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☆ Stocks making the biggest moves midday: Snap, Apple, Boeing and more
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-06 | by ( Hakyung Kim | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Apple — Shares advanced more than 3% after Goldman Sachs initiated coverage of the big technology stock as a buy. Credit Suisse — Shares were down about 1% after former top shareholder Harris Associates sold its entire stake in Credit Suisse, according to a Financial Times report. The Wall Street firm said the luxury housing market is struggling to stabilize, which will impact RH's business. The Wall Street firm said the derating of Emerson Electric is overdone. Domino's Pizza — Domino's Pizza shares advanced more than 4%.

☆ ChatGPT is coming to Snapchat
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-27 | by ( Aaron Mok | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Snapchat is launching its own ChatGPT-powered chatbot called My AI starting this week. A spokesperson said that its AI launch is part of an effort to attract users to the social media app. Starting this week, Snapchat users will have access to its new conversational chatbot, which can write haikus, plan a hiking trip, and recommend birthday gifts, according to a Snap blog post. "My AI was trained to have a unique tone and personality that plays into Snapchat's core values around friendship, learning, and fun," a Snapchat spokesperson told Insider. "Incorporating this technology into Snapchat's messaging platform has the potential to make these interactions with AI part of what draws our community to Snapchat," a spokesperson said.

☆ Meta could bring in nearly $2 billion this year from new Instagram and Facebook verification subscriptions, analysts say
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Meta rolled out a new subscription offering for Instagram and Facebook. Meta is rolling out a new paid version of verification on Instagram and Facebook that could prove valuable to the company in a short amount of time. As the monthly subscription costs $11.99 for web or $14.99 for mobile, that could mean $1.7 billion in additional yearly revenue, the analysts said. "In addition to Meta Verified, we think there are opportunities for content and commerce subscriptions to help Meta diversify its revenue base over time," Bank of America analysts wrote. While Meta's core business is and very likely always will be ads, influencers have been "under monetized" at the company, Shmulik said.

☆ Snapchat has a plan to start charging users to restore broken Snapstreaks
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-31 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Some users have hundreds, or even thousands, of consecutive days of Snaps with friends on the app. The company is planning to have Snapchat users pay a fee to restore a broken Snapstreak, according to two people familiar with the situation. Many users have Streaks going for more than 100 days and some have streaks for thousands of days. Users frequently go to the Snapchat Support website to try to get their Streaks restored, both of the people said. Snap often does restore a streak at no cost, but it's a process that can take several days, further upsetting users.

☆ USC has an influencer group that helps students get deals with brands like DoorDash and American Eagle. Here's its 7-page pitch deck.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-30 | by ( Nhari Djan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Student organization USC Reach is here to prove that you can finish a degree while furthering your career as a content creator. President Dylan Huey was conflicted about this in 2016 when he was in high school. USC Reach pitches brands with an email template and slide deckWhen contacting brands, Reach typically cold emails companies using the following template. I am currently the President for USC Reach, USC's first and only social media club. Let me know if you have 15 minutes to chat and I'd love to get a partnership between [company] and USC Reach going.

☆ Snapchat's role in fentanyl crisis probed during House roundtable: 'It's a Snap-specific problem'
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( Lauren Feiner | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

The roundtable featured the mother of a child who died after taking a drug containing fentanyl allegedly purchased over Snapchat, apparently believing it was a prescription painkiller. "Big Tech has many problems," said Carrie Goldberg, a lawyer who works on cases seeking to hold tech platforms accountable for often offline harms. Bloomberg reported Wednesday that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Justice are also investigating Snap's role in fentanyl sales. That's because it does not incentivize safety features, she said, and also prevents tech platforms from reaching the discovery stage in many cases, which could otherwise reveal internal information. But legislation weakening encryption for law enforcement investigations would also likely be at odds with the committee's other goal of increasing digital privacy protections.

☆ Microsoft's reported $10 billion OpenAI bet is a gamble on the future of AI
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-11 | by ( Matt Weinberger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

We're less than two weeks into 2023, and it's already become clear that OpenAI's ChatGPT will be the defining technology of the year. But it just goes to show you how much confidence Microsoft and others have in the future of AI. Still, that $29 billion valuation is rich for a company with limited revenue and the high costs of running advanced AI. Read Insider's list of the top 12 AI tools that are helping content creators do their work, from dubbing to writing copy, according to industry insiders. Read Insider's guide on how to take a Snapchat screenshot without alerting the other party.

☆ Apple needs another hit product. But the rumored new AR/VR glasses will not be it.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-27 | by ( Michael Gartenberg | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Apple is widely rumored to be releasing augmented-reality/virtual-reality glasses in 2023. It has long been rumored that Apple will create a car to take on the likes of Tesla. What does seem likely is that Apple will release augmented-reality/virtual-reality glasses, rumored to be coming in 2023 with an OS called xrOS. While I'm always excited to see what innovations companies like Apple have in store, I have some serious concerns about betting on AR/VR glasses as a growth market. Beyond the practical concerns of battery life, comfort, and price, there's the fundamental issue of the lack of a compelling use case for AR or VR glasses.

