TikTok - Page 7 of 10

“Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical” has grossed over a million dollars

Ticket sales for the virtual performance of “Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical” grossed more than one million US dollars at the premiere. The money will go to the American charity The Actors Fund, which helps employees in need in the fields of film, theater, television, music, opera and dance.

Prominent participants What started in the TikTok community as a funny musical adaptation of the famous Disney-Pixar film about a rat with great cooking ambitions, transformed quickly turned into a full-blown production, in which not only well-known TikTokers but also professional singers and actors like Tituss Burgess (“The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”), Adam Lambert (since 2011 Singers from Queen) and Wayne Brady (“How I Met Your Mother”) and Ashley Park (“Emily in Paris”) participate.

“Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical” premiered on 1. January. The stream should still be available until tomorrow, Monday. Tickets are sold on a “Contribute what you can” basis at prices ranging from $ 5 to 100 US dollars. According to the initiators, the virtual musical has so far reached more than 200 million viewers.

(nij )

New trailers: Land, The Human Voice, and Pretend It’s a City

The best thing I have watched in 2021 so far is the Ratatouille TikTok musical, it’s charming and the performances —by some big Broadway stars— are excellent. If you haven’t purchased your ticket yet (prices are on a pay-what-you-can scale), there’s still time; it will stream until January 4th. Ticket proceeds benefit the Actors Fund, a worthy cause. Be warned that the songs will definitely get stuck in your head, just like any good musical number does.

In other news I just started Bridgerton… will report back. Saucy so far.

It’s kind of slim pickins this week for new trailers, but I found a couple of interesting ones that all happen to feature strong female protagonists, a fine tone to set for 2021.

Pretend It’s a City

It’s no secret that Fran Lebowitz has thoughts about many things, including her native New York City. Martin Scorsese directed this documentary featuring the legendary essayist doing what she does best: opining. She talks about tourists, Times Square, real estate, and notes that “it would take one subway ride for the Dalai Lama to turn into a lunatic, crazy person.” Pretend It’s a City debuts on Netflix January 8th.

The Human Voice

Director Pedro Almodovar makes his English-language debut with The Human Voice, a 30-minute short film based on the Jean Cocteau one-act play of the same name. Tilda Swinton stars as a woman waiting for her ex to return to pick up his luggage (metaphor alert) but he never shows. I’m pretty much down for anything with Tilda in it. The Human Voice is due for release later this year.

Land

Robin Wright directed and stars in this movie about a woman who ventures into the wilderness of the Rocky Mountains to get away from a tragedy— the trailer suggests it has to do with the loss of a child. She underestimates how brutal and difficult it will be to survive on her own and is rescued by a local hunter played by Demian Bichir. Land is slated to be released in theaters February 12th (though it seems likely with everything going on that may get pushed back).

The delightful Ratatouille TikTok musical has already sold more than $1 million in tickets

The TikTok Ratatouille musical— aka the Ratatousical— debuted online on New Year’s Day and has already sold more than $1 million in tickets, in quite the feel-good start to 2021. A portion of the ticket sales will benefit The Actors Fund, which supports performers and workers in the entertainment industry.

The musical came together on TikTok over several months, with creators including composers, fans, set designers, costumers, and choreographers devising musical numbers, songs, and even a fake Playbill for the fictional “show” based on the 2007 Disney/Pixar animated film.

Then suddenly it was actually happening: Seaview Productions announced it was producing the show in association with TikTok, and even Disney/Pixar gave its blessing. The show got some big name Broadway stars to perform the crowdsourced songs, including Wayne Brady going all in with rat makeup as Django, Andrew Barth Feldman as Linguini, Ashley Park as Colette, Kevin Chamberlin as Auguste Gusteau, Andre de Shields as Anton Ego, Adam Lambert as Emile, and Tituss Burgess playing Remy, the rat who loves to cook. The 20-piece Broadway Sinfonietta orchestra was on board as well.

