Sam Blumenthal

The daily check-in is a simple yet brilliant feature that encourages users to engage with Pinduoduo on a daily basis. While each check-in does not generate revenue for Pinduoduo, the product experience eventually ties back to commerce if/when users redeem their vouchers. This theoretically should yield a higher customer lifetime value for... See more

While synthetic media can amplify real people’s creativity at greater scale, it can also generate digitally-native creators. This was Trevor McFedries’ vision for Brud. McFedries was moved by how media can be a vehicle for social change: he points to research showing Will & Grace was largely responsible for public support of same-sex marriage.... See more

While the shopping habits of different cultures may differ, younger consumers, regardless of where they live, are similar in how they use social media to connect. Livestreaming taps into that trait because, unlike the shopping channel model, it gives viewers the ability to have a two-way conversation with the host, said Alessandro Bogliari,... See more

Bring Your Own Audience (BYOA) platforms focus on enabling value generation for creators who lead an existing fan base there.  BYOA’s core value is not top of funnel discovery, there is no algorithm creators have to dance around to get eyeballs. With BYOA, the creator’s job is to drive traffic to the BYOA platform, and the platform’s job is to... See more

The average time users spend on Versihop has gone up 50% since the live video update, and the streams are generating a 4x higher conversion than the overall rate. Khan views video as a means of helping shoppers to discover the independent brands the platform specializes in. Verishop does not provide user or sales numbers, but its base is 80% female... See more