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Tumblr Introduces Blog Subscriptions; Digital Accessibility Lawsuits Increase; Twitter Brings Captions To Voice Tweets
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Welcome back. This is Ann-Marie Alcántara and Katie Deighton filling in for Nat Ives. Tumblr is allowing users to charge fans subscription fees. Digital accessibility lawsuits are on track to reach 4,000 by the end of the year. And voice tweets on Twitter will now have automated captions.
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CONTENT FROM OUR SPONSOR: SAP
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Tumblr Subscribes to Creator Cash
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The blogging site plans on making the subscription option widely available this fall. PHOTO: TUMBLR
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Tumblr launched a test today that will let some users charge their followers a monthly fee in exchange for access to exclusive content, Katie Deighton writes for the Experience Report.
The feature, called Post+, offers content creators a choice of three monthly prices to charge their followers—$3.99, $5.99 or $9.99—with Tumblr taking a 5% cut of subscription fees. Users also can post free content if they want.
The blogging site, which Verizon sold to Automattic in 2019, hopes the feature will attract younger users who value being paid to post, said Lance Willett, Tumblr’s chief product and technology officer. Other platforms are trying similar tactics: Facebook, TikTok and Snapchat all recently began offering their top creators cash to keep publishing content to their respective platforms.
“All of these platforms have woken up to the reality that creators are the lifeblood of the internet, and if you don’t take care of the people who are generating content for your platform, then you aren’t going to be able to stay culturally relevant,” said Rex Woodbury, a principal specializing in consumer technology at venture-capital firm Index Ventures Inc.
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Digital Accessibility Lawsuits Ramp Up
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E-commerce companies are sued most often, accounting for 74% of federal cases, the report said. PHOTO: TIM GOODE/ZUMA PRESS
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Lawsuits alleging that websites, apps, and digital videos were inaccessible to people with disabilities rose 64% in the first half of 2021, compared with a year earlier, reports Ann-Marie Alcántara.
Plaintiffs filed 1,661 lawsuits this year between Jan. 1 and June 30, up from 1,012 last year. Lawsuits alleging digital violations of the federal Americans with Disabilities Act or California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act will reach 4,000 by the end of the year, according to a new report from UsableNet.
While lawsuits can sometimes force organizations to change, it can result in confidential settlements without transparency, said Lainey Feingold, a disability rights lawyer.
"Digital inclusion is about including disabled people in the digital world, and it is so vital for participation, diversity, civil rights,” Ms. Feingold said. “Funneling it into a question of is-it-legal compliance really gets away from that.”
What steps have you taken to make your websites accessible? Let us know by replying to nat.ives@wsj.com.
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Users can turn on captions by tapping on a close-captioning icon at the top right corner of a voice tweet. PHOTO: STEPHEN LAM/REUTERS
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Twitter is introducing automated captions for voice tweets, a feature it released in June 2020 on the iOS app without the ability to add text, prompting criticism from accessibility advocates, writes Ann-Marie Alcántara.
“As part of our ongoing work to make Twitter accessible for everyone, we’re rolling out automated captions for Voice Tweets to iOS,” said Gurpreet Kaur, head of global accessibility at Twitter.
Twitter is the latest social-media company to add automated captions, following in the steps of TikTok, operated by ByteDance Ltd. and Facebook Inc.’s Instagram.
Automated captions, however, present challenges, as accents and background noises can lead to mistaken transcriptions, said Meryl Evans, a digital marketer who is deaf.
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“Do you want to play ‘Bridgerton’ the game?”
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— Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter, a longtime critic of Netflix, on the streaming company’s plans to expand into video games.
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Twitter said it was removing Fleets, an ephmeral, "story"-like feature. PHOTO: SOUMYABRATA ROY/ZUMA PRESS
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Twitter killed Fleets after the disappearing-posts function to alleviate the anxiety some people have about tweeting, instead just giving existing users another way to amplify their posts. [WSJ]
TikTok integrated Vimeo’s video-editing tools, partly to help small and medium-sized businesses make ads to run on its platform. [Adweek]
The pandemic apparently failed to stunt the growth of Instagram-friendly experiences, such as the Color Factor and the Museum of Ice Cream. [The Verge]
Facebook added sound effects to some of its emojis on Messenger. [Engadget]
A Russian design firm developed an alternative to the traffic light, featuring one color-changing panel and a countdown timer. [Fast Company]
WhatsApp is testing a new feature that keeps users connected to the service, even when their smartphones have run out of battery. [BBC]
Beauty brands like Estée Lauder discuss plans to create products for people with disabilities. [Vogue Business]
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