“The Rat’s Way of Life” and “Ratatouille Tango” created by TikToker Blake Rouse are featured in the musical, along with “Anyone Can Cook” and the song that started it all, “Remy the Ratatouille.” It did not have all the glitz and glamour of a high-end Broadway production, but the caliber of the performances given from their homes by the actors, musicians, and dancers (yes, even a kick line!) are top-notch.

Feldman summed it up after the debut: “fantastic.”

Holy. Shit. That was fantastic.

— Andrew Barth Feldman (@andrewbfeldman) January 2, 2021

Near the end of the show, we also get to see many of the TikTok creators who helped bring it all together. I’m not a theater critic by any stretch of the imagination but I love musicals, and I found the Ratatousical to be a creative triumph, sorely needed at a time when Broadway and the rest of the world have been disrupted by the pandemic. And I agree with the critic from The Los Angeles Times who says the show may signal a new way forward for musical theater, one without gatekeepers preventing new talent from having their chance to shine.

Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical

I won’t spoil the plot, but it sticks pretty closely to the original movie’s storyline. You can still get tickets for the one-time only streaming performance, which will be available until 7PM ET on January 4th. I highly recommend you check it out.

Apple pulls iPhone app promoting secret parties during the COVID-19 pandemic

An iOS app called Vybe Together that promoted private parties during the COVID-19 pandemic has been removed from the Apple App Store, had its account on TikTok banned, and scrubbed most of its online presence. The app’s creators told The Verge that Apple was the one to take it off the App Store.

Vybe Together billed itself on TikTok and its website as a place to organize and attend underground parties, using the tagline “Get your rebel on. Get your party on.” Organizers would have to approve everyone who wanted to attend, and the ones that got approved would receive the address two hours before the event. Most of these gatherings would have been illegal under current US pandemic restrictions — which may explain why the app required you to submit a profile for approval before you were allowed on.

Screenshots from the iOS App Store page.

Calling a phone number on Vybe Together’s site connected The Verge with someone who identified themselves as Albin, one of the app’s co-founders. They said that the app had a few thousand users, and that a few thousand additional applicants had requested access to it since the company started putting videos on TikTok. Applying involved submitting your Instagram handle and uploading pictures of you partying to the service, presumably to make sure that you weren’t someone who was going to spill the beans about the events.

Vybe Together largely had a low profile before today, although it was mentioned in at least one EventBrite invitation to a New York party in September. It received wider exposure after The New York Times reporter Taylor Lorenz critically tweeted screenshots of the website and described it as an app for “finding and promoting COVID-unsafe large, indoor house parties.”

Vybe Together’s now-removed FAQ page acknowledged the danger of the pandemic, but it said the app was designed to promote “small gatherings” rather than “big parties.” (Smaller gatherings of people from different households can still spread the coronavirus, creating chains of infection that extend far beyond the original event, putting people who didn’t attend the party at risk.)

It’s unknown whether the app substantially contributed to people holding unsafe events, although it promoted “gatherings every weekend” — including an upcoming New Year’s Eve party — in a TikTok video. The Vybe Together app had only 25 ratings before being removed, and its Instagram page has under 1,000 followers. In a statement to The Verge, TikTok said the account on that platform had only 139 followers when it was removed. The app appears to have launched previously under the name Trendies, a name mentioned on its now largely empty Instagram page.

Vybe Together’s website also advertised a “Vybe House” for the 2021 Zamna Festival music event in Tulum, Mexico. The house’s pictures correspond to an Airbnb listing for a rental called the Casa Remy Villa. However, the listing’s manager couldn’t confirm the existence of a “Vybe House” event to The Verge. “We have rented the villa to some influencers,” said the owner, who had “no idea” if any renters were linked to the app. “But they know parties aren’t allowed of any kind as they are forbidden by authorities during [the] pandemic, with the risk of shutting down the property and a huge fine.” The Airbnb host also notes that the Zamna festival was recently postponed to April — not the January dates listed on its website.

Vybe Together’s Instagram account now contains a single text post. “Blown out of proportion by media,” it reads. “We DO NOT CONDONE LARGE GATHERINGS.”

