News digest 09.11.2020
WhatsApp rolls out payments in India
WhatsApp, which began testing its payments service in India with 1 million users in early 2018, has finally started to expand the feature to more users in the world’s second largest internet market.
The service is rolling out payments in ten Indian regional languages in the latest stable version of WhatsApp app on Android and iOS. The announcement comes hours after National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the body that operates the popular UPI payments infrastructure, said that it had granted approval to WhatsApp to roll out UPI-powered payments in the country.
Why WordPress 5.5 is breaking sites
WP 5.5 deprecated support for jQuery Migrate may have caused at least 50,000 broken sites. An issue with how themes handle pagination is causing other sites to break after updating to 5.5.
That’s a lot of publishers who were affected by this issue and there are likely going to be more who are seeking this solution. Fortunately there are solutions listed in this article.
Google short videos carousel in search results
Google seems to be testing another form of carousel feature in the Google Search results. This one is called "short videos" and was spotted for a search on recipes by Saad AK on Twitter.
Bukalapak establishes strategic partnership with Microsoft to enhance Indonesian e-commerce
Microsoft and Bukalapak, one of Indonesia’s leading e-commerce platforms, have formed a strategic partnership to reshape how e-commerce is conducted in the country. Kicking off the collaboration between the two companies, Bukalapak will adopt Microsoft Azure as its preferred cloud platform and Microsoft will make a strategic investment in Bukalapak.
The partnership will leverage Microsoft’s expertise in building a resilient cloud infrastructure to support Bukalapak services for more than 12 million micro, small and medium enterprises, and 100 million customers.
Which company uses the most of your data? Research showed that it’s Facebook.
Top of the list for data collectors is, perhaps unsurprisingly, Facebook (70.59%). As a social network, they depend on you giving them access to all your details so they can recommend friends to you, let people know it’s your birthday, suggest groups for you to join and, most importantly, advertise to you.
The Facebook-owned app collects 58.82% of all available data, such as your hobbies, height, weight and sexual orientation. Like their owners, they use most of this information for advertising and recommending accounts you should follow.
Dating app Tinder collects 55.88% of available data to help match you with your perfect partner. Retailers like Amazon use the LEAST amount of data to target you. Despite being the biggest online retailer in the world, (and spending around $11 billion on advertising in 2019,) Amazon only collects a fraction of data compared to other businesses, 23.53%.
Calm’s CNN ad campaign sent the meditation app flying up App Store charts
The app, which today offers mindful meditations, peaceful sounds and sleep stories, had flashed on screen during CNN’s “Key Race Alert” coverage, reminding users of the need to relax during this stressful time.
According to data from third-party app store analytics and marketing firms Sensor Tower and App Annie, Calm moved up 20 ranks from the day before Election Day to reach No. 79 Overall across both apps and games in the U.S. It also reached No. 1 in the U.S. Health & Fitness category.
Explore Facebook’s 2020 global shopping insights
1. Gen X and Boomers dominate global mobile and ecommerce growth
2. Self-gifting and seasonal shopping can be positive outlets in difficult times
3. Imposed disruption fuels receptiveness to new products and services
4. The economic downturn will expedite the rise of mega sales
5. The new value equation: affordability, authenticity and action