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X’s new plan to lure subscribers? Partnering with Paris Hilton on a custom icon

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X's new plan to lure subscribers? Partnering with Paris Hilton on a custom icon

X has a new plan to boost payers for its X Premium subscription offering and it’s…Paris Hilton. The company formerly known as Twitter has partnered with the entrepreneur and media icon on a number of new initiatives, including now, a custom Paris pink X icon exclusively for X Premium subscribers. The deal is the latest in the recently announced, wide-ranging partnership between Hilton’s 11:11 media company and X, which also includes plans for Hilton to work with X on live video, live commerce, X Spaces (live audio) and more.

The bedazzled pink icon was spotted in X’s app by X user @aaronp613 who often finds unreleased features before they’re announced. The icon, they said, was dubbed “Sparkly Pink” in the app’s code. We noticed the icon actually went live in the app ahead of today’s official announcement, but the news was not broadcast to X users until this morning.

Before Elon Musk’s acquisition, Twitter offered custom icons to its paid subscribers through Twitter Blue. The customization option — which is a common one among app developers to reward their paying customers — had allowed users to pick between a rotating selection of seasonal homescreen icons for the Twitter app. That perk continued with Musk’s revamp of the subscription product, which now has been rebranded X Premium and includes paid verification, the ability to edit posts, a lighter ad load and increased visibility in search and replies, among other features.

But the icons X has offered have been fairly boring compared with Twitter’s earlier selections — they’re simply alternative colors beyond the default X on a black background, not artistic designs like they were during the pre-Musk Twitter years.

By comparison, Hilton’s new “Paris Pink” icon is indeed sparkly pink, as described, making it stand out a bit from the rest. It may appeal to users who are into a more Barbie-pink-themed smartphone homescreen, as Paris’ fans may be. This feature will only be available for a limited time — 60 days after launch, a rep from 11:11 Media tells TechCrunch.

Image Credits: X screenshot of custom icons; yes I paid for X to screenshot this for you

The company said there was not a rev share on this particular initiative, but declined to detail the overall financial terms of the two-year 11:11 content deal with X.

Though a new icon wouldn’t normally be news, this particular release represents the first time X has partnered with a celebrity to design an icon for X Premium in an effort to lure more subscribers to its $8 per month or $84 per year subscription offering, when purchased on the web. (The subscription costs more in-app to cover the app stores’ fees.) The power of a celeb partnership could perhaps boost subscriber numbers, though it’s unclear how many of Hilton’s 16.6 million followers on X are actually big enough fans to pay for this perk — especially given that the pink icon is only offered for a two-month period.

X has struggled to attract subscribers for its paid subscription, with one report earlier this year noting the service had made just $11 million on mobile in its first three months. More recent data from a third-party analysis by researcher Travis Brown indicated X Premium gained around 94,000 net subscribers between July 1 and August 10, 2023. In total, he estimates the subscription has 891,963 subscribers as of last month. Though perhaps not terrible for a social media subscription (Snapchat+ has topped 5 million for comparison), it’s certainly not enough to offset X’s reliance on ad revenues.

Hilton’s deal with X comes after statements Musk has made about his plans for the company to move beyond being just a social network to also serve as a platform that embraces creators and allows them to monetize their fan bases. On that front, X launched an ad revenue-sharing program for creators, which paid out nearly $20 million, according to X CEO Linda Yaccarino.

X has also been courting creators to upload their videos to the platform, but the payouts are small, with one YouTuber reporting just $1,590 in monthly earnings, Mashable reported. As X engineer Eric Farraro noted last week, creators only earn a percentage of ad revenue for those ads shown to Verified users — that means some will have lower earnings than expected, as there just aren’t that many Verified users to go around. Boosting that figure is key to X’s creator initiative, which makes a deal like Hilton’s of increased importance to the company.

Hilton’s involvement with X is one of many digital initiatives the celeb has engaged with in recent years. She also bet on NFTs and crypto in the past and recently launched her own “Slivingland” metaverse experience on Roblox. Hilton is also among those celebs who worked with Meta to create its new celebrity-themed AIs based on Llama 2.

With her X deal, future plans will involve live video, commerce and Spaces, including a total of eight original videos, but specific details on those haven’t yet been revealed.

 



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The North Face Delivered Jacket Via Helicopter After Viral TikTok Complaint

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The North Face Delivered Jacket Via Helicopter After Viral TikTok Complaint

  • Popular apparel brand The North Face posted a crazy marketing stunt on TikTok recently. 
  • In a video, they delivered a rain jacket to a woman at the top of a mountain in New Zealand via helicopter. 
  • The woman had complained in a viral TikTok that her waterproof jacket got soaked in the rain. 

