iWorld
ABP continues to capture most video views on Facebook in Aug ’17: Vidooly
MUMBAI: For the second month on the trot, it has stayed at the top. Repeating its performance of July 2017, the Hindi news TV channel ABP News, has netted the most viewed videos, according to Vidooly’s most popular ‘Facebook Video Publishers’ from India report for August 2017.
ABP News was the numero uno on the list with around 290 million views, even as sister channels — ABP Live and ABP Majha — captured the fifth and sixth slots with 132 million and 120 million views, respectively.
Aaj Tak came a close second with around 227 million total views for its videos. Dainik Bhaskar was at the third position with 202 million views, and Vijay Television at No 4 with 140 million views.
Star Plus occupied the 22nd spot with 50 million views while Zee News occupied the 26th position with 48 million views. IndiaTV News was at the 29th position with 42 million views.
Dainik Jagran stood at number 21 with a total viewership of 51 million leaving behind News18 Hindi at the 33rd spot. The business channel Quint was placed at the position of 59, Times Now remained at the position of 100, garnering only 12 million views on its page in August.
Video marketing and analytics software Vidooly has launched a report that analyses top Facebook pages from India that focus on online videos. The ranking is based on the number of views clocked only for the month of August 2017 and does not consider pages of political parties/personalities, pages that freeboot videos or only upload video memes, pages of movie stars, singers or brands like Amazon, Cadbury, etc.
The report has been broadly categorised into eight major genres — food, lifestyle, new age entertainment, traditional entertainment, new age news, traditional news, independent creators, and sports creators. And, it rates pages according to popularity (number of likes) and video viewership.
In the sports category, SportsKeeda Wrestling generated more viewership than ESPNCricinfo and Cricbuzz while Lallantop continued to remain the most viewed Facebook page in the category of new-age news.
National Geographic India became the top channel in traditional entertainment with 61 million Facebook page likes beating Zoom, MTV India and Colours channel.
In the traditional news space, Hindi news channel Aaj Tak became the most liked page on Facebook followed by ABP News and Dainik Jagran in the second and third places, respectively.
Vidooly will soon launch its report for YouTube Creators for the month of September. It will be interesting to see that report to find how well are Youtubers leveraging the digital platform.
iWorld
Snapchat parent Snap cuts 16 per cent of workforce in AI-driven restructuring
The Snapchat parent is axing around 1,000 jobs and closing 300 open roles to save $500m, as artificial intelligence makes smaller teams the new normal
CALIFORNIA: Snap is snapping. The Snapchat parent has confirmed plans to cut around 1,000 employees, roughly 16 per cent of its full-time workforce, as it bets that artificial intelligence can do what headcount once required. Shares jumped more than 10 per cent in premarket trading on the news, a brisk vote of confidence from a market that has watched the stock shed about 31 per cent this year.
The restructuring, which also closes more than 300 open roles, follows pressure from activist investor Irenic Capital Management, which holds an economic interest of about 2.5 per cent in the company and has been loudly pushing Snap to tighten its portfolio and lift performance. The firm got what it asked for, and then some.
Chief executive Evan Spiegel told employees the cuts would reduce annualised expenses by more than $500m by the second half of the year. The company expects to incur charges of between $95m and $130m related to the layoffs, mostly severance, with the bulk landing in the second quarter. Staff in Snap’s North America team were asked to work from home on the day of the announcement.
The financial backdrop is not without bright spots. Snap expects first-quarter revenue to rise around 12 per cent to approximately $1.53 billion, broadly in line with analyst estimates. Adjusted core profit for the January to March quarter is forecast at about $233m, comfortably ahead of Wall Street’s expectation of $186.8m.
The harder question surrounds Specs, Snap’s augmented reality smart glasses subsidiary, which Irenic has urged the company to spin off or shut down entirely. The unit has absorbed more than $3.5 billion in investment and burns through approximately $500m in cash annually. Snap is pressing ahead regardless, with a consumer product expected later this year, even as Meta leads the market in the segment.
Spiegel is betting that leaner teams, smarter machines and a consumer AR play can restore Snap’s credibility with investors who have run out of patience. The redundancy notices have gone out. The harder restructuring, the one that requires a hit product rather than a headcount reduction, is still very much pending.
