Social Networks

Meesho has more than doubled its valuation in less than six months, to $4.9 billion, as a growing number of high-profile investors back the Indian social commerce startup that is reporting strong growth despite the pandemic. The Bangalore-headquartered firm said on Thursday it has raised $570 million in its Series F financing round, following a $300 million Series E in April when it was valued at $2.1 billion. Fidelity and B Capital Group co-led the new financing round, bringing the startup’s all-time raise to over $1 billion. Prosus Ventures, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Facebook, and Good Capital also participated in the new round, which didn’t involve any secondary transaction, the startup’s co-founder and chief executive Vidit Aatrey told TechCrunch in an interview. Meesho — which counts Sequoia Capital India, Y Combinator, and Elevation Capital among its earliest investors — operates a three-sided marketplace that connects suppliers (manufacturers and distributors) and resellers with customers on social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram. The resellers buy listed products from the suppliers and make commission on each transaction when they sell to customers. About 80% of resellers on the platform are women, said Aatrey, who co-founded Meesho with Sanjeev Barnwal in…

Indiana Pacers All-Star Domantas Sabonis posted photos to his Instagram.Indiana Pacers All-Star Domantas Sabonis posted photos to his Instagram.Domantas Sabonis posted photos to his Instagram, and they can be seen in an Instagram post that is embedded below from his account. The photos were from media day, which the Indiana Pacers held on Monday. Sabonis was an All-Star last season for the second straight season. The 25 year old averaged 20.3 points, 12.0 rebounds and 6.7 assists per game last season. The Pacers begin their season in Charlotte, North Carolina, against the Hornets on October, 20.They will play their first preseason game on October 5 agains the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden. Related stories on NBA basketballEnes Kanter And Myles Turner Get The Same 2k Ranking: Myles Turner of the Indiana Pacers got the same rating in NBA 2k22 as Enes Kanter of the Boston Celtics. The two centers getting the same ranking comes as a surprise. Turner is one of the best defenders in the NBA, and while Kanter had a productive season, he is not on the same level as Turner. CLICK HERE.Could The Pacers Really Bring Back Lance?: Lance Stephenson has worked out for NBA teams recently, and it appears…

A round-up of the biggest articles from newspapers September 30, 2021 / 07:55 AM IST A round-up of the biggest articles from newspapers. Returning to pre-pandemic levels is positive but it is not good enough: SBI chairmanThe State Bank of India Chairman Dinesh Kumar Khara in an interview with The Economic Times said that the Union government’s incentive schemes for the manufacturing sector and high PSU spending for capacity additions could spill over to other segments providing the much-needed booster shot for the economy.What the SBI chairman says: People are approaching SBI for fresh loans in the iron and steel sector.“People are also looking at expanding brownfield capacity, which means they have a very clear visibility of demand that also augurs well for capacity utilisation.”To come out of the damage in the last 20 months, the activity levels have to be much stronger.“Pre-pandemic, there was already a tendency to slow down; so, returning to pre-pandemic levels is positive but it is not good enough.”SBI stock is still not reflecting its intrinsic strength and the value of its holdings in various businesses.SBI plans to list its mutual fund and general insurance businesses.Govt working on a new set of reforms to create robust…

Adult site Chaturbate is looking to capitalise on Twitch’s mixed messaging by enabling their models to stream a selection of pre-approved video games. The last year has been a difficult one for Twitch, caught between conflicting objectives and a desire to be everything to everyone. The streaming platform has frustrated many of their most popular content creators with poorly communicated rules and bans for breaking them. Now, adult streaming site Chaturbate is looking to take advantage of the situation. Sex sells and everyone knows it. Many of Twitch’s most popular streamers have used their sex appeal to cultivate fervent followings, in much the same way that Hollywood actors and musicians use what god gave them to sell whatever it is they are promoting. Image: Twitch The problem for Twitch has been defining what is acceptable on a video game streaming platform that is frequented by users as young as 13. The platform’s own hesitancy has led to a lack of transparency around issues including what is appropriate to wear on a Twitch stream, what can be defined as “sexually suggestive”, and whether Twitch should be policing women’s bodies at all. Chaturbate has no such moral dilemma; they know what they…

Urian B., Tech Times 29 September 2021, 09:09 pm (Photo : Image from Unsplash Website) Twitch Phone Verification Added to Help Prevent Harassment, How? Twitch is adding a phone verification to help prevent harassment within the platform. How does this work, and is this effective? Twitch Moves to Stop Trolling According to the story by CNet, Twitch streamers who were reportedly being regularly harassed in their chats actually held a protest on September 1, 2021. They reportedly started calling for the Amazon-owned streaming platform to start implementing more tools in order to stop trolling. The company has decided to act on this, and in a recent official blog post, Twitch announced that it is now adding verifications to chats that could potentially help stop harassers. Phone and email verification for Twitch chatters are currently available for streamers as well as their moderators. Users With Multiple Accounts to be Suspended Users who already have multiple accounts tied to just one phone number will reportedly have all of their accounts suspended if just a single one of them is suspended as well. This is a move made by Twitch to help avoid ban evasions. For those that aren't yet streaming on this…

