Apple launches the ‘Apple Teacher Portfolio recognition, updates Schoolwork and Classroom apps

Apple this morning announced a handful of education-related updates to its suite of classroom apps as well as a new recognition for teachers, called the Apple Teacher Portfolio. Teachers who complete a total of nine lessons where they learn foundational skills on iPad and Mac to become an officially recognized Apple Teacher will be able to submit their portfolio of lesson examples to earn the Apple Teacher Portfolio recognition. They can then also share their portfolio with their colleagues or use it to showcase their work.

Teachers can work towards acquiring the badge through the Apple Teacher Learning Center, which is Apple’s self-paced learning platform for educators. This offering is designed to help teachers learn how to incorporate Apple technologies in the classroom, including by using iPad and Mac apps for creating art, videos, animations, recordings, page layouts, podcasts, data trackers, music, and more. Across the lessons, Apple provides templates as examples which teachers can customize or combine to make their own projects that use either an iPad or Mac and Apple software like Keynote, GarageBand, iMovie, and others.

Image Credits: Apple

In addition, Apple today rolled out updates across its Schoolwork and Classroom apps, as well as its “Everyone Can Create” curriculum, which has historically focused on taking advantage of Apple’s creative tools like iMovie, Clips and GarageBand.

In Schoolwork, teachers will gain the option to share Schoolwork projects with colleagues by exporting their assignments, which can then be imported back into Schoolwork or other platforms. Other improvements have been made to the sidebar navigation to make it quicker to access classes, assignments and student accounts.

Classroom, meanwhile, has been updated for remote learning — a feature that would have been more useful to have rolled out in 2020, amid the height of U.S. lockdowns during the pandemic. With the update, teachers will be able to invite remote students to Classroom sessions where they’ll be able to guide them to apps, view their screen (with the student’s permission) and track their engagement. The software has also been rebuilt using Mac Catalyst, making it work across iPad and Mac, including Macs powered by Apple’s M1 chips.

The Everyone Can Create” curriculum has had a number of smaller updates. Its Drawing guide has been updated to include motion graphics and animation in Keynote, while Photos now covers the creation of animated GIFs using Keynote, and the Camera and Photos apps. The Video guide will now explore creating short films using a green screen and other special effects, and Music adds new podcasting features using GarageBand, Apple says. Today, more than 5,000 K-12 institutions worldwide are using the curriculum.

Apple last year had updated its Schoolwork and Classroom apps, with some updates to Schoolwork to support distance learning — like managing assignments over the cloud and support for calling students via FaceTime, for example. But even as the pandemic forced schools towards remote learning, Google jumped ahead of edtech rivals by aggressively giving away its software and courting teachers. Its low-cost Chromebooks were being given out across school districts, doubling demand in 2020. Google Classroom, meanwhile, doubled to more than 100 million active users by April 2020, Bloomberg Quint reported. As of Feb. 2021, Google said the service was being used by over 150 million students, teachers and admins, up from just 40 million last year.

Apple didn’t say today how many users it has for its own educational software programs, by comparison. However, by encouraging teachers to create a portfolio which they can then share, Apple is helping to push towards greater adoption of its tools by more directly involving educators in the process.

Apple Teacher Portfolio launched today and is available in the Apple Teacher Learning Center. The “Everyone Can Create guides” are a free download on Apple Books. And new versions of both Schoolwork and Classroom are available in beta now through AppleSeed for IT.

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Social+ payments: Why fintechs need social features

John S. Kim Contributor

John S. Kim is CEO of Sendbird, makers of a customizable chat and messaging API service for mobile and web applications.

Social+ companies are upping the stakes for everyone by giving consumers multiple benefits at once: products that serve a purpose but also meet our need for belonging to a community.

But what exactly is a social+ company? One for which social engagement is an inextricable component of the product. That is to say: If you removed the social element, the product would cease to make sense. You can find plenty of examples in gaming (Fortnite), fitness (Strava, Peloton), commerce (Pinduoduo), audio (Clubhouse) and more. As noted in Andreessen Horowitz’s recent series Social Strikes Back, “The best version of every consumer product is the one that’s intrinsically social.”

