According to data from Stocklytics.com, global consumers collectively spent nearly half a trillion dollars on digital media subscriptions and downloads in 2023, marking a substantial 13% increase compared to the previous year.

Video-on-Demand Subscriptions Lead Growth with a 20% Increase

The subscription-based model has thrived in recent years, transcending the pandemic-induced surge and solidifying its position as a lucrative revenue stream for publishers. Throughout 2023, digital media subscriptions remained a top priority for consumers, generating significantly higher profits than other revenue streams.

The Digital 2024 Global Overview Report underscores this trend, revealing that consumers worldwide allocated a staggering $498 billion towards digital media subscriptions and downloads in 2023, a substantial uptick of $59 billion from the preceding year. Notably, video games emerged as the dominant segment, contributing nearly half of the total expenditure. With consumers splurging almost $250 billion on video game subscriptions and downloads, representing a noteworthy 12% increase from 2022, the average spending per user amounted to $205.

While video games commanded a lion’s share of the subscription spending, video-on-demand services experienced the most significant growth, witnessing a remarkable 20% increase year-over-year. The average expenditure on video-on-demand subscriptions surged to $56.5 per user, contributing to a total spending of nearly $160 billion.

Regional Disparities in Digital Subscription Spending

Despite the global shift towards digital subscriptions, significant variations exist across countries in terms of consumer spending. Notably, Americans emerged as the leading spenders in this category, with the average online user investing over $850 on digital media subscriptions and downloads in 2023, double the expenditure of their British and German counterparts, and almost five times the global average.

Following closely behind, Japanese consumers exhibited robust spending habits, with an average expenditure of approximately $700 per internet user. South Korea secured the third position, with an average spending of $563 per user, outpacing several Western countries.

In Europe, countries such as the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and Austria showcased notable spending patterns, with average expenditures per user ranging from $403 to $447. Remarkably, 21 countries surpassed the global average expenditure per user, which stood at $176.4 in 2023.

Looking Ahead

The surge in digital media subscription spending signifies a fundamental shift in consumer behavior, with digital subscriptions becoming integral to the modern entertainment landscape. As consumers continue to embrace digital content consumption, publishers and content providers must adapt to evolving preferences and consumption patterns to capitalize on this burgeoning market.

For more detailed insights and statistics, visit: https://stocklytics.com/content/people-spent-almost-half-a-trillion-dollars-on-digital-media-subscriptions-in-2023-13-more-than-the-year-before/

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For content creators and techies, the internet has opened up new prospects and revenue streams. While many settle for a good-paying job, there are a few who hustle and chase their passion. Because the Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted human physical connectivity, many people have been compelled to look for alternate career opportunities that can be done remotely. As a result, the increased demand for creative content presents a huge monetization opportunity for content creators.

Content creators have gradually begun to experiment with material forms such as podcast-style talks, panel discussions, closed group networking, video and audio chats to provide more personalized content than before. User-generated platforms allow creators to create unique content and reach out to niche audiences who are all looking for similar material and a way to make money from home.

Listed down below 5 user-generated platforms that everyone can use to earn money and generate income in 2022:

Brilix

Brilix is the world’s first and largest learning-focused Social Media Community Platform, and has become a game-changer by helping educational content creators and learners to connect, learn and earn. Launched in 2021, Brilix aims to make Indian students and teachers self-sufficient by assisting them in finding a way to monetise their knowledge. The platform has adopted a flawless approach to building the learning community and a layer of educational creator economy backed by blockchain and tokenization. Since its inception, Brilix has evolved swiftly to become one of the top platforms offering educational content creators and learners infinite opportunities.

Plixxo

POPxo’s Plixxo is one of India’s largest influencer marketing networks, with over 26,000 influencers. It caters to influencers as well as brands.

Bloggers, YouTubers, celebrities, Instagram influencers, and campus influencers can all join up for paid campaigns through the site. Plixxo allows brands to ask thousands of influencers to participate in their marketing campaigns. In brief, Plixxo makes it easier for marketers to execute influencer campaigns. Plixxo is a platform for influencers that certifies their accounts, reach, and statistics.

