How ad-free subscriptions could solve Facebook
At the core of Facebook’s “well-being” problem is that its business is directly coupled with total time spent on its apps. The more hours you pass on the social network, the more ads you see and click, the more money it earns. That puts its plan to make using Facebook healthier at odds with its finances, restricting how far it’s willing to go to protect us from the harms of over use.
Source: How ad-free subscriptions could solve Facebook | TechCrunch
Get ready for AI chips everywhere
Google, ARM, and Amazon were all in the news this week for their work on custom chips for AI applications. Here’s why we’re only going to see more of them in the future.
Source: AI Weekly: Get ready for AI chips everywhere | VentureBeat
Google is replacing Facebook’s traffic to publishers
Google’s increased traffic to publishers is replacing the traffic publishers have lost from Facebook, according to new data from Chartbeat.
Source: Google is replacing Facebook’s traffic to publishers – Recode
Apple’s HomePod is the new Zune
Do you remember the Microsoft Zune? Probably not. The Zune was the Microsoft’s response to the Apple’s iPod. The reason why you don’t remember is because the product sucked. Microsoft executives knew it sucked. Users knew is sucked. Journalists knew it sucked.
The Google Chrome Ad Blocker Has Already Changed the Web
Google started blocking the web’s worst ads in Chrome on Thursday. Here’s what it means for you.
Source: The Google Chrome Ad Blocker Has Already Changed the Web | WIRED
This MIT Startup Is Developing A Fitness Tracker For Your Brain
The Embrace smartwatch was designed for epilepsy patients. But its impact could be much broader.
Source: This MIT Startup Is Developing A Fitness Tracker For Your Brain
Aspiring data scientist? Master these fundamentals.
Data science is an exciting, fast-moving field to become involved in. There’s no shortage of demand for talented, analytically-minded individuals. Companies of all sizes are hiring data scientists, and the role provides real value across a wide range of industries and applications.
Why Disclosure Is Essential When It Comes to Influencer Marketing
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It’s been called a fad, a bubble, a waste of money. But influencer marketing will remain immensely popular in 2018, and it’s important to put the discussion of disclosure in the context of just how important the tactic has become—not just for the usual suspects (marketers of fashion, beauty and gaming products) but increasingly for marketers in other categories.
Source: Why Disclosure Is Essential When It Comes to Influencer Marketing – eMarketer
Google Thinks The Future Of The Web Is . . . Email
Google is making email a lot more interactive, to save you all those confusing clicks.
Neural Networks Are The New Apps
Google spent years building Shazam-style functionality into the Pixel’s operating system. It may be where smartphones are heading.
Source: Neural Networks Are The New Apps
Esports, Jump In or Miss the Mark
The esports industry is growing quickly, with new leagues, teams and distribution channels. And this growth is attracting new high-profile esports investment from brands, media organizations and traditional sports rightsholders.
Snapchat’s Marketing API is now available to all developers
Snapchat first opened its API to a limited number of advertisers back in 2016, enabling third-party technology and creative companies to deliver ads on behalf of brands and agencies. It represented Snapchat’s first moves in the programmatic advertising realm, meaning that ads could be bought and sold automatically, and advertisers could experiment with different kinds of ads through A/B testing to see what works best. Or, for example, a retailer could optimize their ads based on their inventory — if stock runs low on one product, they could automatically switch ads to promote another product.
Source: Snapchat’s Marketing API is now available to all developers | VentureBeat
Amazon’s streaming service Twitch reaches as many people as cable news networks
Amazon-owned Twitch is now pulling in as many monthly viewers as cable news networks. In January 2018, Twitch had nearly a million people watching at any given point. Twitch primarily features live video streams of people playing video games, but the service has added other types of content recently.
Source: Amazon’s streaming service Twitch reaches as many people as cable news networks – Business Insider
Bandcamp Reports ‘Stellar’ 2017, Indie Revenue Up 73%
Bandcamp marked its 6th straight year as a profitable company in 2017 with revenue and usage on the indie music platform rising by double digits across multiple categories, including the sale of physical goods. Industry wide, physical goods sales fell 20% last year.
Source: Bandcamp Reports ‘Stellar’ 2017, Indie Revenue Up 73% – hypebot
Is The Internet Of Things Dead, Or Is It Growing Up?
The internet of things has never quite found its footing, and some proclaim the once-hyped concept is dead. Even as tech companies like Apple, Amazon, and Google pour money into smart speakers, there’s no real, tangible use for them. Other companies have tried–to little avail–to sell us dumb smart products like smart refrigerators and smart water bottles. And smart homes? They spy on users–and they’re just plain annoying.
For Matt Webb, a technologist at R/GA London, the potential of the internet of things isn’t inside your home. It’s outside of it. “It’s where we can finally start assembling parts to make products or services or companies with a smaller number of people or with greater ambition than before,” he says. “IoT is solving problems in the business space really clearly.”
