📡 Winning the race in losing 🏇
Welcome to this week’s Pulse!
Hope you’re well - and ready to read! There’s a lot for you to go through in this week’s issue; plus, we have our poll section back!
Before scrolling though, a couple of days ago, a question from my bank (!) on Twitter turned into an ongoing challenge 😁 You can see the thread here. Shoutout to Starling Bank team for being human and caring about their customers.
Now… Ready, set, scroll!
- Ben from [ perspective ix ]
📰 News
Already under fire for advancing Chinese foreign policy by censoring topics like Hong Kong’s protests and pro-LGBT content, TikTok is now further distancing itself from US social media platforms, like Facebook and Twitter, with a ban on political ads on its app noting they don’t fit in with the experience the short-form video app aims to offer. [TechCrunch]
PayPal, one of 28 corporate backers of Facebook’s Libra project, is backing out of the nonprofit governing the cryptocurrency. [CNBC]
Instagram takes another shot at Snapchat by introducing Threads, a new messaging app for your close friends. [Verge]
Microsoft held their Surface event, where they dove headfirst into dual-screen folding displays. Here’s everything they announced. [Engadget]
Indian high court orders Facebook to name activists behind #MeToo testimonial account - and potentially, put the survivors at risk! [TNW]
The 2 companies that place all those ads at the bottom of webpages are combining. Taboola is buying Outbrain - to challenge Facebook and Google, I guess. [Recode]
🧠 Insights
the Race to the Bottom - Credit: Jamie Saw on Unsplash
When anyone has the ability to announce breaking news, urgent updates, RIGHT NOW, steal attention and emergencies, then sooner or later, many will do just that.
Attention is scarce, scarcer than ever, and we’ve given everyone a machine that can steal attention, and a keyboard that can be used to steal even more.
The race for cheap, unearned attention is a race that can’t be won. As soon as someone gains the lead, someone else will lower their standards and take a shortcut to get even more. The players have already surrendered their self-esteem, so it’s simply an escalating hijack of trust. And so we have dark patterns, once-respected media outlets with shameless headlines and an entire industry based on clickbait, come-ons and trickery.
It’s pretty clear that there’s an alternative. A chance to work toward the top instead. To deliver anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who want to get them. The opportunity to create remarkable products and services for a focused audience, stuff so good that people want to talk about it.
This is marketing. To choose to race to the top and then to do it well.
via Seth Godin’s Blog.
🗳 Poll of the Week
Have you tried TikTok app yet?
📊 Statistics
Social Media Landscape - Credit: Statista
Facebook Inc. Dominates the Social Media Landscape
When people think of Facebook as a company, they mostly think of it synonymously with Facebook the social network. However, Facebook Inc. is much more than that, as today’s chart nicely illustrates. With WhatsApp, Instagram and of course the namesake Facebook and Messenger, the company owns four of the world’s largest social media / messaging services. Facebook alone is used by more than 2 billion people per month and both WhatsApp and Messenger also have surpassed the billion user mark, according to company data aggregated by DataReportal. Tencent, the Chinese company behind WeChat, Qzone and messenger QQ also boasts more than two billion users in total, but it still doesn’t come close to matching Facebook’s global footprint.
Read more on Statista.
Nintendo Mobile Games: First Week Downloads - Credit: SensorTower
Mario Kart Tour Becomes Nintendo’s Fastest-Ever Mobile Game Launch
Mario Kart Tour has raced to 90 million unique downloads in its first week to make it by far Nintendo’s fastest mobile game launch in its history, according to Sensor Tower Store Intelligence estimates.
The number of downloads is six times greater than the company’s second best launch, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, which generated 14.3 million downloads in its first week. The company’s third best launch, Super Mario Run, picked up just under 13 million downloads in its debut week.
Read more on SensorTower.
📱 Tools & Apps
TikTraks: A marketing tool for TikTok (still in beta, but worth keeping an eye on)
The Google Cemetery 2.0: Dead Google products and their alternatives 👻🎃
🎧 Audio Stimulation
How I Built This with Guy Raz - Live Episode! Walker & Company: Tristan Walker
The very first time Tristan Walker shaved, he woke up the next morning with razor bumps all over his face. “I was like, what is this?” he remembers saying. “I am never shaving again—ever.” He soon discovered that like him, many men of color were frustrated by the lack of shaving products for coarse or curly hair. Fifteen years after that first disastrous shave, and after countless meetings with doubtful investors, Tristan launched Bevel, a subscription shaving system built around a single-blade razor. Eventually his brand Walker & Company grew to include 36 hair and beauty products, used by millions of men and women across the U.S. In 2018, Walker & Company was sold to Proctor & Gamble, and Tristan became P&G’s first black CEO. Recorded live in Washington, D.C.
🐦 Tweets of the Week
Buying souls? In this economy?
I don't remember who posted this on Twitter a few years ago, but whoever you are: you have improved every night I've spent in a hotel since. https://t.co/NpuuumqHV8
A San Francisco hotel just tried to charge @OctaneAI $2,361,043 for a hotel room.
Yes, $2.3 MILLION.
That had better be one hell of a hotel room, @PalaceHotelSF! https://t.co/veS0n89Egx
🎮 Fun Stuff
It’s actually Spidergran, not Spiderman. https://t.co/AwUrCukyi1
Stay calm - Credit: Reddit/u/shidanesayo
Forget the plug.
This car runs on sun ☀️ https://t.co/l4YZrFnfye
This is not goodbye...
This is: 👋