APAC Digital Digest is a fortnightly round-up of what has been happening in APAC in just 3 minutes.
Here is what has been happening:
Google will make all advertisers prove their identities, so people can see who they are and which country they’re in
Google will soon require all advertisers to verify their identity to prevent advertisers from misrepresenting themselves and allow consumers to see who’s running ads and which country they’re located in.
The company said consumers will start seeing disclosures that list this information on the advertiser when they click “Why this ad?” on placements beginning this summer. Google will begin by verifying advertisers in the U.S. and will expand globally, expecting that the process will take a few years to complete.
Source: CNBC
Snapchat introduced a new offering to help advertisers take advantage of surging interest in its premium video inventory
Snap introduced a new ad offering titled "First Commercial," which lets brands be the first commercial any user sees within the first Snap show they watch on a given day.
The unskippable ads are a minimum of 6 seconds a piece, and the buy lasts 24 hours, creating the potential for substantial scale with one purchase. The format will be sold directly for now, but Snap plans to sell it programmatically in the future.
Source: Business Insider
Twitter launches a COVID-19 data set of tweets for approved developers and researchers
Twitter Inc will grant researchers and software developers access to a real-time data stream of tens of millions of daily public tweets about COVID-19, which they can use to study the spread of the disease or track misinformation.
Twitter said that this access could also be used by approved applicants working on crisis management, emergency response or communication within communities, as well as those developing machine learning and data tools to help the scientific community understand COVID-19.
Source: Reuters
Pinterest Highlights New Resources to Help Businesses Maximize Their Pin Presence
Pinterest is specifically seeing increased shopping activity in its app, which could make it a more important platform for brands looking to maintain business activity, and offset some of the losses caused by the shutdown of physical outlets.
To help with this, Pinterest has provided a new overview of its latest resource additions to help SMBs make better use of Pins, while also flagging new education tools and reference material that businesses will be able to use to learn the ropes, and improve their Pin presence.
Source: Social Media Today
Facebook invests $5.7B in India’s Reliance Jio Platforms
The world’s largest social media company announced today it has invested $5.7 billion for a 9.99% stake in India’s Reliance Jio Platforms, a three-and-a-half-year-old subsidiary of the nation’s most valued firm, Reliance Industries, and the biggest telecom operator in the country with more than 370 million subscribers.
The social giant said the investment marks its “commitment to India”, where it will focus on collaborating with Jio to create “new ways for people and businesses to operate more effectively in the growing digital economy.”
Source: Tech Crunch
Facebook’s revenue climbs 18% as it increases marketing spend by 38%
Facebook’s global revenues for the first quarter of the 2020 calendar year have climbed 18% to US$17.737bn – US$3.527bn of which came from the Asia Pacific region. As a percentage of revenue, marketing and sales costs were also up to 16%. Last quarter, sales and marketing was just 14% of revenue, while in Q1 of last year, it was 13%.
The last three weeks of the quarter painted a worrying picture, with the company admitting there was a significant reduction in demand for advertising over the 21-day period, and a related pricing decline.
Source: Mumbrella
People can now host fundraisers over Instagram Live
Instagram is making it easier for people to raise money for nonprofits today by building a feature that’ll allow Live viewers to directly support approved organizations. All proceeds go to the organizations; Instagram doesn’t take a cut.
Hosts can decide to make their live session a fundraiser from the onset. They just have to select to turn it into a fundraiser instead of a live. The company already offers a donation sticker for Stories, but this new functionality brings the idea to the newly popular live streams.
Source: The Verge
TikTok Crosses 2 Billion Downloads After Best Quarter For Any App Ever
India has been the biggest driver of TikTok installs, generating 611 million lifetime downloads to date, or 30.3 percent of the total. China is the No. 2 country for installs, accumulating 196.6 million to date, or 9.7 percent of all downloads, for its version of the app, known as Douyin. This figure does not include third-party Android store installs in the country. The United States rounds out the top three countries for downloads, where it has picked up 165 million installs, or 8.2 percent.
Source: Sensor Tower
TikTok tests CTA ads to share revenue with influencers
TikTok is piloting an advertising format with a call-to-action (CTA) button that links marketers to social influencers who post in the popular viral video app. TikTok will split the ad revenue with influencers, helping to support their creative efforts. The new ad format would give TikTok the chance to capture some of the revenue that advertisers currently pay directly to influencers for sponsored videos.
Source: Mobile Marketer
China’s internet users reach 900 million, live-streaming ecommerce boosting consumption
The number of people using the internet in China reached 900 million as of March, 2020, an increase of 75 million from the end of 2018. Around 710 million Chinese people shopped online in 2019, and 37 percent of them were live-streaming shoppers.
As of March, 2020, 710 million people shopped online, an increase of 100 million compared to 2018. The transaction volume reached 10.63 trillion yuan ($1.5trillion), up 16.5 percent year on year, leading the world's largest digital consumer market for seven consecutive years.
Source: Global Times
Australia: Federal government to introduce mobile tracking technology to fight COVID-19
The Australian Federal Government plans to introduce mobile tracking technology to track the movements of people who have tested positive to coronavirus, as well as the people they come into contact with.
The Prime Minister says the app will offer a more 'efficient' way of tracing the virus in the community' – by accurately identifying contamination 'hot spots' and therefore enabling the government to respond quickly to those areas with testing.
Source: Mondaq
Advances in Japan IT firms' 'touchless' technology boosted by virus fears
As the coronavirus continues to spread across Japan, companies are speeding up their development and utilization of products featuring "touchless" technology that can be controlled without direct physical contact.
NEC has top of the line facial recognition technology, while Sony boasts world-class digital sensor technology for cameras and smartphones. As the virus continues to spread, it appears that these companies will be expediting their research and development efforts.
Source: The Mainichi