In January 2017, after the "hand-drawn selfie" function was launched, the Meitu app gained popularity in the West when edited pictures of public figures such as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon chief Jeff Bezos and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk went viral on social media. In just three months, the function was used more than 520 million times globally. Maggie Ke, regional marketing head for the Meitu app, said, "This popularity was purely because the users were keen on it, taking our ranking at the time from below 900 to the top 30 in the US App Store." It gave the company a lot of confidence that the app could be as popular overseas as it had been in China, she added. During Spring Festival this year, the app became a hit in Southeast Asia by offering a personalized anime avatar feature. The biggest increases in the number of daily active users were in Malaysia, Vietnam and Singapore, with growth rates reaching 50 per cent, 44 per cent and 28 per cent, according to the company. As a … [Read more...] about Chinese apps winning over Southeast Asia
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As Amazon burns, fires in next-door Bolivia also wreak havoc
LA PAZ, BOLIVIA (NYTIMES) - Amid growing international alarm over fires in Brazil's Amazon region, neighbouring Bolivia is facing devastating fires of its own, with flames devouring farmland and environmentally sensitive forests alike. In midst of the calamity, the country's president, Mr Evo Morales, suspended his re-election campaign on Sunday (Aug 25) and, in a shift, welcomed foreign aid. "Whatever cooperation is welcome, whether it comes from international organisations, celebrities or from the presidents who offered to help," Mr Morales said in the city of Cochabamba, where he had been campaigning for a fourth term. Bolivian officials, he vowed, would "dedicate ourselves" to the problem. Fires, some of them set by farmers trying to clear brush, are a regular feature of the dry season in northern South America. But this year has been different. Blazes in Bolivia's Chiquitano forest and in the Amazon region of Brazil have been far larger and more widespread than in previous … [Read more...] about As Amazon burns, fires in next-door Bolivia also wreak havoc
Verizon resurrects media business as safe haven on the internet
New York: Banning pornography from Tumblr was not necessarily meant to define Verizon Media's strategy to turn around a collection of Internet has-beens. But that is how it has played out.After Verizon Communications Inc, which owns media brands like Yahoo, AOL and social media site Tumblr, declared its media properties nearly worthless last year with a US$4.6 billion write-down, the division of the U.S. telecoms giant is resurrecting the businesses as an antidote to the cesspool of the internet. (Graphic: https://tmsnrt.rs/2k5t3WS)"I want to build something that you'll 100per cent trust," Verizon Media Chief Executive Guru Gowrappan said in an interview last month.Still, analysts say Verizon Media will be competing with larger rivals who have deeper pockets and have made bigger investments in the areas it is turning its focus to.The restructuring comes as regulators are gearing up to investigate whether U.S. tech giants like Alphabet Inc's Google and Facebook have too much power, … [Read more...] about Verizon resurrects media business as safe haven on the internet