Archives par mot-clé : video

Chinese social platform Momo revenue jumps 421% due to live video

Video Marketing,

Boosted by robust growth in live-streaming video services, the revenue of Chinese mobile social networking platform Momo jumped 421% year-on-year to US$265.2 million in the first quarter of 2017.

The strong revenue growth is boosted by robust growth in its live video service business. Since live video service was launched in 2015, it has been growing rapidly and kept its momentum. Momo’s live video service revenue grew 9.1% year-on-year to US$212.6 million, representing 80% of total revenue, the results showed.

Momo is listed on the NASDAQ.

Monthly active users stood at 85.2 million as of 31 March, a record high and up from 72.3 million a year earlier.

Chairman and CEO Tang Yan said in a conference call Wednesday that it was the company’s social media function that made its live video service a success. “Looking ahead, we will push forward with our strategy to drive the video transition and introduce more entertaining content to support recreational activities.”

Tang stressed that the platform will focus on short video services for the rest of the year.

Facebook signs BuzzFeed, Vox, others for original video shows

Video Marketing,

Facebook Inc has signed deals with millennial-focused news and entertainment creators Vox Media, BuzzFeed, ATTN, Group Nine Media and others to make shows for its upcoming video service, which will feature long and short-form content with ad breaks, according to several sources familiar with the situation.

Facebook is planning two tiers of video entertainment: scripted shows with episodes lasting 20 to 30 minutes, which it will own; and shorter scripted and unscripted shows with episodes lasting about 5 to 10 minutes, which Facebook will not own, according to the sources.

All of the sources asked to remain anonymous because the deals are confidential.

Facebook’s move to acquire and license original content is the latest in its push to attract more advertising dollars, putting the company in head-to-head competition with Alphabet Inc’s YouTube Red, Snapchat‘s Discover feature, and traditional television networks.

It is an attempt to deliver on Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg‘s remarks to investors earlier this month that the company was looking for so-called “anchor content” that would draw people to the video tab on Facebook’s app.

The world’s biggest social media company is set to pay up to $250,000 for the longer, scripted shows which will be owned by Facebook, taking a page from a strategy employed successfully by Netflix Inc and Amazon.com Inc , which both now own some of the content they sell to subscribers.

For the second tier of shorter shows, Facebook will pay $10,000 to $35,000 for each show and give creators 55 percent of revenue from ads, the sources said. Ads will run during both the long-form and short-form shows.

A Facebook spokeswoman declined to comment.

Facebook said in December it would buy original scripted and unscripted programming for its video service. Earlier this year, it tapped former MTV executive Mina Lefevre to lead the effort.

Facebook currently offers live video from a number of news publishers as well as its own users. It has begun testing the water with live sports video in the last few months. Most recently it signed a deal with Major League Baseball to show 20 games live this season.

While Facebook will initially run short-form shows exclusively on its site, the creators of the content will be able to run the shows on their own properties after a negotiated period of time, and will be able to eventually sell them externally, the sources said.

The company is focused on working with news and entertainment makers that are already active on Facebook and have a large millennial following. Vox, BuzzFeed, ATTN and Group Nine Media – the holding company for Thrillist, NowThis and The Dodo – are all working on short-form content for the new Facebook service, the sources said.

Advertisers are interested in learning more about Facebook’s service as they see it as another way to get in front of the growing number of viewers watching their favorite shows on tablets and smartphones, said Monique Lemus O’Brien, a media buyer at The Media Kitchen.

By Jessica Toonkel

(Reporting By Jessica Toonkel in New York; Additional reporting by David Ingram in San Francisco; Editing by Anna Driver and Bill Rigby)

Celcom now offers Walla passes for video and music streaming

Video Marketing,

With plenty of digital music and video content available on the go, streaming is becoming one of the most popular ways of utilising mobile data. 

While many streaming bundles are available for postpaid users, prepaid users are often left with expensive and limited streaming quota options. 

