Read our latest daily deep dives, hot takes, and exciting updates about the entertainment world. Check out the latest insight from your favourite analyst, or search by coverage areas - music, entertainment and fandom, creator economy and social.

Snapchat Imitations Are a Red Herring - Tencent Is Who Facebook Truly Want to Emulate

Zach Fuller
Snapchat has gone public, yet investors are still cagey on the company's IPO in response to Facebook’s regular copying of the ephemeral image-based app. Such is the extent of this that in response to the S1 filing, there was a popular meme on LinkedIn suggesting Snapchat going public was even more impressive when ‘CEO Evan Spiegel has simultaneously now been the Chief Product Officer at Facebook for over a year’.
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Differentiating Full-Stack Media and Tech Ecosystems

Zach Fuller
Two key developments in digital media that MIDiA Research has addressed over the past year are the emergence of both full-stack media and the tech ecosystem. These shifts in the digital life have recently emerged to define many people’s purchasing and social lives online, and whilst they share similarities, it is important from a strategic perspective for those operating in the space to recognise the distinctions between the two: Tech Ecosystems Technology ecosystems are product platforms defined by the core components built into the platform by theirowners.
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Four Companies That Could Buy Spotify

Mark Mulligan
For much of 2016 it looked nailed on that Spotify would IPO in 2017 and that the recorded music industry would move onto its next chapter, for better or for worse. The terms of Spotify’s $1 billion debt raise (which mean that Spotify pays an extra 1% on its 5% annual interest payments every six months beyond its previously agreed IPO date) suggest that Spotify was thinking the same way too.
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YouTube Unleashes The Power Of Live Streaming

Tim Mulligan
Yesterday YouTube announced that it was opening up live streaming to its creator community who have a following of 1,000 or more on the YouTube platform. The new service called “Super Chat” allows users of the service to “get a creator’s attention” by buying a variety of emoji and chat messages which are then pinned to the top of the chat window for up to five hours.
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