Snapchat Is Building An API; Paying For Attention

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It’s A Snap

Snapchat is building an API, unnamed sources tell Digiday’s Garett Sloane. Snapchat would be following in the footsteps of Pinterest and Instagram, which both unveiled ad APIs last year, though it could be a year or more before Snapchat has anything to show for its efforts. Instagram sacrificed ad quality to some degree when it flung open the API partner gates (i.e., performance-based campaigns started winning auctions). Snapchat doesn’t have to worry as much about its pristine climate, but it has major measurement concerns.

Pay Attention

In some industries, like polling, academia or focus group research, it’s typical to reward people who volunteer chunks of their time and attention. And that ethos is finding its way into digital marketing, writes Mike Shields of the WSJ. Some are troubled by the practice, viewing it as a low-quality offer since those ad views are generally funneled in by a third-party vendor (like the much-maligned sourced traffic biz). Others are perfectly OK with incentives (from cash or reward points to in-game prizes) if only to confirm that a real human saw the ad. “We need new models for value exchange between readers and publishers,” said digital media investor Peter Horan. “Free media was never free.” More.

Winging It

Twitter’s overhaul continues apace. Its first new ad product of 2016 is meant to stimulate conversation with a user call to action, auto-populating tweets when users click a hashtag. Tim Peterson at Ad Age suggests it’s a potential swipe at influencer networks, as brands can go straight to the “influencer” (as long as he/she engages with the branded tweet). Twitter is also continuing a new tradition of infuriating core users – how about that Moments channel and new Like button? – this time by exploring a 10,000-character limit on tweets.

Mayday Mayday Mayday

Even as Yahoo’s board pledges loyalty to CEO Marissa Mayer, investors continue to rock the boat, some calling for Mayer’s ouster, others for an immediate sale of the business. Whether the current trajectory is sound or not, “I don’t think the market’s going to give any bump in value as long as the current management is in place,” said one Yahoo stakeholder. Read on at Reuters.

But Wait, There’s More!