Архив метки: Los Angeles

GIPHY comes to connected TVs with launch of a GIPHY Arts app for Roku

GIPHY Arts, the Giphy division dedicated to GIF art and artists, launched a free exclusive app on Roku today that allows users in select regions to view GIPHY Clips — 30-second original short clips with audio — with their Roku devices.
The new “Public Axis” channel is Giphy’s first app for connected TVs and brings short-form video content made by artists from mobile to the TV screen. It arrives on the same day that YouTube introduced its own plan to bring short-form video to TV viewers to challenge TikTok.
At launch, “Public Axis” is available to Roku users in the U.S., the U.K., Mexico, Canada, Germany, Ireland, France, Panama, Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile, Australia, El Salvador, Peru, Argentina, Guatemala, Honduras and Brazil. It’s free to download in the Roku Channel Store and doesn’t have ads.
Users have access to various shorts, clips or “episodes” made by a commissioned artist. For instance, ListenMi released a three-episode series, “Remote Work Tales,” that features relatable animated shorts about the work-from-home experience.
Viewers can also check out Public Axis content on publicaxis.giphy.com.
GIPHY Arts launched the Public Axis app on Roku devices to help promote artists to “an even broader audience,” the company wrote in its blog. Roku reported a net add of 2.3 million active accounts for the third quarter, bringing the total to 65.4 million.
Roku, meanwhile, has recently embraced the short-form video trend, as well. The streaming media platform rolled out a new short-form video feature, “The Buzz,” to give users access to short content like trailers, interviews and images from AMC+, Apple TV+, BET+, SHOWTIME, Starz and other partners.

Roku’s latest update adds short-form video, a universal save list and ‘continue watching’ feature

Giphy has been in the short-form video space a bit longer. It made its first step into this market in 2019 when it launched “GIPHY Video,” which has since been renamed “GIPHY Clips.” Today’s announcement comes eight months after TikTok integrated GIPHY Clips into the new TikTok Library, an in-app creation tool.
Also, the company revealed a new 30-second ad last week, which is currently playing in movie theaters across New York City and Los Angeles.

TikTok partners with GIPHY on new video creation tool, ‘TikTok Library’

GIPHY comes to connected TVs with launch of a GIPHY Arts app for Roku by Lauren Forristal originally published on TechCrunch
GIPHY comes to connected TVs with launch of a GIPHY Arts app for Roku

Dating app S’More adds blurred video calling and launches in LA

Добавить комментарий

The pandemic hasn’t slowed down dating app S’More — at least according to CEO Adam Cohen-Aslatei, who said that the app’s daily active user count doubled in March and hasn’t gone down since.
“When people are working form home, they have much more time to dedicate to their relationships,” Cohen-Aslatei told me.
The app (whose name is short for “something more”) launched last fall and has supposedly attracted nearly 50,000 users. The goal is to move beyond the superficiality of most dating apps, where you first learn about another user and then unlock visual elements (like a profile photo) as you interact.
Cohen-Aslatei said the team has also spent more on marketing to attract a diverse audience, both in terms of racial diversity (something S’more reinforces by not allowing users to filter by race) and sexual orientation, with 15% of users identifying as LGBTQ.
Of course, dating someone new can be challenging when meeting up in-person poses real health risks, but Cohen-Aslatei said S’More users have gotten creative, like remote dinners where they order each other takeout from their favorite restaurants. And now that things are reopening (though some of those reopenings are getting pulled back), users are asking, “How do we transition these virtual relationships into IRL?”
Image Credits: S’More
To give users more ways to interact, the S’More team recently launched a video calling feature. But Cohen-Aslatei noted, “We had to to create it in a way that was really fitting for our app … Women actually don’t want to see a guy right away, when you don’t know if they’re a creep.”
So in S’more’s video calling, the video is blurred for the first two minutes, which means you’ve got to actually start an interesting conversation before you can see who you’re talking to, and before they see you (a concept that may be familiar to viewers of Netflix’s dating show “Love is Blind”).
S’More has also expanded geographically, launching last week in Los Angeles (it was already available in Boston, Washington, D.C., New York and Chicago). And it recently started its a video series of its own on Instagram’s IGTV — the S’More Live Happy Hour, where celebrities offer dating advice.
“There’s this negative history of dating apps perpetuating negative online behaviors, fake images, catfishers,” Cohen-Aslatei said. “But now we’re going into a new era of authenticity, where we’re going from super vain to super authentic. S’more is one of those apps that’s going to lead you in that direction.”

S’More is a new dating app that looks to suspend physical attraction for something more

Dating app S’More adds blurred video calling and launches in LA

Sprint 5G is no more, as T-Mobile focuses on its own network

Добавить комментарий

A day after formally completing the sale of Boost, Virgin and other Sprint prepaid networks to Dish, T-Mobile is pulling the plug on Sprint 5G. The move is one in a long list of issues that need sorting out in the wake of April’s $26.5 billion merger. And like a number of other moves, it’s set to leave some customers in the lurch.
The end of Sprint’s 2.5 GHz 5G comes as T-Mobile opts to focus on its own network. T-Mobile already started the process in New York City, a few weeks after the merger and has since completed it in a handful of other cities, including Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Washington, D.C.
As CNET notes, while most of the Sprint 5G handsets won’t be able to make the transition, Samsung Galaxy S20 5G users are in the clear here. For everyone else, T-Mobile is offering up credits on leases for new 5G handsets.

T-Mobile officially completes merger with Sprint, CEO John Legere steps down ahead of schedule

T-Mobile told TechCrunch in a statement, “We are working to quickly re-deploy, optimize and test the 2.5GHz spectrum before lighting it up on the T-Mobile network.”
Along with the sale of Boost, 5G was a big selling point for T-Mobile’s Sprint acquisition. The carriers argued that the deal was necessary to keep them competitive with first and second place carriers AT&T and Verizon when it came to the next-generation wireless technology.
At the time FCC chairman Ajit Pai agreed stating, “This transaction will provide New T-Mobile with the scale and spectrum resources necessary to deploy a robust 5G network across the United States.”
Earlier this week, OpenSignal awarded T-Mobile the top spot in availability, noting, “In the U.S., T-Mobile won the 5G Availability award by a large margin with Sprint and AT&T trailing with scores of 14.1% and 10.3%, respectively.”
Update: The language of the post has been updated to reflect the impact on specific unsupported devices, rather than user base figures.

Sprint 5G is no more, as T-Mobile focuses on its own network