Update December 29, 8:06 ET: The app’s creators have now clarified that Apple was the one to pull the app from the App Store.

Canon: a gimbal-camera with interchangeable lenses. Here is the patent

The people of vloggers represent a potentially very interesting market for companies engaged in the creation of cameras and camcorders: if mostly video content on YouTube o TikTok are made using a smartphone, those who want to make a real leap in quality are often oriented towards the purchase of specialized equipment.

To capture the needs of vloggers, however, something is needed that together with high video quality (not only in terms of image quality, but also of expressive capabilities that can only arise from a direct control over parameters such as aperture and shutter speeds) also accompany a certain handling.

Sony with its A7C it was the first to put forward a full-frame mirrorless proposal expressly for vloggers, taking the good things done with Sony A7III and condensing it into a compact body with articulated display. This is something quite unprecedented in the panorama of full-frame mirrorless and that goes to attack an audience that, we are sure, other brands will not want to miss.

Canon thinks of vloggers with a camera-gimbal

A patent filed by Canon that outlines a device that winks conspicuously at vloggers but with a completely different setting to that of Sony A7C and very similar to something we have already seen in other forms. In practice it is a sort of gimbal-cam conceptually similar to DJI’s Osmo solutions , but with the possibility of changing the lenses. We can therefore think of a sort of hybrid between a mobile Osmo and a gimbal for traditional cameras. Or maybe something close to Zenmuse solutions, also from DJI.

In the patent drawing you can also see the presence of a hot-shoe for accessories such as flash, which, however, would hinder the proper functioning of the gyroscope-based stabilization system. From this point of view, moreover, also the possible use of lenses seems to be somewhat limited: one thing is to manage standard and relatively light focal lengths, another matter is the use of more massive optics. The particular camera would also seem to have a display, which however seems to be constrained and not rotatable which results in the impossibility of being able to see yourself while you are shooting.

Before letting go of enthusiasm or, on the contrary, easy mockery, it is good to remember that a patent does not necessarily indicate a product that will arrive on the market and that Canon, like many other large companies, exploits the patent mechanism to protect intellectual property even without a concrete desire to translate a concept into reality.

TikTok’s one-night Ratatouille musical will star some of Broadway’s biggest names

Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical has some big Broadway talent on board for its January 1st streaming performance. Adam Lambert, Wayne Brady, Kevin Chamberlin, Mary Testa, and Priscilla Lopez will play key roles, with Tituss Burgess starring as Remy, the sophisticated rat who loves fine food.

The one-time only performance will benefit the Actors Fund. Based on the 2007 Disney-Pixar movie Ratatouille, the musical came together on TikTok, with creators composing songs based on the original film, building the “show” piece by piece. Emily Jacobsen (@e_jaccs) made the original “Remy the Ratatouille” song for TikTok, and composer Daniel Mertzlufft, created the very Broadway-esque arrangement of Jacobsen’s song that really started the ball rolling for a full-blown show. Honestly it’s so good.

“The Rat’s Way of Life” and “Ratatouille Tango” created by TikToker Blake Rouse will be featured in the musical, and the Playbill program created by TikToker Jess Siswick is the musical’s promotional artwork.

TodayTix, which is the ticket vendor for the show, tweeted that “creators are, indeed, being compensated and credited! Our teams are collaborating with them to make this the show of all your dreams.”

Disney isn’t directly involved with development but has apparently given its blessing to the project. As has actor Patton Oswalt, the original voice of Remy.

The show will stream via TodayTix on January 1st at 7PM ET, with ticket prices ranging from $5 to $50. Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical will be available on demand for 72 hours after.

Have fun, take a risk? What Tiktok is all about

Facebook and Instagram were yesterday. Tiktok is the app of the hour. Especially in the so-called Generation Z – i.e. those who were born between 1997 and 2012 – the app is extremely popular. But what actually happens on Tiktok?

Influence over consumption and reactions Tiktok is a video platform on which users can watch short videos or upload them themselves for up to 60 seconds. As soon as you open the app, you are on the “For you page” and the Tiktok algorithm suggests the first video.

