Category: Tech

Snap Inc. announced its new slate of Snap Originals, the company’s premium, mobile shows created exclusively for Snapchat’s audience. Snap’s new shows will be available globally on Snapchat’s Discover page, one of the industry’s leading made-for-mobile video platforms.

New Snap Originals will begin airing May 2019 and include a range of genres including serialized scripted dramas and comedies, character-driven docuseries, unscripted social commentary, and more. Snap is partnering with some of the industry’s next and best creators to continue to define mobile storytelling. Production partners include Bunim/Murray Productions, Dakota Pictures, New Form, and Bazelevs, as well as established film and television writers and producers.

Snap’s new slate announced today includes:

• Two Sides – (New Form) – A young couple navigates a breakup in this innovative series told from both characters’ points of view at the same time. Scripted series launches May 2019.
• Commanders – (Dakota Pictures) – In this comedy, two teenage outcasts discover a mysterious code within a retro computer that can alter real life. When they decide to use this newfound power to disrupt the cliché social structure, their high school will never be the same. Scripted series launches June 2019.
• Untitled BuzzFeed Daily Show – (BuzzFeed) – BuzzFeed’s daily afternoon show brings viewers the latest celebrity, entertainment, and OMG moments blowing up the internet. Launches Spring 2019.
• Sneakerheads – (Indigo Development and Entertainment Arts and EMJAG Productions) – A comedy that follows the misadventures of three college freshmen as they navigate the crazy, shady, mercurial world of Los Angeles sneaker culture. Scripted series launches June 2019.
• While Black – (Indigo Development and Entertainment Arts and Main Event Media) – Author, filmmaker, recording artist, and educator MK Asante explores racially charged social issues through candid conversations. Unscripted social commentary launches Summer 2019.
• Can’t Talk Now – (New Form) – A teen soap that takes place inside the phones of a group of high school freshman BFFs as juicy drama unfolds across group texts, video chats, and social media. Scripted series launches Summer 2019.
• Compton Dreams – (October Films) – Follow the highs and lows of three up-and-coming artists from Compton as they strive to become the next big name in hip-hop. Docuseries launches Summer 2019.
• Denton’s Death Date – (Insurrection Media) – This comedy, set in a world where everyone knows the exact day they are going to die, centers on Denton Little, a high school junior whose death date is only a week away. Denton finally starts living his life to the fullest when a series of strange events unfold that may be the key to avoiding his fate. Based on the novel by Lance Rubin. Scripted series launches September 2019.
• Stranded with Sam and Colby – (Bunim/Murray Productions) – A pair of influencers film from a haunted location and what starts as something fun quickly takes a terrifying turn. Docuseries launches Fall 2019.
• Dead of Night – (Bazelevs in association with Hooked) – Armed with only her phone, a teenage girl must escape a quarantined city full of zombies. Shot in ScreenLife, exclusively from the point of view of the smartphone screen. Based on a Hooked story. Produced by Bazelevs in association with Hooked. Scripted series launches October 2019.

In addition, Snap announced today it will be renewing the following serialized Snap Originals: Endless Summer by Bunim/Murray Productions, Deep Creek by Woodman Park Productions, an All3Media America company, and The Dead Girls Detective Agency by Indigo Development and Entertainment Arts, Insurrection Media, and Keshet.

Snap launched Discover in January 2015 as a place for Snapchatters to explore premium content from an editorial perspective. Rooted in the creativity of its community and facilitated by the unique power of the Snapchat camera, Discover pioneered the first Story format and vertical video content orientation now being adopted by other platforms. Today, Discover features mobile magazines (called Publisher Stories), and Shows from hundreds of creative partners around the world.

Snap unveiled its first slate of serialized Snap Originals in October 2018. Season one of Endless Summer was watched by over 28 million unique viewers, and over 40% of the users that completed the first episode of The Dead Girls Detective Agency went on to watch the entire first season.

Snap Originals are available on the Discover page to Snapchat users globally. Each episode averages five minutes in length and brands can purchase Commercials within these shows, Snap’s six-second, non-skippable ad format. For more on Snap Originals.