Clubhouse

The Creator First accelerator programme at Clubhouse compensates users. Payments can be sent by any user, and the app will pay the author the full amount without taking a cut. Payments to Clubhouse creators are straightforward to send, making it extremely convenient for both producers and consumers. Clubhouse intends to expand its monetization alternatives in the future, with each one aimed at rewarding creators for their hard work and innovative ideas.

Momspresso

Momspresso is India’s largest user-generated content network for women, with a ten-year history. With the support of Influencers, Content Creators, and others, the platform is assisting companies in conceptualizing and launching digital campaigns while utilizing traffic on their social media platforms in ten different languages. It’s a bilingual content portal aimed towards today’s complex mothers. It’s a space for moms, brimming with the spirit of possibility. The carefully crafted information aids mothers not just in their roles as mothers, but also as wives, daughters, and, most importantly, as women!

Youtube

YouTube is an online video sharing network where users can share, upload, watch, and rate videos. The video aggregator has an advertising system that allows content creators to monetize their videos. Even in the midst of the Covid-19 outbreak, YouTube held out as the best platform for video makers to monetize their activities.

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According to the Maritime Executive, on average, “Four out of every ten containers (39 per cent) missed their scheduled sailing. At the same time, some significant carriers and ports reported rollover rates of over 50 per cent.” Whereas according to Sea-Intelligence’s Global Liner Performance (GLP) report, “Global shipping line schedule reliability has dropped to 34.9% in January 2021, the lowest in history.“

Today, shippers deal with multiple uncertainties like space constraints, equipment shortage, congestion at origin/destination ports, higher freight rates, and shipment delays. Furthermore, limited visibility into the movement of goods has also made tracking the shipment cumbersome and time-consuming. This has necessitated managers and cargo owners to consolidate data from multiple sources through process-intensive tasks such as phone calls, browsing websites and e-mail communications. Without real-time insights on cargo movement, handling these challenges is extremely difficult and negatively impacts the entire business.

Armed with a host of advanced tech features, the tracking service aims to resolve the challenges logistics managers face in the wake of the current global crisis in the EXIM industry. The tracking system records multiple data points over the complete shipment journey. The platform will employ ML (Machine Learning) algorithms capable of predicting shipment delays based on satellite tracking, port congestion, and other signals. It will thus offer access to predictive analytics to combat risks related to shipment schedules based on historical distribution.

Besides offering real-time tracking and ETA through a single dashboard, the tracker will also provide additional services such as carrier performance evaluation, predictive analytics to combat risks, and carrier schedule plan to optimize the supply chain. The service will be available to not only the cargo owners booking shipments through Freightwalla, but also the exporters/importers who wish to avail an intelligent tracking tool to plan and execute shipments effectively, regardless of the service provider they choose to work with.

Commenting on the development, Mr. Sanjay Bhatia, Co-founder & CEO, Freightwalla, said, “The pandemic has completely changed the dynamics of world trade whereby the need for real-time tracking and intelligent post-shipment solutions have become even more crucial. Tracking as a Service is a new-age disruptive technology that will enable smart tracking and offer advanced predictive analytics, thus empowering exporters to undertake intelligent and informed decisions. It is now more critical than ever to be able to pre-empt logistics challenges so that the buyer-supplier relationship is not hindered by the uncertainties of today’s shipping industry. Enhanced visibility and real-time intelligence will help drive transparency and sustainability across supply chains, thereby paving the way for healthy business ties.”

Freightwalla has partnered with 60+ shipping lines to enable exporters and importers to track containers across multiple carriers seamlessly from a single platform. The service will offer a unified and real-time view of all shipments, including transshipment carrier tracking for advanced supply chain planning and eliminate manual tracking. Besides, the platform will capture several data points such as shipment departure, arrival time, and ports visited.

The digital freight forwarder aims to bring transparency and visibility in the shipping and logistics sector, modernize the operations across the supply chain and contribute to the government’s Ease of Doing Business in India.

https://www.freightwalla.com/cargo-tracker

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What do the upgrades mean for us and you?

