Meta will test video ads on Threads
At the NewFronts event, where social media companies can pitch themselves to advertisers, Meta also said that it is trying out a new ad option centered around Instagram Reels. It is developing Reels trending ads that will be shown next to some of the service's most popular videos.
Basically, Meta is following the same trajectory with its Instagram networks that it did with Facebook: making it less and less enjoyable to actually socialize with your connections.
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Axios
4 minutes ago
- Axios
Exclusive: Meta names Connor Hayes head of Threads
Longtime Meta executive Connor Hayes has been named head of Threads, Axios has learned, marking a significant milestone for the two-year old product. Why it matters: Instagram head Adam Mosseri has overseen Threads since its inception, but as the app has grown, so too has its need for a leader solely focused on its future. " Given Threads' maturity, we think we need a dedicated app lead who can focus all of their time on helping Threads move forward," Mosseri wrote in a Thursday staff memo obtained by Axios. Zoom in: Mosseri said Hayes will begin his new role by mid-September and will report to him directly. Once onboarded, all product managers, engineers, designers, data scientists and user experience researchers working on Threads will report in through Hayes, he added. Threads data engineers will continue reporting through Brad Ruderman, Meta's senior director of data engineering. Catch up quick: Hayes was part of the original team that built the first version of Threads when it launched in 2023. He later served as Meta's vice president of product for generative AI. Hayes first joined Facebook in 2011 and has served in various product roles across Meta and Instagram over the past 14 years. Zoom out: The move comes as Threads continues to grow rapidly around the world. While X is still the dominant real-time, social discourse platform in terms of global daily web visits, Threads is on the cusp of catching up in terms of mobile app users, according to Similarweb data. Between the lines: Meta launched Threads in 2023 as an offshoot of Instagram. Having access to Instagram's user base of more than 1 billion people helped Threads grow quickly, especially compared to other real-time, social discourse apps like Mastodon and Bluesky. In his staff note, Mosseri said Threads now has more than 350 million monthly users. Between the lines: When Threads first launched, the product was closely linked to Instagram. Today, it's "grown into a platform with its own culture, its own energy, and a rapidly growing community," Mosseri said. To that point, he added that more than a third of daily Threads users with connections follow different accounts on Threads than on Instagram. "It's exciting to see Threads establishing its own unique user base," he noted. What to watch: Meta continues to roll out new Threads features that make the app more akin to X, formerly Twitter, which launched in 2006.
Entrepreneur
4 minutes ago
- Entrepreneur
27-Year-Old Grows DTC Business From $60,000 to Over $500,000
Ruth Sack, 27, grew up with Streets Ahead, the luxury leather accessories brand her father, David Sack, founded in 1982. She and her siblings painted belts with nail polish in the Los Angeles factory and attended trade shows across the country with their parents. Image Credit: Courtesy of Streets Ahead. Ruth Sack. But it wasn't until 2020 that Sack considered dedicating significant time to the brand. "I went to UCLA and studied gender studies, and then Covid hit," Sack says. "I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I started helping out with the family business because things were pretty tough, and I actually sort of loved it." Sack went on to attend the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM) and step in as Streets Ahead's head of marketing and design. Related: This 29-Year-Old's Side Hustle Brought People 'to the Dark Green Side.' It Made $10,000 Within 2 Days and Sees 6 Figures a Month. Streets Ahead's products are made locally in California with leather and hardware sourced from Italy, and the brand is known for its novelty pieces — "bestselling belts [with] crazy heart hardware with chains and snakes and things like that" — that have been spotted on numerous celebrities, including Beyoncé during her Cowboy Carter tour. Image Credit: Courtesy of Streets Ahead The brand built on its success as a legacy wholesale business over the decades, but when Sack joined the team, she wanted to explore its potential in the direct-to-consumer (DTC) space. As it turns out, there was a lot: In just a few years, Sack grew DTC revenue from $60,000 to more than $500,000. Streets Ahead is projected to hit $3.2 million to $3.5 million in total revenue in 2025, with $2.7 million to $3 million from wholesale and $500,000 to $600,000 from DTC. Related: 'Absolute Freedom': Siblings Behind a Self-Funded 8-Figure Brand Reveal 3 Secrets Aspiring Entrepreneurs Should Know About Growth and Success "I came in and changed the platform to Shopify, kind of just revamped the whole thing." Streets Ahead's foray into DTC sales started with a website refresh. "We always had a website, but [no one ran it]," Sack says. "It didn't really make any money. It was never up to date. So I came in and changed the platform to Shopify, kind of just revamped the whole thing, and started adding products and keeping it up to date. And immediately we saw a difference." Once her parents saw the results, they were