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This week we have Ticketmaster’s Bad Blood; Tough Break in China; and A Familiar Face at Disney.

Analytics, Digital, Design In Action

Bad Blood

In the wake of the major problems surrounding Ticketmaster’s management of Taylor Swift tour ticket sales last week, a U.S. Senate antitrust panel will hold a hearing on the lack of competition in the industry. Over the past few days there has been a lot of bad blood between Ticketmaster and enraged Swift fans over the disastrous rollout of tickets for the singer’s “Eras” tour. During the pre-sale process, which was only supposed to be open to around 1.5 million verified Swift fans, 14 million people, including bots, tried to get tickets.

Ticketmaster is the world's largest ticket marketplace, and we partner with Event Organizers to make their tickets available through our marketplace, which includes websites, apps and Fan Support centers across 29 countries.

Tough Break in China

Two weeks after Apple warned of production delays in China amid heightened COVID-19 restrictions, it is facing more challenges as worker protests broke out at its largest manufacturing partner Foxconn.

Hundreds of workers at the world’s largest iPhone plant in central China clashed with the police, according to videos shared over the last few days by Foxconn workers on Douyin and Kuaishou, China’s versions of TikTok.

In late October, the COVID outbreak at Foxconn’s Zhengzhou factory, which typically has some 200,000 workers, sent people who feared COVID fleeing on foot, according to social media posts at the time. Since then Foxconn has tried to lure labor back with raised salaries. Local governments across Henan Province, where Zhengzhou is located, have been assigned to mobilize residents to join Foxconn.

Meanwhile, Blizzard Entertainment and NetEase caused dismay among thousands of gamers by saying hits such as 'World of Warcraft' will not be available in China from next year as a 14-year partnership ended.

Originally signed in 2008 and last renewed in 2019, the distribution accord has been fruitful for both companies, feeding NetEase with globally recognized hits and giving Activision a gateway into the world’s biggest PC and mobile gaming arena.

A Familiar Face at Disney

Disney said that former CEO Bob Iger is returning to head the company as Bob Chapek is stepping down from the CEO post. Iger, who officially left the company last year, is set to take command immediately. The company said that he will serve as the CEO for two years.

Chapek’s 11-month tenure hadn’t been great for the company, as its stock value has dropped by more than 40% at the time of writing. Under his management, the company fired senior content executive Peter Rice and passed up an opportunity to get digital rights for streaming the Indian Premier League cricket tournament.

On the other hand, Iger is widely considered entertainment industry royalty, celebrated for his management acumen and creative chops. He turned Disney into a global powerhouse by acquiring marquee brands such as Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm and 21st Century Fox.

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This week we have Giants coming for the Designer Space and Cloud Gaming Renaissance.

Analytics, Digital, Design In Action

Giants In Designer Space

Microsoft announces Canva competitor with new 'Designer' app powered by AI. Microsoft Designer looks a lot like the Canva design app. (Canva even has been testing a text-to-image creation capability which is similar to one of Designer's key features.)  Microsoft is touting Designer, Create and Image Creator as key elements of a family of Microsoft Creator tools.

Microsoft has been trying for years to find ways to hammer home the message that its Surface PCs and Windows operating system are built with creators in mind. This obsession in no small part is because Apple is one of the main targets of the Surface and Windows teams.

Meanwhile, the competition for SMB users and Designers are also heating up elsewhere as Adobe has acquired Figma.

Adobe says it will keep Figma going rather than eliminate a rival to Adobe AD, but Figma users are concerned for two main reasons: price and bloat. Many liked Figma's independence and see Adobe as a monopolistic behemoth that's going to want to charge them more money. Figma currently has a free starter plan and a professional plan that starts at $12 per month per editor – significantly less than an Adobe Creative Cloud single-app subscription. However, Figma insists that there are "currently" no plans to change its pricing and that access will remain free for those in education.

We’ll likely see some more big developments in the SMB and Designer space. More and more competitives, from social media to now enterprise software companies, are trying to sell more into these market segments under the Creator Economy movement.

Cloud Gaming Renaissance

Microsoft is looking to build an Xbox mobile gaming store with Activision and King content. “The transaction will improve Microsoft’s ability to create a next-generation game store that operates across a range of devices, including mobile, as a result of the addition of Activision Blizzard’s content. Building on Activision Blizzard’s existing communities of gamers, Xbox will seek to scale the Xbox Store to mobile, attracting gamers to a new Xbox Mobile Platform,” Microsoft wrote in its filings.

