We’re bidding a fond farewell to TWiD and introducing FWD, a slightly refreshed newsletter focusing on all things digital tech and innovation-focused.
Headlines
- Vine launched on the Apple watch with a sleek, minimal design
- Snapchat launched Story Explorer, which lets users explore one story from multiple perspectives
- Blackberry has exited Pakistan over failed negotiations with the government over user privacy and security
Insights
- 36.2% of all Black Friday online sales came from mobile devices, an increase of nearly 30 percent over last year, according to IBM’s report (contains lots of digital stats)
- Spend on YouTube skippable ads increased 200% year on year, according to Pixability
- EDEKA, the German retailer, launched their Christmas spot online and generated 2m YouTube views and 12m Facebook video views with 2 days (see it here and prepare to weep)
- 79% of US Apple Pay users said they had completely replaced their use of contactless plastic credit and debit cards, according to US study
Cool
- Nice partnership between the FT and Google Maps to reveal the ‘hidden London’
- ‘The Swayze effect’ – an approach to creating VR experiences
- Great use of Google Street View to highlight effects of climate change
Deep Reads
- Five Instagram trends to emerge this year
- ‘Zuckerberg will lead’, ‘Elon Musk will inspire’ – 20 predictions for 20 years from Fast Company
- Interesting piece from Benedict Evans on the race for digital dominance of the TV screen