“The only way to influence the proposed videos is through the way they consume the video and how long I watch the video, like, comment on or share the video,” explains Adil Sbai, who is the manager works for some well-known tiktokers such as Younes Zarou. Together they wrote the “Tiktok Bible” to explain the app and its functions step by step.

Algorithm success factor The algorithm’s suggestions are very good, Sbai explains a success factor of the app. This can be seen from the fact that people spend a comparatively long time with the app: “The average length of stay on Tiktok is longer than on Instagram, with Generation Z even longer than on Youtube, even though the videos are so short. ”

Tiktok naturally also offers classic functions of a social network, such as writing messages,” liking “and commenting on content. Above all, however, the app is a very creative, universal video production app, says Sbai. Record and cut videos, add effects or integrate other videos and sounds. No problem at all: “Without expensive video equipment, you can tell a lot of stories and stage them with the app.”

Many Tiktok videos revolve around music, comedy or dance. This also has to do with the origin of the app. It emerged 2017 from the karaoke app Musical.ly. Even if videos on more serious topics can be found more and more: Tiktok is primarily an entertainment app, says Sbai. “But that doesn’t mean that the users are apolitical. Fridays for Future and the hashtags that correlate with them are even more popular on Tiktok than on Instagram.”

Private or public All videos are uploaded to Tiktok servers. Users can determine for each individual video whether it is only visible to themselves (private) or potentially for all users (public).

Miriam Ruhenstroth from the consumer protection portal “Mobilicher”. de “criticizes, however, that Tiktok sets user accounts to public by default. “This means that the content produced can be found by all users.” Although you can delete videos that have already been posted, Ruhenstroth said, that does not mean that they are out of the world. Any user could have saved and shared the videos before they were deleted.

If you want to prevent this, you can set your account to “private”. According to Tiktok, only confirmed followers can then see and comment on their own videos.

Users have a range of visual and acoustic effects available to create videos. Videos can be individualized with overlay effects such as color filters or masks, says Iren Schulz, media coach at the “Look out” initiative.

Cooking videos were one small savior of 2020

Early one morning, a week after the pandemic started, chef and food writer J. Kenji López-Alt strapped a GoPro to his head and filmed himself making breakfast. In the video, you can see López-Alt rummaging through his fridge, slicing and frying bacon, and peeling a bit of egg off a pan to give to his excited dog. There’s no recipe beneath the video, no voice-over instructions detailing what we’re seeing — it’s just a guy in a kitchen making breakfast.

Videos like these became both much-needed entertainment and valuable educational resources early in the pandemic, as a world of people realized they would be stuck at home indefinitely with their own (not necessarily stunning) cooking, and a little extra time to put into it. Food and drink streams surged in popularity on Twitch, doubling in hours watched year over year in August, according to StreamElements and Arsenal.gg. On YouTube, “cook with me” videos more than doubled in popularity starting in March and maintained that growth through October, YouTube told the Associated Press.

“It gives [viewers] confidence to do stuff in the kitchen,” said López-Alt, author of The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science. His own videos lack the polish and perfect cuts of a professional show and include the slip-ups he makes along the way. “It gives them permission to make mistakes.”

Cooking shows have been around for a century, but new formats online have revitalized the genre in recent years. On YouTube in particular, you can find step-by-step instructional lessons, personal “cook with me” vlogs, and stomach-churning food challenges like stuffing McDonald’s burgers and nuggets into an oversized burrito. On Twitch, chefs and home cooks broadcast themselves live from their kitchen as they prepare meals. And on TikTok, you can watch videos teaching you how to make a new dish in under a minute.

Many hosts noticed a pickup in views and engagement as the pandemic went on. “It definitely has been skyrocket high with the views on things you can do at home,” Zahria Harvey, whose YouTube channel XO. ZAHRIAAA is known for “cook with me” videos, told The Verge. Harvey says one viewer wrote in about making an affordable date night meal featured on her channel for an anniversary dinner because she couldn’t go out to dinner. “It was like wow, these videos are actually helping a lot of people during this time,” Harvey said.

