Social Media – Latitude Bites

By Turner Novak

Published on 21st May 2020 on turner.substack.com

In November of 2017, Bytedance acquired Musical.ly for $1 billion. In August of 2018, Bytedance officially rebranded Musical.ly and TikTok into one app.

Shortly after, ByteDance raised $3 billion and was valued at ~$75 billion. Analysts estimate its 2019 revenue was anywhere from $16–20 billion, up 100% from 2018. Its market share of the Chinese digital ad market has grown from zero to 22%, up from only 5% in 2017.

TikTok has become the best way to create and consume short videos on mobile. It rode the wave of AirPods and audio memes to over 1 billion DAU’s (Daily Active Users), and is likely worth ~$200 billion. This would make it not only the world’s most valuable “startup” but one of the world’s most valuable companies, period.

Read on…

https://turner.substack.com/p/the-rise-of-tiktok-and-understanding

Image: chinainternetwatch.com

By Christopher Snowdon

I hit an important benchmark today when I blocked my thousandth account on Twitter. A volley of deranged abuse after I tweeted an article by Toby Young helped me sprint over the line.

A thousand sounds like a lot, but it’s a big world out there and most of us will only ever see a few pockets of it. Of the planet’s seven billion people, there are bound to be many millions of bad faith actors, obsessives, bores, pile on merchants, psychopaths and borderline retards, but you don’t realise quite how many morons there are until you get on social media.

Twitter has 145 million active daily users. If you assume that one per cent of them are scumbags – surely a massive underestimate – that is well over a million people with whom you want no contact. Even if you block several thousand people, you will barely scratch the surface.

But Twitter is also host to many of the world’s funniest, cleverest and most creative people. It is indispensable for breaking news, expert opinion and knowledge you would never otherwise stumble upon. I have probably learned more from being on Twitter than from any other medium and it saddens me when people feel they have to delete the app for the sake of their sanity. Yes, it can be a cesspool, but not if you curate it properly.

Read on…

https://velvetgloveironfist.blogspot.com/2020/04/to-mute-is-human-to-block-is-divine.html

Posted on Ist April 2020 on velvetgloveironfist.blogspot.com

Image: laverdadnoticias.com