social video blog by MIDiA Research

Blog: social video

Why TikTok and YouTube are poised to capture smart TV viewing

Blog post by Ben Woods

14 Mar 2023

The entertainment consumption habits of Gen Z remain an ongoing source of anxiety for traditional media companies. They are digital natives who mix up their social media bingeing by watching big-budget...

Spotify’s vertical feed could change music discovery, but not for the reason you think

Blog post by Tatiana Cirisano

9 Mar 2023

music streaming

Spotify

Soundcloud

Just a few years ago, Spotify’s Rap Caviar playlist was a harbinger for culture. But a lot has changed. Artists want (and need) to build deeper relationships with fans, and gen Z consumers want more...

Creators can narrow the quality gap with streaming services…. if they survive the AI ‘spamnami’

Blog post by Ben Woods

7 Mar 2023

social video

SVOD

Twitch chief executive Emmett Shear has sounded a note of caution about artificial intelligence (AI). Responding to a tweet about how creators could make money while sleeping by autogenerating content...

YouTube’s new king must reclaim the title of social video’s great innovator

Blog post by Ben Woods

23 Feb 2023

social video

yotube

FAST

YouTube’s changing of the guard has brought forward a stark reality: the social video platform responsible for a seismic shift in how video is created, monetised, and distributed is now looking and feeling...

With its Australia experiment, TikTok gives the music industry the ultimate test

Blog post by Tatiana Cirisano

9 Feb 2023

TikTok

social media

independent music

Licensing negotiations between platforms and the music industry come down to one question: which side needs the other more? The more that TikTok needs hit music to attract users, the more leverage the...

YouTube has dismantled the walls between social video and SVOD

Blog post by Ben Woods

24 Jan 2023

social video

SVOD

YouTube

How do you define YouTube in 2023? The Google-owned app has evolved into a complicated media outfit. It stretches beyond social video content and deep into subscription video on demand (SVOD). It is a...

Is the net closing in on TikTok?

Blog post by Ben Woods

17 Jan 2023

social video

TikTok

YouTube

There is nothing quite like a recession to seemingly transform disruptors into incumbents. As the focus moves from R&D spend to cost-cutting, the customer focus also changes. Efforts to acquire new...

YouTube’s one-stop shop offers a salvation to creator burn-out

Blog post by Ben Woods

12 Jan 2023

creator economy

social video

YouTube

A popular YouTube channel offering tips for fledgling creators made a surprising admission recently. After amassing nearly 200,000 YouTube subscribers around its “how-to guides” for live streamers,...

Welcome to the Metaverse, where audience fragmentation reigns

Blog post by Ben Woods

8 Dec 2022

metaverse

SVOD Services

social video

In Ernest Cline’s dystopian novel Ready Player One , the metaverse unfurls as a virtual universe where choice over identity and experience are boundless. Such is the seamless experience of Cline’s...

Social video’s shopping push will be a rare recession winner

Blog post by Ben Woods

22 Nov 2022

social video

e-commerce

influencer

Despite pressure on Joe Biden’s administration to ban TikTok , the social video app made a fresh incursion into America earlier this month by bringing its live-streaming e-commerce service TikTok Shop...

Patreon is making video a battleground for creator allegiance

Blog post by Ben Woods

8 Nov 2022

social video

YouTube

patreon

With jitters building in the advertising market, YouTube appears vulnerable to challengers. Google’s parent Alphabet, the ultimate owner of YouTube, recorded its slowest sales growth for two years last...

Video streamers batten down the hatches, the social subscription revolution is coming

Blog post by Ben Woods

25 Oct 2022

social video

subscriptions

twitter

Social media companies have been happy to ride the tumultuous waves of digital advertising regardless of the market dominance of Google and Facebook. Arguments for tweaking the business model have always...

Facebook versus TikTok – a tale of two diverging social apps

Blog post by Richard Broadhurst

14 Apr 2022

social video

social media

Facebook’s “Reels” bid to move into TikTok gap will fail

Blog post by Hanna Kahlert

17 Aug 2020

Mobile content

Media

social video

The rollout of Instagram Reels comes cleverly timed, sweeping in the wake of the announced TikTok ban to claim the many app users who will be searching for a new proposition on which to spend their attention....

The Meta Trends that Will Shape the 2020s

Blog post by Mark Mulligan

10 Jan 2020

2020 predictions

abundance paradox

attention saturation

CES, the big annual consumer tech show, is underway in Las Vegas. Unlike in most previous years, there has been little in the way of big new announcements. This is in large part because we are reaching...

Why Today’s International Rollout of Facebook Watch is so Significant

Blog post by Tim Mulligan

30 Aug 2018

emerging markets

facebook

Facebook Watch

Today marks the first phase in the international rollout of Facebook Watch, the social media giant’s answer to YouTube. Having been available only in the US for the past year, Facebook users in the UK,...

YouTube Fights to Retain Social Talent from Social Video Disruptor IGTV

Blog post by Tim Mulligan

24 Jul 2018

IGTV

instagram

Online video

Yesterday news broke about Alphabet-owned YouTube offering lucrative contracts to its top social talent, to ensure that they post their videos first on the video platform. The driving force behind these...

IGTV and How To Make Video Work in The Messaging App Ecosystem

Blog post by Tim Mulligan

26 Jun 2018

facebook

IGTV

instagram

The rise of the messaging app ecosystem over the previous seven years has created a profound challenge for premium video production companies. There are tight creative limitations that come with creating...

Why CNN has Acquired A Video Start Up Founded By A YouTuber

Blog post by Tim Mulligan

29 Nov 2016

AOL

Bebo

Beme

Monday’s announcement by CNN that is has agreed to acquire Beme the social media app created by YouTuber Casey Neistat shouldn’t come as a surprise. The deal represents a tie up of the old media world...