The North Face pulled an elaborate marketing stunt on TikTok and delivered some rain gear via helicopter to a woman in New Zealand, whose complaint about the brand went viral on the platform. 

Jenn Jensen posted a TikTok video on November 17 showing herself on a hiking trail in the rain where she’s soaked whilst wearing a rain jacket sporting The North Face logo. 

“I’ve got a bone to pick with North Face,” Jensen says in the video which has racked up over 11 million views. “I bought this ‘rain jacket’ a couple of days ago and the tag for the advertising said that it’s waterproof. Well listen, I’m 100% sure that it’s raining outside and I’m soaking wet.” 

She added: “Listen… I don’t want a refund. I want you to redesign this rain coat to make it waterproof and express deliver it to the top of Hooker Valley Lake in New Zealand where I will be waiting.” 

She tagged The North Face’s TikTok page in her caption. In one comment a user named @timbrodini wrote: “*Northface has left the conversation.” 

The popular outdoor clothes brand made their own TikTok video in response to @timbrodini’s comment in which they said: “We were busy express delivering @Jenn her jacket at the top of mountain.”

In the TikTok video, a North Face employee can be seen grabbing a red jacket from one of its physical stores and then hopping onto a helicopter where he’s flown out to New Zealand. The man then jumps out of the helicopter at the top of the mountain and runs out to throw the jacket to Jensen who is waiting. 

She says “thank you” at the end of the video, which has also gone viral and gained 4.1 million views. 

Jensen then made a follow up video on her page explaining that The North Face’s marketing team saw her video and wanted to make “amends.” She said they flew her out by helicopter to the top of a mountain in New Zealand to give her new rain gear. 

“At this point the ultimate test will be if the new rain gear they gave me at the top of that mountain will hold up to the very high bar that North Face has now set for themselves,” she concluded at the end of the video. 

Some users speculated whether her original video was also a part of the marketing stunt but Jensen responded that she “turned down” the opportunity to be paid for the company’s follow up video. 

“I’m not an influencer, I was just a disappointed customer.” 

The marketing strategy appears to be a new way for brands to connect with customers by showing their care whilst also providing an entertaining video on social media. 

The North Face seems to be following the steps of the Stanley cup brand which recently went viral after gifting a woman a new car. The woman’s own car had burnt down, but in a TikTok video she showed that her insulated Stanley cup had survived the car fire and that the ice inside hadn’t even melted. 



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U.S. Judge Blocks Montana’s Effort to Ban TikTok in the State

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U.S. Judge Blocks Montana’s Effort to Ban TikTok in the State

TikTok has won another reprieve in the U.S., with a District Judge blocking Montana’s effort to ban the app for all users in the state.

Back in May, Montana Governor Greg Gianforte signed legislation to ban TikTok outright from operating in the state, in order to protect residents from alleged intelligence gathering by China. There’s no definitive evidence that TikTok is, or has participated in such, but Gianforte opted to move to a full ban, going further than the Government device bans issued in other regions.

As explained by Gianforte at the time:

The Chinese Communist Party using TikTok to spy on Americans, violate their privacy, and collect their personal, private, and sensitive information is well-documented. Today, Montana takes the most decisive action of any state to protect Montanans’ private data and sensitive personal information from being harvested by the Chinese Communist Party.”

In response, a collection of TikTok users challenged the proposed ban, arguing that it violated their first amendment rights, which led to this latest court challenge, and District Court Judge Donald Molloy’s decision to stop Montana’s ban effort.

Montana’s TikTok ban had been set to go into effect from January 1st 2024.

In issuing a preliminary injunction to stop Montana from imposing a full ban on the app, Molloy said that Montana’s legislation does indeed violate the Constitution, and “oversteps state power”.

Molloy’s judgment is primarily centered on the fact that Montana has essentially sought to exercise foreign policy authority in enacting a TikTok ban, which is only enforceable by federal authorities. Molloy also noted that there was apervasive undertone of anti-Chinese sentiment” within Montana’s proposed legislation.

TikTok has welcomed the ruling, issuing a brief statement in response:

Montana attorney general, meanwhile, has said that it’s considering next steps to advance its proposed TikTok ban.

It’s a win for TikTok, though the Biden Administration is still weighing a full TikTok ban in the U.S., which may still happen, even though the process has been delayed by legal and legislative challenges.