The influx of new viewers has also meant more live interaction for hosts on Twitch. “I find that the community is way more vocal and involved past March this year,” L.A., a photographer and former sushi chef who runs the channel The Hunger Service, told The Verge. L.A.’s streams typically run for three to four hours and show him preparing and cooking a meal, talking through his process as he’s working. As he cooks, viewers ask questions about the process, like how sharp a knife needs to be or how to turn a recipe vegan.

For López-Alt, who’s known for his Serious Eats column, his channel became a fun outlet for both him and his viewers. The format he locked into — strapping a GoPro to his head — is what made video finally click for him, and it helped him reach viewers who weren’t familiar with his writing. “The food I cook on my channel is stuff I was generally making for lunch and for dinner,” López-Alt said. “I could do it consistently, people seemed to like it, [and] I enjoyed making it.” Viewers told him the videos were a bright spot and were helping them learn how to cook.

Some creators have found that the surge in interest in their channels extends beyond cooking. Remi Cruz, a popular YouTuber who frequently features cooking on her two channels, said that people have been more interested in basically anything you can do at home. For “vlogmas,” she’s been using cooking to fill the gap where she’d normally vlog about outdoor activities and holiday shopping. “I’ve just been implementing some sort of cooking-related thing every day, and people genuinely love it,” Cruz told The Verge.

Viewers won’t always end up cooking what they see, but these videos can still make their time in the kitchen a bit more fun — or at least, distract them while they think about the great meals they’ll eventually go back out to a restaurant and order.

“People are looking for some sort of comfort,” L.A. said. “Comfort food is a thing, and watching these shows can offer that comfort. You may not be making it at the time, but maybe you will.”

There is no ‘best’ time to release new Mandalorian episodes

For the last eight weeks, waking up on Friday morning has come with a gamble for many Star Wars fans: check Twitter to see the latest headlines or watch the new Mandalorian episode before anyone has a chance to spoil it?

This week’s episode of The Mandalorian is a perfect example. The second season finale includes some moments that Twitter’s trending tags and “news for you” curated topic sideline are already ruining. Without getting into spoiler territory here (and use this as a warning to stay away from Twitter if you haven’t seen the finale yet), one of the proposed solutions to this problem seems simple: release the episodes at a later time. Instead of dropping episodes at 3AM ET, why not pivot to 8 or 9PM ET, similar to how Game of Thrones used its 9PM slot on Sundays?

It’s complicated, and it’s important to remember the desire to change the time episodes drop is largely coming from a US audience. There are a couple of key factors to remember here that didn’t impact Game of Thrones quite as much:

Disney Plus is a global streaming service that debuts its originals at the same time in every region
The Mandalorian is a family show, enjoyed by young kids as well as adults
Having episodes up early on Friday gives people the weekend to enjoy if they don’t care about spoilers

Game of Thrones didn’t run into many of these issues. HBO is still a primarily domestic service, with episodes airing in international territories through other carriers (like Sky in the UK) the next day. HBO can focus on its American audience because that’s where the majority of its customers are. Disney can’t. About 25 percent of Disney Plus’ overall subscriber base is signed up through Hotstar in India, and the company is rapidly rolling out the streamer to other big regions, like Latin America. While the US is still a major market, it’s not the sole area Disney has to focus on. And 9PM ET on Sunday is too late or too early for a number of other countries.

Unlike The Mandalorian, Game of Thrones also isn’t a family show. Sure, families could watch it together, but it’s likely not the type of series that parents are sitting down with their seven-year-old child to watch. The Mandalorian is a show that families with young kids watch together — Baby Yoda is more than just a plot device — and 9PM ET is too late. This came up in The Verge’s Slack today when I was complaining about waking up at 6:30AM to watch the episode before starting work, which requires Twitter. 9AM ET is great for the UK crowd (5PM their time), but it’s still early, and it’s even earlier for the West Coast of the US. While it seemed like 7 or 8PM ET would be a good compromise, that means it’s 4PM PT for the West Coast crowd (a little early on Friday) and midnight for people in the UK. Better, and one that I prefer, but not perfect.