Social+ products are seeing mass adoption because they marry community with functionality.

The benefits of a social+ company

Social+ products are seeing mass adoption because they marry community with functionality. Users form meaningful connections — and engage in value-adding conversations — within the context of the goal they’re trying to achieve. Whether it’s shopping for a deal or growing their assets, social+ products help users gain new knowledge, find motivation, garner status, form friendships and generally feel like they’re part of something.

Companies that base their business model on social+ products enjoy a variety of benefits:

Growth

When the social aspect of a product is integral to its function, users will often drive growth on their own steam, inviting their friends and family to join the community.

Members of highly engaged communities are inspired and fired up by their interactions with other members, and when they’re fired up about something, they talk about it. Participating in these communities makes users feel like they’re part of something, which can have a powerful effect on your growth.

Retention

Relationships matter. The relationship your users have with your brand is ultimately what will determine whether they stick with you or leave you for a competitor offering the same service — particularly at a more attractive price. If you provide your customers with access to a community they relate to and resources that make their lives easier, they’re more likely to be loyal.

The beauty of social+ is that embedding social interaction within your product or app allows you to own that conversation and build a community around your brand. In the absence of built-in communities, these users are forced to turn to places like Reddit or WhatsApp to discuss, among other things, the relative advantages of competitors’ apps.

Harnessing the creativity of your users

User-generated content (UGC) is the lifeblood of any social+ product, driving user engagement and fostering connections among users. UGC means the company can harness the creativity and popularity of its users and doesn’t have to expend as many resources creating content users find valuable. Plus there’s the added bonus that authentic UGC — whether it’s a screenshot or a meme — lends the product far greater credibility than any marketing initiatives you could launch.

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How localization leader Iyuno Media Group opens entertainment to international audiences

Video streaming platforms have signed up more subscribers during Covid-19 lockdowns, and that growth is expected to continue after the pandemic, showcasing more international content. When subtitles are well done, they don’t take audiences out of the immersive experience of a good show or movie. This means as content providers tackle worldwide expansion, demand for localization services, including translated subtitles, is also growing. Iyuno Media Group is one of the largest media localization companies, and works with clients including Netflix, Apple iTunes, DreamWorks, HBO and Entertainment One.

A lot has changed since Iyuno was started in 2002 by executive chairman David Lee while he was an undergraduate in Seoul. Back then it provided mainly English to Korean subtitles for television networks. “I started the business in my last year of university and, of course, back then we didn’t have any video streaming services,” he said. “Our client base was mostly local and some regional broadcasters.”

Now Iyuno, whose investors include SoftBank Ventures Asia, provides localization services for about 600,000 hours of content on an annual basis, including translation, subtitling, dubbing, accessibility features and compliance with local content regulations, in more than 80 languages. It operates 35 facilities across 30 countries in the Americas, Asia Pacific, Europe and the Middle East. Iyuno also announced in January that it has entered into an agreement with Imagica Group to acquire SDI Media, another localization provider.

In order to make the current scale of its services possible, Iyuno built its own cloud-based enterprise resource planning software. The platform enables uploading of files from content providers, and includes features for time coding, translation, content and technical quality control, and distribution back to Iyuno’s clients. It onboards, trains and assesses new freelancers, and gives teams working on the same project a central base.

Iyuno also built its own neural machine translation engines, which are trained on data from specific genres (for example, drama, animation, comedies, horror and documentary), and help its teams work more accurately and quickly.

Localizing entertainment in a more connected world

Being able to guarantee consistent results with fast turnaround times is especially important now that OTT services are erasing international and cultural barriers between audiences, and the shows and movies they watch.

“Good shows, even in non-English languages, perform well in other countries,” said Lee. “Because of Covid, productions have been majorly affected. OTT providers need fresh content to keep subscribers and are licensing non-U.S. content in countries where it hadn’t been licensed a lot in the past.”

Parrot Analytics recently told Axios that non-American shows accounted for nearly 30% of demand in the United States during the third-quarter of 2020. That trend began before the pandemic, but production shutdowns meant many networks and streaming services began showing more international content to meet audience demands.