Games are some of the most popular downloads on mobile and drive in-app purchases on app stores. As Microsoft says:

The transaction gives Microsoft a meaningful presence in mobile gaming. Mobile gaming revenues from the King division and titles such as Call of Duty: Mobile, as well as ancillary revenue, represented more than half of Activision Blizzard’s ... revenues in the first half of 2022. Mobile customers account for around three-quarters of its MAU. Microsoft currently has no meaningful presence in mobile gaming and the Transaction will bring much needed expertise in mobile game development, marketing and advertising. Activision Blizzard will be able to contribute its learnings from developing and publishing mobile games to Xbox gaming studios.

Meanwhile, at TechCrunch Disrupt, Netflix VP of Gaming Mike Verdu dropped two bits of news about the streaming giant’s foray into games. Verdu said that Netflix is “seriously exploring a cloud gaming offering.” The company will also open a new gaming studio in Southern California.

Microsoft and Netflix’s stances are a contrast to Google’s, who’s earmarked to shutdown Stadia, their Cloud Gaming offering, this January 2023. In any case, Cloud Gaming is one of the most important end-games for the industry and no one’s cracked it yet.

We’re also recruiting for our ABD Team!

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This week we have Wheels Off for Peloton’s CEO; Made in India; and Roblox’s latest metaverse vision.

Also, quick favor from us! We are launching a design-focused podcast series, and would love for you to contribute questions related to this topic. Kindly fill out this survey (super quick!): SURVEY.

Analytics, Digital, Design In Action

Wheels Off

Peloton Co-founder John Foley has fully stepped down as executive chair and from the company. This follows the fitness subscription company’s tumultuous ride. In February, Foley stepped down as CEO alongside a massive 2,800 person layoff.

Spotify CFO Barry McCarthy stepped into the leadership role, before appointing a number of new members to the executive team, in a bid to defend the company and morale.

Recent news show that Peloton has begun to outsource production on its bikes and treadmills, despite prior plans for a massive production facility. It also began selling product on Amazon, a major shift for a company formerly completely focused on first-party channel sales.

Perhaps we could see Peloton portrayed in a better light going forward?

Made in India

Indian conglomerate Vedanta and global manufacturing giant Foxconn have signed a memorandum of understanding with the Indian state of Gujarat to set up a $20B semiconductor and display unit in the coastal state that is home of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Tuesday’s move is the latest step in India’s growing ambition to expand its hardware manufacturing prowess as the world’s second most populated nation works to become self-reliant. New Delhi has launched several incentive programs worth over $10B to attract global giants to locally manufacture in India.

Meanwhile, Google is eyeing moving some production of its Pixel smartphone lineup to India, according to the Information, the latest in a series of phonemakers with growing ambitions to locally assemble their handsets in the world’s second largest market.

This is on the heels of the ongoing geopolitical shake-up where a lot of Western-based companies are eyeing to diversify their supply chains out of China.

Roblox’s Metaverse

Roblox unveiled its vision for the Metaverse in its latest Developer Conference. Some new experiences, like interactive video billboard ads and portals that transport the user into a branded experience, will be limited to the oldest age group.

Other new features, like proximity-based voice chat, are also closed off to kids below the age of 13 for safety reasons. Roblox previously announced an age verification system that would make experiences geared toward older audiences possible. Roblox says that experiences designed for users over the age of 13 could include moderate violence and realistic blood, while games intended for younger users are limited to “light” violence.

Meanwhile, Roblox will give $10M more toward a handful of select projects that it believes symbolize what the platform is all about. Some game developers could receive ~$500K in projects.

We’re also recruiting for our ABD Team!

This week, we want to highlight a new BizOps position. ABD team has increasing needs for cross-functional collaborations, strategic alignment, and project management. We are looking for results-oriented individuals to drive organizational changes and push forward some of our strategic initiatives.

Also, check out our other positions that we are actively hiring.

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This week we have Meta’s Indian Ambitions; NASA’s Next Moonshot; and Twilio’s Big Hack.

Analytics, Digital, Design In Action

Meta’s Indian Super App

Meta announced a new integration with JioMart today, through which users can text “Hi” to a certain number and be taken to an in-app shopping experience. The shopping experience looks fairly familiar, akin to what Instacart and other delivery services have been designing for years. But here, there’s no other app. And for WhatsApp, that’s a big deal: WhatsApp users in India can now do their grocery shopping without ever leaving their messaging app.

