The series was created and produced by ATTN: in unique formats that are custom-made to be experienced via Instagram’s feed, short-form Reels videos and Stories. It will be released over the next two weeks.

ATTN: is also sharing content via Facebook and Twitter.

The themes of the five episodes are:

• The Recovery Act
• The influence of strong women on Obama’s life
• The Affordable Care Act
• Being the first Black family in the White House
• Climate change

The first installment debuted Friday.

Custom made Reels will also be released on Instagram, where Obama will share new insights and backstories from his time in the White House. The first Reel features the former president doing a live reading of “Lose Yourself” by Eminem.

ATTN: co-founder Matthew Segal said in a statement, “A Promised Land will undoubtedly be one of the biggest presidential books in history, and we want to make sure that the stories and themes make their way to younger audiences. We hope that these new interviews and creative Reels that ATTN: has made will bring the policies and lessons of the Obama presidency to the next generation.”

Obama added, “In my new book, A Promised Land, I share the story of what inspired me to pursue public service and the ups and downs in my first few years of my presidency, but I wanted to share some of the most important moments with you. That’s why I’m teaming up with ATTN: for a new series talking about some of the biggest moments that defined those years for me.”

The goal of the campaign is to drive traffic to the #MakeSmallBig Holiday Market, a virtual holiday market featuring graduates of Goldman Sachs’ 10,000 Small Businesses and 10,000 Women initiatives.

#MakeSmallBig Holiday Market features over 60 small businesses providing gifting options such as jewelry, skin care, sustainable apparel and sweet treats.

Goldman Sachs took over 22 screens in shopping area Brookfield Place, located in Manhattan’s financial district, turning them into QR-code-equipped virtual storefronts.

And the company’s Instagram account was also taken over and turned into a virtual shoppable Main Street for the holiday season.

A complete list of merchants that were included in the #MakeSmallBig Holiday Market is available here.

Forsman & Bodenfors associate creative director Rob Hirst-Hermans said in a statement, “The #MakeSmallBig Holiday Market underscores Goldman Sachs’ commitment to and belief in the power of small businesses, especially during the global pandemic that has had an adverse economic impact on many of these businesses. As seen in Goldman Sachs’ recent Sinking Lifeboats survey, 59% of small business owners said that revenue has been negatively impacted by rising Covid-19 infection rates this fall. We’re proud to create a campaign that helps these businesses at the close of an incredibly challenging year.”

An academic research product track will debut early next year to give qualified academic researchers a significantly higher monthly tweet volume cap free-of-charge, as well as endpoints and enhanced features to get more precise and complete data for analyzing the public conversation.

Twitter wrote in a blog post this week, “Today, academic researchers are one of the largest groups of people using the Twitter API to study the public conversation to understand what’s happening. Our goal is to support even more of this work, so we are building a solution tailored for research needs. For the past several weeks, select academics on our platform have helped us hone in on this by participating in a private beta of a new academic research product track.”

The social network also plans to streamline and simplify the process for businesses using the API with its business product track, which will kick off with a track dedicated to business use cases that will allow businesses to apply for elevated access.

Twitter wrote, “Many thousands of developers have already started using Twitter API v2 with basic access in the standard product track. We know that some developers will need greater levels of access before they can dig deeper into new endpoints—teachers, activists and artists, to name a few. Before we’re done building, we’re planning to offer paths to elevated access in the standard product track. We also know you need more features to fully build, so we’ll continue releasing updates to existing endpoints, adding support for new Twitter features (like the hide replies endpoint) and other new functionality like OAuth 2.”

The social network concluded, “The new Twitter API will graduate from its current early access phase to general access when we are confident that all types of developers can successfully migrate to the new API, including having both the endpoints and access levels they need. We plan to provide plenty of migration time and resources to help when we do announce any upcoming deprecations.”

