#SocialStocks: Amazon provides insight on scope of partnership with Pinterest

Welcome to “#SocialStocks,” The Fly’s weekly recap of Wall Street’s reactions to social media stock news.

ROGUE CHATBOT: Snapchat’s (SNAP) My AI feature briefly went rogue this week, with the AI chatbot posting its own Story to the app and then ceased responding to users’ messages, TechCrunch’s Sarah Perez reported. “My AI experienced a temporary outage that’s now resolved,” a Snap spokesperson told TechCrunch.

AMAZON SELLING PARTNERSHIP: Amazon (AMZN) announced in a blog post: “We are excited to share that we’re starting down a new path in our Sponsored Products journey-extending Amazon selling partner campaigns to premium apps and websites, including Pinterest (PINS), BuzzFeed (BZFD), Hearst Newspapers, Raptive, and Ziff Davis brands like Lifehacker and Mashable to name a few. We will start small, learn, and expand as we see meaningful opportunities to enable delightful discovery and shopping experiences. These Sponsored Products ads will automatically show up when we think a customer is likely to be interested in a product, based on relevant page context, the campaign, and cost-per-click parameters that sellers have already established. As is the case today, all ads will link to the Amazon product page, making it simple for customers to move from inspiration to browsing or buying in just one or two clicks.”

Piper Sandler noted that on Wednesday, an Amazon corporate blog highlighted 1P advertisers will soon be able to promote on Pinterest and other 3rd party sites. The blog stated Sponsored Product ads from Amazon will extend directly onto Pinterest as if they were on the Amazon domain. The firm had previously interpreted the partnership to only include Amazon DSP advertisers. Amazon Sponsored Products should improve shopability and inventory on Pinterest, while potentially driving new users to the application as well. Overall, Piper acknowledges that this may be a larger opportunity than it first thought as Amazon’s scale should grow the current advertiser count for Pinterest and the Sponsored Product format should further drive the “lower-funnel”/transactional evolution for the app. The firm has an Overweight rating on Pinterest shares with a price target of $35.

ANTITRUST LATEST: The Justice Department announced that two directors of Pinterest have resigned their positions on the board of Nextdoor (KIND) in response to its antitrust division’s ongoing enforcement efforts around Section 8 of the Clayton Act. “We remain steadfast in our commitment to protect competition by preventing interlocking directorates that we believe violate Section 8 of the Clayton Act,” said Deputy Assistant Attorney General Andrew Forman of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division.

SELECTIVE THROTTLING: Twitter’s rename X (TWTR) is damping down the speed of which users can access the links of firms and news outlets that have angered Elon Musk in the past, Jeremy B. Merrill and Drew Harwell wrote for The Washington Post. “The delayed websites included X’s online rivals Facebook (META), Instagram, Bluesky and Substack, as well as the Reuters wire service (TRI) and the Times (NYT),” added the WaPo story.

DISCLOSURE: Karthik Sarma’s SRS Investment Management disclosed six new purchases during the second quarter, the top new buy being 52.7M shares of Snap. Snap in afternoon trading yesterday was down 1% to $9.91. David Tepper’s Appaloosa Management and Chase Coleman’s Tiger Global disclosed that it increased its stake in Meta. Additionally, Paul Singer’s Elliott Management noted the company upped its stake in Pinterest. 

NOT SO FAST; Meta has rehired “dozens” of the 21,000 employees who have been laid off as part of CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s massive cost-cutting push since last year, Insider’s Kali Hays reported. The Facebook and Instagram parent brought back the laid-off workers in recent weeks to work in engineering and technical roles, according to three sources familiar with the company’s moves.

ONE OF ONE THOUSAND: Meta plans to build only about 1,000 units of its first-generation AR glasses, due in 2024, which use silicon carbide in the lenses, requiring assembly in the U.S., The Information’s Wayne Ma reported.