Amazon joins Vishal's Better.com to let employees use stock to buy homes

 Amazon has signed a deal with embattled online mortgage lender Better.com run by controversial Indian-origin CEO Vishal Garg to allow employees to use their shares in the company toward a mortgage down payment.

Better.com launched 'Equity Unlocker' that allows Amazon employees to use their vested equity as collateral for a down payment for buying homes.

According to Garg's company, Amazon employees can finance their homes without actually selling their shares.

Amazon workers in Florida, New York and Washington can currently use aEquity Unlocker' to secure a home loan without selling their Amazon stock.

"Even though equity is a valuable asset, it is considered ineligible by most banks and financial institutions when calculating the necessary down payment on a home," said Garg.

To protect itself from a continued slide in Amazon's stock price, Better.com will charge a higher rate on the mortgages of employees pledging stock "between 0.25 and 2.5 percentage points above the market rate, depending on how the down payment is structured," according to reports.

An Amazon spokesperson told TechCrunch that the company is "always looking for opportunities" to enhance its benefit offerings "and better support employees' mental, physical, and financial wellness."

In December 2021, Garg laid off nearly 900 employees over a Zoom call that created a furore.

In total, he laid off more than 4,000 employees in the US and India.

According to the company, the uncertain mortgage market conditions created an exceedingly challenging operating environment for many companies in the industry.

Read More

Skechers and Amazon Just Launched an Exclusive Slip-On Sneaker

Read More

The Rise of the Story Format [Infographic]

 For all the heat Snapchat gets today for not providing a strong business model, where would social media be today without the great mind of Evan Spiegel? Do you even remember what your social platforms looked like pre-Stories?

Back in October of 2013, Snapchat introduced a new format of sharing our lives with the world — Snapchat Stories. No longer was a snap a singular fleeting moment. Stories gave users the ability to share their snaps in a narrative format that friends could view as many times for up to 24 hours. We are all familiar with the concept today, but this was a monumental date in social media history. With this real-time documentary format, social media users became more raw, real and relatable - a huge plus for brands. 

A few years later, the other social networks caught on and adopted the Stories format. The infographic below displays the timeline of Stories being implemented on each platform as well as data gathered by Fastory in 2017.

Keep in mind a few of the user stats have changed over the past year. We have seen Instagram far surpass Snapchat in users. Of course, that doesn't mean Instagram is better than Snapchat; there are major benefits to using Stories on either platform depending on your business goals. 

See the infographic below as a visual guide to the rise of the Story format on social media.

Read More

Study: 45% plan to use Facebook less amid Cambridge Analytica scandal

Dive Brief:

• Just 8% of internet users plan to stop using Facebook following the news of Cambridge Analytica’s abuse of personal data collected from the platform, according to a survey by securities firm Raymond James, MediaPost reports. 
• Additionally, 19% said they would use Facebook “significantly less,” and 26% said they would use the platform “somewhat less” because of the controversy. When asked about their level of concern over Cambridge Analytica’s breach of Facebook data, 43% said they were “very concerned,” and 31% said they were “somewhat concerned.”
• In separate news, Playboy announced it is leaving Facebook and Mozilla released an add-on for its Firebox browser called Facebook Container that isolates a users’ Facebook identity from other web activity, a post on The Mozilla Blog announced. Users will be able to use Facebook normally, and Facebook can still send ads to users, but the new tool will make it more difficult for Facebook to use a user’s activity collected from the platform to send ads and targeted messages. However, the post says Facebook Container would not have prevented the collection of the type of data in the Cambridge Analytica incident. 

Dive Insight:

Despite the trending #DeleteFacebook hashtag as well as a growing list of celebrities and companies deleting their profiles following the Cambridge Analytical scandal, the Raymond James survey shows that only a small portion of general Facebook users are leaving the platform. However, if people spend less time on Facebook — as the survey suggests 45% plan to do — there will be fewer opportunities for brands to get in front of an audience. Any impact might be short lived, though, once the data use issue fades from the news as Facebook and social media have become embedded in people’s daily lives, where they rely on the platforms to interact with friends, get news, share information and participate in civic and political activities, according to a Pew Research Center report.

In a sign that controversy continues to plague Facebook, CEO Mark Zuckerberg will reportedly make his first public testimony before U.S. lawmakers to address its use of people's data but the executive has rejected calls to appear before a U.K. Parliament Committee to answer questions about the Cambridge Analytica data breach and will instead likely send chief technology officer Mike Schroepfer or chief product officer Chris Cox, per a Venture Beat report. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has also confirmed reports that it is investigating the social media network over privacy concerns, according to Venture Beat. 

So far, there hasn't been a rash of big brands defecting the platform over the issue, likely in recognition of the fact that its reach is so big. Mozilla was one of the first major companies to pull ads from Facebook following the Cambridge Analytica incident — the list also includes Sonos — saying that the platform needed to do more to strengthen its default privacy settings for third-party apps. In announcing its new Facebook Container add-on, Mozilla said the tool is based on technology that the company had been developing but that the introduction was accelerated recently in response to a “growing demand for tools that help manage privacy and security.”

Read More

The Brand Value of Influencer Marketing in 2018 [Infographic]

Due to the impact and widespread adoption of influencer marketing, Elizabeth Del Guidice and Jessica Bevilacqua from St. Joseph Communications put together a comprehensive infographic outlining the current and future trends in influencer marketing.

In a recent article, Irfan Ahmad pointed out an powerful statistic showing the value marketers see in influencer marketing today:

94% of marketers who use influencer marketing find it an effective practice, and influencer marketing can generate up to 11x the ROI of traditional advertising.

Irfan Ahmad

Jessica and Elizabeth shared some stats to highlight the increasing value of influencers: "With 39% of marketers planning to increase their influencer marketing budget in 2018, and 19% planning to spend over $100,000 per program, the growing importance of this industry is apparent."

Use the infographic below as a guide to better understand how marketers are using influencers to grow their business in 2018. This infographic touches on the industry’s growth over the next few years, ROI due to marketing campaigns, the differences between micro and macro influencers, and the social media platforms influencer's plan on utilizing most this year.

Read More