We take a weekly look at mobile tech stories from around the world. Headlines include… Meta Platforms realistic over Reality Labs future, Spam is about to get even more terrible, Privacy Advocates Raise Concerns with New Mobile Driver’s Licenses and more…
Meta Platforms realistic over Reality Labs future
Mobile World Live
Mobile World Live reports on Meta’s latest earnings performance review in which Meta predicts Reality Labs’ (their AR/VR business unit) losses to “increase meaningfully” because of ongoing AR/VR product development.
It wasn’t all bad news though as ad revenue rose 24% to $33.6bil, and their short video platform Reels had driven over 40% increase in time spent on Instagram.
It was also stated that AI language Llama 2 enjoyed over 30 million downloads making it the leading open source model.
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Spam is about to get even more terrible
Tech Crunch
In other AI news, Tech Crunch reports how spammers are starting to use generative AI to create ever more convincing spam and phishing messages that will more easily fool users thanks to their personalised, polished appearance.
While a purely anecdotal piece at this point the insight is undoubtedly accurate and we will all need to be increasingly vigilant to spot fake emails and messages trying to con us into clicking that link or sharing that bit of information.
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Privacy Advocates Raise Concerns with New Mobile Driver’s Licenses
JDSupra
JDSupra shares a report that concerns about mobile driver’s licenses in the US have arisen following the Transportation Security Administration (TSA)’s proposal to waive real life licenses in favour of state sponsored mobile apps or having the license in Google or Apple wallets.
Concerns for privacy stem from the way different states would capture and protect the sensitive personal data, and that there is no agreed standardisation across the states. Privacy advocates the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) are warning the move may put consumers’ personal information at risk.
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PPC ads: search in decline, social on the rise – report
Mobile Marketing Magazine
Mobile Marketing Magazine shares findings from DataFeedWatch.com that show a 7 percentage point drop in the use of search-based channels by advertisers in 2023, as well as a rise in social media channel usage.
“Moving to social media is a global trend,” said Jacques van der Wilt, General Manager of Feed Marketing at DataFeedWatch.com. “In this case, pay-per-click advertising is following customers reactively. The most impressive growth can be seen with TikTok, but most large social channels have increased their advertising shares at the expense of the Search channels like Google or Bing.”
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How TikTok is using data to convince gaming brands to spend on the platform
Digiday
TikTok is also working hard to entice gaming brands to advertise on its platform, with the release of research report examining their role as a marketing and discovery platform for brands in the space.
“If you look across multiple categories, all the way from feta to Sky High Mascara, or any other product that became a trend on TikTok, you can see a flywheel effect, where people see content, they buy the product, they record content or create their own entertainment video, and then other people get exposed, and it drives that. I think anything that goes above, say, 50 million is going to see a significant economic impact on it. “
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Nearly 6 in 10 Consumers Who Use Mobile Wallets to Pay Bills Face Difficulties
PYMNTS
PYMNTS reports that while mobile wallets can be hugely convenient to pay for goods and services, the process of paying bills is less simple.
A report from the website done in collaboration with ACI Worldwide, found that 58% of users experienced difficulties when paying bills using a mobile wallet in the last year.
The report shares lots more insights into users experiences with mobile billing and is worth a read.
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Global SMS authentication traffic to only grow by 4% next year
Capacity Media
Capacity shares news from Juniper research that SMS authentication traffic will not grow as much next year as it has done consistently in previous years.
This is attributed to issues around fraudulent activity and artificially inflated traffic with rising business costs.
“If operators are unable to reduce prices and fraud on their messaging networks, they risk losing vital authentication traffic and revenue to other channels,” Juniper Research said.
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