GANDT Fireside Chat #042 | Instagram Live Badges and Microsoft shutdowns mixers

True to our motto “Working Out Loud”, we at GANDT Ventures exchange our thoughts and ideas on current news topics in the world of online marketing, digital retail, and e-commerce. This helps us uncover opportunities that can be used for companies and our clients as part of our daily business.

But most of all, it is a lot of fun and a great way to share knowledge.
Our podcast-style chats are available to anyone who is interested to find out more about what Google, Facebook, Amazon and the likes are up to.

Instagram Live Badges – Reward favorite influencers with hearts

Social media’s latest monetization concept is coming out: Instagram Live Badges. This is a kind of “tip” or donation to your favorite Instagramer.

During the COVID-19 crisis Instagram has seen a growth of 70% on its live streams. The live videos have enabled companies, influencers and brands to stay in touch with their community.

We already know the principle from the gaming scene, on Twitch you can also buy “tips” to support the streamer and unlock special features. In the future, an influencer can also make money through his or her IG stream by selling badges.
These badges – shown as hearts at IG – will have a value of $0.99 per heart. Fans and followers can then assign them directly to the streamer in the live video, and thus unlock additional features, including a placement on a list of badge holders and accessing a special heart.

100% of the earned money will be transferred directly to the creators themselves.
As a result, the IG livestream could now also become a relevant source of income for the hosts.
IG Badges are not yet live – in the coming weeks there will be first test phases for selected accounts.

Especially in the areas of fitness, cooking and other digital sharing of knowledge, the option of live streams may become more attractive. We are curious to see what impact this potential monetization will have on the content of the live videos.

Microsoft Mixer is going to shut down

With a surprising announcement, Microsoft will end the Mixer service on July 22. All existing Mixer partners and streamers will now be switched to Facebook Gaming and Microsoft Mixer will no longer operate as a service in a month.

It was important for the technology company to find a partnership where the community and streamers can continue to exist.

Mixer has failed to achieve the goal of building a large streaming community even though they invested in million-dollar deals, such as exclusive partnerships with Shroud and Ninja.
Given the strong competition, this is not surprising, Twitch had a growth of 100% in the Corona crisis.
Facebook Gaming has also seen a huge increase in users, with Mixer laging far behind having a growth of just 0.2%.

Neeva – The first search engine without advertising

Former Google advertising chief Sridhar Ramaswamy and Vivek Raghunathan – also an ex-employee of the Google universe – are introducing Neeva as their own ad-free search engine.
The service will be based on a subscription model and thus refinance itself. However, nothing has yet been announced about the possible pricing model.

Two reasons why Neeva is supposed to be better than Google:
Neeva does not move useful search results down with ads like Google does.
In addition, the privacy of the user is to be protected, because the new search engine can do without data collection.

Neeva is currently in a beta phase but first-time users will be able to access the website free of charge until the end of the year. Interested parties can register on a waiting list on neeva.co.

Could advertising freedom be a USP that attracts users? Or will the habit of using Google and Co. free of charge be preserved?

Listen in and follow our discussion on these topics!

Agenda | GANDT Fireside Chat Video #042