📡 Rare incubators of social media innovation. Another good problem to have.
Welcome to this 100-subscriber-strong Pulse!
This a special Pulse as we’re hitting 100 subscribers milestone! So, first of all, thank you for being a part of the Pulse community, whether you just joined or you’ve been with me for some time! I really appreciate your opening and reading my newsletter. I hope I can bring some value to your day or week. [more on this in the 🧠 section below]
It was a tough week around here, this was one of the funniest things I read this week:
Brexiting: Saying goodbye to everyone at a party and then proceeding to stick around. (via urbandictionary)
It helped me recover from the demise of our beloved Inbox by Gmail killed by Google last week!
And now, these:
Have you noticed how many modern features of social media were invented by Snap: there’s ephemeral content, the stories format, vertical-first video’s prominence, lenses, and so on. Read more about Snap Partner Summit and add me on Snapchat!
Jeff Bezos and his wife MacKenzie have agreed on a record-breaking divorce settlement worth an estimated $36 billion. Here are the most expensive divorces in history.
Now, let dig in!
- Ben from Perspective IX
🧠 Insights
Credit: Fabrizio Verrecchia on Unsplash
[ a milestone | a dilemma ]
Last week, before hitting 100 subscribers, I was about to clean up the list of Pulse subscribers and remove the “inactive” members (meaning people who haven’t open the last x number of Pulse issues), but then after a little bit of research, I decided not to rush.
Throughout my research, I learned that not all email clients let me know if my emails have been opened. Therefore, I decided to give spring-clean up a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, I’d like to ask my dear subscribers to let me know they’re active by clicking (tapping) on the 👍 at the end of each email (or 👎 if you didn’t like it!) This way, I can make sure who’s active and who’s not, and I can clean up my list!
Cleaning up is a pretty big deal for anyone creating/curating a newsletter - or any type of content really. For me, personally, creating and sending Pulse each week takes 10+ hours (and some money), and I don’t want to spend them on people who are not interested in receiving it. I think it’s fair, isn’t it? (You can hit reply and let me know what you think, of course!)
Now the dilemma is with 100 subscribers… what would the open rate be? We shall see… (Are you interested in know the details?)
This was more of a rant than insight… but it was a milestone! 😁
📊 Statistics
Digital Monitoring: Parents vs Teens - Credit: Pew Research Center
How parents feel about – and manage – their teens’ online behaviour and screen time
Parents of younger teens tend to take a more active role in monitoring their teen’s digital activities.
Parents of teens ages 13 to 14 are significantly more likely than parents of older teens to monitor their teen’s digital activities or enforce screen time restrictions. For example, 72% of parents of 13- to 14-year-olds say they often or sometimes look at the messages and call logs on their teen’s cellphone, compared with 48% of parents of teens ages 15 to 17. A nearly identical pattern exists when parents are asked about setting screen time limits: 71% of parents of younger teens say they at least sometimes do this, compared with 47% of those who have an older teen.
Additionally, mothers are somewhat more likely than fathers to regularly track what their teen does online or on their cellphone. About six-in-ten mothers of teens say they at least sometimes check their teen’s web history or cellphone records, set screen time limits or take away digital privileges as punishment, compared with about half of fathers who say they take these actions.
Read more on Pew Research Center.
PS. here’s another relevant article you might wanna look at: Teens ‘not damaged by screen time’, study finds.
The World's Most Popular Websites - Credit: Statista
The World’s Most Popular Websites
Ever wondered which websites are the most visited in the world? If you had to guess, you probably wouldn’t need to consult Google to know that the search engine is on the number one spot, but as the list moves down from the YouTube/Facebook level of obviousness, some of the sites on this list may surprise you - or even be complete unknowns.
According to SimilarWeb, in fourth place is the Chinese search engine baidu, which received just over 9 billion visitors in February. You don’t have to go too far before you find porn, of course, with pornhub in eighth place and 3.1 billion visits over the month - one of three adult content sites in the top twenty.
More on Statista.
Top Countries for iOS Shopping Apps in 4Q18 - Credit: SensorTower
Top Countries for Shopping Apps by Growth in Q4 2018 - App Store
The top countries for iOS shopping apps by growth from 4Q17 to 4Q18 were:
China 🇨🇳
the United States 🇺🇸
Vietnam 🇻🇳
Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦
Turkey 🇹🇷
China had the largest number of shopping app downloads in 4Q18 at 145.3 million. Vietnam emerged as a top market for shopping apps, ranking among the top 15 countries that quarter. Installs there increased by 4.5 million, a growth rate of 154 percent year-over-year. Shopping app installs in Saudi Arabia increased by 51 percent between 4Q17 and 4Q18. This propelled it to the No. 6 country in 4Q18 after ranking No. 10 in 4Q17.
Top Countries for Android Shopping Apps in 4Q18 - Credit: SensorTower
Top Countries for Shopping Apps by Growth in Q4 2018 - Google Play
The top countries for Android shopping apps by growth from 4Q17 to 4Q18 were:
India 🇮🇳
Indonesia 🇮🇩
Philippines 🇵🇭
Vietnam 🇻🇳
Turkey 🇹🇷
For Google Play, the top countries for shopping apps by Y/Y growth were India, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, and Turkey. In India, Google Play shopping app installs grew by about 56 million, increasing 40 percent Y/Y. This dwarfed the growth in other countries. Indonesia had the second-largest Y/Y increase in installs at 8.3 million, or 29 percent more than in 4Q17. As on the App Store, Vietnam was also one of the top countries by growth on Google Play. Downloads increased by 4.1 million Y/Y to 12.7 million, making it the 10th largest market for shopping app installs during the quarter.
Read more on SensorTower.
📱 Tools & Apps
Spark: Our favourite email client is now available on Android too! Windows and Web are coming soon. [ iOS | Android | macOS ]
Pock: Display macOS Dock in Touch Bar.
Proofree: Free proofreading by humans.
1.1.1.1 + Warp: A VPN for People Who Don’t Know What V.P.N. Stands For. [ iOS | Android ]
🎧 Audio Stimulation
How Things Spread : TED Radio Hour : NPR
What makes an idea, a brand, or a behavior catch fire? This hour, TED speakers explore the mysteries behind the many things we spread: laughter and sadness, imagination, viruses and viral ideas.
🐦 Tweets of the Week
The best blog posts are often things that seem totally obvious to you, with no fresh insight, and that you write in 20 minutes - but other people don’t know it, or half-know it, or have never seen it explained properly.
Fascinating to see how quickly growing companies in tech have been able to join the top.
Tech companies’ Market capitalisation over the last 23 years: https://t.co/7r06KKrQVH
🎮 Fun Stuff
Papa! - Credit: Nathan W. Pyle (@nathanwpyle)
This is so relatable… isn’t it? If it is, make sure you take a look at this, too 😁
Now it all starts to make sense... - Credit: Toby Tripp (@feelwelcome)
This is not goodbye...
This is a promise to catch you in your inbox next week!
Meanwhile, if you enjoy this newsletter, please recommend/forward it to a friend or colleague. They can subscribe at this link.