Uber and Careem drivers called on social media for a strike to protest low share of fare, along with five more demands. The strike set to take place for four days from Feb 20 to 24.

A Facebook group named “Let it go bankrupt” has 1,100 members, who are actively sharing their demands and concerns on public.

The group has six main demands:

1. Increase the share of fare for drivers
2. Increase the minimum fare to EGP 10 instead of EGP 6
3. Decrease the company’s share to 15%
4. Add photo and national ID to customers’ accounts
5. Allow drivers to reject five requests per day without impacting their rating
6. Allow drivers to discuss complaints before blocking them from the app

One of the striking drivers shared the details of a 70 km trip that took him two hours and a half to earn EGP 170, i.e., US $9.6 – after Uber’s cut.

More updates to follow.

I’m Allan, an avid surfer and traveler. I wanted to share my experience of how I earned $300 on my trip from Miami to São Paulo. Apparently, getting paid to travel is not too good to be true.

I discovered Grabr a while ago. The basic idea is, shoppers order common products sold abroad and if you happen to be traveling to their city, you can offer to buy and deliver their order to earn some money.

I thought my trip to São Paulo would be a great chance to try this out. 3 weeks before my flight, I created a trip on Grabr and started making delivery offers. It definitely makes it easier to start this as soon as possible so you have time to get more of your offers accepted.

My advice is, feel free to make more offers because not every offer you make may be accepted. I refreshed the São Paulo order page a few times a day to find new orders. Once a shopper accepts your offer, they pay for their product and your delivery reward into Grabr’s escrow account so you don’t have to worry about them changing their mind.

Earn Money Every Time You Travel

My goal was to earn a decent amount with the deliveries. Plus I wanted to qualify for the $100 bonus (you earn an additional $100 if you deliver 10 orders or more on your trip). After my offers were accepted, I ordered the products online (mostly from Amazon) and had them shipped to my home. This part is pretty easy because all the products just arrive at your doorstep.

After I received my orders, I started unboxing them so I could fit everything into my suitcase. I even did a bit of recycling. 🙂 Then it was off to São Paulo!

When I arrived, I messaged all of my shoppers and gave them a few time windows and places to meet at. Everything went perfectly and all of my shoppers were super nice. It was a great feeling to make someone’s day! One guy had the biggest smile after receiving his favorite hoodie from Deus Ex Machina.

All of my shoppers confirmed their deliveries in person and I received the payments a few days later. You get reimbursed for all the products and receive your rewards for each delivery. I also got the $100 delivery bonus because I delivered 11 products (you need to deliver at least 10 orders on one trip to qualify.) All in all, I got an extra $300 spending money to enjoy my São Paulo trip!

Grabr

If you’re traveling somewhere this year, I would recommend giving this a shot. There are shoppers who publish orders from almost every part of the world, so you should be able to find something to deliver no matter where you’re flying.

See what you can deliver

In a new step toward transparency on the platform. Facebook has announced today a new update to Pages info section. The update aims to make Pages more transparent by providing information that helps people learn more about Pages on Facebook.

In a notification appeared today on the platform, Facebook said that “We’re going to show more info about pages”.

The Page info section has details from Facebook about Page activity and the people who manage a Page. These Page details will be shown on all the Pages.

Starting on 12 December 2018, people visiting Pages will see additional information in the “Info & Ads” section, including the date that the Page was created, and the country locations where people who manage the Page are based.

In July, Facebook introduced a new section to Pages called “Info & Ads”, which allows users to see all active ads run by a page, in addition to the Page creation date and previous name changes.

People who visit your Page will see:

Page history

• Date the Page was created.
• The Page’s previous name changes.

Merges with other Pages

• Page merges that occurred after 6 September 2018.

People who manage the Page

• A list of countries and the number of people based in each location.

Facebook won’t show any personal information, such as your name or profile photo, unless you’ve chosen to share it on other parts of your Page.

With over 3-million rides in one year, the on-demand ride hailing app for Tuk-tuk and motorcycle, Halan has dominated the unserved communities across Egypt.