Source: Is The Internet Of Things Dead, Or Is It Growing Up?
Snapchat’s New Update Triggers Revolt by Millions of Teens
A new update by the tech company has pissed off teens and celebs alike, and may put the fragile company in more trouble.
Source: Snapchat’s New Update Triggers Revolt by Millions of Teens
Facebook lost around 2.8 million U.S. users under 25 last year. 2018 won’t be much better.
Facebook is losing young users even quicker than expected, according to new estimates by eMarketer. The digital measurement firm predicted last year that Facebook would see a 3.4 percent drop in 12- to 17-year-old users in the U.S. in 2017, the first time it had predicted a drop in usage for any age group on Facebook.
The reality: The number of U.S. Facebook users in the 12- to 17-year-old demographic declined by 9.9 percent in 2017, eMarketer found, or about 1.4 million total users. That’s almost three times the decline expected. There were roughly 12.1 million U.S. Facebook users in the 12- to 17-year-old demographic by the end of the year.
Source: Facebook lost around 2.8 million U.S. users under 25 last year. 2018 won’t be much better. – Recode
Inside Facebook’s Hellish Two Years—and Mark Zuckerberg’s Struggle to Fix it All
How a confused, defensive social media giant steered itself into a disaster, and how Mark Zuckerberg is trying to fix it all.
Source: Inside Facebook’s Hellish Two Years—and Mark Zuckerberg’s Struggle to Fix it All | WIRED
How Facebook Is Killing Comedy
Last month, in its second round of layoffs in as many years, comedy hub Funny or Die reportedly eliminated its entire editorial team following a trend of comedy websites scaling back, shutting down, or restructuring their business model away from original online content.
Hours after CEO Mike Farah delivered the news via an internal memo, Matt Klinman took to Twitter, writing, “Mark Zuckerberg just walked into Funny or Die and laid off all my friends.” It was a strong sentiment for the longtime comedy creator, who started out at UCB and The Onion before launching Pitch, the Funny or Die-incubated joke-writing app, in 2017.
Facebook is building out its original TV ambitions with an Elizabeth Olsen series
The series was created and written by Z: The Beginning of Everything writer Kit Steinkellner
Source: Facebook is building out its original TV ambitions with an Elizabeth Olsen series – The Verge
Can VR Survive in a Cutthroat Attention Economy? | WIRED
Why virtual reality is struggling to take hold in a world of Too Much Content—and where (and how) it can thrive.
Source: Can VR Survive in a Cutthroat Attention Economy? | WIRED
Are the Most Innovative Companies Just the Ones With the Most Data?
Do you still use Yahoo? Do you still remember MySpace? Compaq? Kodak? The cases of startups with superior ideas dethroning well-established incumbents are legion. This is the beauty of “creative destruction” – the term coined by innovation prophet Joseph Schumpeter almost a century ago. Incumbents have to keep innovating, lest they be overtaken by a new, more creative competitor. Arguably, at least in sectors shaped by technical change, entrepreneurial innovation has kept markets competitive far better than antitrust legislation ever could. For decades, creative destruction ensured competitive markets and a constant stream of new innovation. But what if that is no longer the case?
Source: Are the Most Innovative Companies Just the Ones With the Most Data?
A Guide to Snapchat for People Who Don’t Get Snapchat
Snapchat has an unearned reputation for being difficult to use, but it’s not, if you get the basics.
Source: A Guide to Snapchat for People Who Don’t Get Snapchat – The New York Times
The Songs That Bind
Data drawn from Spotify listeners reveal that we are all teenagers in love.
Android Wear is getting killed, and it’s all Qualcomm’s fault
This weekend will mark two years since Qualcomm’s last smartwatch chip was announced.
Source: Android Wear is getting killed, and it’s all Qualcomm’s fault | Ars Technica
Test finds HomePod’s Siri ‘at the bottom of the totem pole’ in smartspeaker AI
While the Apple HomePod is the “best sounding” smartspeaker and has a “measurably better” user experience in many areas, its underlying AI assistant — Siri — failed dramatically in a query test versus Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Microsoft Cortana, according to Loup Ventures.
Source: Test finds HomePod’s Siri ‘at the bottom of the totem pole’ in smartspeaker AI
The CD is dead? Not so fast
Best Buy might have dumped it and we’re all addicted to Spotify, but the truth about the format’s health is complex.
Many Users Will Stop Viewing Content That’s Slow to Load
Nearly 80% of the 1,011 US adults Adobe surveyed in December 2017 said that if a piece of content takes too long to load, they will either stop viewing it altogether or switch to a different device. Survey respondents expressed more sensitivity toward slow loading times than they did to other issues, like broken links or content not displaying properly on a device.
Source: Many Users Will Stop Viewing Content That’s Slow to Load – eMarketer
Snapchat Will Let You Make Your Own Custom Lens For $10
The crown jewels of millennial social media are finally up for sale, and not just to brands. Starting today, every Snapchat user can stamp their name on the company’s most successful product: the face-distorting, ferry-rainbow-ironman-vomit filters known as Lenses.