Customers in India will be able to browse JioMart’s entire grocery catalog on WhatsApp, add items to a cart and make the payments via local payments rail UPI without ever leaving the instant messaging service, the companies said.

WhatsApp, which is used by about half a billion Indians each month, got the approval to extend its UPI-powered payments service to 100 million users in the country earlier this year after several delays and setbacks.

“Excited to launch our partnership with JioMart in India. This is our first-ever end-to-end shopping experience on WhatsApp — people can now buy groceries from JioMart right in a chat. Business messaging is an area with real momentum and chat-based experiences like this will be the go-to way people and businesses communicate in the years to come,” Mark Zuckerberg said.

NASA’s Next Moonshot

53 years after humans first walked on the moon, NASA is kicking off its ambitious Artemis program to return us there, starting with an uncrewed launch of a massive new rocket. However, the launch initially scheduled for Monday Aug 29, was postponed.

NASA says the next attempt at a debut space flight of its "mega moon rocket" could happen as early as Friday, but engineers and other experts must first review a raft of problems that saw the Artemis mission's planned launch to be scrapped prior to liftoff.

NASA endured several issues at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida Monday morning. First, it was the unco-operative weather, with thunderstorms delaying the propellant load for the rocket. The problems seen Monday were reminiscent of NASA's space shuttle era, when hydrogen fuel leaks disrupted countdowns and delayed a string of launches back in 1990.

In any case, we’re poised to see an increase of pursuits in space travel and the broader aerospace & defense space, a return to Silicon Valley’s roots.

Twilio’s Big Hack

Twilio, which earlier this month became a sophisticated phishing attack, disclosed last week that the threat actors also managed to gain access to the accounts of 93 individual users of its Authy two-factor authentication (2FA) service.

The communication tools company said the unauthorized access made it possible for the adversary to register additional devices to those accounts. It has since identified and removed the illegitimately added devices from the impacted accounts.

This has also impacted other large firms such as Okta and DoorDash. The threat actor behind the Twilio hack used their access to steal one-time passwords (OTPs) delivered over SMS from customers of Okta identity and access management company.

Okta provides its customers with multiple forms of authentication for services, including temporary codes delivered over SMS through Twilio.

Meanwhile, DoorDash said malicious hackers stole credentials from employees of a third-party vendor that were then used to gain access to some of DoorDash’s internal tools.

We’re also recruiting for our ABD Team!

This week, we want to highlight a new BizOps position. ABD team has increasing needs for cross-functional collaborations, strategic alignment, and project management. We are looking for results-oriented individuals to drive organizational changes and push forward some of our strategic initiatives.

Also, check out our other positions that we are actively hiring.

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This week we have Disney’s triumph over Netflix; DoorDash partners with FB Marketplace; and Xiaomi’s Robot.

Analytics, Digital, Design In Action

Oh Mickey You’re So Fine

Disney+ subscriptions rose to 152.1M during the company’s Q3, posting better-than-expected results. The streaming service added 14.4M subscribers in the quarter, beating expectations of 10M. More importantly, Hulu had 46.2M subs. ESPN+ had 22.8M, bringing Disney’s DTC subscribers to 221.1M in total, which means that the company’s streaming services combined now surpass Netflix in total subscribers.

Netflix reported 220.67M total global subscribers for its third quarter after losing almost 970K subscribers. This then brings a question: Is the Netflix model running out of steam? Or does the OG flywheel of Disney rearing its potential in a streaming first world? Tell us your thoughts in the comments!

Your DoorDash (FB Package) Has Arrived

DoorDash has confirmed that it has teamed up with Facebook Marketplace. DoorDash Drive, its business-to-business service that provides drivers to merchants through their own website or app, is now in the early stages of testing a service that will allow DoorDash drivers to pick up and drop off Facebook Marketplace items to customers.

DoorDash and Facebook are currently offering the test in several cities in the United States, giving many drivers another opportunity to earn money. Items that are eligible for delivery are Marketplace items that can fit in the trunk of a car and must be located up to 15 miles away. DoorDash drivers are expected to make deliveries within 48 hours or less.

It also helps DoorDash continue to compete with Uber Eats, which recently launched a nationwide delivery offering. DoorDash already introduced nationwide shipping nine months prior. Last month, Amazon partnered with DoorDash’s rival Grubhub to offer Prime members a free membership to Grubhub+ for one year.

