TechCrunch
Locket, Which Puts Ads On Your Lock Screen, Asks Users To Vote For the Ads They Want To See
Locket, the startup that pays Android users to engage with ads, is now asking those users to weigh in on the type of ads that they want to see.
When users install Locket, they’ll start to see ads on their lock screens, and they can swipe left to claim a deal, watch a movie trailer, or whatever the desired engagement is. (Or they can swipe right and go back to using their phone.) Users are paid 1 cent for each ad they engage with, capped at 3 cents per hour. That may not sound like much, but co-founder and CEO Yuna Kim said it can add up over the weeks and months, and users can then donate the money to charity, put it on a gift card, or just cash out.
Since Locket launched a month ago, Kim said the team has received “thousands of emails” from users requesting ads from specific brands.
It might seem a little strange to be actively asking for ads, but Kim attributed this to the fact that Locket only allows high quality ads into the system — she described the lock screen as a “sacred, personal space.” (Another possible explanation: If you’ve got an incentive to look at ads, you might as well try to get ads that you find interesting and relevant.)
So earlier this week, the Locket team launched a MyAds page where users can submit the names of brands whose ads they’d like to see, and they can vote on the brands submitted by others. The company then promoted the page with a Locket ad, and the top brands — which are currently, in descending order, Sony, Samsung, and Google — now have more than 1,000 votes.
Not that an early lead meads users will start seeing Sony, Samsung, and Google ads in the next week.
“We have to do a good job with that,” Kim said. “If someone says, “Hey, I want to see Samsung ads,’ I can’t just call them and have them advertise. There’s a sales cycle.” She added that her goal is to bring ads from the most popular brands into Locket by this holiday season.
Locket has been downloaded nearly 90,000 times since launch, Kim said, and there are about 80,000 active users.
Instagram's First Acquisition Is Video Sharing App Luma
Instagram has just made its first acquisition, buying both the team and technology of Y Combinator company Luma (formerly known as Midnox). Luma had created a video capture, stabilization, and sharing app, which will be shut down soon. In fact, one source tells us Luma’s stabilization technology is already live in Instagram.
Luma’s iOS app has been pulled from the App Store but existing users will continue to be supported until December 31st, 2013. Users can download their videos here.
We were tipped off to the acquisition, and Facebook has since confirmed it is Instagram’s first, and the deal is for both talent and technology. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The Luma team writes “Eighteen months ago, we embarked on a mission to make capturing and sharing beautiful videos easy without expensive software or heavy equipment. By joining the exceptionally talented team at Instagram, we’re taking another big step towards realizing that mission.”
Unlike the rash of acqhires in Silicon Valley, this deal comes with Luma’s technology. This includes video stabilization, which Instagram is apparently now using to improve its own stabilization tech that launched alongside its new video sharing feature in June.
Instagram might also make use of Luma’s “non-disruptive” video filtering technology, which allows videos to be shot with filters turned on, but switched or removed after a video has been recorded. Luma also had a suite of video editing tools that could aid Instagram 130 million+ users. These include sliders for changing the brightness, contrast, saturation, and exposure of videos. You can see its “Infinite Filter” technology in action in this short clip.
This impressive technology led TechCrunch to name Midnox/Luma one of the ten best startups from Y Combinator’s Winter 2012 Demo Day.
The acquisition highlights the increasing differentiation in product and strategy of Vine and Instagram. Vine is trading on simplicity and spontaneity. It’s app features a quicker publishing process for its six-second videos with no need to choose a cover frame. You also have to shoot videos entirely within Vine, making it more of an art form in and of itself.
That contrasts with Instagram, which is trading on power and flexibility. You can add filters to its 15-second videos and enable stabilization, but also have to sacrifice speed to pick a cover frame so your video looks good beside photos in the Instagram feed. You can also upload previously shot (and edited) videos, allowing for more professional clips that could be a hit with advertisers one day. This all makes Instagram more of a sharing medium than its own art form.
If that’s the route Instagram chooses to take, it needs the best video editing technology it can buy, hence the Luma deal. The challenge will be making these tools available at a moment’s notice without bloating Instagram into in mobile Final Cut Pro.
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