These 6 Digital Stats on Alexa, Brand Safety and Snapchat Grabbed Our Attention This Week

The whirlwind of last week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is in the rearview mirror now. Not surprisingly, the event was full of data and stats about everything from the Internet of Things to smart TVs and artificial intelligence. Here's what stuck out to us last week, as well as a couple of numbers from this week: 1. Automated ping pong Omron's facial recognition technology is built into 500 million devices. Click here to read Adweek staff writer Marty Swant's first-hand account of playing ping pong against a robot—and winning! 2. Alexa’s takeover Amazon’s Alexa AI technology was everywhere at CES, from the bathroom to TVs and headphones. All told, Amazon hosted nine presentations and workshops about Alexa at CES, which doesn’t include the dozens of other companies that mentioned Alexa. Check out staff writer Ann-Marie Alcántara’s recap of all of the new devices including Alexa. 3. And Alexa is growing Speaking of Alexa, a report from Verto Analytics claims that Alexa’s monthly users have increased by 325 percent in 2017, equivalent to 2.8 million users. Meanwhile, usage of Apple’s Siri decreased from 48.7 million monthly users in May 2016 to 41.4 million in May 2017. Amazon and Apple are both notoriously tight-lipped about their metrics, meaning Verto Analytics’ numbers should give brands an idea of how big the market is for voice. 4. Cleaning up brand safety For nearly a year, brand safety issues have plagued YouTube, as marketers are increasingly concerned about their ads running alongside inappropriate content. This week, YouTube rolled out new guidelines that make it harder for creators to make money off of their clips. Channels will now need to amass 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time in 12 months (up from a previous requirement of 10,000 total views) to qualify for YouTube’s monetization program. 5. Crisis porn Here’s one upside of last weekend’s missile scare in Hawaii: People momentarily stopped watching porn. According to Pornhub, traffic dropped 77 percent below average shortly after the alert was sent. One hour after the false warning, traffic ticked back up by 48 percent. Click here to see a chart detailing Pornhub’s traffic. 6. Snap’s app-install push Snapchat has its eyes set on direct-response marketers, and it rolled out a few new tools this week that are aimed at helping app marketers re-engage users who have already downloaded an app with deeplinks that drive traffic to specific parts of the app. A handful of app makers are already seeing success with Snapchat’s ad format from a cost perspective. Etermax, the company which makes high-profile games like Trivia Crack, claims that its tests with Snapchat app-install ads garnered users who are 25 percent more likely to play the game after a week compared to other platforms. Users who clicked on Snap ads also played twice as long as users acquired from other platforms. Cost per install and cost per signup for new users were 20 percent lower than other platforms like Facebook and Google.