Pandemic accelerated cord cutting, making 2020 the worst-ever year for pay TV

 

This means localization services are not only working with more shows and movies that were originally filmed in non-English languages, but also translating it into a wider array of languages, which involves a lot of teamwork.

“In a single language for a single hour of video running time, it usually takes around five or six different steps, and four or five different individuals,” including translators and quality control checkers, said Lee.

For content that is translated into a single other language, Iyuno hires people who can listen to the show and translate at the same time, without having to use a script. Files from Iyuno’s clients are uploaded onto its platform and proxy files are generated with watermarks and other security measures. Then the translator gets a link to the video. After they are done adding their translation, the subtitled content goes through a preset quality control process, and then is formatted and delivered back to the client.

The process for translating content into several different languages follows a similar procedure, except the original language is first transcribed into a script, and then sent to translators so they can work as a team. Then subtitled content is sent to a central quality control team to make sure it is consistent before being delivered to the client.

For some content, like live broadcasts or episodes of television dramas that are edited shortly before airing, Iyuno can provide very quick turnaround times, typically 24 hours, but sometimes as little as one or two hours. In those scenarios, Iyuno begins recording when the show starts airing. Then it divides the footage into 10-minute segments that are sent to teams of three people: a time coder, translator and quality control checker, who usually work from home and are logged into Iyuno’s ERP platform. It takes about an hour to translate each 10-minute section, so that means six teams are usually involved at the same time during an hour-long process.

Preserving an immersive experience

Quality control includes ensuring subtitles and other localization features for a show maintain consistent quality across languages, and also checking technical factors, since there are more than 100 subtitle formats. Iyuno’s quality checkers make sure subtitles are placed unobtrusively on the screen, don’t obscure important details and avoid overlapping between dialogue from different characters or scenes.

“We like to have buffers because reading speed is usually slower than hearing speed,” said Lee. Iyuno’s platform has scene detection tools, which analyzes video and automatically organizes subtitles so they don’t roll over into another scene.

Creating accessibility features currently accounts for about 5% to 10% of Iyuno’s business and is growing. That includes audio descriptions for people with visual impairments, which means adding narration that describes what is happening on screen, and closed captions with descriptions of all the sounds that are happening in a show.

“It’s a growing demand and it’s very important for clients, who are keen to serve those audiences,” said Lee.

One of the things translators need to do when working on shows is to keep the original intent of the creator in languages with different colloquialisms or cultural nuances.

“I was a subtitler, and it’s usually not a very dry job of translating the foreign language into ours, or the other way around,” Lee said. “It’s really immersing yourself into the content, so at times you forget to translate because you’re watching the show and understanding the feeling, laughs, sadness or character dynamics.”

Iyuno’s machine translation engines are able to help with the process by performing the initial translation, so human translators can focus more on a show’s creative aspects.

“It’s more a subjective and qualitative thing. It’s hard to put into technical words, but we try to find efficiencies to reinforce that creativity,” Lee added. “At the same time, most of our translators had that learning and experience before they came to the company, so they’re aware that those are aspects they need to deal with and, in many cases, I think that’s where a machine can never substitute a human.”

Netflix makes some movies and shows free worldwide to non-subscribers

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Clubhouse promises its accelerator participants either brand deals or $5K per month during the program

Amid growing competition from Twitter Spaces and other newcomers, popular social audio startup Clubhouse is making a move aimed at seeding its network with more high-quality content: it’s launching an accelerator program. During its weekly town hall event on Sunday, the company detailed its plans for its inaugural accelerator called “Clubhouse Creator First,” which will initially help around 20 creators get their shows off the ground. To do so, Clubhouse said it will provide creators with anything they need to get started — whether that’s equipment like an iPhone, AirPods, or an iRig, promotional support or help with booking guests, or even a babysitter. Most importantly, Clubhouse is promising the participating creators an income of some sort.

During the town hall, Clubhouse CEO Paul Davison explained that a core part of the accelerator experience will be to help creators get paid for their work. In order to make this happen, Clubhouse will match the creator with a brand sponsor, he said — something the company believes will be possible because brands are already reaching out to Clubhouse, looking for opportunities to get involved.

