WNYC is open sourcing its tool for generating “audiograms,” shareable audio clips for social media (Nieman Lab, 8/1/16)

This is a great move. I hope other companies who are developing tools specifically to create different media types for use on social platforms follow suit and open source them, letting anyone access and build off the core idea.

5 Ways Brands Are Incorporating Facebook Messenger Bots in Their Marketing (Adweek, 8/1/16)

Some of these are just fine while some are meant to be more functional. But they show the direction some companies are taking with their Messenger bots. I think there’s going to be a shakeout here in the next six months and that most will wind up leaning more toward the “fun/quirky” angle, with these becoming distractions for people as opposed to actual customer service or other business tools.

Giphy sees opportunity in live-events GIFs (Digiday, 8/1/16)

Giphy has pretty well redefined live-GIFing of events, partly because of its easy integration with other social platforms. I’d love to see, though, what getting this kind of coverage cost the awards show and other event producers since it seems like everyone wants this now.

Your LinkedIn Feed is Coming to Life with Videos from LinkedIn Influencers (LinkedIn Blog, 8/2/16)

linkedin video

Absolutely unsurprising that LinkedIn would eventually roll out a video offering. While it’s only available to the high-profile Influencers on the network for now it’s more than likely this will be rolled out to everyone in the near future, after some initial testing.

Introducing Instagram Stories (Instagram Blog, 8/2/16)

Much has already been written about how this copies Snapchat functionality in how it encourages sharing of content that evaporates within 24 hours. I’m less interested in that than I am in how this bifurcates both the production and consumption of that content. If people only have so much time to devote to Instagram as a whole, where are they more likely to spend that time, in the standard feed or in Stories? The value proposition is now being made that Stories is where the more interesting material will be found which, when combined with frustration over the filtered standard feed, could lead to a big change in user behavior.

The NFL Is the First Sports League to Get a Snapchat Discover Channel (Adweek, 8/2/16)

This has been rumored for a while, since the NFL put up a job posting that strongly hinted this was coming. Lots of talk about touchpoints and such and it’s clear the league feels it needs to connect more meaningfully with a younger audience. What will be interesting to watch is whether or not this cannibalizes from TV viewership at all.

Google’s speedy mobile publishing tool is now coming for the entire web (Recode, 8/2/16)

I know it’s splitting hairs, but there’s something far less creepy and controlling about AMP than there is with Facebook Instant Articles. Perhaps it’s because it’s about technology that anyone can choose to adopt rather than a gun being held to the head of the media industry that makes it different in my mind. Whatever the case, site publishers of any kind can now implement AMP and get their mobile searches to work faster.

The Daily Signal created a custom engagement index to help it prioritize all its platforms (Nieman Lab, 8/2/16)

A very smart move to actually track the engagement numbers that matter and then using them to inform strategy and tactics. More like this, please.

Report: Snapchat is making scannable codes for the real world (The Next Web, 8/2/16)

Much like when Shazam announced a few months ago that it was working on its own iteration on scannable codes, this shows that QR codes weren’t a bad idea, just that it lacked the form factor for mass adoption. Specifically, no one knew what app to use to scan the darn things. Codes that work with existing apps will likely see much higher usage, assuming the prize at the other end of using them is worth the effort.