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The week in social: Pinterest's IPO, YouTube cleans up, and LinkedIn gets live streaming

25 Feb 2019 Majed Alnahwi

The week in social

Pinterest announces upcoming IPO, refined strategy

Pinterest has filed paperwork with the SEC for an IPO later this year, with the move being seen as an attempt to take advantage of the resurgence of tech stocks in recent months. The company is also looking to reaffirm its objective of being a “discovery engine” and a “catalog of ideas” with new tools such as Shop the Look pins. While Pinterest has taken measures to distance itself from Facebook comparisons, it may be leaning closer to Google, which functions as a discovery platform with e-commerce integrations. We’ve seen social network IPOs work out like Facebook’s and others struggle like Twitter’s, it will be interesting to see how Pinterest’s IPO handles the scrutiny of the market, shareholders, and investors.

YouTube deletes over 400 channels following child exploitation crackdown

YouTube has increased its efforts in combating content that shows up when child-oriented search terms on the platform. Following months of concern from parents, advertisers, and creators, YouTube removed over 400 channels that contain videos aimed at exploiting children. The move is seen as positive and necessary on YouTube’s part, as it is responsible for enforcing its community guidelines and ensuring its platform is used appropriately. This specific problem is representative of a larger issue online; how do platforms handle content censoring. In the aftermath of the 2016 election, every social networking company has had to make decisions regarding the content that lives on its platform.

Instagram tests donation stickers for its Stories

Following Facebook’s success with fundraising tools on Facebook, the company is looking to recreate those tools for Instagram. The feature works by giving the user the ability to search for a non-profit and add a donation sticker to the Story; viewers of the story can then click through to a donation page from there. This new tool provides non-profits with a whole new platform for fundraising through Instagram Stories. Instagram Stories recently hit the 500M daily active users milestone ; so this move by Facebook opens up a huge potential for non-profits.

LinkedIn launches new live video service

LinkedIn debuts its new broadcast service called LinkedIn Live, giving users and organizations the ability to broadcast to groups or all of LinkedIn. This looks like a smart move by LinkedIn as they’ve identified that video content is 20x more likely to be shared by their users than any other type of content; so it makes sense to capitalize on this insight by expanding video content offerings on the platform. The roll out of the new service is limited initially; only in the US and by invite only.

For Black History Month, Snapchat launches Virtual Art Gallery

Snapchat, in celebration of Black History Month, launched a new Lens that showcases the art of black millennial artists through a virtual art gallery. Snapchat is featuring all sorts of artists, many of them unknown to mainstream audiences, so it’s great to see talented artists get some wider exposure on a huge platform. This isn’t the first time Snapchat leveraged AR to showcase pieces of art. It’s interesting to see technology, which has long been blamed for “ruining” culture, become a vital part of bringing artists and audiences together through social networking platforms.