Then there’s the most obvious point: not everyone who is watching The Mandalorian is starting their days with Twitter or Instagram or TikTok. They might not even see the spoilers — or they possibly don’t care. What a blissful life! For these Mandalorian fans, having the episode drop early on Friday gives them Friday evening and the entire weekend to watch whenever they want. This question — “What is the best time to release new Mandalorian episodes?” — doesn’t apply to them, really, because they’re not bothered by spoilers.

Is there a good time to release new Mandalorian episodes? Depending on who you ask and where they live, the answer varies — but the reason people are asking for episodes at a certain time doesn’t. Fans want that feeling of appointment viewing back. It’s a phrase that we last used with Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad before it. It’s the anticipation of a new episode (Mandalorian certainly has that) and making sure you’re situated in front a TV or laptop or phone right when the episode begins.

By the time the episode ends, Twitter is full of jokes and gasps depending on what played out over the last few minutes. Friends who have gotten together for watch parties are bouncing. Memes start spreading. Watching a big show feels more like a communal affair than a solitary activity — something we really needed this year. People want The Mandalorian earlier or later because they want to experience it with the world.

The Mandalorian is the biggest TV event of the year. It’s the thing that rolls around every Friday and we bemoan our friends to hurry up and finish watching because we want to talk about it. People are waking up at different times, they’re busy with kids in the morning, or have any number of other priorities that mean they can’t sit down and watch The Mandalorian at 6 or 7 in the morning.

It’s nearly impossible to find a perfect time that works for everyone, so releasing episodes at midnight PT does make the most sense, especially in a streaming-dominant world where preference and choice define the watching experience. It just sucks that an event-type show as big as Mandalorian can’t really ever create the same beautiful, appointment TV, communal viewing experience that Game of Thrones provided. I predict it’s an issue we’ll see grow as the major streamers expand globally. Think Mandalorian and Stranger Things, but again and again.

Netflix adds an audio-only mode to its Android app

Netflix is giving viewers the chance to ignore the visuals of shows and movies entirely and go full audio. In an update first spotted by XDA-Developers and then Android Police, Netflix has started rolling out an audio-only mode for its Android app users.

When watching a video, subscribers will see a “video off” button at the top of the full-screen video player. Once the video is turned off, a blank screen will appear along with all of the playback controls, like a scrub bar, forward and backward buttons, and speed adjustments. You can see that screen below, thanks to Android Police.

Image: Android Police

There’s also an audio-off option in the app’s settings, which lets viewers decide whether they always want the audio off or only when they’re using headphones or external speakers. It’s unclear when all Android users might receive this update; two Verge staffers weren’t able to access the audio-only mode just yet.

This is an intriguing update, though, if only because audio is having a moment. There is, of course, all the buzz around the podcasting industry and Spotify’s efforts to overtake it, but also Twitter launching audio tweets and apps like Clubhouse and TikTok focusing on audio as critical to their success. I wouldn’t have expected Netflix to include an audio-only mode, but if it wants people to spend more time on the app, that means supporting them in situations when they can’t fully give their attention to a screen.

Discord adds mobile screensharing, and it’s perfect for casual hangouts with your friends

Today, Discord is rolling out screensharing to its mobile users. It’s a smart move; earlier this summer, the company’s mobile app was hitting lifetime highs for downloads every day.

Mobile screensharing means that you can just share your screen — and whatever you’re watching — with anyone in a voice channel. That means you can watch everything from TikTok to Twitch with any of your friends from anywhere in the world, in real time. While chatting.

I saw a demo of the feature recently, and more than anything else, I found the simplicity astonishing. In our pandemic year, I’ve spent so much time socializing virtually — sometimes on Discord, sometimes not — and it’s underscored the importance of casual hangouts; spontaneity is one of the many things the pandemic has taken from everyday life.

