Facebook, Google's digital advertising dominance crushing ad firms: Report

The dominance of Google and Facebook of digital advertising has led to the number of independent and smaller ad tech companies falling 21 per cent since 2013 to 185 in the second quarter of 2018, the media reported.

According to a report in The New York Times on Sunday, venture capital money going into ad-tech start-ups is falling sharply.

"Online advertising companies have struggled for several years as Google and Facebook solidified their grip on digital dollars, slowing revenue for the others," added the report, citing global marketing research firms including LUMA Partners.

While spending for online ads was more than $88 billion last year, over 90 per cent of that went to Google or Facebook.

"Amazon is also making inroads into advertising, with a new advertising arm, raising the possibility that it will become a top competitor," said the report.

The company generated $2.2 billion in revenue from its advertising business in the second quarter this year.

70% smartphone users in India switched brands in Q2; Xiaomi biggest gainer

More than 70 per cent of smartphone users in India switched brands in the second quarter of this year, befitting Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi the most which sold nearly 37 per cent of the phones that were replaced, according a CyberMedia Research (CMR) report on Wednesday.

Xiaomi was followed by Vivo (17.8 per cent), Oppo (16.3), itel (6.7 per cent) and Huawei's Honor (4.5 per cent), according to the first edition of the CMR "India Smartphone Movement" report.

During the period, the fastest depleting brands in the category were Micromax (41.2 per cent), Intex (11.6 per cent), HTC (5.5 per cent), Karbonn (5.3 per cent) and Gionee (4.7 per cent), the findings showed.

"Customer stickiness is the paramount concern thathomegrownn brands need to address immediately," said Kanika Jain, Manager, New Initiatives, CMR.

Modi beats Trump, Trudeau to become the most liked world leader on Facebook

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the most liked world leader and far ahead of others, including US President Donald Trump, when it comes to popularity on Facebook, according to a study which said 43.2 million people follow the Indian premier on the social media platform.

Trump, who rules the other social media platform Twitter, is in second place with 23.1 million followers, according to the study "World Leaders on Facebook" released today by Burson Cohn & Wolfe.

The study analyses the activity of 650 Facebook pages of heads of state and government and foreign ministers from January 1, 2017 using aggregate data from Facebook's Crowdtangle tool, it said in a statement.

Over the past 14 months, the Facebook page of Trump had by far the most interactions of any world leader on Facebook, with a total of 204.9 million interactions (defined as the total number of comments, likes and shares), almost twice as many as Modi with 113.6 million interactions, the study said.

Modi, 67, has always encouraged use of social media platforms to stay in touch with the public.

Russia to ban Telegram messenger service over encryption dispute

A Russian court on Friday ruled to ban popular instant messaging service 'Telegram' over its failure to provide access to the Russian security services to users' encrypted messages.

"The court ruled to satisfy the demand of Roskomnadzor," Judge Yulia Smolina said.

The access to Telegram will be denied and there won't be technical conditions for sending messages, reported the Russian news agency TASS.

The judge further observed that the court's verdict ought to be implemented instantly.

Roskomnadzor, the Russian communications and technology watchdog, had demanded that the app be blocked.

It took the court all of 18 minutes to grant the request, after scheduling the hearing just one day before, according to the reports.

Zuckerberg sells $500-mn FB stock in Feb to fund philanthropic vehicle

Facebook Inc Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg sold nearly $500 million in the company's shares in February to fund his philanthropic investment vehicle, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), regulatory filings showed.

The move is not a surprise, being part of Zuckerberg's plan to expedite stock sales to fund the initiative he set up in December 2015 with his wife Priscilla Chan.

Two security filings on Thursday showed that Zuckerberg sold 685,000 shares worth $125.4 million in the last three days of February, taking his total sales in the month to about 2.7 million shares worth $482.2 million, according to Reuters calculations. (http://bit.ly/2oyrDTM)

Zuckerberg said in September he would sell 35 million to 75 million shares of Facebook over the next 18 months.

Twitter adds new Bookmark feature; now you can save tweets for later

Micro-blogging platform Twitter announced that its 'Bookmarks' feature would be rolled out to all its users on Thursday.

The new feature gives users an opportunity to save any tweets they may like and want to revisit, the Verge reported.

With the current version of Twitter, a tweet could be saved by liking it.

However, with the new update in place, twitterers can save any tweet of their choice with Bookmarks.

Furthermore, with Bookmarks, only the user who saves the tweet will be aware of the same, and not the one whose tweet is saved, or any other user.

In order to bookmark a tweet, a user may tap or click the new 'share' icon available beneath a tweet, where the message icon was earlier positioned.

Twitter also announced the amalgamation of sharing options under one bracket. Therefore, with the new version, a user may share a tweet via direct message, share it elsewhere outside of Twitter, or bookmark it