Celcom Axiata Bhd, through its Xpax prepaid brand, plans to change this with the new Music Walla and Video Walla features. 

Music Walla comes with unlimited streaming data quota on a weekly or monthly basis, priced at RM3 and RM1 respectively. This means that the user’s existing data quota will not be affected while streaming music. 

However, users will not be able to enjoy certain services such as Spotify and Deezer as the supported partners are limited to Joox, KKBOX, Raku, and selected local radio stations. 

For video streaming, Video Walla comes with a larger number of partners such as dimsum, iflix, Netflix, youtube, dailymotion, Astro Go, tonton and Hero Talkies. 

Two choices are available – weekly and daily. 

The amount of data will not be unlimited as the RM7 weekly pass is capped at 10GB, while the RM1 daily pass has 1GB. 

Celcom Axiata Bhd deputy CEO Azwan Khan Osman Khan said that unlike other telcos, there are no limits in place for the speed and video quality while streaming with the Walla pass. 

“What you see is what you get. No fine print, no kelentong,” said Azwan Khan. 

Although the video and music streaming passes are aimed at Celcom Xpax prepaid customers, First postpaid customers can also enjoy passes. 

The passes can be purchased via the Xpax or Celcom First Postpaid apps or the *118# USSD option on mobile.

For more info, head to www.xpax.com.my/walla.

New CBO score triggers backlash

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The Republican healthcare bill would result in 23 million fewer people with insurance over a decade, steep premium increases for older people and price hikes for many people with pre-existing conditions, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said Wednesday.

The long-awaited analysis of the ObamaCare repeal bill found that a controversial amendment from Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-N.J.) — added at the last minute to secure conservative votes — would have a significant effect despite Republican assurances to the contrary.

The amendment allows states to waive rules governing what an insurance plan must cover and lets insurers charge sick people more based on their health.

The CBO said many states would likely take the waivers, thereby allowing insurers to charge sick people more. Some people with pre-existing conditions would then lose coverage because they could not afford the premiums despite extra funding that was added to mitigate that possibility, the CBO said.

“Unless you’re a healthy millionaire, TrumpCare is a nightmare,” said Senate Minority Leader Charles SchumerCharles SchumerGOP senators distance themselves from House ObamaCare repeal bill McConnell: CBO analysis for House bill will repeat ‘things we already know’ Congress urges Trump administration to release public transit funding MORE (D-N.Y.). “This report ought to be the final nail in the coffin of the Republican effort to sabotage our healthcare system.”

The Trump administration, which spent significant political capital getting the bill through the House, slammed the analysis.

“The CBO was wrong when they analyzed Obamacare’s effect on cost and coverage, and they are wrong again,” Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said in a statement. 

“In reality, Americans are paying more for fewer healthcare choices because of Obamacare, and that’s why the Trump Administration is committed to reforming healthcare.”

In a bright spot for the GOP, the CBO found the bill would reduce the deficit by $119 billion over 10 years. That’s less than the $150 billion reduction projected for the previous version of the bill, but still enough savings that the House won’t have to vote on the bill again before officially sending it to the Senate.

Other aspects of the analysis — from the number of uninsured people to the effect of Medicaid cuts — were mostly unchanged from the CBO’s initial score in March

The report seemed to harden the resolve of Senate Republicans to move in a different direction.

In a flurry of statements, Senate Republicans stressed that they are starting fresh on the healthcare bill and that it will be changed significantly — and scored again by the CBO — before it becomes law.

 “While I am in favor of repealing ObamaCare, I am opposed to the American Health Care Act (AHCA) in its current form,” Sen. Dean HellerDean HellerNew CBO score triggers backlash Overnight Healthcare: CBO fallout | GOP senators distance themselves from House bill | Trump budget chief blasts score | Schumer says House bill belongs ‘in the trash’ Five takeaways from the CBO healthcare score MORE (R-Nev.), who faces a close reelection race next year, said in a statement. “This bill does not do enough to address Nevada’s Medicaid population or protect Nevadans with pre-existing conditions.”