Features like this one can return a little bit of that back to social interaction, I think, because it allows users to drop in and out whenever. I can screenshare to a Discord voice channel and any of my friends can just join me in whatever I feel like doing, be it Among Us or just scrolling through my camera roll.

Anything that makes it easier to be with people is good, in my book. But given how much time I’ve spent with people in various Discord servers this year, a feature like this one feels quietly revelatory. I miss hanging out on a friend’s couch and talking about nothing in particular; after this year, it’s something I’ll never take for granted again.

This new feature is about as close as technology can get to replicating that feeling.

The year Instagram became Facebook

Instagram spent much of the past eight years fighting to maintain its independence from Facebook. In 2020, the fight was over.

Instagram has rolled out a series of features that are thoroughly Facebookian in nature. They’re largely focused around getting you to use the app for longer (and also tend to feel messy and incomplete). It’s hard not to see this as the moment that Instagram succumbed to Facebook’s worst tendency: a focus on growth at all costs, even if it means making a product that’s less enjoyable to use.

The changes are numerous. Facebook Messenger was integrated into Instagram DMs, a beat-for-beat TikTok clone was created and given its own section within the app, the primary “post a photo” button was tucked away into a corner, and an entire tab was given over to shopping.

The most telling change was one of the less explosive ones: it was a tweak to the app’s classic photo feed. Instagram now displays an endless row of algorithmically recommended posts once you get through the pictures your friends put up. (On my feed, I’m mostly presented with vibey pictures of European models, with some ads mixed in between.)

This is a simple growth hack (see: Facebook injecting news stories and your friend’s friend’s dad’s questionable political group post into your News Feed), but it’s the kind of cheap trick that Instagram had avoided for a decade. It seems plainly antithetical to a goal outlined by Instagram’s founding CEO, Kevin Systrom, who said that any time spent on the app “should be positive and intentional.” At the time, Instagram was adding an alert that told you when you were out of new posts in the feed, which served as a gentle nudge that you might be able to close the app and move on to something else.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg increasingly applied pressure on Instagram over the years to, in essence, play more like Facebook, despite an initial promise to leave the company alone, as detailed in Sarah Frier’s No Filter, a chronicle of Instagram’s rise. The pressure culminated in Instagram’s co-founders walking out the door in late 2018, when they were replaced by Adam Mosseri, who previously ran Facebook’s News Feed. While the app mostly had a quiet 2019 on the surface — it tweaked the camera interface, hid like counts, and restricted more problematic content — behind the scenes, there was a significant shake-up of Instagram’s top leadership taking place, and more orders were starting to come down from Facebook proper, The Information reported last year.

That set the stage for this year, when those changes became visible to users. The home screen layout, which — aside from the addition of story bubbles at the top — had largely stayed unchanged since Instagram’s founding, has been shuffled around to make room for two new initiatives. The most notable of those, Reels, is a TikTok ripoff with no original ideas that’s purely meant to crush an innovative and competing product. The other addition, the Shop tab, presents an underwhelming array of product posts in a way that mixes the confusion of a Pinterest page with the blandness of Google Shopping ads.

None of this is to say Instagram has been “ruined” or even changed all that dramatically on the surface. The app has always been teeming with brands and influencers, Stories had ruthlessly sidelined Snapchat as the hot new app years ago, and Instagram’s aesthetic has long since gone from cultural phenomenon to ubiquitous cliche. It’s still fun to look through your friends’ photos, and the new features aren’t strictly bad — Reels offers creators another avenue to promote their work, and shopping is an obvious, if undercooked, addition to Instagram.

The difference is that so many of Instagram’s prior changes felt like Instagram. In 2020, the changes felt like new services shoehorned into Instagram so that the moment we got bored, we could find our next distraction without closing the app. If that feels familiar, maybe it’s because that’s what Facebook does, too. This year, Instagram didn’t just build more services — its service starting demanding more from you.

Microsoft Surface Duo coming to Europe and Canada in early 2021, gains enhanced TikTok app

Microsoft’s Surface Duo was announced back in August though it’s yet to make its debut outside the US. That will all change in early 2021 when Microsoft plans to bring its dual-screen Android phone to Canada, the UK, France and Germany. This was confirmed via the official Window blog in addition to an enhanced version of the TikTok app for existing Duo users.