Xiaomi Robot

Xiaomi followed up its foldable news by handing the stage over to CyberOne. The bipedal humanoid robot joined Lei Jun onstage, greeting the CEO and handing him a long-stem flower. CyberOne is said to be able to detect human emotion and create 3D visual reconstructions of the world.

CyberOne is very different from its dog-like friend. It's 177cm tall and weighs 52kg, and (Xiaomi thought this was important to know) has an arm span of 168cm. Xiaomi says CyberOne can perceive 3D space and recognize people, their gestures and expressions. It has an AI-powered "semantics recognition engine" as well as a "vocal emotion identification engine," meaning it can recognize 85 types of environmental sounds and 45 classifications of human emotion. It can comfort you in times of sadness, Xiaomi says.

While it's not entirely clear what Xiaomi plans to do with CyberOne, it said robotics is a "crown jewel of manufacturing," and goes on to explain how complex it was to put all this tech together into a single unit, indicating that the CyberOne, like so many robotics projects today, is mostly a technological showcase. The company did say that the technology applied to CyberOne will trickle into other Xiaomi products in the future, though.

We’re also recruiting for our ABD Team!

This week, we want to highlight a new BizOps position. ABD team has increasing needs for cross-functional collaborations, strategic alignment, and project management. We are looking for results-oriented individuals to drive organizational changes and push forward some of our strategic initiatives.

Also, check out our other positions that we are actively hiring.

Join Us!

Don’t forget that nominations are open for our Expert Circle! We’re on our Third Cohort!

Please spread the word and show us some love 😘

If you like what we are doing, please consider sharing it with your friends, family, and colleagues. We are a nonprofit organization that is 100% run by volunteers who might look just like you. We are sending a weekly digest every Tuesday. Until the next time!

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This week we have Amazon’s Latest Healthcare Bet; Snap, Netflix, and Shopify Having Bad Colds; and Coinbase’s Reckoning.

Analytics, Digital, Design In Action

Dr. Amazon Will See You Now

Amazon plans to buy the primary care organization One Medical in a nearly USD4Bn deal, adding to the growing list of the tech giant's acquisitions and attempts to expand its reach in the health care industry.

One Medical is a membership-based primary care practice with nearly 200 locations across the country that also offers virtual services. The company had roughly 767,000 member patients as of May.

This isn’t Amazon’s first foray into the massive healthcare market. It acquired the online pharmacy company PillPack for USD753Mn in 2018 and launched Amazon Pharmacy in 2020 as a prescription and delivery service. It partnered with JPMorgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway to form Haven — a nonprofit health care organization designed to lower costs for the companies' employees and improve the primary care experience. But Haven dissolved in 2021 after operating for only three years. Amazon has also had a telehealth presence since 2019.

Perhaps the next step would be the bundling of these different features, the same way Prime bundles retail, streaming, and others.

Tech Contagion

Another day, another negative headline, with the latest one hitting close to home. Shopify announced plans to cut 10% of its workforce. CEO Tobi Lutke cited the slowdown in ecommerce as one of the main reasons. This is on the heels of Wal-Mart’s warning about the slowdown in consumers.

Meanwhile, Netflix lost a million subscribers between April to July, the biggest in the firm's history, with the US and Canada seeing the highest number of cancellations in the past three months, followed by Europe.

Netflix now faces fierce competition from the likes of Apple TV, HBO Max, Amazon Prime and Disney+. Netflix was once the disruptor, making video rental stores like Blockbuster redundant. But the disruptor is fast becoming the disrupted.

But perhaps the biggest pain so far is that of Snap’s, with the stock collapsing 40% . Snap attributed its disappointing results to slowing demand for its online ad platform. Additionally, a challenging economy, Apple’s 2021 iOS update and increased competition from companies like TikTok have led marketers to pull back on their spending. But the biggest worry comes from Snap’s inability to provide guidance for the year, suggesting massive uncertainty.

Meanwhile, the Snapchat curse might play out for Facebook as well, with Kylie Jenner reminding us of her prior prediction.

Coinbase’s Reckoning

A former product manager at Coinbase has been arrested, the U.S. Justice Department announced Thursday, after being charged in a cryptocurrency insider trading scheme related to the listing of new crypto tokens on the Coinbase exchange. A separate filing on the case by the SEC signals the beginning of a major battle with crypto firms on what should be designated as a security.

