BBTV Holdings says it’s trimmed its workforce by 14% following a cost optimization initiative resulting in a more focused resource allocation towards key high margin revenue drivers, specifically across its Plus Solutions including Content Management, Direct Advertising Sales and Mobile Gaming Apps. Shareholders in the Vancouver-headquartered creator monetization solutions provider are being told to expect to see the positive impact of these changes on performance starting from Q3 2022 onwards. BBTV says it will continue to review the performance of its operations for opportunities to operate more efficiently and further close the gap to profitability.
Twitter is testing Notes in Canada, a new feature that allows users to publish longform written content on the platform. Notes will give writers on Twitter the chance to go beyond 280 characters for the first time, using a rich-text editor to capture articles, thought pieces, and other kinds of content, including photos, videos, GIFs, and Tweets. To start, Twitter is partnering with a small group of writers from Canada, the U.S., the UK, and Ghana to test drive the feature. These writers will have a Notes tab on their profile on the web. Notes comes via a new team at Twitter called Twitter Write, focused on building tools so readers and writers can get the most out of Twitter. The platform says that includes journalists, authors, but also bloggers, newsletter publishers, comedians, content creators, social media managers, poets, screenwriters, or anyone else with something to say.
Reuters Institute and the University of Oxford have released their 2022 Digital News Report, which finds while many publishers had a relatively good year with increased revenue, future growth is likely to be challenged by inflation and rising energy prices, squeezing household budgets currently devoted to paying for news and potentially impacting advertising revenues. While the majority of people remain engaged and use news regularly, the report finds many are also increasingly choosing to limit their exposure to it. The growth of “selective news avoidance” is cited as a possible explanation as to why consumption levels have mostly not increased, despite the uncertain times in which we live, with news avoidance doubling in Brazil (54%) and the UK (46%) since 2017. Facebook remains the most-used social network for news but users are more likely to say they see too much news in their feed compared with other networks. TikTok has become the fastest growing network in this year’s survey, reaching 40% of 18–24s, with 15% using the platform for news.
Newsroom AI, a London, UK-based content creation platform has expanded its technology portfolio with a new Conversational Content product under the name of Public. The new offering complements the company’s Stories creation suite, licensed by The Guardian, Yahoo, Google, Seven West Media, and Lonely Planet. Public will allow creators to publish a new form of choose-your-own-adventure web experience, allowing consumers to engage with editorial or brand-supported content through Whatsapp, Telegram or WeChat. The company encourages creators to embrace a more direct, conversational communication style to help build more meaningful bonds with audiences exhausted by the media and technology landscape.
