Twitter Invades Google Desktop Search Results & Snapchat Lost Millions in 2014
This week in social media, Twitter finally got a boost from its partnership with Google. Meanwhile, leaked documents showed Snapchat lost a considerable sum of money in a short period of time last year. And Spotify, of all "social" platforms, angered users by asking for too much data.
It's time for Social Media Sunday!
Google Integrates Tweets to Desktop Search
Google and Twitter made a deal to incorporate the social network's posts into search results a while ago, and this week, Google started rolling out those changes for the desktop.
According to the Next Web, tweets, hashtags, and usernames are now appearing in search results, if you use the Google.com search from your desktop browser. The Twitter-Google integration has been present on Google's mobile search app and website since late spring.
The Twitter search results are displayed in Twitter cards, some of which you can scroll through for more results, but the presence of Twitter isn't exactly going to take over Google. Still, it will probably make it easier to find hashtags or trending topics on Twitter with a quick desktop search.
Twitter CEO Search
Twitter always has a hard time on Wall Street. So during last week's particularly tough downturn, Twitter of course took a beating. Part of that beating was due to ongoing uncertainty about who's at the helm for the foreseeable future.
Last week, Twitter was rumored to announce interim CEO Jack Dorsey as the permanent head of the company, but that did not come to pass. Instead, Twitter remained mum, as its stock price slipped below that at the time of its IPO, according to DealBreaker. Even Snoop Dogg has publically applied for the position.
Will Twitter get its act together soon, or is the company waiting to make a big announcement? We'll see sooner or later. Or in this investing climate, it may be bye, bye birdie.
Snapchat
Leak Shows Millions Lost in 2014
Snapchat may be the king of private fundraising in the social media startup world, but apparently it also continuously raises more funds out of necessity. According to leaked documents published by Gawker's Sam Biddle last week, the four-year-old "unicorn startup" had a net loss of over $128 billion last year.
The period that those documents covered, however, only included about six weeks ($3 million) worth of ad revenue, since Snapchat launched its ad program in late 2014. Still, with its mega-fundraising, Snapchat ended last year with over $300 million cash in its checking and savings account, which is enviable of any startup and most companies.
Another Big Hire for Snapchat Discover
Snapchat is basing most of its hopes for ad revenue on the "Discover" section, where media partners like BuzzFeed and ESPN create content aimed at attracting Snapchat's particularly young demographic, and where Snapchat demands some of the highest online advertising rates per (ephemeral) second of any platform.
This week, Snapchat made another big media hire to help make sure "Discover" gets discovered by enough media partners. Founding executive of multichannel network Fullscreen, James Veraldi, was hired by Snapchat as the head of strategy and partnerships for Discover media a month ago, as Variety discovered this week.
Snapchat has now raised $1.2 billion to date and is supposedly valued at more than $15 billion. Now it needs a knockout success in Discover for revenues to follow through with investors' hopes (and money). No pressure, Veraldi.
Spotify
Angry Users: "Why Do You Need My Photos?"
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek apologized to users and former users, after changes in its terms and conditions sparked outrage among listeners on the Scandinavian streaming service.
The latest terms include requiring permission for access to photos, contacts, and smartphones' sensor data, along with voice and location information, to boot, according to BBC. "We should have done a better job in communicating what these policies mean and how any information you choose to share will -- and will not -- be use," wrote Ek in a Spotify blog post.
Ek went on to explain how and why certain permissions were requested in the app update. For example, photos permissions only allows Spotify to access your camera roll if users choose to create personalized cover art for playlists or change profile images. "We will never access your photos without explicit permission and we will never scan or import your photo library or camera roll."
Similar explanations were offered by Ek for voice, location, and contacts permissions, showing that Spotify only needs to ask for the technical permission so it can automatically connect to those services (like for voice searches) once a user opts to use that particular feature.
Perhaps Apple should do a better job of explaining what "permissions" grant automatic access and which ones just connect one app to the other in the eventuality a user will decide to expand access.