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TURNER Weekly Download: Will Take Selfies For ?

Nicolette Cusmano : May 20, 2016

Where digital meets travel + lifestyle … A collection of can’t-miss news from this week. Sign up to get the TURNER Weekly Download in your inbox every Friday.

Will Take Selfies for Cash

A Chicago-based company has created an app that will pay you up to $1 each time you take a selfie with certain brand’s products. Crest toothpaste and Goose Island beer are two of the earliest testers of the app, and they’re both hoping to learn more about consumer habits. "What [Crest] found was that a surprising amount of people are brushing their teeth between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m.," said Pay Your Selfie co-founder Kristen Holman. The brand will now keep this information in mind when deciding where (and when) to spend its digital media dollars. Now, say cheese!

Algorithm Overload

Algorithms are everywhere – and that will soon include Snapchat. Like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, the platform’s feed won’t be chronological, and there will be curator content from publishers in the mix. The launch date is still unknown, but has been said to be up for discussion for the past year. A couple of months ago, Snapchat released an update that allowed viewers to exit out of content without having to watch the entire feed. As a result, publishers and brands saw a 40 percent increase in views (yay!) … and a 20 percent drop in completion rates (ouch).

Online shopping 2.0

Virtual reality is the next big thing! Again! This week, eBay launched its first virtual reality department store and now you can look through thousands of products without even leaving your home. The eBay Virtual Reality Department Store app allows you to take closer looks at items, ranging from remote controllers to clothing. eBay is one of the first companies to create such an app, and it looks like they just took online shopping to a whole new level.

Release date for an album? Oh, how old school.

Recently, singers are going down different paths when it comes to dropping new albums. As shown by Radiohead’s 10-day warning and “pay what you like” price tag, Drake’s release at 10 PM, or even Bey’s recent visual album, release dates for major albums are increasingly a thing of the past. The result of having a not-so-basic release is a community-driven tune-in experience, and a recent study shows that the approach is working – the element of surprise generates instant buzz and gets people talking.