Why Data Privacy Rules will Disrupt Digital Advertising

Of more than 2,500 people surveyed, 83% thought regulation was needed – and 62% believed it was on the way within the next few years. Older respondents were most in favour of Wall Street-style controls on Silicon Valley, with 62% for, in comparison with 47% of Gen X, and 44% of millennials.

via World Economic Forum

Exploring the Facebook Data Harvesting Fiasco

Hundreds of millions of Facebook users are likely to have had their private information harvested by companies that exploited the same terms as the firm that collected data and passed it on to Cambridge Analytica, according to a new whistleblower.

via The Guardian

U.S. Social Media Study Shows Shifting Platform Use

The number of Facebook users will rise less than 1 percent to 169.5 million in 2018, driven by adoption among older age groups. However, there will be declines between 5.6% and 9.3% among users under 25, for a loss of 2.1 million.

via eMarketer

U.S. Marketers Still Trying to Buy Mind-Share with Ads

Regardless of the consistently poor results, U.S. social network advertising spending will surpass $21 billion, accounting for 25.5% of all digital ad spending. By 2019, social ad spending will top $31 billion, making up 29.4% of digital ad spending.

via eMarketer

UK Considers Classifying Google and Facebook as Publishers

Karen Bradley, the UK culture secretary, has said the government is considering changing the legal status of Google, Facebook and other internet companies amid growing concerns about copyright infringement and the spread of extremist material online.

Source: The Guardian

Social Media Advertising Results Expose the Harsh Reality

Very few U.S. internet users have made a purchase based on ads they saw on social platforms, like Facebook or Snapchat. In fact, just 1% of survey respondents said they made a purchase based on a Snapchat ad they saw, and only 4% said they bought anything based on an Instagram advert.

Source: eMarketer

Hyperscale Cloud Providers Invest $16.9 Billion in 2016

Consumer demand for cloud-based services drive investment in data centers. Across the globe, the largest consumer cloud service providers continue to add more and more capabilities to expand their offerings, thereby making it very difficult for the remaining me-too providers to compete with them.

Source: Digital Lifescapes

Why Mobile Messaging Adoption Expands Worldwide

More than half of the entire population of South Korea already use messaging apps, and several European markets are expected to tip past 50% soon. By 2019, 25.2% of world’s total population will be using mobile messaging apps.

Source: eMarketer

Google’s Digital Ad Revenue Reached $51.81 Billion in 2015

Net advertising revenues at Google reached $51.81 billion worldwide in 2015. That represents a more than 30% share of all worldwide digital ad revenues—far ahead of second-place Facebook, which garnered 9.6% of worldwide digital ad revenues last year.

Source: eMarketer

How Mobile Internet Users will Surpass 2 Billion in 2016

According to the latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation (IDC), 3.2 billion people, or 44 percent of the world’s population, will have access to the Internet in 2016. More than 2 billion will be using mobile devices to do so.

Source: Digital Lifescapes