As I’ve noted previously, my sense here would be that TikTok won’t be banned in the U.S. unless there’s a significant shift in U.S.-China relations, and that relationship is always somewhat tense, and volatile to a degree.

If the U.S. Government has new reason to be concerned, it may well move to ban the app. But doing so would be a significant step, and would prompt further response from the C.C.P.

Which is why I suspect that the U.S. Government won’t act, unless it feels that it has to. And right now, there’s no clear impetus to implement a ban, and stop a Chinese-owned company from operating in the region, purely because of its origin.

Which is the real crux of the issue here. A TikTok ban is not just banning a social media company, it’s blocking cross-border commerce, because the company is owned by China, which will remain the logic unless clear evidence arises that TikTok has been used as a vector for gathering information on U.S. citizens.

Banning a Chinese-owned app because its Chinese-owned is a statement, beyond concerns about a social app, and the U.S. is right to tread carefully in considering how such a move might impact other industries.

So right now, TikTok is not going to be banned, in Montana, or anywhere else in the U.S. But that could still change, very quickly.



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Israeli president tells Musk he has ‘huge role’ in anti-Semitism

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Elon Musk, the world's richest person, said in video remaks that Hamas militants 'have been fed propaganda'

Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, said in video remaks that Hamas militants ‘have been fed propaganda’ – Copyright POOL/AFP Leon Neal

Israel’s president told Elon Musk on Monday that the tech mogul has “a huge role to play” to combat anti-Semitism, which his social media platform is accused of spreading.

The meeting came after the world’s richest person visited a kibbutz community devastated in attacks by Hamas militants on October 7, and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence officials.

Musk has been criticised over what critics say is a proliferation of hate speech on X, formerly Twitter, since his takeover of the social media site in October 2022.

He has been accused by the White House of “abhorrent promotion” of anti-Semitism after endorsing a conspiracy theory seen as accusing Jews of trying to weaken white majorities.

Israel’s figurehead President Isaac Herzog told him: “Unfortunately, we are inundated by anti-Semitism, which is Jew hatred.

“You have a huge role to play,” he said. “And I think we need to fight it together because on the platforms which you lead, unfortunately, there’s a harbouring of a lot of… anti-Semitism.”

Musk did not mention anti-Semitism in his video remarks released by Herzog’s office, but said Hamas militants “have been fed propaganda since they were children”.

“It’s remarkable what humans are capable of if they’re fed falsehoods, from when they are children; they will think that the murder of innocent people is a good thing.”

On October 7 Hamas militants broke through Gaza’s militarised border into southern Israel to kill around 1,200 people and seize about 240 hostages, according to Israeli officials, in the worst-ever attack since the nation’s founding.

Vowing to destroy Hamas in response, Israel has carried out a relentless bombardment of targets in Gaza, alongside a ground invasion, that the Hamas government says has killed almost 15,000.

A temporary truce has been in effect since Friday.

– Talk of satellites –

Earlier Monday, Netanyahu and Musk discussed “security aspects of artificial intelligence” with senior defence officials, the Prime Minister’s Office said.

Musk and Netanyahu held a conversation on X following their tour of Kfar Aza, one of the communities attacked by Hamas.

“We have to demilitarise Gaza after the destruction of Hamas,” Netanyahu said, calling for a campaign to “deradicalise” the Palestinian territory.

“Then we also have to rebuild Gaza, and I hope to have our Arab friends help in that context.”

Netanyahu told Musk he hoped to resume United States-mediated normalisation talks with Saudi Arabia after Hamas’s defeat and “expand the circle of peace beyond anything imaginable”.

The war stalled progress towards a Saudi-Israel normalisation deal, and in early November Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler denounced the conduct of Israeli forces fighting Hamas in Gaza.

Israel’s Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi said his country had reached an understanding in principle on the use of Starlink satellites, operated by Musk’s company SpaceX, in Israel and the Gaza Strip “with the approval of the Israeli Ministry of Communications”.

Starlink is a network of satellites in low Earth orbit that can provide internet to remote locations, or areas that have had normal communications infrastructure disabled.

In September, Netanyahu urged Musk “to stop not only anti-Semitism, or rolling it back as best you can, but any collective hatred” on X.

Musk said at the time that while his platform could not stop all hate speech before it was posted, he was “generally against attacking any group, no matter who it is”.

X Corp is currently suing nonprofit Media Matters on the grounds that it has driven away advertisers by portraying the site as rife with anti-Semitic content.

Musk has also threatened to file suit against the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish advocacy group, over its claims that problematic and racist speech has soared on the site since he completed his $44-billion takeover.

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