☆ If you use Snapchat, you could get a $117 check from a data privacy lawsuit—the deadline to apply is Saturday
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-04 | by ( Megan Sauer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Snap Inc., the social media app's parent company, is set to pay out $35 million to current and former Illinois residents for allegedly storing their facial recognition data without their consent. You'll need to include your Snapchat username and at least one Illinois address where you lived. Facebook, TikTok, Google, Shutterfly and Pret A Manger have all settled similar cases in Illinois over the last 14 months, too. California residents already have some data protection under the California Consumer Privacy Act. Fennessy also notes that as our collective understanding of data privacy grows, future lawsuits will focus less on user consent and more on what companies do with biometric data once they have it.

Snapchat has reduced the size of its creator fund for its short-video feature Spotlight. Snapchat has once again lowered the total amount it's paying to creators who use its short-video feature Spotlight. Two other Snapchat creators similarly told Insider they saw drops in their Spotlight payments in this year and that Spotlight is less lucrative than it was when it first launched in November 2020. Snapchat doesn't say exactly how it decides which creators get paid from the Spotlight fund. Snapchat's move to reduce its Spotlight fund comes at a perilous moment for Snap.

As earnings season ramps up, one thing that can help investors get a jump on upcoming announcements is readily available: already reported results. What Alphabet tells us about Meta Meta Platforms issues third quarter earnings after the closing bell Wednesday. What GM tells us about Ford Ford (F) issues third quarter earnings after the closing bell Wednesday. What GE, Raytheon tell us about Honeywell Honeywell (HON) reports third quarter results before the opening bell Thursday. Honeywell is again expected to generate $2.9 billion in sales in aerospace in its third quarter, according to FactSet.

☆ Snap CEO Evan Spiegel's fortune plunged from almost $14 billion to $2.3 billion in just a year as Snapchat struggles for new users
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-24 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Evan Spiegel has lost 83% of his wealth over the past year, per estimates by Bloomberg. The Snap cofounder and CEO's net worth fell from $13.9 billion to $2.3 billion. Snap posted a quarterly net loss of $360 million amid advertising struggles and stagnating user growth. Snap, Snapchat's parent company, posted a net loss of $360 million for the third quarter, up from a $72 million loss during the same quarter in the previous year. Snap is also giving up its office lease in San Francisco, a person familiar with the matter told Insider.

☆ Snapchat's disappearing message function helped teenagers obtain fentanyl with deadly consequences, lawsuit argues
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-23 | by ( Ryan Hogg | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Snapchat's disappearing messages helped teenagers to obtain the drug fentanyl, a lawsuit stated. A Snap spokesperson said several allegations in the complaint appeared to be "wholly inaccurate." The lawsuit stated that Snapchat is marketed to minors, and that the erasing messages function encourages drug dealers to use the social media app. A Snap spokesperson told Insider "several allegations in the complaint appear to be wholly inaccurate," but did not give further details. One of the parents' lawyers, Laura Marquez-Garrett of the Social Media Victims Law Center, previously led a lawsuit against Meta alleging Instagram caused eating disorders among children.

☆ Amazon, Meta, and other big tech firms have entered the 'Great Hesitation' — cutting hiring and other costs in fear of an economic downturn
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-16 | by ( Rob Price | Eugene Kim | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

Leaders at large-cap tech companies are in an anxious waiting game, battening down the hatches as they prepare for the storm to hit. Some tech firms will be hurt moreAmong the biggest players in the tech industry, the impacts of a crash will not be felt evenly. "I look at these large tech companies, and over the last couple of years, obviously money's been free, everything got bloated, and all these tech companies — excluding Apple — have effectively doubled their head count over a three-year period, right? Beyond head count, tech companies are cutting back on extras, imperiling their famously lavish meal options. The largest tech companies are also signaling their anxiety by trimming budgets for their more experimental businesses and research projects.

☆ Snap has many workers operating under 'code red' conditions in a drastic new effort to improve advertising and user growth on Snapchat
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-28 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Adding older users to Snapchat is also a renewed focus, people told Insider. As Snap struggles to reverse slowing growth and improve its advertising business, parts of the company are operating with a "code red" mentality and more aggressively working to entice older users to join Snapchat. Snap wants Snapchat to 'Age Up'Still, workers are feeling pressure to deliver more revenue growth by the end of the year. For the second quarter, Snap posted revenue growth of 13%. During the fourth quarter of 2021, the company boasted user growth of 20% or more "for five consecutive quarters."

☆ Here's what Snapchat's 'friend emojis' actually mean
▼ + stars: | 2017-01-31 | by ( Hannah Roberts | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: 1 min

If you use Snapchat, you might have noticed emojis next to some of your friends' names within the app — as below. AdvertisementYou'd be forgiven for thinking they are totally random, but they are based very specifically on how often you interact with each friend on Snapchat. Only you can see your "friend emojis." There are 11 different emojis, — here's what they each mean:This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now.

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