Source: Snapchat Will Let You Make Your Own Custom Lens For $10
Twitch is tightening its policies around harassment and sexual behavior
Twitch is enacting stricter policies in the interest of curbing harassment and sexually suggestive behavior. The company announced today that its new rules will kick into effect on February 19th at 9AM PT — time intended to give users enough warning to remove any clips or videos on demand that violate new guidelines. “During the transition period, we’ll be reaching out to some streamers whose current and past content may violate these new guidelines to help you be successful on Twitch,” the company says. “Our goal is to ensure everyone understands and adheres to the updated Community Guidelines so you can keep creating content for your communities.”
Source: Twitch is tightening its policies around harassment and sexual behavior – The Verge
Facebook confirms test of a downvote button for flagging comments
How can Facebook promote meaningful interaction between users? By letting them downvote inappropriate comments to hide them. Facebook is now testing a downvote button on a limited set of public Page post comment reels, the company confirms to TechCrunch. But what Facebook does with signals about problematic comments could raise new questions about censorship, and its role as a news editor and media company.
Source: Facebook confirms test of a downvote button for flagging comments | TechCrunch
The New Neural Internet is Coming
So, at the end of the day, we are going to see a fully personalized content everywhere on the Internet.
Everyone will see fully custom versions of all content, that is adapted to the consumer based on his lifestyle, opinions, and history. We all witnessed arousal of this Bubble pattern after latest USA elections and it’s gonna be getting worse. GANs will able to target content precisely to you with no limitations of the medium — starting from image ads and up to complex opinions, tread and publications, generated by machines. This will create a constant feedback loop, improving based on your interactions. And there is going to be a competition of different GANs between each other. Kind of a fully automated war of phycological manipulations, having humanity as a battlefield.
The driving force behind this trend is extremely simple — profits.And this is not a scary doomsday scenario, this actually is happening today.
Radio Is Streaming’s Next Frontier
Streaming music has got where it has today largely by being the future of retail and replacing the download model, which in turn replaced the CD model (though vestiges of both remain). That premium model will continue to be the beating heart of streaming revenues for the foreseeable future but will not be enough on its own. The next big opportunity for streaming is to become the future of radio, which incidentally is around double the size of the recorded music market. In doing so, it will be a classic case of disruptive insurgents stealing market share from long-standing incumbents.
Source: Radio Is Streaming’s Next Frontier | Music Industry Blog
A Field Guide to Fake News and Other Information Disorders
Recent scandals about the role of social media in key political events in the US, UK and other European countries over the past couple of years have underscored the need to understand the interactions between digital platforms, misleading information and propaganda, and their influence on collective life in democracies,’ writes First Draft, an online journal published by Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy.
Why Twitter is now profitable for the first time ever
There’s no indication that Twitter benefited from changes to Facebook’s algorithm, analysts say.
Source: Why Twitter is now profitable for the first time ever – The Washington Post
Conversational Commerce: Why Consumers Are Embracing Voice Assistants
What do consumers think of Conversational Commerce, and how can retailers and brands devise a sound voice-driven Conversational Commerce strategy?
Source: Conversational Commerce: Why Consumers Are Embracing Voice Assistants
Instagram tests resharing of others’ posts to your Story
Instagram purposefully lacks a “Regram” button to promote original sharing, but it’s easing up on that philosophy when it comes to Stories. Instagram now confirms to TechCrunch that it’s testing an option that lets you share public feed posts from other users to your Story. This could let you add commentary and overlaid stickers to a meme, celebrity post or even a friend’s photo. For users whose lives aren’t so interesting, resharing could give them something to post.
Source: Instagram tests resharing of others’ posts to your Story | TechCrunch
Google eyes gaming with ‘Yeti’ streaming service, standalone console
Google is developing a game streaming service, codenamed Yeti, according to a report released on The Information website. The service would add Google to a growing part of the video game business that lets people play games without having to download them, and would reportedly use cloud servers for broadcast. So far, Yeti has been discussed with game developers, although it’s unclear whether the games will be developed specifically for Google’s service.
Source: Google eyes gaming with ‘Yeti’ streaming service, standalone console – Business Insider
Key iPhone Source Code Gets Posted Online in ‘Biggest Leak in History’
Source code for iBoot, one of the most critical iOS programs, was anonymously posted on GitHub.
Source: Key iPhone Source Code Gets Posted Online in ‘Biggest Leak in History’ – Motherboard
Snap reports Q4 2017 earnings
Snap, the company that makes the Snapchat app, reported a big earnings beat that sent the stock soaring more than 20% in after hour trading. The company said it now has 187 million Daily Active Users, thanks to improvements made to the Android version of the Snapchat app. Snap’s CEO Evan Spiegel says Snapchat’s delayed redesign is testing well and will launch for everyone during the first quarter of this year.