P opular Apps, Amazon Influencers and Facebook 360
Here’s the news we’re talking about around the Zbra Studios water cooler. We’ve provided key bullet points from each article for the speed readers out there.
These are the 10 most popular mobile apps in America
By DAN FROMMER From Recode
- “Between smartphones and tablets, Americans spend more than half of their digital media consumption time — 57 percent — in apps, according to comScore’s annual U.S. mobile apps report. That’s about the same as a year ago — evidence that the dramatic shift to mobile has now leveled out in the U.S.”
- “The big winners — surprise, surprise — are Facebook and Google, which own eight of the top 10 apps.”
- “Snap was not in the top 10 in last year’s comScore ranking (it was No. 13) and Amazon was (at No. 10). Instagram moved up from No. 9 to a tie for No. 6. The other apps are the same, albeit ranked slightly differently.”
Amazon’s social media ‘Influencers’ program opens up to YouTube stars
By Sarah Perez From TechCrunch
- “Amazon’s Influencer Program, a service that allows social media personalities to earn commissions on the Amazon products they promote, is now accepting sign-ups from YouTube influencers who want to participate. Last Thursday, Amazon quietly enabled a self-service tool for YouTube stars that lets them request to join the highly-vetted program, which had first launched into beta in late March.”
- “The idea with the program is to allow Amazon to better tap into social media’s power to drive sales. Today’s influencers regularly promote products they like in their online postings, including YouTube videos – often either as part of a brand relationship or as a means of generating income through affiliate sales.”
- “Amazon also intends this program to extend beyond YouTube. The retailer aims to offer support to influencers across all major social networks, which should include the likes of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.”
Facebook now lets you shoot 360-degree photos inside its app
By Sean O’Kane From The Verge
- “Facebook has allowed users to upload and view 360-degree photos for a little over a year now, but the social media platform is also adding the ability to capture them, too.”
- “Of course, since phones don’t have 360-degree cameras built in (yet, at least), the process resembles how you create panoramas in your phone’s camera app.”
- “While Facebook supports 360-degree videos, you’ll still need to shoot those with a camera like the Samsung Gear 360, Insta360, or Nikon KeyMission 360, and upload them separately.”
Nick Cotton is a project manager based out of Los Angeles, California. He’s got a background in the entertainment industry, and uses his talent at online messaging to extol the virtues of content marketing, interactive fiction and sentences measuring 280 characters or less.
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