Specifically, the SEC framed the following assets as securities: Power Ledger’s POWR token, Flexa’s AMP token, Rally’s RLY token, DerivaDEX’s DDX token, XY Labs’ XYO token, Rari Capital’s RGT token, Liechtenstein Cryptoassets Exchange’s LCX token, DFX Finance’s DFX token and Kromatika Finance’s KROM token. In a 62-page filing, the SEC takes particular aim at the firms and tokens listed.

For more web3 goodness, you can track it here.

We’re also recruiting for our ABD Team!

This week, we want to highlight a new BizOps position. ABD team has increasing needs for cross-functional collaborations, strategic alignment, and project management. We are looking for results-oriented individuals to drive organizational changes and push forward some of our strategic initiatives.

Also, check out our other positions that we are actively hiring.

Join Us!

Don’t forget that nominations are open for our Expert Circle! We’re on our Third Cohort!

Please spread the word and show us some love 😘

If you like what we are doing, please consider sharing it with your friends, family, and colleagues. We are a nonprofit organization that is 100% run by volunteers who might look just like you. We are sending a weekly digest every Tuesday. Until the next time!

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The Deep Field image shows galaxies upon galaxies that’re only visible by NASA’s latest tech. Talk about seeing stars?

This week we have Amazon’s Delivery Return; Tik-Tok Marches On; and, Pain Now, Pain Later.

Analytics, Digital, Design In Action

Amazon’s Delivery Return

Under earnings pressure after a big loss last year, Grubhub struck a deal with Amazon on Wednesday, offering restaurant delivery services without a fee for Amazon Prime members. The partnership gives Amazon the option to take a 2% stake in Grubhub, the US subsidiary of Just Eat Takeaway.com, the European food giant. Amazon will be able to increase its total stake to 15% of Grubhub depending on certain performance factors, such as the number of new customers added. Grubhub has been rumored to be on the selling block for a while now.

Amazon tried but then ultimately stepped away from building its own cost-intensive Grubhub and DoorDash competitor in the US back in 2019. Three years later, it’s taking a different approach to tackling the space to build in one more sweetener to encourage more sign-ups to its Prime subscription service.

TikTok Marches On

Despite growing heat from the US Senate regarding its data practices (and underlying geopolitical concerns), TikTok continues with its innovation and product suite.

First, Follow Me, a multi-channel educational experience designed to help small-and-medium businesses (SMBs) leverage the power of TikTok to drive real world results. The 6-week program will run from July 11 to August 19 and provide SMBs with resources on how to get started on TikTok and take their small business to the next level. Follow Me will serve as a guide for SMBs looking to share their stories, build their community on TikTok, and achieve their business goals.

@tasselamorHave you posted a TikTok today? #thepoweroftiktok #TasselAmor #smallbiztok #sograteful #smallbiztiktok

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Second, it dropped plans to expand its live e-commerce “TikTok Shop” initiative to the United States and additional parts of Europe, according to the Financial Times. It launched TikTok Shop in the U.K. last year, its first market outside Asia, allowing companies and influencers to sell products through QVC-style livestreams. TikTok was reportedly planned to launch TikTok Shop in Germany, France, Italy and Spain in the first half of this year, and then in the U.S. later this year.

Pain Now, Pain Later

Pain continues to spread across the tech world, with Klarna slashing its valuation by 85% being the next casualty. The company, which enjoyed stellar growth while also being criticised for potentially leading shoppers into unsustainable debt, announced the valuation after the conclusion of a difficult $800m funding round as investors continued to question the true worth of many tech businesses.

Just over a year ago, Klarna, founded in Sweden in 2005, hit a peak valuation of $46bn after a $639m funding round led by Japan’s SoftBank.

Meanwhile, even Microsoft was not immune to job cuts, while Instacart sees a shake up before its planned IPO.

We’re also recruiting for our ABD Team!

This week, we want to highlight a new BizOps position. ABD team has increasing needs for cross-functional collaborations, strategic alignment, and project management. We are looking for results-oriented individuals to drive organizational changes and push forward some of our strategic initiatives.

Also, check out our other positions that we are actively hiring.

Join Us!

Don’t forget that nominations are open for our Expert Circle! We’re on our Third Cohort!

Please spread the word and show us some love 😘

If you like what we are doing, please consider sharing it with your friends, family, and colleagues. We are a nonprofit organization that is 100% run by volunteers who might look just like you. We are sending a weekly digest every Tuesday. Until the next time!