Covering different governorates in Egypt including Cairo, Alexandria, Delta and Upper Egypt, Halan plans to expand operations to cover all untapped areas in the country.

In an interview with Digital Boom, Mounir Nakhla, CEO and founder of Halan said “I launched Halan to solve a real problem, to serve a real need in the market.”

He added “while other people were looking at informal and rural communities as spaces full of challenges and poverty, my experience with micro-finance in underserved markets showed me how much wealth and opportunity there is. Halan is a technology solution that is built to put people first and improve their livelihoods. All over the country, it moves people and goods safely, efficiently, and economically and generates thousands of jobs. We will use this round of funding to expand to more cities and more countries, offer more services, and to build better technology.”

Halan was founded in October 2017, by Mounir Nakhla as CEO and Ahmed Mohsen CTO, later, Mohamed Aboulnaga joined the company as CCO and Dina Ghabbour as CMO.

In mid 2018, Halan raised a multi million dollar Series A funding round, led by Battery Road Digital Holdings and Algebra Ventures as well as strategic partners.

With over 500K downloads on the Google Play Store and 3 million rides in one year, Halan is considered the fastest growing app in Egypt.

Company data breaches have gone up a whopping 75% in the past two years, according to a report published in 2018 by risk management firm Kroll.

If that’s not enough to make you think deeply about the security of your own company’s data, this next statistic might.

The same report states that 88% of the incidents reported, 2,124 cases, were attributable to human error, compared to only 12%, or 292 cases, being caused by cyber-attacks.

It’s time for businesses to face the facts. While cyber-attacks are difficult to predict and control, human error isn’t. Human beings are prone to make mistakes, and just one mistake can leave your data vulnerable and put your entire company at risk.

What companies need is a system that compensates for human error and makes changes swiftly, effectively and automatically.

The good news is that acquiring and implementing such a solution has never been easier than it is today. Even the best IT and security team in the world simply won’t be able to protect you in the ways that an automatic digital IT management software can.

One company that learned this the hard way in 2017 was Equifax.

The Equifax Data Breach

In September 2017, it came to light that a massive data breach at the consumer credit monitoring agency, Equifax, led to hackers walking away with names, social security numbers, credit card numbers and more, for as many as 148 million of its customers.

Not only did the company handle the breach poorly after the fact, it turns out that the poor management of their network is what caused the breach in the first place.

“We know that criminals exploited a U.S. website application vulnerability. The vulnerability was Apache Struts CVE-2017-5638,” Equifax said in an update on the website is set up to handle the breach.

Apache Software Foundation, the company that owned the open-source application Equifax referenced, further confirmed that the breach was preventable in their statement on their blog, “The Equifax data compromise was due to their failure to install the security updates in a timely manner.”

Most software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies today, like Apache, license their software out to users, but provide continuous updates to add new features, fix any issues and make their programs more secure. It is important that users install these updates as soon as they’re released to ensure that they have the maximum protection available.

When Apache released the update mentioned, no one at Equifax had installed it. This left their system vulnerable to attack.

Once hackers noticed, well, we all know how that turned out.

What Would Have Saved Equifax?

Simple answer? Eliminate the chance for human error by adopting patch management software.

Specifically, an automated patch management software from a company like Cloud Management Suite (CMS), which automatically keeps desktops, laptops, and remote users up-to-date with security patches and software updates.

The automated nature of such security software means that it is working constantly to check your network for potential vulnerabilities before you do, and updating where needed to prevent situations like these.

In Equifax’s case, when Apache pushed out its security updates, CMS would have automatically detected the update and installed it at the most optimal time, such as nighttime when all employees are out-of-office. This would have required limited to no input from busy IT personnel and protected the company from the massive loss it incurred. Ironically, it’s reasonable to assume that the solution to the vulnerability would have been installed when the responsible IT personnel were fast asleep at home.

Don’t Let Data Breaches Happen to You

Data breaches don’t only happen to your customers, they happen to you. The disastrous effects can impact your company’s reputation and profitability for a long time after the panic has died down.