While the CPU and RAM upgrades are one side of the story, the major performance boost comes in the form of the new upgraded NVMe SSDs by Samsung. One of the drawbacks of the previous servers we used was that it used Enterprise Class Hard Drives running ZFS file system for operations. While that was fine for the most part, we quickly identified that moving to a faster storage solution is necessary if we are to improve and expand our services. Nobody likes to wait around for data to load. This is why SSDs, especially NVMe SSDs are a far superior mode of storage as it has much lower access latency and extremely fast write times. This translates to tangible real-world performance improvement for you as well as us and if you have been using our services, you should definitely feel the upgrade from the new NVMe SSD based storage solution.

Now coming to the rest of the system upgrades, the monstrous Ryzen 9 5950X should allow us a lot more headroom when it comes to running services simultaneously like virtual machines, microservices and other backend operations. We can handle more data and the extra cores should allow us to offer more services in the future.

Also because of the new 10 Gigabit connections, the latency should be drastically reduced, even at times of peak load.

Mr. Sunit Nandi, Founder of Letter on the upgrade said, “We at Techno FAQ Digital Media are big computer nerds and we love computers of all shapes and sizes. That being said, we especially love using computers with a lot of power and this is exactly what you will be experiencing as well.”

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Companies that aim to deliver excellent customer experiences (CX) need to adopt an agile mindset, as well as a lean and flexible approach to both technology and its implementation. Zendesk’s service platform helps companies move faster than ever, while still delivering incredible experiences. 

The latest capabilities, introduced today, include:

• Messaging at scale: Zendesk’s expanded messaging platform for conversational business introduces proactive messaging tools to help brands offer assistance up front to clarify customer needs. Supporting brands in agile learning and improvements, Zendesk’s reporting tools offer insights on the performance of a brand’s automation strategy, such as the number of bot interactions escalated to an agent.

• Improved agent workspace tools: Businesses can ensure agents’ time and energy are invested where it is needed the most with improved routing tools for social channels. And, to help agents manage more complex requests, integrated live chat and voice, now makes it easy to switch the conversation between channels. Content cues, which use machine learning to help improve a company’s knowledge base health, are also now available in more languages, including Spanish, German and Portuguese. Also leveraging machine learning are suggested macros for recommending ticket responses, which support increased agent efficiency at scale.

• Streamlined collaboration tools and integrations: In this new hybrid, digital-first economy, it is critical to keep your teams connected. Power your best CX with Zendesk Sunshine, and improve service with our powerful new pre-built integrations for collaborations like Slack, Monday.com and Microsoft Teams. 

“In today’s business environment where change is the only constant, organisations are investing in solutions that promote agile collaboration across teams and get rid of rigid legacy processes that aren’t fit for a digital-first world,” says Tim Marsden, Senior Director, Technology Partner Ecosystem at Zendesk. “Our partnerships with leading collaboration tools like Slack, Monday.com and Microsoft Teamscan help companies of all sizes stay in sync within one platform, connecting information across the business to better understand and support their customers, no matter where they may be working.”

“Delivering great CX is top of mind for most Indian organisations considering the rapid digitalisation since 2020. Changing customer expectations are driving Indian businesses to invest in customer service technology that is conversational and can easily be customised,” says KT Prasad, MD & RVP, India and SAARC, Zendesk. “Our latest capabilities will help businesses achieve agility, simplify complex workflows and deliver better customer experiences.”

Earlier in August, Zendesk acquired Cleverly.ai – an investment that accelerates the existing efforts in AI-powered agent and admin productivity tools. Cleverly provides AI solutions with insight-driven automation that make agents more productive. Cleverly’s technology will be integrated across Zendesk’s platform, enhancing the trusted Zendesk AI solutions already enabling teams to automate more of their processes, reduce costs, and keep up with customer demand.

Zendesk’s customers in India include ITC Foods, Ola, 1MG, DevFactory, Dream11, Slice, Magicbricks.com, etc.