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This week we have The Metaverse Standards; Tencent’s Metaverse Play; Meta Pay; TikTok’s Eye Popping Stats.

Analytics, Digital, Design In Action

The Metaverse Forum

The Metaverse Standards Forum was announced the publication on June 21. The forum has been joined by some major players, including Meta, Microsoft, Epic Games, Adobe, Nvidia, Sony, Unity.

The Forum's activities include the needs and interests of its members and may cover different technical areas including 3D assets and rendering, human-machine interfaces and interaction paradigms such as AR and VR, user-created content, avatars, identity management, privacy and finance trade.

The entire space of metaverse is following a similar trajectory to that of WWW. Before Tim Berners-Lee invented world wide web (WWW) in 1989. It was originally conceived and developed to meet the demand for automated information sharing between scientists in universities and institutes across the world. Internet had different versions in accordance to what people wanted out of it. The standardized body (WWW) was created afterwards.

Khronos Group will lead this Metaverse Standards Forum, a non-profit consortium dedicated to AR/VR, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.

Tencent’s Metaverse Play

Tencent announced to employees on Monday the official launch of its extended (XR) division, betting on the metaverse concept of virtual worlds.

Extended reality (XR) is a combination of computer virtuality to create a simulation and virtual environment that can replace human and machine, collectively referred to as virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR). These technologies are used as the main manufacturing modules for the cosmic world.

XR is a term that refers to the technologies that form the backbone of the metaverse, namely augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR).

Tencent, Alibaba, Tiktok owner Bytedance and other major Chinese tech companies began upping their investments in the metaverse earlier this year.

Meta Pay

Like Facebook to Meta, Facebook Pay to Meta Pay is a signal for a rebrand.

Although Meta Pay is essentially the same as the previous payment service, Facebook hopes to create a "Metaverse Wallet" in the future, a digital wallet developed for the Metaverse, allowing users to securely manage identities, digital items and payment method.

Meta does have trust issue in previous operation. However, the company mentions payment card numbers are encrypted and have anti-fraud monitoring to detect unauthorized activity. Users can also prevent unauthorized payments by using a password or fingerprint.

This week, we want to highlight a new BizOps position. ABD team has increasing needs for cross-functional collaborations, strategic alignment, and project management. We are looking for results-oriented individuals to drive organizational changes and push forward some of our strategic initiatives.

Also, check out our other positions that we are actively hiring.

Join Us!

Don’t forget that nominations are open for our Expert Circle! We’re on our Third Cohort!

Please spread the word and show us some love 😘

If you like what we are doing, please consider sharing it with your friends, family, and colleagues. We are a nonprofit organization that is 100% run by volunteers who might look just like you. We are sending a weekly digest every Tuesday. Until the next time!

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This week we have Internet Explorer’s goodbye; Farfetch plays with crypto; Brex halts SMB servicing; It’s official: Facebook’s at war.

Analytics, Digital, Design In Action

End of an E(xplorer)ra

After 27 years, Microsoft's Internet Explorer browses officially bids farewell. All of Internet Explorer’s bug fixes and updates will be discontinued as of June 15, while Microsoft continues to push users to its newer Edge browser.

Since its launch in 1995, Internet Explorer has become one of the most popular ways to access the Internet, peaking at 95 percent usage in 2002 and 2003. In recent years, due to the lack of updates and upgrades, the IE browser has been criticized by users for its single function and poor compatibility.

According to StatCounter, as of this month, 0.28 percent of web surfers are still using Internal Explorer, compared to roughly two-thirds using Google Chrome and 18 percent using Apple's Safari.

Farfetch Goes Crypto

Luxury brand Farfetch has announced that it will accept cryptocurrency payments.

New payment option will be available to its private customers in the coming months and to all customers in the US, UK and Europe from the end of 2022.

The first batch will accept 7 cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum and BNB, and customers will be able to access cryptocurrency wallets to pay for goods by scanning a QR code on their smartphone.

This move by Farfetch is a sign of the luxury industry embracing new technologies and environments, a movement Farfetch has been leading as one of the industry’s premier marketplaces.

Brex Parts With SMBs

Fintech darling Brex is parting ways with SMBs, with the co-CEOs citing tough decisions related to the ongoing macro environment.

Brex said it would no longer work with any businesses that did not have some sort of “professional” funding i.e., funding from venture capital, angel money or accelerators. Tens of thousands of businesses were told their accounts would be shut down as of August 15.