Technology|Facebook Downplays Internal Research Released on Eve of Hearinghttps://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/29/technology/facebook-instagram-research-hearing.htmlThe social network published its findings about Instagram’s effect on young users, as senators prepared to question an executive on Thursday.Facebook released two internal reports from 2019: “Teen Mental Health Deep Dive” and “Hard Life Moments.”Credit...Laura Morton for The New York TimesSept. 29, 2021Updated 10:52 p.m. ETFacebook on Wednesday published two internal research reports about its photo-sharing app, Instagram, and downplayed their conclusions, as the company prepared for two congressional hearings in the next week that are focused on its products’ effects on children’s mental health.The reports — “Teen Mental Health Deep Dive,” published internally in October 2019, and “Hard Life Moments,” published in November 2019 — were accompanied by annotations from Facebook that sought to contextualize the limitations of the research and chastised its own researchers for using imprecise language.In one slide, with a title that said “one in five teens say that Instagram makes them feel worse about themselves, with UK girls the most negative,” Facebook wrote in its annotation that the research had not been intended to suggest a causal link between the app and well-being. The company said the headline emphasized negative effects but could have been written…

LinkedIn has now started concentrating on producing virtual-based events for the past eighteen months now. And for that, the company is planning to conduct tests for these paid events considering the present world conditions. With twenty-one million people engaging in a virtual event in 2020 on the LinkedIn platform. The LinkedIn events have now observed an active response with a massive rise in its expansion, as the world is now taking a turn with the immense demand for remote working and working from home or remotely has now become a trend. LinkedIn has walked a long journey as its very first events hub was conducted in 2019, to focus on virtual, in-person get-togethers. But after the Covid 19 pandemic, it took a formalized scenario, as the ways that it can be used as a virtual event to engage people on a single stage.This step by LinkedIn will result in fresh numerous opportunities for people to monetize on the social networks professionally.Now, this has opened the doors for the event organizing industry who had been in losses due to the covid-19 pandemic, which caused a lot of loss to many, by the cancellation of events, meetups, and conferences. As a report…

After first announcing its 'Shorts Fund' back in May, which will see the platform pay out $100 million to top Shorts creators over time, in order to provide additional support, and motivation, for their efforts, YouTube has now announced an expansion of the funding program to Shorts creators in even more regions. Our @YouTube #shorts Fund is coming to to 30+ more countries, including Argentina, Australia, Canada, Egypt, Germany, Italy, South Korea and so many more. We're always looking to expand how we support creators around the world! pic.twitter.com/Mx1XjJMDVE— Neal Mohan (@nealmohan) September 29, 2021 As per YouTube Chief Product Officer Neal Mohan, the Shorts Fund is now available in over 30 new regions. Creators in these countries will now be able to get a piece of that big chunk of funding, with YouTube paying out between $100 and $10,000 each month to channels based on the performance of their TikTok-like Shorts clips. But ‘performance’ in this context is not entirely clear: “There’s no specific performance threshold to qualify for a bonus. The level of performance needed to qualify for a bonus payment may change from month to month based on various factors, including the location of your viewers and the…

Facebook announced on Tuesday that its 2Africa cable would now extend to over 45,000 kilometers with the addition of nine landings collectively dubbed the 2Africa Pearls. The subsea cable will directly connect three continents — Africa, Europe and Asia. The extension will see 2Africa become the longest subsea cable system in the world upon completion, Facebook said. It will best the current record set by the SEA-ME-WE 3 line that stretches 39,000 km and connects 33 countries across South East Asia, Middle East and Western Europe. The continued investment in subsea cables is part of Facebook’s efforts to bring more people online. Initially, the internet giant centered on providing affordable internet to Africa’s population of about 1.2 billion people. The plan morphed with the consortium opting to lay 37,000 km (22,990 miles) of cables connecting 23 counties in Africa, the Middle East and Europe. Last month, Facebook increased this number to 26, adding Seychelles, the Comoros Islands, Angola and a landing to the south-eastern part of Nigeria into the mix.  » Read More

Journalists who cover China have been receiving notices from the networking site LinkedIn, informing them that their profiles are no longer accessible in China. In a message to Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, LinkedIn said the block was in place because of “prohibited content” in the summary section of her profile page. The journalist covers China for the news website Axios. Allen-Ebrahimian, who shared a copy of the message with VOA, said LinkedIn did not state what posts or details on her profile were deemed prohibited. When the journalist shared details of the message on her Twitter feed on Tuesday, other journalists and writers said they had received similar notices. Melissa Chan, a reporter with German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle, said she also received a message on Tuesday, with LinkedIn saying her profile had been blocked because of “prohibited content located in the Publication section.” And author Greg Bruno said on Twitter that his LinkedIn profile had also been blocked. In a tweet, he said the only item listed under publications on his profile was his book on Tibet, Blessings from Beijing: Inside China’s Soft-Power War on Tibet. In its messages to the journalists, LinkedIn said it would try to minimize the impact…