Enhanced TikTok and Microsoft Teams apps

Microsoft worked with ByteDance to overhaul its app, allowing users to browse hashtags and profiles on one screen while simultaneously watching videos on the other screen. The blog post also shared a screenshot of new enhancements coming to Microsoft Teams. Microsoft will share more details in early 2021.

Source

The Surface Duo gets better TikTok support and availability outside the US

Microsoft announced in a blog today that its dual screen phone, the Surface Duo, will be getting an “enhanced” TikTok app that takes advantage of its design. The company also announced the Duo will be available outside the US in early 2021.

When The Verge reviewed the Surface Duo, we liked the hardware of the device, but had concerns with its modified Android software. The Duo was buggy at release and didn’t feature many non-Microsoft apps that took advantage of the dual screen setup. The Surface Duo can run normal Android phone apps on either screen, but using the split-screen features Microsoft designed requires specific tailoring.

The group of apps that use Microsoft’s “postures” and multitasking features remains small, but TikTok is a major social media addition.

The new TikTok experience on the Surface Duo.

Image: Microsoft

The company says that TikTok will use both of the Duo’s screens, allowing you to watch the “For You” feed on one screen, while browsing hashtags and searching for videos on the other. Microsoft highlighted the Spotify and Kindle apps when the Duo launched, but TikTok is one of the biggest apps to add full support since then. (Microsoft itself attempted to purchase the company from ByteDance earlier this year.)

In addition to the new app, Microsoft says the Surface Duo will be available for purchase in Canada, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom in early 2021. The company says they’ll have more to share “at the beginning of 2021,” so expect a more specific release date or maybe even an update on the Duo’s larger sibling, the Surface Neo, in the future.

The “enhanced” TikTok app should be available now for Duo owners.

Briefly informed: social media, AI, airlines, astronaut

FTC requests information on the handling of user data from Facebook & Co The US authority for competition law and consumer protection Federal As part of an extensive investigation, Trade Commission asked a total of nine well-known social networks and video streaming companies to provide information on their business practices in connection with the use of user data. Companies include Amazon, Facebook, Reddit, Snap as the parent company of Snapchat, Twitter, Google parent Alphabet, YouTube, Discord, and Bytedance as the TikTok owner. In detail, the FTC is interested in user tracking and the extent to which personal data and demographic information are used for advertising purposes.

Automated AI decisions should be contestable In view of the increasing influence of algorithms on business, society and politics, the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights FRA has spoken out in favor of stricter regulation of systems for artificial intelligence. “AI is not infallible,” said the agency’s director Michael O’Flaherty. It is made by people – and this mistake also happened. Therefore, citizens should know “when AI is used, how it works and how automated decisions can be challenged”.

Our weekday news podcast delivers the most important news of the day compressed into 2 minutes. Anyone who uses voice assistants such as Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant can also hear or see the news there. Simply activate the skill on Alexa or say to the Google Assistant: “Play heise top”.

Airlines prepare for a new start The outgoing General Director of the global airline association IATA, Alexandre de Juniac, has once again put huge pressure on to restart the aviation industry in to accelerate the coming months with the help of mass corona rapid tests. The pandemic took the airlines with it almost last year, but so far only a few have gone under. Only if the corona vaccines, which are about to receive European approval, are distributed quickly and significantly more passengers are allowed to travel with the help of negative rapid tests, the IATA expects by the middle of the year 2021 a recovery in ticket demand.

ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer should 2017 Fly to the ISS with SpaceX Matthias Maurer should 2021 to be flown by SpaceX to the International Space Station as the second ESA astronaut. The German will then live for six months on the outpost of humanity and carry out scientific experiments, said the European Space Agency. Maurer was 2015 accepted into the ESA astronaut corps and has been since 2017 officially part of the team. He is the only one in the group – to which Alexander Gerst also belongs – who has not yet been in space.

(igr)