Stop wasting your energy on blaming employees for human errors and start investing in the technology necessary to safeguard your company data. Patch management software is easy to access and readily available, so there’s no reason to delay.

These attacks are happening now, and your company could be vulnerable. Ignore the warnings, or you risk playing the starring role in the next Equifax saga.

Image Source: Soumil Kumar | Pexels

Today Snapchat is launching a global Lens Creative Partners program designed to connect brands with augmented reality (AR) experts and Lenses creators. The program certifies 30+ creators, from large agencies to expert individuals, who’ve been building engaging, immersive AR Lenses for Snap since Lens Studio’s launch. In total, Snapchat expects to onboard 100+ creators over the next several months.

Snapchat aims to give brands easy access to expert AR ad creators, no matter their budget, brand, or location. By expanding its network of skilled creators, Snapchat is continuing to lower the barrier for brands to create and run sponsored AR while simultaneously championing (and helping monetize) the creative AR community. These certified creators are experienced in developing quality AR. They have completed a rigorous course about the development process, creative best practices, ad policies, and buy models for sponsored AR Lenses on Snapchat.

Within the Middle East, Leo Burnett, TBWA, and Saatchi & Saatchi have already come on board as Lens Creative Partners.

AR on Snapchat

Augmented Reality is a key part of the Snapchat app — over 70 million people play with AR “Lenses” on the app per day. Each of those daily users averages 3 minutes doing so, which adds up to 500 years of daily AR play time on the app.

The Lens Studio ecosystem is also thriving. To date, over 250,000 Lenses have been submitted through the tool, which has been viewed by Snapchatters over 15 billion times.

This is because Snapchat’s home screen is a camera that invites users to create, rather than more passively, scroll through a feed of content. That design choice helped Snapchat pioneer ‘talking with pictures’ (a core use of the app) and popularize augmented reality for the masses – like the famous puppy face or dancing hot dog.

Lenses became a viral hit for advertisers in late 2015, as millions of users began choosing to play with brand campaigns that turned their heads into tacos, dunked them with Gatorade, and so on. Lenses can massively boost awareness or sales for a brand, product, film — as the average user plays with a Lens for 10-15 seconds and can then send that fun Snap to their friends, which is a powerful recommendation.

Snapchat has continued to evolve the format, launching 3D World (object) Lenses last year after the famous dancing hot dog Lens’ success. In April, the company launched ‘Shoppable AR,’ a new type of AR Lens advertising that, in addition to boosting awareness, adds a button user can tap to browse a product page, download an app, or watch a movie trailer. This feature, combined with the Snap Pixel released for all advertisers in June, allows advertisers to measure the return on their investment by tracking the purchases made after engaging with the AR ad.

Adweek wrote on the highly efficient pricing and ROI this summer, now that Lenses have a full suite of targeting and measurement: “Advertisers can pay between $10 and $14 for 1,000 AR lens plays with no minimum ad buy. Another option is a Snap ad that requires users to swipe up to unlock an AR feature. Those are even cheaper, ranging between $3 and $5 per 1,000 impressions.

According to Nielsen Catalina, the campaigns seem to work. The measurement company—which recently expanded its partnership with Snap for increased ad-targeting—measured 22 CPG brand campaigns and found an average sales lift of 10 percent. Nielsen’s in-app polling also found that lenses increased ad awareness by 19 points while increasing brand lift by 7 points.

“We are excited to be a launch partner for the Creative Lens Partner program with Snapchat. AR offers us the opportunity to bring ideas to life in more unexpected and immersive ways, and we’re thrilled to be partnering with Snapchat to bring their knowledge and expertise in-house across our region,” said Noah Khan, Regional Head of Digital and Innovation – CEE, Africa and the Middle East, TBWA.

Spotify, the music streaming service, has launched in the Middle East and North Africa. The app is now available for download on ios and android in Egypt and the MENA region.

Spotify premium costs EGP49.99 per month for the individual subscription in Egypt.

The official launch date remains unconfirmed. However, we will keep you posted with updates.

Update: Spotify is now available in the Middle East and North Africa.

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