On today's episode, we discuss how the digital ad duopoly is evolving, the most interesting dark horse digital ad giant, and whether Netflix, not TikTok, is a bigger threat to Facebook and Instagram. "In Other News," we talk about ad industry practices coming under fire as privacy lawsuits surge and who the winners and losers will be when the third-party cookie says goodbye. Tune in to the discussion with our analyst Paul Verna.

Social commerce experienced two years of exceptional growth amid the pandemic, and while growth in the number of social buyers is slowing, the amount of social commerce sales is still rising rapidly, said our analyst Jasmine Enberg on a "Behind the Numbers" podcast.

In the US, 52% of Facebook users reported seeing more ads on the social network, while nearly half of YouTube and Instagram users said the same of their respective platforms. Across the social platforms we studied, less than 10% of users felt ad load had decreased.

Zuck has a golden opportunity if he doesn't muck it up: Meta’s market valuation drops are tied to its metaverse aspirations. Its upcoming product releases need to be crowd pleasers.

Reels, Reels, and more Reels: Facebook released an API for Reels, allowing users to share short-form videos to the app from outside platforms.

Watch this video, featuring Meta’s John Cantarella, vice president, community and scaled partnerships, as he explains how fostering a community can give brands of any size a competitive edge because of how the relationships built over time can be leveraged for engagement and growth. In his role at Meta, Cantarella leads a team that helps leaders, creators, and brands—including Airbnb and Tonal—with their community strategy across Instagram and Facebook.

Digital trust is the confidence people have that a platform will protect their information and provide a safe environment for them to create and engage with content. Our sixth annual benchmark survey of US social media users reveals that trust in social media platforms has declined substantially this year in key areas including privacy, safety, and ad relevance.

User trust in the major social platforms is down this year, according to our sixth annual benchmark survey, especially in the areas of privacy, safety, and ad relevance. Trust affects ad engagement, and in a year when ad revenue growth is slowing for many platforms, it’s imperative that they stem the declines.

Meta faces new challenges: ByteDance and Sony are building their VR ecosystems. This could be the perfect time for Meta to double down on its productivity and collaboration-focused metaverse

Pinterest’s new “Don’t Don’t Yourself” ad campaign highlights the platform as a site for genuineness and creativity, while hinting at the darker sides of other social media networks.

The personal luxury goods sector is riding a wave of high demand in the US and China, buoyed by wealthier consumers who are relatively immune to the impact of price increases. But brands will need to appeal to the rising Gen Z consumer, as well as strengthen loyalty among their most important customers.

There’s no denying Facebook is a commerce powerhouse. But it also has Facebook Marketplace, which is primarily intended for C2C shopping and buying, though it also allows companies to list their items and place ads.

Reports that Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok are abandoning some of their shopping features are not a reflection of the platforms’ overall commerce ambitions. But as social commerce buyer growth slows, brands should focus more on reengaging existing customers and less on direct buying capabilities like native checkout.

Last week, Twitter finally announced a “share” button for its Android app. The feature’s already standard in iOS, making Twitter really, really late to its own game. It’s just the latest example of a social media platform chasing revenues from competitors. Apps aren’t above copying off a classmate’s paper to get ahead.

Instagram retreats from social commerce: The move comes a little more than a month after parent company Meta reported its first year-over-year revenue decline this quarter.

On today's episode, we discuss Facebook's plan to be cool again, Amazon testing a TikTok-style feed, what to make of the price of Netflix with ads, WhatsApp's superpowers in India, TikTok and YouTube making TV their new home, an unpopular opinion about ad-free social media, the most livable cities in the world, and more. Tune in to the discussion with our director of reports editing Rahul Chadha and analysts Evelyn Mitchell and Max Willens.

TikTok commands attention in the UK market: Though it doesn’t make the top 10 among mobile apps in terms of consumer reach, the app leads in time spent per user.

Google and Meta have maintained a steady lead in digital ad revenues worldwide, ahead of the likes of Amazon, Twitter, and Snapchat. But that's not without their own growing pains. Both Meta and Google saw revenues dip by several billion dollars in Q1 of this year. Still, the companies are tens of billions of dollars ahead of triopoly competitor, Amazon, in digital ad revenues.

Our inaugural forecast for retail ecommerce sales by product category in Brazil will help retail professionals understand the current state of the country's ecommerce ecosystem. We also look at the 10 categories driving growth in 2022 and beyond.

Our inaugural forecast for retail ecommerce sales by product category in Argentina will help retail professionals understand the current state of the country’s ecommerce ecosystem. We also look at the categories driving growth in 2022 and beyond.