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said any healthcare bill passed by the Senate must not allow people to be denied coverage, citing Jimmy Kimmel’s now-famous plea on behalf of people with pre-existing health conditions.

“Congress’s focus must be to lower premiums with coverage which passes the Jimmy Kimmel Test,” Cassidy said in a statement. “The AHCA does not. I am working with Senate colleagues to do so.”

Senate Republicans have formed a working group to draft a new healthcare bill but are facing significant headwinds in finding consensus. Their conference is divided on issues such as Medicaid cuts and the waivers for states out of minimum coverage requirements and the rules for pre-existing conditions.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnellMitch McConnellBorder-adjustment tax proposal at death’s door McConnell on Trump: ‘We could do with a little less drama’ New CBO score triggers backlash MORE (R-Ky.) told Reuters earlier Wednesday: “I don’t know how we get to 50 [votes] at the moment. But that’s the goal.”

“And exactly what the composition of that [bill] is I’m not going to speculate about because it serves no purpose,” he added.  

Perhaps the biggest outstanding question for the Senate is what to do about the MacArthur amendment, which has pushed pre-existing conditions to the center of the legislative debate.

The CBO projected that a substantial number of people would live in states that would take advantage of the new waivers.

One-sixth of the population would live in states that took full advantage and waived both rules, the CBO found. People with pre-existing conditions in those states would have difficulty affording coverage.

“Over time, it would become more difficult for less healthy people (including people with preexisting medical conditions) in those states to purchase insurance because their premiums would continue to increase rapidly,” the report said.

While the Senate indicated it is doing its own work, House Republicans defended their bill.

MacArthur dismissed the CBO’s conclusion that his amendment would hurt people with pre-existing conditions.

“I don’t agree with them that waivers will destabilize [the market],” MacArthur told reporters Wednesday. “I think waivers will cover people with pre-existing conditions because they’ll have to create risk pools.”

“I respect the CBO’s role, but just because a group of auditors down the block have created a model that has a lot of ifs, ands and maybes, looking out 10 years, doesn’t make that the gospel,” he added. “That is somebody’s opinion at CBO. I have a different opinion.”

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), who negotiated the amendment on behalf of the Freedom Caucus, rejected the CBO’s claim that the bill could destabilize the market for sicker people. 

“I don’t know how you can get anymore unstable then what we are right now. A lot of states are down to one carrier. I’m not sure how you can get less stable that than. I guess we go to negative-one providers in a state?” he said.

Much of the debate between Republicans and Democrats has been over whether 

ObamaCare is currently “collapsing.” The CBO found that the market under the current law will be “stable in most areas,” and that while premiums have been rising, most people are protected by government subsidies under the law. 

Another thorny political issue for Senate Republicans is how to lower premiums.

Premiums for healthy people would be lower under the House bill, but with a wide variation, the CBO found.

Overall, premiums would increase for two years before they decreased — by 20 percent in 2018 and 5 percent in 2019. After 2020, premium costs would depend on which states get waivers and how much funding they get from the proposal’s Patient and State Stability Fund.

Many GOP lawmakers had already expressed concern about price spikes for older people under the bill. In the updated version, the price increases would also be dramatic in states that got waivers from the ObamaCare rules.

Premiums could rise as much as 800 percent for a 64-year-old making $26,500, the CBO found — from $1,700 to $13,600.

Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) led a last-minute effort to add $8 billion to the bill to reduce premiums in states that waived ObamaCare rules. But the CBO found that money would not be enough.

The funding “would not be sufficient to substantially reduce the large increases in premiums for high-cost enrollees,” the analysis said.  

The measure would still have a large cut to Medicaid, estimated at $834 billion over 10 years. The CBO estimates that cut would lead to 14 million fewer people being covered under the program.

The bill would cut taxes by an estimated $992 billion. Most of those tax cuts would go to higher earners.

