Lab Weekly - 05/27/2022
Latest news from Niantic, TikTok, and Microsoft; Plus, must-know stats roundup
Hello, and if you’re in the U.S., happy Memorial Day weekend! Unfortunately, due to various ongoing projects, I wasn’t able to finish the long-form piece I was working on as planned. And the new Floor 9 episode we planned for this week got delayed in editing due to audio quality issues. Nevertheless, I am happy to bring you a special edition of Lab Weekly, with news analysis and stats round up. Hope you enjoy! We’ll be back in full form next week. Thank you, and have a wonderful weekend!
— Richard Yao
In case you missed it…
The State of the Creator Economy
As new creator tools and features continue to pop up during the Newfronts week, we dived into the latest data from our proprietary Futurecaster survey to glean some fresh insights on the state of the #CreatorEconomy, along with some best practices that brands can tap into.
The Intersection of Creator Economy and Retail Transformation
With the ascension of social commerce and the collapse of the purchase funnel, creators are playing an increasingly important role in product discovery and consideration. Savvy creators are increasingly leveraging the increasing number of social commerce tools and marketplaces to monetize their content and drive purchase, forming the basis of community-driven commerce that will rewrite the rules of engagement and conversion.
Google Adds Brand-Friendly Features to Visual Search
Google kicked off its annual I/O developer event last week with a hybrid keynote session. Amongst the deluge of announcements and debuts, the improvements made to Google Search and Google Assistant stood out as the most relevant for brands and marketers. Here’s what brand marketers need to know from the 2022 Google I/O event
Niantic Moves Beyond Games With Lightship AR Platform And A Social Network [The Verge]
This week, Niantic, the maker of Pokémon GO, introduced a new developer platform named Lightship, which is a Visual Positioning System (VPS) designed for building location-aware apps and AR experiences. This means that developers can use it to develop AR experiences anchored to a particular location or landmark for all users to discover and activate. In addition, it is also launching Campfire, a location-based social network for games, which would increase the sense of digital presence in the offline world among users who opt in to share their whereabouts.
Thanks to the success of Pokémon Go, Niantic already has a big headstart in harnessing users to generate these maps on their behalf. This is an advantage the company is clearly looking to extend with the launch of the Lightship platform. Unlike regular geolocation, Niantic aims to map the physical world in 3D in order to make AR experiences more interactive and accurate.
In order for AR experiences to enter the mainstream, more use cases need to be developed, which, in turn, means that more developers need to be involved in the creation of AR apps. This new Lightship platform is a promising entry to the AR platform ecosystem that is currently dominated by big tech companies such as Apple, Google, and Facebook. Among them, Google arguably has the most advanced mapping data. Overall, Niantic’s announcements signal a concerted push into more location-aware and shared AR experiences.
Related: Pepsi, Pizza Hut put soccer fans in Paul Pogba’s shoes with AR game [PressWire]; Snap releases new AR tools for virtual shopping [RetailDive]
TikTok launched a Twitch-like subscription program for creators [The Verge]
Taking a page out of Twitch’s playbook, TikTok is introducing a monthly live subscription feature to help creators diversify their revenue streams. Launching on an invite-only basis on Thursday, it offers TikTok creators to offer their biggest fans a chance to support them with a monthly subscription. In return, fans will get badges that subscribers can add to their profile, emotes custom-designed by creators for their followers, and access to subscriber-only chats to create a deeper connection with the creator and their community. It should also entice more creators to go live on TikTok for more real-time engagement with their fans.
It seems like every social media platform these days is trying to rebrand as a creator platform — which makes sense, considering whichever platform that wins over the most creators would have the most UGC to win the battle for attention (and monetization). Earlier this week, Twitter also added a new “Create” hub to its media website in an effort to court content creators. TikTok videos can randomly blow up thanks to the algorithmically-driven nature of TikTok, but the fame can fade as quickly as it arrived. Monthly subscriptions may provide a sense of stability that might make creators feel more secure.
Related: TikTok partners with Hootsuite, Sprinklr, Emplifi and more to make it easier for brands to reach users [TechCrunch]; TikTok plans big push into gaming, conducting tests in Vietnam [Reuters]
Microsoft Teams Live Share Takes Meetings Beyond Simple Screen Sharing [The Verge]
Your Teams meetings are about to get more interactive. As part of its Build developer event, Microsoft announced a new Live Share feature for Teams, which essentially functions like a supercharged screen-sharing feature. Similar to how people use that feature to conduct presentations, this new Live Share feature will allow participants to start co-editing or co-creating during Teams meetings, such as working on a 3D model together, or co-editing a podcast episode in real time, through integration of third-party apps via cloud computing.
The way we work is changing as remote work proves it’s here to stay for knowledge workers, thus shifting the lifestyle factor for key industries such as retail, auto, and travel. Software and platforms designed to accommodate hybrid experience and digital nomads will command an increasing amount of attention and form the foundation of an “Anyware Economy,” as we named it in our 2021 Outlook report, And this new Live Share feature is a worthy addition to this burgeoning Anyware Economy, which will further break down the assumptions around commuting and consumer habits around hybrid work.
Related: Microsoft partners with Kawasaki for industrial metaverse [CNBC]; Microsoft confirms work on ‘Keystone’ Xbox game streaming dongle [The Verge]; DuckDuckGo faces widespread backlash over tracking deal with Microsoft [TNW]
Elon Musk has his work cut out for him if he takes the reins at Twitter. Worldwide user growth will be essentially flat this year, according to the latest social network forecast from Insider Intelligence. By the end of 2022, there will be 368.06 million monthly Twitter users worldwide, up just 1.5% from 2021. This comes after a pandemic-induced bump in 2020 and 2021, when growth was 11.2% and 4.3% respectively. Usage will grow at a similar rate of just over 1% each year through the end of 2026.
Buying secondhand is no longer an afterthought. 93% of shoppers in the U.S. have or are open to buying secondhand products, according to a new report from resale platform ThredUP, which is up from 70% in 2019. 82% of respondents said they feel a positive emotion when they buy used..
Consumer interest in electric vehicles has hit a global tipping point, with more than half of car buyers saying they want their next car to be an EV, new research from Ernst & Young shows:
Chart source: Axios
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