Gaming grew tremendously during the pandemic, and in-game advertising grew with it. But while one-third of gamers find the ads annoying, this Frameplay study finds that ads integrated with gameplay are much more acceptable. Something to bear in mind as consumers gain more control over which ads they see.
In-person events are waking up from pandemic-induced hibernation. Kaltura reports that more marketers are planning live events (42%) than virtual (40%) in 2023, a reversal from 2022, which virtual events (43%) were more common than in-person (39%). Live, virtual, and hybrid events are each preferred for different purposes, so it’s likely we’ll continue to see a mix of all types.
Mexican startup Quinio, which raised US$20 million last year in a seed round, now announced the closing of a US$40 million round made up of equity and debt, although without disclosing the amounts of each part. Quinio’s strategy is based on buying mid-sized e-commerce brands with an annual turnover of at least US$250 thousand that sell quality products and have a good reputation among buyers. Quinio already owns several brands in Mexico, Colombia, Chile, and the U.S., in areas such as home, beauty, and health.
Nearly one-third of major news publishers have blocked generative AI tools from reading their content. But that’s a drastic measure which could also exclude their results from conventional search engines. Microsoft has just given publishers the option to block access by Bing Chat without also removing their content from search results. We’ll see if competitors do the same.