Overall, the bill repeals the core parts of ObamaCare, including its subsidies, mandates, taxes and Medicaid expansion, and puts in place a new system with a new tax credit to help people buy coverage. That tax credit would provide less help on average than financial assistance under ObamaCare, however.

Britain says it’s ‘likely’ attacker had accomplices as focus turns to his Libya visits

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The worst terrorist attack on British soil in over a decade was carried out by a British-born son of Libyan immigrants who was born and raised a short drive from the concert hall that he transformed from a scene of youthful celebration into a tableau of horror. 

Health officials said Wednesday that in addition to the dead, 20 people remained in “critical care” and were suffering from “horrific injuries.”

The attack, which came at the close of a concert in this northern English city by American pop star Ariana Grande, was claimed Tuesday by the Islamic State, saying one of its “soldiers” was responsible. 

Even as officials and experts cast doubt on the terrorist group’s assertion, however, authorities were scrambling to execute searches, arrest potential accomplices and reinforce security systems at a spectrum of public events that look newly vulnerable to attacks like Monday’s.

After years of successfully fending off more-sophisticated strikes even as countries across continental Europe have fallen victim to bombings, Monday night’s carnage underscored that Britain is not immune amid a rising tide of extremist violence. 

The highest priority for police, said Greater Manchester Chief Constable Ian Hopkins, was to “establish whether [Abedi] was acting alone or as part of a network.”

Earlier he had said that Abedi executed the bombing alone and that he “was carrying an improvised explosive device, which he detonated, causing this atrocity.”

But unlike in previous high-profile attacks — including one in March in which an assailant driving a speeding car ran down pedestrians on a London bridge, then stabbed to death a British police officer — experts said it was unlikely that Monday’s attack had been carried out without help. 

[Three seconds of silence, then a scream: How the attack unfolded]

“Getting a car or a knife is easy,” said Raffaello Pantucci, a terrorism expert at the London-based Royal United Services Institute. “Making a bomb that works and goes off when you want it to go off takes preparation and practice. And it usually involves other people.”

Pantucci said British authorities “are going to try to figure out who [Abedi] knows, who he’s linked to. Did he build the bomb itself, or did someone build it and give it to him?”

If police have an answer, they did not say so publicly Tuesday. But there was ample evidence of a widening security operation, with the arrest of a 23-year-old from south Manchester in connection with the bombing. Police also carried out searches at two homes, including the house in the leafy suburban neighborhood where Abedi, 22, was registered as having lived.

A family friend said Abedi traveled frequently between Libya and Britain. “We have an Daesh problem in Libya. We wonder whether he met people there who trained him,” said the friend, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Daesh is the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State.

Even before May’s announcement of a “critical” threat level for just the third time ever — the first two came in 2006 and 2007 — authorities from London to Scotland said that they would be reviewing security plans for upcoming public events. Even smaller gatherings that would not have been policed in the past may now get protection, they said.

[The targeting of women and girls in Manchester may have been intentional]

“Over the coming days as you go to a music venue, go shopping, travel to work or head off to the fantastic sporting events, you will see more officers, including armed officers,” said Commander Jane Connors of London’s Metropolitan Police Department.

May’s decision to deploy the military means the public may now see soldiers rather than police. May said the military would operate under police command.

The escalation came as the nation grieved for the young victims, with thousands of people converging on Manchester’s graceful Albert Square for a vigil that was part solemn remembrance and part rally against extremism.

To roaring applause, Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham vowed that the city — which has seen hardship, having been bombed relentlessly during World War II — would not succumb to division or anger. A poet named Tony Walsh delivered an ode to the city titled “This Is the Place.” And in what has become a dark mainstay of life in Western Europe, passersby left candles, flowers and cards for the dead. 

The casualties included children as young as elementary school students. Police said that among the 59 people injured, a dozen were younger than 16. 

Among the dead was Saffie Rose Roussos, who was just 8 years-old. The first victim to be publicly identified was Georgina Callander, an 18-year-old student. 

