Welcome to this week’s edition of MG OMD FWD written from sunny North London.
- Google will begin blocking ads that make excessive use of your device’s battery or mobile data. Whilst only 0.3% of ads fail to meet the benchmark set by Google they account for 27% of network data used by ads CNET reports
- Facebook have bought GIPHY in a deal reportedly worth $400m the BBC reports
- Donald Trump’s administration are preparing to file an antitrust lawsuit against Google in the coming months. Reports suggest that the US government are concerned that Google’s wealth of data gives them a dominant position in the advertising market
- Buzzfeed News is closing it’s UK news operation with a fall in advertising revenue being blamed
- Twitter has purchased mobile DSP Crossinstall in a move that will help boost it’s offering in the performance marketing space
- Reports in the US show that Snapchat can be highly influential in getting younger people to vote
- New research by analytics and consulting firm GlobalData suggests that SVoD subscriber numbers are likely to double by 2024
- Technology usage within the NHS is rapidly changing due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic with years’ worth of work achieved in just weeks the BBC reports
- BT Sport have revealed how they plan to use a ‘virtual studio‘ to keep staff and presenters safe as European football returns to our screens
- Spotify launch Group Sessions to help quarantined friends and family listen simultaneously whilst in lock-down
- Facebook‘s Messenger Rooms product has rolled out globally in a move that will aim to wrestle users back from Zoom
- The Observer’s Sirin Kale looks at how the coronavirus helped TikTok find its voice
- Journalists around the world continue to scrutinise Facebook‘s first appointments to its ‘oversight board’. Here the Washington Post take a closer look at what the board might (or might not) achieve
- Wired take a look at how Skype lost out to the now ubiquitous Zoom in just a few short lockdown-weeks