Google, Meta find themselves in Europe’s regulatory crosshairs once more: As increased scrutiny drives up the cost of doing business, Big Tech tries to fight back.

Payments Ecosystem: This year will reveal how providers must adapt to lasting pandemic-driven digitization across payments channels, ranging from in-store retail to B2B ecommerce.

TikTok was the No. 1 mobile app in the US last year, with 94.0 million downloads, a 6% increase over 2020. Runners-up Instagram and Snapchat reached 64.0 million downloads and 56.0 million downloads, respectively, meaning the three most downloaded apps in the US were all photo- and video-sharing platforms.

Amazon lifts the veil over its advertising business: The retailer’s 2021 ad revenues outpaced YouTube’s and are poised for continued growth.

Meta’s earnings miss shows the vulnerability of its ad revenue model: The company could be in for a $10 billion hit from Apple’s privacy changes, and the rise of TikTok isn’t helping.

AR, VR, and video games present opportunities that marketers can tap into right now.

Creator funds see mixed success: Social platforms offer more monetization tools than ever, but many content providers still struggle to get paid.

Read the latest Insider Intelligence stories about the metaverse.

US Instagram ad impressions are split mostly between two formats. For the US clients of performance marketing firm Tinuiti, 47.0% of impressions came from the feed and 42.0% from Stories in Q4 2021.

ES: Pricing, performance, and ease of use dictated who owned the market in the early days of personal computing. Today, VR ecosystems and platforms continue that trend as the metaverse takes shape: Consumers, developers, and content producers will eventually decide the future of the metaverse, but they will be limited by hardware’s capabilities. We look at the state of VR hardware, the key players, and how gaming could serve as a gateway to VR/AR adoption.

Instagram introduces subscriptions as it vies for control of the creator economy: As Instagram’s cachet diminishes among younger audiences, it hopes monetization tools will keep creators from turning to other platforms.

Is the Banning Surveillance Advertising Act a threat? Even if the US bill to limit targeted ads doesn’t pass, its introduction signals a legislative landscape that favors privacy more than ever.

We break down the metaverse and how it can define the future of computing, gaming, finance, social media, and business: AR and VR technologies, expanding virtual platforms and ecosystems, as well as an appetite for more immersive experiences are pushing the boundaries of reality into the virtual world.

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2022 featured a reimagined world of commerce and marketing: The products displayed in Las Vegas last week revealed new ways for marketers to blend the physical and virtual worlds.

Facebook is back in the FTC’s sights: The social media giant’s acquisition strategy is under scrutiny as the next wave of antitrust legislation rears its head.

Video is a growing part of advertising on social media. Here’s how advertisers are using video ads on social platforms to drive ad performance throughout the funnel.

Meta could have created its own AR/VR OS but chose to use a modified version of Google’s Android: Short-term convenience could lead to long-term problems in the metaverse.

Rounding up news from the last days of 2021: The news cycle didn’t stop over the holidays. These are some of the most notable stories from the last two weeks.