In order to continue using the enterprise offering, businesses will have to upgrade to a paid plan, which will also give them access to advanced features such as insights, live chat support and single sign-on.

Should a business opt to not continue on with Workplace, it can download its data from the platform.

Vice president and head of Workplace Karandeep Anand said in a blog post this week, “The world of work is changing at a rapid pace, and we’re committed to helping businesses navigate these challenging times. This change will enable us to introduce new features designed for a new world of work. Whatever the future holds, our focus remains the same: To make sure every employee is equally connected, informed, empowered and productive wherever they work and whatever they do.”

Reels joins feed, IGTV, Instagram Live and Instagram Stories as video formats on the platform through which shopping is available to users.

Businesses and creators can now tag products or add branded content tags to their Reels.

When users view those Reels, they can tap “View Products” to buy the product, save the Reel or learn more about the product.

For the Ages, a handbag line based in New York, said in a statement, “Using Reels is such a wonderful tool to feature For the Ages handbags. It really helps bring a post to life and is a helpful way for a customer to see the reality of our products. I think it is an essential tool for shopping engagement.”

The collaboration will enable brands that have already created digital and AR experiences with technology from Perfect to convert those experiences into Snapchat lenses that will be accessible via their brand profiles.

Snapchatters will be able to discover, experiments with and shop for beauty products from brands that work with Perfect, and those brands get access to the application’s valuable Generation Z audience.

Snap said campaigns that include shoppable AR lenses see 2.4 times higher action intent left than the average campaign, adding that over 180 million Snapchatters engage with AR every day, and its community has built more than 1.5 million AR lenses.

Snap head of product marketing for AR Carolina Arguelles Navas said in a statement, “Our partnership with Perfect Corp. makes it incredibly easy and intuitive for over 200 beauty brands to create a virtual storefront on Snapchat. Together, we’re helping brands reach the next generation of beauty consumers with technology that reinvents the beauty buying experience.”

Perfect founder and CEO Alice Chang added, “We are delighted to partner with Snap Inc. to expand the impact and accessibility of beauty tech investments for our brand partners. As consumers continue to gravitate toward virtual beauty experiences for safe beauty shopping, this unique partnership with Snapchat allows beauty brands to leverage AR and artificial intelligence to engage with Snapchatters. The virtual try-on experience is readily available for beauty brands and instantly scalable for greater impact and benefit to the complete beauty universe.”

The Google-owned video site added support for HDR in November 2016.

Product manager J.R. Futrell wrote in a blog post Tuesday, “We want to continue enabling these vibrant experiences in real-time. That’s why today, we’re launching HDR for livestreams on YouTube. HDR videos have higher contrast, revealing precise, detailed shadows and stunning highlights with more clarity than ever. And by bringing HDR to livestreams, we’re unlocking the most spectacular image quality for live content yet.”

Futrell added that YouTube will expand options for creators to livestream in HDR via additional encoders and mobile devices.

NYX will open the doors to a n augmented reality shopping experience on the Snapchat and Triller applications Wednesday, tapping Snap Inc.’s Camera Kit tools—which enable developers to use Snapchat’s camera in their own apps—to bring the experience to Triller.

The Snap-powered virtual store enables Snapchatters to take part in a fully immersive shopping experience, including virtual try-ons and gaming, and Triller users can take part, as well, interacting with the custom Snapchat lens) without having to leave the Triller platform.

The store can be accessed via a custom-branded lens in Snapchat Lens Carousel, via Snapcode, by using Snapchat’s camera to scan NYX’s Marsh Mellow Smoothing Primer or via the Triller app.

The virtual store will remain open well into 2021, with quarterly updates to highlight future product debuts.

Triller will feature a free virtual concert starring Bebe Rexha Dec. 18 at 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET, via the @nyxcosmetics page on Triller, as well as Twitch and YouTube.

The pop star will showcase the newest products from NYX and help drive viewers to the AR shopping experience.