[An 8-year-old was separated from her family. She never made it out.]

Other names were expected to be released Wednesday, with authorities bracing the public for deaths among the teens and tweens who form the core of Grande’s enthusiastic fan base.

The Islamic State did not give any details about the attacker or how the blast was carried out, raising doubts about the truth of its claim. Its statement was posted on the online messaging service Telegram and later noted by the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors militant websites.

The Islamic State often quickly proclaims links to attacks, but some previous boasts have not been proved.

In Washington, Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats said Tuesday that despite the group’s statement, “we have not verified yet the connection.” He noted in a Senate hearing that “they claim responsibility for virtually every attack.” 

In a speech outside 10 Downing Street, where flags were lowered to half-staff, May called the Manchester killings a “callous terrorist attack.” 

“This attack stands out for its appalling, sickening cowardice deliberately targeting innocent, defenseless children and young people who should have been enjoying one of the most memorable nights of their lives,” she said.

May later visited Manchester, meeting with local authorities and signing a condolence book honoring the victims.

Queen Elizabeth II, meanwhile, led guests of a garden party at Buckingham Palace in a moment of silence and issued a statement expressing her “deepest sympathies.”

“The whole nation has been shocked by the death and injury in Manchester last night of so many people, adults and children, who had just been enjoying a concert,” she said.

Across the world, other leaders expressed revulsion and scorn toward the bomber.

[The Manchester attack was exactly what many had long feared]

During a visit to the West Bank city of Bethlehem, President Trump pledged “absolute solidarity” with Britain and called those responsible for the attack “evil losers in life.”

Organizers of the Cannes Film Festival denounced the bombing as an “attack on culture, youth and joyfulness” and observed a minute of silence Tuesday. Cannes is 15 miles from Nice, where an attacker driving a truck plowed into crowds celebrating Bastille Day in July, killing 86 people.

The Monday night attack was the worst terrorist strike on British soil since 2005, when Islamist extremists bombed the London subway and a bus, killing 54 people.

And as with that attack, Monday’s bombing prompted desperate searches for missing loved ones that continued through the night and into Tuesday.

Charlotte Campbell told the BBC that she was “phoning everybody,” including hospitals, trying to locate her 15-year-old daughter, Olivia. She last spoke to her daughter Monday night while she was at the concert.

“She’d just seen the support act and said she was having an amazing time, and thanking me for letting her go,” Campbell said in an emotional interview.

[In the midst of Manchester’s terror, strangers reach out — through Twitter]

On Wednesday, Campbell confirmed on social media that her daughter had been killed.

The attack occurred near one of the exits of the arena, in a public space connected to a bustling train station. 

Jake Taylor, a former security guard at the arena, said its layout makes absolute safety impossible. 

“You can’t stop people from getting through the train station,” Taylor said.

Mark Harrison, who accompanied his 12-year-old daughter to the concert from Cumbria in northern England, said there were no metal detectors or body checks at the arena’s entrance, although bags were inspected and items such as water bottles had to be discarded. 

“There was definitely a security presence, but anyone can come through the train station,” said Harrison, 44. 

[Trump decries the ‘losers’ who wage terrorism]

Pantucci, the security expert, said that authorities had disrupted several plots in recent months but that Monday’s attack somehow slipped through. Understanding why, he said, will be crucial.

“They’ve been dealing with a very high threat tempo,” he said. “But this is one they weren’t able to stop.” 

Adam reported from London. Isaac Stanley-Becker, James McAuley and Rick Noack in Manchester; Paul Schemm in Addis Ababa, Ethi­o­pia; and Devlin Barrett, Brian Murphy and Ellen Nakashima in Washington contributed to this report.

 Read more         

Three seconds of silence then a scream: How the Manchester suicide attack unfolded  

The targeting of women and girls in Manchester may have been intentional  

Who were the victims of the Manchester Arena attack?  

Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world            

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