Mediaboss Marketing

If content is king these days, then everyone really wants to wear the crown.

The latest business to throw itself into the media melee is Grindr, the popular gay social networking app which has just launched a new media site called INTO.

Pitching itself as the millennial response to Out Magazine,INTO features a similar mix of culture, lifestyle, entertainment, news and features and the company even hired Outs former editor at large, Zach Stafford to run the site.

Grindr actually began experimenting with publishing on its own homepage before moving the news and features to the INTO site earlier this year, according to a spokesman.

Its the latest attempt by the social network to diversify and capitalize on its incredibly strong brand within the gay community. Other attempts to spin out new ways to make money on the brand include Gaymoji, an emoji keyboard, and is running a growing event business under the Slumbr brand.

Courtesy Grindr LLC

Having a media play seems to be just part of running a company these days, I guess (although not as much of a stretch as Van Winkles, the publishing arm of mattress startup Casper I see you Van Winkles and still do not understand why you exist).

Stafford is an award-winning journalist and has assembled a team of writers to help push out stories including Nico Lang and Mathew Rodriguez, photo editor Oly Innes. Also helping beef up content will be a paid contributor network that already numbers in the hundreds, according to a spokesperson.

Increasingly, as lifestyle-focused corporate social networks assert themselves as hubs for identity in the modern world, theres no doubt that more of these types of media plays will crop up.

With the internet displacing both network and cable television, theres no limit to the profusion of properties that can claim a sliver of an audiences attention. And with a built in base of users to turn to, theres a pretty good chance that many of these new Vicestyle brands will be successful.

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Grindr launches INTO, a new media property - TechCrunch

Investopedia

Microsoft: LinkedIn Dealt a Blow in Data Case Investopedia According to The Wall Street Journal, since 2012 the startup has been collecting public data from the social network service without any objections. But more recently, LinkedIn wanted it to stop, arguing it has the right to control access to its ... LinkedIn loses court fight over user data privacyToronto Star Microsoft ordered to let third parties scrape LinkedIn dataThe Verge all 54 news articles »

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Microsoft: LinkedIn Dealt a Blow in Data Case - Investopedia

It's no secret that the Chinese government heavily controls the internet within its borders. As a result, many of the world's top websites are blocked in China. Internet giants like Facebook and Google have been trying alternative ways to infiltrate the market. The latest is a stealth release of an app called Colorful Balloons.

Colorful Balloons is very similar to Facebook's Moments: an app that lets you share photos with friends and family. Even the name of the new app resembles the logo of the original. According to The New York Times, Facebook approved the release of the app back in May. The app is published by a Chinese company called Youge Internet Technology and bears no apparent affiliation with the social networking company.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has visited the country many times in recent years. During the visits, he evidently had talks with government officials about the company's future in the country. Last year, it was reported that the company had tried to create a censorship tool to reconcile with the government.

When contacted by The Verge, Facebook replied that it's "spending time understanding and learning more about the country in different ways. Our focus right now is on helping Chinese businesses and developers expand to new markets outside China by using our ad platform."

The way the app was released in China is certainly unprecedented for a company of Facebook's stature. It remains to be seen whether the government will take any actions regarding the app's future.

Source: The New York Times | Image via The New York Times

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Facebook secretly introduces a new social networking app in China - Neowin

Social media applications displayed on a smartphone. AFP File Photo

MIRI: A 20-year-old woman lodged a police report on Saturday after discovering that her underage sister had been having sex with a man since last year.

The matter came to light when the woman decided to check her 15-year-old sisters social networking account and came across several of the teens messages with a man.

The content of the exchanges between the pair left her uneasy and she decided to confront her sister, who went on to admit to having had sexual intercourse with the man on three occasions since 2016.

The two have known each other since early 2016 through the social networking site.

District deputy police chief Supt Stanley Jonathan Ringgit confirmed receiving a report when contacted yesterday, saying police are investigating the case under Section 376 of the Penal Code for statutory rape.

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Check on teen's social networking account leads to underage sex admission - The Borneo Post

NEWS ANALYSIS: The worlds largest social network, which has been envious of YouTube, Netflix, Vimeo and other video providers for years, has set the table for its own online television network.

Facebook not only has its users complete attention for news, social networking, games, instant messaging, email, video streaming and a dozen other use cases, it now wants their time in front of ads as a television network.

The worlds largest social network, which has been envious of YouTube, Netflix, Vimeo and other video providers for years, has set the table for its own online television network.

Earlier this year, Facebook reportedlyalthough it never confirmed this publiclyentered the market for discovering and buying content. According to The Hollywood Reporter and covered here in eWEEK, Facebook decided to pick up a canceled MTV show called Loosely Exactly Nicole, from Nicole Byer, creator of the popular Girl Code show. Nicole was canceled after one low-rated season (about 360,000 total viewers, dwindling to less than 150,000) on MTV.

Saw Potential in Former MTV Show

Nonetheless, Facebook saw potential in Nicole, and it was among the first news items about a network-show acquisition that leaked out. Theres more: Facebook apparently is looking at about six genres as focus areas for half-hour shows: sports, science, pop culture, lifestyle, gaming and teens; these will likely stream as weekly series.

Now that type of content, when it becomes available, will have a place to nest and grow. On Aug. 10, Facebook launched a new section of the network called Watch, as a specific home for video.

Watch will be available on mobile, on desktop and laptop, and in Facebook TV apps. It is basically a redesign of Facebooks first video tab, reconfigured in order to keep viewers watching for longer period of time and hopefully to return regularly to view shows. The concept is that when users open Facebook Watch, the most recent episodes of their favorite shows will be there waiting for them, so they can finish them or binge many shows when they feel like it.

Most Facebook users now see videos secondarily when they scroll past a friends post. YouTube, on the other hand, is a destination specifically for watching videos. Facebook obviously is seeing its own virtual television network it as a whole new advertising income stream.

Rolling Out Watch to Limited Number of Users at First

The company said it was rolling out Watch to a limited group of users in the United States before a wider release in the future. No general release date is known at this time.

Heres how Facebook itself described the limited launch Aug. 10:

Gear up for Watch! It is a new platform for all creators, publishers and social media influencers to find an audience, build a community of passionate fans, and earn money for their work on Facebook. We believe our Facebook shows will be successful, particularly because:

(1) Our shows engage fans and the sports community. For example NOW NBA Publicity Studio publishes a daily show where we make and share videos together with our fans from around the world. The NOW stands for Nationally Or Worldwide. The Watchlist makes it easy for our fans to catch every days episode.

(2) We have live shows that connect directly with our fans. We use a combination of recorded and live episodes to connect with our fans and answer questions in real time.

(3) We also have shows that follow a narrative arc and those that have a consistent theme.

(4) Finally, we have live events and rallies that bring communities together while connecting with friends and fellow fans on the Facebook platform.

More Specifics on Types of Content

More detail from Facebooks Director of Products Daniel Danker, who covered this in an Aug. 10 blogpost:

Facebook, with its 2 billion-plus international membership, undoubtedly is looking at that huge number of people to drive its online video viewershipand then talk about shows during or afterward, still on the network. The tools are all right there, theyre familiar, and they generally work well.

That will make the Facebook experience stand out from YouTube and Netflix, even though those, too, are social networks to an extent.

With Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube and other over the top (OTT) internet video and television services already maneuvering to get into mainstream cable networksComcast and AT&T come immediately to mindit may only be a matter of time before other major IT product and service companies such as Apple, Microsoft, LinkedIn and others come up with their own networks filled with their own original content.

Excerpt from:
Facebook Launches Social Network Assault on TV with Watch (Update) - Gears Of Biz