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Join Ventures, India’s leading D2C investor and the parent company of IGP.com and Interflora India, recently announced that it has implemented a real-time gift delivery tracking feature for its portfolio companies – IGP.com and Interflora India to elevate the customer’s overall experience and enable them to receive instant updates on their orders’ whereabouts. 

The initiative makes the gifting behemoth IGP.com and the Indian leg of the world’s largest and most trusted flower delivery service, Interflora, the first companies from the Indian online gifting industry to offer real-time delivery tracking. 

Announcing the initiative, Tarun Joshi, Founder of Join Ventures, said, “Our tech team has developed a pathbreaking interface for real-time delivery tracking that gives the user far more control and visibility over their order journey. Knowing exactly where their order is in the delivery process and route helps build further trust and allows us to deliver a far greater experience.”

Over the past year, Join Ventures has invested heavily into transforming the buying experience and improving the last-mile delivery experience for the customers of its portfolio companies. The feature will be available to over 5 million customers and diminish their anticipation of delivery while increasing the transparency of the whole process. Furthermore, the feature will benefit those who face the challenge of keeping special gifts under wraps from family, friends, or loved ones during this pandemic, as customers can track their orders live – from the time they place a gift order to the time they receive it. 

The real-time tracking feature offers updates at every stage, from confirmation to delivery on the map. When a customer places a gift order, they will receive an SMS/email confirmation. The live track link is activated when an order is dispatched, allowing the sender to see it on a map in real-time, along with details like the items ordered and the estimated delivery time. A confirmation is sent via SMS/email as soon as the gift order is delivered. The likelihood of lost packages and frequent calls to the customer service center has also decreased. 

Join Ventures aims at building a direct-to-customer ecosystem. Their highly scalable D2C ecosystem currently supports over ten international retail (B2C) and corporate (B2B2C) websites, including market-leading brands like IGP.com (India’s largest online gifting company) and Interflora India (world’s largest and most recognised flower delivery service), as well as several private labels that serve over 4 million customers in over 100 countries. Their curated merchandising platform focuses on handmade and customised proprietary products across a wide range of categories, including home décor, food, flowers, fashion, jewellery, accessories, toys and festival products. With market-leading companies, a highly skilled and experienced team, proprietary logistics infrastructure of three-hour delivery in over 20 cities in India, they are at an inflexion point, ready to take off and transform the D2C landscape.

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The panel out forth varied views including how the global Real-Time Payments market size is projected to grow at a CAGR of 16.6% during 2021-2026 with over half a trillion real-time payments transactions to be processed over the next five years. Faster Payments Service in the UK, UPI in India, NPP in Australia, and TCH-RTP in the U.S. are live examples of Real Time Payments globally and some of these regions have witnessed a meteoric growth. In the last six months, financial institutions have turned to digital technology to deliver the value of Real-Time Payments.

Industry experts comprised Reed Luhtanen (Executive Director-US Faster Payments Council); Sony Aravind (Head-Digital Banking-South Indian Bank); Mitesh Agarwal (Customer Engineering Director- Google Cloud) and Mr. Sanjay Desai (Executive Vice President IT- HDFC Bank). Strategic inputs from leaders included in-depth granular understanding of The Growth Levers of the Digital Ecosystem : Banks, Fintechs & Social Payments.

Mindgate has been working with clients globally to keep pace and grow in the Real Time Payments segment. Our panel attempts to bring all the relevant players together to share their thoughts on this topic of relevance. According to George Sam, Co-Founder and Business Head at Mindgate Solutions, “Mindgate’s passion is to build new generation Digital & Real-Time payments platforms, through SIBOS 2020 we were able to showcase our solutions to various global industry players.”

Link to the conference: https://www.mindgate.in/sibos-2020/

About Mindgate:

Mindgate Solutions has been in the forefront of the payments revolution from its inception, an outlook which has made it a key global player in payments technology and transaction processing. From building new generation payment gateways to mobile-based collections and payments platforms like RTP & UPI, Mindgate has been the true leader in the space. At Mindgate we help our clients redraw the payment landscape through a value proposition of large scale, social payments, responsive to market demand and reduced cost of ownership. The outcome is a well-defined approach that propels their organization to acquire a significant market share of the digital transaction ecosystem.

