Top 5 Digital, Social Media & Web3 News: Google, TikTok, Meta, Discord, YouTube, Web3
Top 5 latest Digital & Social Media News in 5 minutes, to help your ministry stay on top of industry trends.
This week, we have news about Google, TikTok, Meta, Discord, YouTube, Web3.
🗞️ News 1: Google adds new features & updates to its popular Family Link tool
Source: Google
Google announced the addition of multiple new features and updates to its Family Link, which is a parental control tool. Family Link has been popular in the Google, Android ecosystem, and now they have added new features which includes, first of all, the ability to adjust the device time for the children. They’ve made it a little bit easier and they’ve also given the parents a section called Highlights, which gives you an overview of your child’s time on the device, the actions, etc. And most importantly, this is now available on the web, not just on the phone, so that you can access it with ease. I think these are good updates, and if you’re on the Android ecosystem and you’ve not checked out Family Link, it could be a useful tool for you as a parent. Do check it out. We link to all the details in the show notes. You can also share this with parents in your church’s, ministries and congregations.
🗞️ News 2: TikTok launches Smart Performance Campaigns; raises age limit for Live
TikTok made two announcements last week. One is about the release of a smart performance campaign option which is an end to end automated solution. So basically TikTok is saying, you trust us and our machine learning system to optimize your advertising campaign for you. So a very interesting option if you don’t want to play around with various options that are inside TikTok ads, then you can try or test this new automated ads option and see if it works for your nonprofit or ministry. The second announcement is about increasing the age limit from 16 to 18 for Live streaming. So basically TikTok is starting to rethink certain options when it comes to younger audience, which is a very interesting trend.
🗞️ News 3: YouTube releases new advertising options with CTV & Audio placements
Source: YouTube
YouTube made an important announcement about three new ad options that they are releasing. One is about connected television. Another is about YouTube shorts. The third is about audio and podcast related ads. Let me focus on two of those. First is connected television. They have an option for you to take. Take a big moment in your organization. For example, let’s say you are having a big event or launch or something like that. You can now create a big blast for it. That’s why the option is called Moment Blast and you can take the YouTube select content from connected TV and other devices and you can raise awareness for that particular moment. So it could be useful for big launches. The other is audio ads and podcast targeting are now available globally to all users. So it could be a useful option for you if you’re trying to reach audio related audience. So please pass this on to your ads team.
🗞️ News 4: Microsoft says, soon Xbox won’t need a phone to make Discord calls
Source: The Verge
Microsoft has announced that very soon you will not need to use your phone in order to connect to a call on Discord server when you are inside your Xbox environment. So this is an interesting trend that I wanted to bring to your notice where there is this big gaming world and companies like Discord and Microsoft now with this announcement on Xbox are making things easier for your audience who are on the gaming ecosystem to communicate with each other. Now this creates a smooth social networking environment. So as people play games, they are also social networking with others, having these conversations, having these social media relationships being built and communication being enabled. So as nonprofits or ministry it is important for us to understand this behavior of people on the gaming ecosystem.
🗞️ News 5: [Web3] Meta releases Quest Pro; adds new Social VR tools & features
Source: Meta
In our Web3 news this week, we look at the progress that Meta as a company is making in the Metaverse space. Meta is a significant player, so we need to watch what they do and see what are some of the trends that are coming up, which could help you and me as nonprofits and ministries. Mark Zuckerberg announced the release of a new advanced high end VR headset called Quest Pro. This looks slightly different and looks sleeker and the battery is at the back, so hopefully it will have a better balance when you wear a headset instead of like the whole weight being at the front. And Mark Zuckerberg also says that it has advanced mixed reality features. So we’ll have to wait and see how this takes off. And the other interesting announcement is their partnership with Microsoft to bring Microsoft products inside Meta environment and also multiple social VR features which I will link to in the show notes. Do have a look.
Originally published at https://www.natchilazarus.com on October 26, 2022.
