We Are All Truman Now.

YouTube Tests Automatic Product Detection in Videos

One of my favourite movies is The Truman Show, made in 1998.

It’s a comedy-drama starring Jim Carrey, where he’s the star of a TV show he doesn’t know he’s in. Since birth, thousands of hidden cameras follow him. The sun isn’t real. Stores he’ll never go into are just facades.

The best moments of this film are the gloriously ridiculous product placements. Like in the scene below (SKIP TO 1:03), where he’s fighting with his wife (who he doesn’t know is actually an actress hired to be his wife) and she turns around an awkwardly plugs a brand of cocoa:

We keep moving ever closer to this as our reality.

And now, YouTube is testing something that might bring us as close as we’ve ever been.

They announced this week they’re:

Of course e-commerce integration is all but an obsession with pretty much every platform these days.

• Almost a year ago, they started testing a "products in this video" feature for users to see more information about products mentioned in a video. 

• Last June, Google released shoppable video ads specifically for YouTube.

• Instagram launched "Shopping in Reels" last year, a few months after TikTok put their version out.

Instagram Engagement Study

Some new research from SocialInsider has some good info for those of you who use Instagram in your marketing efforts.

Here are the key findings:

• The engagement rate on the platform was flat in 2019, followed by a notable increase during the first half of 2020, only to go down to the initial rate of around 22% after that.

• Higher Instagram engagement is mainly brought by carousels, especially for small accounts (under 5K), but when it comes to medium ones, it’s better to choose video.

• Shorter captions, up to 10 words, combined with carousels form the posts with which users prefer to interact. But — captions with more than 30 words are better paired with videos.

• Carousels are getting more likes than any other media type.

• People are more open to comment on video posts across all profile sizes.

The data come from more than 100 million Instagram business posts. 

Pundits Look to Maryland’s “Digital Ad Tax” 

Pundits, marketing executives, and constitutional experts all have their eyes on Maryland right now, as the state has imposed a tax on digital advertising revenues.

It became law last month after legislators overrode the Governor’s veto of the bill.

There’s a good chance it won’t affect you, since there’s no tax for any organizations with gross revenues under $100 million a year. But at the high end — if you make $15B a year — Maryland plans to take 10%.

Lobby groups for the tech industry quickly filed a lawsuit challenging it. Among their arguments: It’s unconstitutional.

I mention it only to put a flag on the story to watch, since if this law gets upheld, you can almost certainly see other American states put their own version in.

Watch this space.

Almost Nobody Is Going Back to the Office

Stunning findings from a survey of 4700 professionals has found that after a year of remote work — only 13% say they expect to return to an office full-time.

This was a broad survey, polling people in a dozen countries across North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

More than half reported that their workload has increased over this year of pandemic lockdowns.

And 7 out of 10 said their employer was working on some kind of work-at-home scheme or other digital transformation.

The study was done by UserTesting. 

Is Clubhouse Already Done?

The Internet is full of cool sites that got a lot of traction and eyeballs, and then were just as quickly abandoned. 

Is Clubhouse — the audio-only broadcast platform — destined to be one of those?

The app download tracking site Sensor Tower reports that Clubhouse's downloads have been dropping over the last few weeks. They’re down at rank 172 today.

The reason? Maybe Twitter’s entry into the space, with a tool they call Spaces. 

Let’s call it what it is — it is a Clubhouse clone, right down to the design of the rooms.

And when it launches it will bring with it a massive existing user base.

Even now, Clubhouse isn’t available on Android at all. Even if you have an iPhone, you still need an invitation from a friend to even get in.

Maybe that’s why Twitter today announced it's raised the limit on how many users can access Spaces via Android.

As SocialMediaToday.com noted:

Those “Rate and Review” Pleas Won’t Help Your Favourite Podcast’s Ranking

You may podcast hosts ask you to rate and review their show. (Okay, I’ve done it too.)

We do it because the more ratings and reviews we have, the higher up Apple’s all-important Top Shows charts it’ll go, right?

Well, actually, no.

Podnews.com says that actually doesn’t factor in at all.

Quoting from their piece:

So there you go.

That said, please rate and review this podcast. 😉

Have a restful weekend!