Twitter’s latest product road map updates put an emphasis on user experience and, of course, creators: The moves come amid increased competition from other major social players.

The pandemic has changed customer expectations, providing a welcome boost to insurtechs’ and Big Techs’ user growth and forcing insurers to adapt.

The pandemic is pushing consumers into digital banking channels, upping pressure on small and midsized banks to deliver value-added services and digital user experiences. They have to find ways of doing so on limited tech budgets to stay competitive.

Global insurers have been rocked by large, unexpected payouts and falling revenues amid the coronavirus pandemic. Yet, P&C and life insurers in leading markets will still increase their tech spend and accelerate their digital transformations in the next several years to enhance the online user experience.

The hype around ad blocking may have died down, but plenty of internet users are still taking steps to avoid ads. Marty Krátky-Katz, co-founder and CEO at ad block revenue recovery firm Blockthrough, joins eMarketer principal analyst at Insider Intelligence Nicole Perrin to discuss why some internet users block ads, what types of ad experiences are considered the most annoying, and how publishers' approach to monetizing ad blocking users has changed over the years.

Discovery and consideration are in a different place than before the pandemic. With less access to in-person touchpoints, consumers started exploring technology like augmented reality for their shopping needs. Brands have since launched new experiences to cater to consumer demands, but preexisting implementations also saw upticks in usage.

In the lead-up to the election, many social media users expressed growing exhaustion with the user experience due to the influx of political content. But those feelings of “election fatigue” didn’t cause most users to decrease their engagement on social.

Consumers are frustrated by intrusive or invasive ad experiences, and they’re concerned about how advertisers use their data. Here’s how consumers perceive their ad experiences across media channels, how they avoid ads, and how brands, advertisers, and publishers are responding.

As WeChat enters its second decade, Allen Zhang Xiaolong, chief architect of the super app, pledged at an annual conference to make videos its cornerstone in the coming years. More specifically, Zhang spotlighted Channels, its short-form video feature, and a more seamless user experience with official accounts and miniprograms (lightweight apps within WeChat that require minimal downloading and disappear after use).

If banks want to keep existing digital customers’ trust and cement habits among new digital users, they must provide a seamless digital user experience. To help banks improve their Ease of Use ratings, we surveyed respondents on which areas of digital banking they experience the most inconvenience in. These were our top five findings:.

When thinking about how to authenticate users, CafeMedia’s Bannister noted that internally they ask key questions related to user experience: “How can you build a better user experience? How can you engage your users in better ways? How can you make them trust your property more and want to share that information with you?”. Problems with Relying on Authentication.

eMarketer research analyst Mariel Soto Reyes and principal analysts at Insider Intelligence Mark Dolliver and Jeremy Goldman discuss the future of short-form video, HBO Max's release structure experiment, a new service to streamline streaming, how the pandemic affected computer usage, why Apple wants in on cars, what actually happens when you experience déjà vu, and more.