“We have all of these brands coming to us, asking how they can help — how they can host conversations and find people who can help them host those conversations,” he said.

Today’s Town Hall Updates:
We are launching our first creator accelerator program, Clubhouse Creator First. We are looking to support and equip 20 creators w/ resources they need to bring their ideas and creativity to life. Details and application here: https://t.co/kmKjQvoUBK

— Clubhouse (@joinClubhouse) March 14, 2021

In the case that Clubhouse can’t find a brand sponsor for a particular show, the company will just guarantee a basic income of $5,000 per month during the three months the creator is participating in the program.

Presumably, this cushion could help people transition from other projects to focus on their Clubhouse show instead, while also giving them time to grow their audience and form the brand relationships that could sustain their shows longer-term.

Clubhouse will also play a hands-on role in helping to develop the shows from the accelerator’s participants, we understand.

Already, the Andreessen Horowitz-backed social audio app has aided in the success of one of its more popular tech programs, The Good Time Show, co-hosted by the VC firm’s latest general partner, Sriram Krishnan. His program has regularly featured guests and co-hosts either investing with the firm or connected to it somehow, and has been responsible some of Clubhouse’s biggest celeb guests — like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, for example.

That formula could be repeatable, it seems. As Davison noted during the town hall: “we’ll work on matching you with guests for your shows — for your events.” In other words, it’s helping produce.

Davison also said Clubhouse will offer directed feedback to the accelerator’s participants, including its opinion on what works and what doesn’t, and other “deep dive concept development.” When the creators’ shows are ready to launch, Clubhouse will then connect them with creative services to help design promotional materials to market the shows outside of the social app. It may even give the creators invites they can dole out to potential listeners to help them build up the show’s initial audience, if need be.

Of course, Clubhouse has been doing some of this kind of work behind the scenes before today, but the accelerator both formalizes the arrangement and devotes dedicated resources to a larger handful of promising creators.

But it also puts Clubhouse in a potentially precarious position with regard to its still underdeveloped moderation practices.

Brands are typically hesitant to associate themselves with problematic or toxic content, and will pull out of creator deals and relationships if they find that to be the case. In the past, content moderation failures have led to advertisers’ exodus from top social platforms — like the YouTube brand freeze a few years ago over obscene comments, which necessitated a cleanup of the videos allowed on the YouTube ad network. And last year, Facebook faced its largest corporate boycott to date, when brands protested the company’s failures to properly prevent the spread of hate speech and misinformation on its platform.

Though small by comparison — the app now has 12 million global downloads, App Annie says — Clubhouse has already been called out for allowing misogyny, anti-Semitism and COVID-19 misinformation on the platform, despite rules against prohibiting this content. It’s also allowed for verbal abuse, with some users still being name-called or harassed in Clubhouse rooms. (We’ve heard these stories from users directly but will not name names without permission.).

More recently, there’s been growing concern about scam artists taking over Clubhouse and the lack of accountability for what’s being said. Many so-called “experts” are happy to go on the app to dole out advice, but when they wade into territory like mental health, they can spread harmful misinformation that can really hurt people.

All these things could potentially catch up to Clubhouse in a big way in the months to come, if the company can’t figure out a better moderation strategy to weed out the bad actors and keep the platform brand-safe.

Starting today, the company is allowing interested creators to apply for Clubhouse Creator First. The deadline to apply is March 31, 2021.

I’m thrilled to announce I’m joining @joinClubhouse as the new Head of Global Marketing. I can’t wait to work with this incredible team and global community. Let’s Go!

— Maya Watson (@mayawatson) March 14, 2021

The new accelerator program was one of several town hall announcements on Sunday.

The company also announced it has hired a Netflix, OWN, and Harpo Productions alum Maya Watson as its new head of global marketing, and it detailed several new product updates.

Among those, users will now be able to invite people to the app by phone number alone, instead of having to upload their entire address book. It also now allows users to share links that point to their user profile or Club page, and will now better remember a user’s language preferences when displaying its list of rooms, among other things.

