Welcome to our 50th weekly round-up of the week’s hottest digital news. This week’s digest features a $5bn purchase, a whizzy new iOS camera app from… Microsoft, updates to Google’s text ads, a social media-driven medical breakthrough and more!
**Microsoft take on Apple with iOS camera app**
Microsoft has release a new iPhone camera app that they claim to be better at taking pictures than the one Apple ships with its phone. (link: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/product/microsoftpix/ text: Pix) enhances photos as they’re shot and even improves on Apple’s Live Photos ability to capture scenes that have moving elements. Apple can’t be happy!
**Ice Bucket Challenge funded breakthrough announced**
The Ice Bucket Challenge is hitting our social media newsfeeds once more! And for a fantastic reason – news broke this week that thanks to the £88m raised by the stunt to fund scientific research, a new gene variant has been discovered. Those who dismissed this as ‘slacktivism’ (an exercise that appears to do good while achieving very little) are now eating their words.
**Twitter and Sky Sports partner to show Premier League highlights **
Thanks to a new partnership between Twitter and Sky Sports, near live highlights of Premier League football matches will be coming to the platform from next season. Goals and key moments will be available within minutes, with post-match analysis posted up soon after each game. The content will be available via the Sky Sports Football account and through Twitter Amplify, as well as via the Sky Sports customer app.
**Google’s expanded text ads go live**
Earlier this week we saw Google begin to roll out new expanded text ads. These extra-long ads include two headlines, each with up to 30 characters and a description of up to 80 characters, further reducing the difference in appearance between paid and organic results. With this latest update to the platform, advertisers can also now start adjusting their bids for different devices.
**Verizon buy Yahoo for $5bn **
US telecoms giant and Verizon has bought Yahoo for just under $5bn. Having already bought up AOL in 2015, this new acquisition makes Verizon a serious player in the digital market, particularly in the US, due to the fact that it has a 4G mobile network, ISP and now a search network too under its belt.
While Yahoo may be the subject of ridicule in the UK with a tiny proportion of search traffic, it’s worth remembering that in the US Yahoo is the third largest internet property behind Google and Facebook, as well as owning some really desirable real estate around the web – so an acquisition not to be sniffed at.
**Wix post major financial loss**
Wix.com, the company that helps small business owners build websites, this week announced a quarterly loss of $11.4m (despite a rise in revenues). Whilst there are various explanations for this relating to the company’s investment in various aspects of their offering, this hasn’t gone unnoticed and has raised questions about a potential decline in demand for simple websites for one man bands when many feel that their social media presences alone suffice.
**Twitter’s opens up blue ticks to all **
We imagine that Twitter has been inundated with requests this week following their announcement that it’s blue-tick badges, normally reserved for only the most high-profile Twitter users, are to be rolled out to anyone who provides correct information.
**Tumblr hints at new ad program**
This week Tumblr posted (link: https://staff.tumblr.com/post/148012671115/money text: an update) that announced plans to roll out a new advertising program which will see it adding ads to users’ blogs. There are no specific details as yet but it looks as though this could be an expansion of its (link: https://techcrunch.com/2015/01/22/tumblr-announces-creatrs-network-an-ad-agency-that-matches-brands-with-user-content/ text: Creatrs program) that connects advertisers with Tumblr users directly.
**Snapchat gets personal**
Snapchat’s latest update introduces another major DIY feature to the app – users will now be able to draw their very own filters. The update also includes (link: http://www.thedrum.com/news/2016/07/20/snapchat-gets-even-more-personal-it-adds-bitmoji-integration text: personalized Bitmoji) integration and comes equipped with a new ‘Face Paint Lens’ that lets users draw on their faces to create real-time overlays.
*That’s it for now! See you again same time same place next week. *