even more willing to invest in the brand's DTC strategy. Streets Ahead leaned into professional content creation and advertising and continued to see its DTC sales grow. Related: 6 Questions You Need to Ask Yourself Before Launching a Direct to Consumer Brand Part of the brand's digital transformation also included a logo overhaul, Sack says. The company featured the new design across its social media platforms and started to generate interest from major influencers like Rocky Barnes, who boasts more than three million followers on Instagram and 200,000 followers on TikTok. " She found us through an ad that we were running, and she wanted the exact belts from the ad," Sack recalls. "So we started doing some gifting, and we could see that it worked. As we built our social presence, especially Instagram and ads, we got so many DMs, and now they keep coming." Image Credit: Courtesy of Streets Ahead "99% of the time we're making it from scratch." Sack would love to sell more on TikTok, but the platform's quick-ship requirements prove challenging for the made-to-order brand, as "everything is essentially custom" and takes time to manufacture. Whereas other companies might have thousands of units sitting in a warehouse ready to ship, every time Streets Ahead receives an order, that request is sent down to the factory, which starts the production process. "We don't have anything made here unless there was a return and we have [that returned product]," Sack says. "99% of the time we're making it from scratch." Related: I Revamped a Men's Product for Women. The Bootstrapped Business Was a Hit — and Pledged $20 Million to Support Women Entrepreneurs. Because of Streets Ahead's branding and social media presence, it can get "a little bit lost" on people that each item really is custom-made for them, Sack notes. The company follows up on particularly large orders to confirm them before moving forward with fulfillment. What's more, despite the business's made-to-order model, Streets Ahead does accept returns. " I buy things that I want to try and might return — we all do it," Sack says. "If we want to have this type of direct-to-consumer [platform], there has to be some kind of return. People need to try things on. They don't know their size. So we do allow returns, [but] we've now started to put a little tag on [products] that says, If this tag is removed, we can't accept the return, to prevent people from wearing it and then sending it back." "You have to be okay doing the grunt work." As Sack considers Street Ahead's future and her own role within it, she's excited to expand the brand's offerings beyond belts. The brand dropped its first handbag collection last month, and Sack says she'd love to branch into shoes, particularly leather boots and sandals with hardware, down the line. Image Credit: Courtesy of Streets Ahead Related: 'Rules Are Suggestions': This Fashion Founder Is Using AI to Eliminate the Industry's Massive Sizing and Waste Problems For young professionals or aspiring entrepreneurs who hope to make their mark on the fashion industry, Sack says it's important to "learn a little bit of everything" — and be prepared to do your part. "You have to be okay doing the grunt work," Sack says. "There are some days I'm down shipping, some days I'm cleaning buckles, things that someone as a designer or creative director doesn't necessarily want to do. But you need to be a team player and be willing to know every single role."
Business Insider
6 minutes ago
- Business Insider
Perplexity CEO predicts the AI talent wars will become like NBA free agency
Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas said the AI talent wars are becoming a "transfer market." Srinivas said companies should ensure employees are motivated by more than money to avoid losing them. The frenzy is partly the result of a shortage of talent and an excess of money. Top AI researchers have more in common with Steph Curry than you might think. At least according to Aravind Srinivas, the CEO of Perplexity, who compared the feverish AI talent wars to the scramble for sports stars on an episode of the podcast "Decoder" that aired July 17. "It's definitely going to feel like a transfer market now, like an NBA or something," he said of the effort to recruit AI researchers. "There's going to be a few individual stars who are having so much leverage." As Big Tech companies offer eye-popping salaries and CEOs personally recruit AI talent, Srinivas said that companies need to ensure that employees are motivated by mission as well as money. "You're encountering new kinds of challenges. You feel a lot of growth, you're learning new things. And you're getting richer, too, along the way. Why would you want to go just because you have some guaranteed payments?" he said. Srinivas said that he was "surprised by the magnitude" of the salaries Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly offering to top AI researchers, adding that it "seems like it's needed at this point for them." With the massive salaries, Srinivas said "failure is not an option" for Meta's new team — and that anything other than success would look pretty bad for Zuckerberg. It's not just Meta that's trying to poach top talent. The hiring spree is motivated both by the limited pool of top researchers and engineers and nearly unfathomable resources at the biggest tech companies, as BI previously reported. Srinivas isn't the first to make the basketball metaphor: Databricks' vice president of AI compared recruiting a top researcher to " looking for LeBron James."