Snap head of product marketing for AR Carolina Arguelles Navas said in a statement, “Consumers are always looking for new ways to experience the world and products, and Snapchat AR has long been an innovative leader in that area. It’s great to see partners like NYX pushing the boundaries of at-home beauty experiences by bringing virtual in-store browsing to living rooms everywhere and coupling it with AR makeup try-on.”

NYX general manager Stephanie Binette added, “As a digital-first beauty brand, we are always looking to surprise and delight our audience with new and exciting experiences. We are experiencing a very dynamic market, and our approach is constantly evolving. With this first-of-its-kind cross-platform virtual integration with Triller and Snapchat, we are shaping new digital and shopping experiences, while offering consumer entertainment in an accessible way.”

The social network teamed up with the World Bank and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development to survey over 150,000 small businesses globally over the past six months and learn more about the impact of Covid-19.

Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg said in a statement, “Despite one of the hardest years in recent memory, small business leaders have shown remarkable resilience and creativity. Many have transformed the way they do business, finding new ways to survive and thrive online. There is a rocky road ahead, but their optimism for the year to come is inspiring.”

Key global findings included:

• The closure rate for small and midsized businesses was 15% in October, down from 26% in May, the first month surveys were conducted. However, Facebook, the World Bank and OECD pointed out that the rate has remained steady since August.
• Since the pandemic began, 31% of women who lead businesses have spent more time on domestic tasks, compared with 26% of men, with the largest disparity occurring in the U.S.
• SMBs receiving government help fell to 12% in October from 23% in May, with the decrease particularly noticeable in Europe and North America. Facebook, the World Bank and OECD wrote, “Econometric analysis suggests that financial support resulted in improved outcomes for SMBs (particularly with regards to employee retention and probability of closure). However, these programs have also been costly to operate, casting doubt on the long-term sustainability of these efforts if governments are not willing to continue paying the costs.”
• A total of 56% of respondents were optimistic or very optimistic about the future of their businesses, up slightly from 54% in May, but the rate fell in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
• A rare bright spot from the pandemic is that more SMBs learned how to leverage digital technologies to help mitigate its efforts. A total of 26% of respondents reported in October that they had increased or greatly increased the proportion of sales they made digitally over the course of the pandemic.

And highlights from the U.S. include:

• 86% of SMBs reported that they were operational or engaging in revenue-generating activities in October—82% of SMBs led by women and 91% led by men.
• 45% of operational SMBs reported lower sales in October than in October 2019.
• 26% of SMBs that were operational in October reported that they had reduced their number of employees and workers due to Covid-19.
• 39% of SMBs that were operational in October believe cash flow will continue to be a challenge over the next few months.
• 45% of SMBs that were operational in October reported that at least 25% of their sales for the month were made digitally, and 30% reported that the proportion of sales made digitally was higher than pre-pandemic levels.
• 68% of owners and managers of SMBs that were operational in October felt optimistic about the future of those businesses.

The social network said features that will no longer be available via Messenger API include: persistent menu; one-time notification; some templates (such as airline and receipt) and audio/video attachments; and some templates and buttons on the web (such as generic and button).

Features that will continue to be available after Dec. 16 include: sending and receiving text messages and images; the Get Started button; icebreakers and quick replies; the generic, button and media templates on Android and iOS only; the URL, postback and call buttons on Android and iOS only; private replies; m.me links; the Message Us plugin; webview; and the handover protocol for Messenger.

Facebook said some metrics will no longer be available to developers that also use the Instagram Graph API.

The social network wrote in a blog post Friday, “Before these changes go live Dec. 16, we encourage developers to update their experiences that could be affected by these changes—such as those that power pages in Europe or pages that receive a significant volume of messages from people in Europe—to use available features instead … We recognize that compliance requires changes to our product experiences, and we’re committed to supporting our partners throughout this process. We’re working hard to bring features back and will provide an update if and when these features are made available again in the future.”