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Passive collaboration is essential to remote work’s long-term success

Mohak Shroff Contributor

Mohak Shroff is head of engineering at LinkedIn. He leads the engineering teams responsible for building, scaling and protecting LinkedIn.

In 1998, Sun Microsystems piloted its “Open Work” program, letting roughly half of their workforce work flexibly from wherever they wanted. The project required new hardware, software and telecommunications solutions, and took about 24 months to implement.

Results were very positive, with a reduction in costs and the company’s carbon footprint. Despite this outcome, long-term remote work never really caught on more broadly. In fact, the 2010s were focused on going the other direction, as open offices, on-site perks and co-working spaces sprung up around the idea that in-person community is an essential component of innovation.

In 2020, companies of all sizes, in all corners of the world, were forced to shift to remote work with the onset of COVID-19. While some companies were better positioned than others — whether it be due to a previously distributed workforce, a reliance on cloud apps and services, or already-established flexible work policies — the adjustment to a fully remote workforce has been challenging for everyone. The truth is that even the largest companies have had to rely on the heroics of employees making sacrifices and persevering through numerous challenges to get through this time.

Technology like high-quality video conferencing and the cloud have been integral in making remote work possible. But we don’t yet have a complete substitute for in-person work because we continue to lack tooling in one critical area: passive collaboration. While active collaboration (which is the lion’s share) can happen over virtual meetings and emails, we haven’t fully solved for enabling the types of serendipitous conversations and chance connections that often power our biggest innovations and serve as the cornerstone of passive collaboration.

Active versus passive collaboration

Those outside of the tech industry may think that software engineers only need a computer and a secure internet connection to do their work. But the stereotype of the lone engineer coding away in solitude has long been shattered. The best engineering work isn’t done in isolation, but in collaboration, as teams discuss, wrangle and brainstorm through problems. Video conference platforms and chat applications help us collaborate actively, and tools like Microsoft Visual Studio Code and Google Docs allow for dedicated asynchronous collaboration, too.

But what we currently lack are the moments of spontaneous engagement that energize us and invite new ideas that otherwise wouldn’t have been part of the conversation. The long-term impact of not having access to this has not yet been measured, but it’s my belief that it will have a negative effect on innovation because passive collaboration plays such a critical role in fostering creativity.

The whiteboard

The best way to think about the differences between passive and active collaboration is to look at a whiteboard. Someone recently asked me, “What is it with people in tech and whiteboards? Why are they such a big deal?” Whiteboards are simple and “low-tech,” yet have become quintessential in our industry. That’s because they represent a source of multi-modal collaboration for engineers. Let’s think back to before COVID. How many times have you walked by (or been a part of) a scrum meeting of engineers huddled around a whiteboard?

Have you ever stopped by because you overheard a snippet of a conversation and wanted to learn more or share your perspective? Or maybe something on a whiteboard caught your eye and caused you to start a conversation with another colleague, leading to a breakthrough. These are all moments of passive collaboration, which whiteboards so excellently enable (in addition to being a tool for real-time, active collaboration). They’re low-friction ways to invite new ideas and perspectives to the conversation that otherwise wouldn’t have been considered.

While whiteboards are one mode of facilitating passive collaboration, they aren’t the only option. Serendipitous meetings in the break room, overhearing a conversation from the next cubicle over, or spotting someone across the room who’s free for a quick gut-check are also examples of passive collaboration. These interactions are a critical piece of how we work together and the hardest to recreate in a world of remote work. Just as silos in the development process are detrimental to software quality, so too is a lack of passive collaboration.

We need tools that will help us peek over at what other people are working on without the pressure of a dedicated meeting time or update email. The free and open exchange of ideas is a birthplace for innovation, but we haven’t yet figured out how to create a good virtual space for this.

Looking forward

The future of work is one in which teams are more distributed than ever before, meaning we need new tools for passive collaboration not just for this year, but for the future, too. Our own internal survey results tell us that while some employees prefer the option to be fully remote once the pandemic is behind us, the majority want a more flexible solution in the future.

