Hi Everyone. This is Take Off. We're like a hidden Easter egg in your favorite video game - surprising, delightful, and adding an extra layer of fun to your tech news consumption.

Here's what we're serving up today:

• Reddit’s Enjoying the Public Eye 👀

• GenZ’s Facebook Secret 🛒

• Asteroids ☄️

Reddit’s Enjoying the Public Eye 👀

Reddit fared well in its first investor grilling session aka The Earnings Call after the company reported surging user numbers and revenue.

Daily Users grew 37% YoY to a record 83M and revenue grew 48% to …*checks notes*... $243M with ad dollars accounting for the majority of it. 

Not All Users Are Created Equal

Reddit’s user numbers may seem tiny when compared to other social media giants.

But the company’s pitch deck to advertisers is also a bit different than that of its social-media peers. Instead of chatting with friends and browsing selfies, Reddit users visit hyper-specific pages like r/BoneBroth - which could be an appealing ad buy for well … a company that makes bone broth.

Reddit visits are so intentional that it’s become a quasi search platform as users add “Reddit” to their Google queries. 

That’s Good and Bad

Even though Reddit has high-intent users, more than half of them aren’t logged in. 

Only about ~48% of its DAU (Daily Active Users) are logged in when using the platform, meaning that the majority of Reddit visitors are only able to view posts, rather than make or comment on them. 

This means less information can be collected about each logged-out user. That’s good and bad.

Good for the consumer concerned about their privacy.

Bad for Reddit and the advertiser.

AI AI AI

You do not always need fancy language or vision AI models in your product to make bank. The other way? 

Sell your DATA.

One of the shiny new revenue streams that Reddit is touting is licensing its treasure trove of data to AI companies: The company boasts an archive of 18 years of data on almost every topic imaginable - a GOLD mine for language models.

It has already inked deals worth over $250M spanning 2-3 years, bringing in $20M in the first quarter alone. 

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GenZ’s Facebook Secret 🛒

Where do you go when you need a $50 couch, a lightly used Target dresser and a 2005 Toyota Prius? 

Facebook Marketplace - of course.

Despite Facebook not being swell enough anymore for the younger generation, its Marketplace feature is proving to be a surprising holdout of popularity. 

Let’s crunch some numbers

Launched in 2016, Facebook Marketplace has over 1B monthly active users, with around 40% of Facebook’s 3B+ users browsing it to shop.

In an age where Facebook’s desktop visits declined 4%, marketplace’s visits skyrocketed by 15%, making it a bright spot for the struggling social-media giant. 

This resilience is likely due to the growing trend of resale shopping, valued at about $175B in the US market last year.

In 2023 alone, the user base of Marketplace grew by 3.6% YoY, making it the second most popular site for secondhand shopping in the US, just behind eBay.

So, what’s the hype about?

Marketplace’s appeal lies in its integration within the familiar social media framework, offering features like user profiles and Messenger for communication, which lend a perceived trustworthiness over platforms like Craigslist. 

This trust is crucial, especially as 491M users log in to Facebook primarily to use Marketplace.

The Story you know, the Scam you don’t

Despite Marketplace increasing its user engagement, helping Facebook maintain a foothold in the competitive social media landscape, high incidence of scams have been seen, with reports suggesting that 60% of all purchase fraud cases originated on Marketplace. 

So while Facebook might no longer be the social media kingpin, its Marketplace has carved out a niche that keeps users, particularly the younger ones, coming back, blending shopping with social interactions in a way that resonates with modern consumer habits.

Gotta go and find myself a popcorn machine on marketplace.

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☄️ Asteroids ☄️

Hello GPT-4o. OpenAI dropped another A-Bomb on us releasing a multimodal model that’s more intelligent and faster. 🧠 ⚡

Google is ready for the challenge. Google themselves announced a gazillion AI updates and launched their own multimodal model called Astra. 💬🖼️

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💪 Spur - World's first Copilot for fitness trainers

💻️ Levi V2 - Build stunning AI-powered websites

🌐 Aptible - No Infrastructure Platform to deploy in seconds

⚡️ Zap - Craft free cover letters instantly, tailored to your resume

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