and whether users will rebel against them. Will video ads on Facebook go viral in the same way they do on YouTube?
In other news ...
This chart on social media use by age group has been making the rounds on Twitter. It shows that 89% of 18 to 29-year-olds in the U.S. are on social media, while only 72% of all Internet users are. The data is from Pew.
HELPING OUT SANTA: Anomaly put together this ad pushing Google's new social advice platform, called Helpouts. In the spot, it's a certain white-bearded sleigh-driver who needs advice. (Ad Age)
Jack Dorsey has joined the board of directors at The Walt Disney Company. Dorsey is CEO of mobile payments company Square and Twitter co-founder and chairman. It's more evidence of the increasing fusion of the social media and entertainment industries. (TechCrunch)
5 SMART IDEAS IN SOCIAL TRAVEL: Skift lists "five examples of startups that use social media to improve or expedite the trip planning or sharing process, rather than drag it out."
INFOGRAPHIC ON BRANDS AND THE HOLIDAYS AROUND THE WORLD: Survey respondents in four continents were asked a very simple question - What brand do you associate with the holidays? The answers were surprising and interesting. In Kenya, people said they associated Samsung and LG with the holidays. In Mexico, it was Ferrero Rocher and Nike. In Vietnam, people associated Adidas with the holidays, in the Philippines it was Hershey's (Jana)
Sinofsky's predictions: Steven Sinofsky, former head of Microsoft Windows, has released 10 mega-trends for tech. A few of them are relevant to mobile:
- Low-cost but high quality devices will take over the smartphone market
- Over-the-top messaging and messaging apps will be increasingly popular and even replace email for some official communications, like business-to-consumer correspondence
- Phablets will become even more popular
- Apps will have to be substantially redesigned for each operating system and screen size (smart TVs, tablets, smartphones, etc.)
- Many urban consumers will lead lives that are 100% digital and mobile. In other words, their consumption of traditional media will be negligible.
SOCIAL MEDIA In 2014 - A few predictions in this piece that are worth pondering: One, that Google+ will become a social media force to be reckoned with in 2014; two, that social ad spending will skyrocket; and finally, that more marketers will craft content that's specific to each social network rather than trying to try the same ideas across multiple social media. (business2community)
GOOD READ: Jesse Willms, the Dark Lord of the Internet: How one of the most notorious alleged hustlers in the history of e-commerce made a fortune on the Web. (The Atlantic)