Crucially, the answer is not to create more meetings or email threads, but instead to reimagine virtual spaces that can function like the classic whiteboard and other serendipitous modes of collaboration. As we all still look for ways to solve this challenge, we at LinkedIn have been thinking about how to encourage cross-team conversations and open Q&As to share resources, as a start.

For decades, the tech industry has paved the way for innovations in employee experience, creating spaces and benefits that reduced friction in collaboration and productivity. Now, as we look ahead to a hybrid work world, we must find new ways to continue supporting employee productivity and creativity. It’s only when we’re able to fully realize passive collaboration virtually that we’ll have unlocked the full potential of remote and hybrid work situations.

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SIP Global Partners announces first close of its $150M fund to bring U.S. startups into Japan

Japan is often under discussed as an expansion target for American startups, but in the past few years it has become a top market for companies like Slack, Salesforce, Twitter and, more recently, Clubhouse. Today SIP Global Partners is announcing a new fund to invest in early-stage U.S. startups that have the potential to expand into Japan, and potentially other Asian markets, too. The fund has raised a $75 million first close of its $150 million target, and already invested in five companies.

SIP’s new fund will look at late seed to Series B-stage companies that have a product, or one about to come to market, that is ready to expand internationally. The team will work closely with portfolio companies, helping them launch operations in Japan and other Asian markets.

Managing partner Justin Turkat told TechCrunch that Japan is a promising market for foreign startups partly because an undercapitalized venture capital ecosystem means there is a smaller pool of entrepreneurs, with many of the country’s top tech talent opting to join conglomerates or the government instead.

While Japan’s startup market has a lot of potential, he added, it is still nascent. On the other hand, Japan is now the largest source of outward foreign direct investment in the world, and with about 125 million consumers and large corporations in need of scalable solutions, it’s a ripe market for new tech.

“If you look at what’s happened in the last couple of years, I think Japan is open for business with U.S. startups with an urgency that I’ve never seen before, and we think there is a lot of tailwinds around it. You look at investments and partnerships with U.S. startups, it’s at record levels over the last five years and deal counts are increasing every year,” Turkat said.

The fund is being launched by four investors, based in the U.S. and Japan. Turkat and founder and managing partner Shigeki Saitoh, former director of the Japan Venture Capital Association, are in Tokyo, while general partner Jeffrey Smith and founder and managing partner Matthew Salloway are in Boston and New York, respectively.

“The reason we started this really has to do with the team. We’ve all dedicated our careers to cross border, as both operators and investors, across the U.S. and Asia,” Turkat said. “All the four partners on average have about 20-plus years of experience doing this.”

Over the years, they’ve observed global expansion happening earlier in a startup’s life, he added. “I think it used to be an axiom that if you’re a U.S. startup and you’re venture-backed, you’re not thinking of expanding overseas until your Series D round,” but companies are now eyeing foreign markets as early as their seed rounds.

SIP’s new fund is looking for startups in three areas: creativity (augmented and extended reality, synthetic media and web-based platforms), productivity (artificial intelligence and machine learning, edge computing, the Internet of Things and semiconductors) and safety (digital health and information security).

Turkat said it is focusing on companies that provide core infrastructure or the economic layer for emerging technology.

For example, “on the infrastructure layer, we’re looking at 5G being rolled out globally simultaneously, then the edge computing, semiconductors, security and AI and machine learning, all around this infrastructure layer,” he said. Companies in the fund’s current portfolio that fit into this category include OpenRAN startup Parallel Wireless and Croquet, an ultra-low latency collaboration platform.

“Then you have the economic layer with all of these advancements, the platforms and applications sitting on top of it,” Turkat added. These include the fund’s three other investments so far: Fable, a browser-based motion design platform, Tilt Five, an AR gaming platform, and Kinetic, an industrial IoT startup focused on workplace safety.

As a strategic investor, SIP works closely with startups as they expand into new countries. This includes hiring talent and finding initial business partners, including for distribution channels or potential joint ventures. After Japan, SIP also helps startups enter other Asian markets, especially in ASEAN, including Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia.