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Called Peoples Card, Google said it launched the feature first in India because of the special “affinity” of Indians who look up their own names on the search engine.

Users can now create people cards describing what they do by just signing into their Google account. They can then look up their name on Google search. This will prompt a new option called “add me to Search” or “get started”. Tapping this option will open a form that asks users to provide a description of themselves, their picture, links to their website and social media profiles, and optionally, their phone number, address, work and education details, and email address.

There is more: by default, Google fetches the image of the user associated with his or her Google account.

If the user keys in more details, it would be easier for others to find them on Google Search. The company has several measures to curb potential misuse of the new feature including a limit on the number of people cards a Google account can create — it is now set to one.

Lauren Clark, Product Manager for Search at Google, said in a blog post. “We have a number of mechanisms to protect against abusive or spammy content, and if you come across low-quality information or a card that you believe was created by an impersonator, you can tap the feedback link to let us know. If you no longer want your people card to appear in Search, you can delete it at any time.

Introducing the people card on Google Search.

Showcase your business, passion or portfolio when people search for you on Google.

Get started https://t.co/CAm3mRiCgM pic.twitter.com/wPx6GIUdWz

— Google India (@GoogleIndia) August 11, 2020

“For the millions of influencers, entrepreneurs, prospective employees, self-employed individuals, freelancers, or anyone else out there who wants to be discovered, we hope this new Search feature will help the world find them. For people in India searching on mobile phones, people cards are rolling out in English starting today,” wrote Clark.

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Yahoo Inc, which disclosed two massive data breaches last year, said on Wednesday that about 32 million user accounts were accessed by intruders in the last two years using forged cookies.

The company said some of the latest intrusions can be connected to the “same state-sponsored actor believed to be responsible for the 2014 breach”, in which at least 500 million accounts were affected.

“Based on the investigation, we believe an unauthorized third party accessed the company’s proprietary code to learn how to forge certain cookies,” Yahoo said in its latest annual filing.

These cookies have been invalidated so they cannot be used to access user accounts, the company said.

Forged cookies allow an intruder to access a user’s account without a password.

Yahoo also said in December that data from more than 1 billion user accounts was compromised in August 2013, making it the largest breach in history.

The company said on Wednesday that it would not award Chief Executive Marissa Mayer a cash bonus for 2016, following the independent committee’s findings related to the 2014 security incident.

Mayer has also offered to forgo any 2017 annual equity award as the breaches occurred during her tenure, Yahoo said.

Last month, Verizon Communications Inc, which is in the process of buying Yahoo’s core assets, lowered its original offer by $350 million to $4.48 billion.

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Your personal data, be it your residential address, your phone number, email id, details of what you bought online, age, marital status, income and profession, is all up for sale. Most of this personal data is sold for less than a rupee per person -the cost of a chewing gum.

The shocking facts are revealed by the Economic Times while they approached companies called `data brokers’, who hawk their services on online listings and sell personal information. ET posed as a prospective buyer.

From Rs 15000 onwards, personal data of about 1 lakh people can be offered through brokerage.

Most of this personal data is sold for less than a rupee per person -the cost of a chewing gum

The lists up for sale are creative and granular. One data broker told ET that he could get lists of high net worth individuals, salaried people, credit card holders, car owners and retired women in any given vicinity.

Also Read: Did Uber steal Google’s car secrets?

From the list acquired by ET, they called a dozen people to verify the details. And to the horror of those people the data was correct. “It’s scary to say the least,“ said Hyderabad-based Rajashekar, who is among the list.

“It should be deemed as a crime. Without my permission, how can someone trade information related to me?“ said Bengaluru-based Nagaraj BK, who was appalled that details of his purchase of a gas stove on eBay.

Similarly , Bengaluru-based Shruti’s purchase of luggage on Amazon, along with her phone number, and when contacted to check if the purchase listed was accurate, Shruti was offended and scared and even wondered if her Amazon account had been breached.

Most of this data was sold by mobile service providers, agents from hospitals and banks, loan agents, car dealers to the data brokers.

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