DNX Ventures launches $315 million fund for US and Japanese B2B startups

Japan’s Uncovered Fund launches $15M fund to back early-stage startups in Africa

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Walmart to host a new live stream shopping event on TikTok, following successful pilot

In December, Walmart partnered with TikTok on the first pilot test of a new livestreamed shopping experience in the U.S. on the video platform. That test seemingly performed well, as today Walmart announced it will return to TikTok to host another livestream shopping event, the “Spring Shop-Along: Beauty Edition,” which will feature TikTok creators and influencers in an hour-long livestream.

The retailer didn’t disclose to what extent its first TikTok live shopping event drove sales, but noted that it netted 7x more views that it had anticipated, and was able to grow its TikTok follower base by 25%. These metrics were encouraging enough to send Walmart back to the platform for another go — this time, to promote beauty products instead of apparel, which had been the focus of the holiday livestream.

The new Spring Shop-Along will run this Thursday, March 11 at 9 PM EST on the Walmart TikTok channel. Like the prior holiday event, the new livestream shopping event will see various TikTok creators joining to talk about and demonstrate their favorite items. One participating creator has already been announced: Gabby Morrison (@GabbyMorr) who has over 3.5 million TikTok followers.

Image Credits: Walmart

Gabby and others will demo their skincare, makeup and hair routines and reveal the Walmart beauty products they’re using during the 60-minute live event. Featured beauty brands will include NYX, Maybelline, The Lip Bar, Bliss, Kim Kimble, and Marc Jacobs fragrances.

Viewers watching the event will be able to get beauty tips as well as shop the products featured directly in the TikTok app by tapping on product “pins.” This will allow them to add items to their cart that they can then check out either during or after the event.

“Brands have found a unique home on TikTok to create content that speaks to the community and inspires engagement, whether it’s participating in trends or discovering new products,” said Blake Chandlee, President of TikTok Global Business Solutions, in a statement about Walmart’s plans.

“With the shoppable livestream experience, it’s exciting to see how the TikTok community loves engaging with their favorite creators and discovering new products. We look forward to continue building innovative ways to power the path from discovery to purchase, and seeing brands like Walmart bring their creativity to users,” Chandlee added.

Walmart had already signaled its interest in leveraging TikTok for e-commerce ahead of the holiday livestream. Notably, it had planned to invest in TikTok when the video app was threatened with a ban under the Trump administration, unless it sold its U.S. operations to an American company. That forced sale, which would have spun out TikTok’s U.S. business to new owners Oracle and Walmart, is shelved for the time being as the Biden administration reviews the agency action under Trump.

Image Credits: Screenshot of Walmart’s TikTok channel during the 2020 holidays

Livestreamed shopping is an area of increasing interest and investment in the U.S. The trend has seen a number of startups enter the market, including NTWRK and recently funded Bambuser and Popshop Live, among others. Larger tech companies are also taking part — including across mobile video and live video shopping.

Google’s R&D project for mobile video shopping Shoploop was integrated into search. Facebook acquired a video shopping startup Packagd to build out live shopping, and heavily invested in video shopping across Facebook and Instagram. Amazon runs live shopping through its QVC-like Amazon Live. Alibaba (AliExpress) JD.com, Pinduoduo, WeChat and TikTok’s Chinese sister app, Douyin, all support mobile video shopping, too.

Walmart to pilot test livestreamed video shopping on TikTok

Walmart had said its plan to partner with TikTok on livestream shopping wasn’t a result of its deal talks, however — it’s been an active brand on TikTok’s platform for well over a year. The retailer even tasked its employees to make TikTok videos, in addition to running its own TikTok channel.

Reached for comment, the retailer declined to provide further metrics about its first livestream on TikTok, but felt the pilot test delivered above expectations.

“We were happy with getting 7X more views than anticipated and the 25% increase in TikTok follower growth after the first event. We were also pleased with the smooth checkout experience,” a spokesperson told TechCrunch. “We aren’t able to share sales numbers, but can share that we hit the projections we set ahead of the event.”

Following this week’s live shopping event, Walmart says it plans to bring more shopping experiences to TikTok in the months to come, by continuing to partner with creators to highlight different products via different formats.

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