Brex started out serving corporate cards for startups like DoorDash and it expanded into SMBs around 2020. However, it’s recently retracting from the aggressive growth and looks to focus on its core, as with most growth companies these days.

Facebook at War

It’s obvious but it’s now official: Facebook is at war with TikTok. TikTok's success has raised concerns for the social media platform company, according to an internal Facebook memo.

You can find the memo here.

Facebook app head Tom Alison explained very clearly the company's plans to revamp its feed looks like it wants to make it more like TikTok's "FYP" (For You Page) tagging feature. The re-merging of the Messenger and Facebook apps is similar to TikTok's Inbox feature

Facebook is still prioritizing the push for Reels, with plans to "integrate Reels into Home, Watch, IFR and Groups."

Facebook isn’t the only one setting the gun on the Chinese juggernaut: Google is arming up its marketing arsenal to compete with TikTok.

We’re also recruiting for our ABD Team!

This week, we want to highlight a new BizOps position. ABD team has increasing needs for cross-functional collaborations, strategic alignment, and project management. We are looking for results-oriented individuals to drive organizational changes and push forward some of our strategic initiatives.

Also, check out our other positions that we are actively hiring.

Join Us!

Don’t forget that nominations are open for our Expert Circle! We’re on our Third Cohort!

Please spread the word and show us some love 😘

If you like what we are doing, please consider sharing it with your friends, family, and colleagues. We are a nonprofit organization that is 100% run by volunteers who might look just like you. We are sending a weekly digest every Tuesday. Until the next time!

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This week we have X-Box’s Cloud Gaming; Telegram’s monetization moment; and S. Korea’s Smart Factories.

Analytics, Digital, Design In Action

XBox’s Cloud Gaming

Microsoft’s XBox unit announced a partnership with Samsung to bring the Xbox app to 2022 Samsung smart TVs.

From June 30th, players only need to log in to their Microsoft account on the Samsung TV, connect the controller, and launch the Xbox app to stream Xbox games directly to the TV. If you are an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate member, you can directly play hundreds of cloud games without the console. The Xbox app is similar to any other streaming app on your TV.

Ultimately, this is another step towards the vision of Cloud Gaming: seamless gaming without the need for bulky consoles. Microsoft has been growing its gaming empire over the past year.

Telegram’s Monetization Moment

Telegram, the encrypted messaging service that competes with WhatsApp, has announced its Premium subscription based product which will launch later this month.

Users have asked Telegram to increase restrictions on chat, media and file uploads. These services incur massive operation costs. The solution to providing more features for "demanding fans" is to add more premium services. The aim is to provide more advanced features like unlimited file download speed for users in need. Telegram follows WhatsApp in monetizing its messaging platform.

However, Telegram must balance selling user privacy in exchange for advertising dollars. Meanwhile, Telegram would keep its existing features free.

From Finland, With Love

One team in Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) announces a new 5G technology which allows a university in Finland to connect with a factory in Korea by using its 5G test network.

This demonstration introduces a new remote manufacturing diversification service that independently controls a factory at home and abroad. This is the world's first attempt to improve the service scope and availability of smart factories.

Through this project, it is expected to promote sharing and cooperation between countries in the field of manufacturing and production, while increasing the possibility of remote intelligent manufacturing services based on stable communication quality.

We’re also recruiting for our ABD Team!

This week, we want to highlight a new BizOps position. ABD team has increasing needs for cross-functional collaborations, strategic alignment, and project management. We are looking for results-oriented individuals to drive organizational changes and push forward some of our strategic initiatives.

Also, check out our other positions that we are actively hiring.

Join Us!

Don’t forget that nominations are open for our Expert Circle! We’re on our Third Cohort!

Please spread the word and show us some love 😘

If you like what we are doing, please consider sharing it with your friends, family, and colleagues. We are a nonprofit organization that is 100% run by volunteers who might look just like you. We are sending a weekly digest every Tuesday. Until the next time!

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This week we have Apple’s Entrance in the BNPL space; Nike’s Feud with StockX; and Sheryl Sandberg’s Leaning Out and Aritzia’s New Queen.

Analytics, Digital, Design In Action

Apple Now Pay Later

Apple is hosting its 2022 WWDC, and boy we already have quite the whoppers on the first day. The biggest of which is a major update to Apple Pay called Apple Pay Later, which will allow users to split the cost of an Apple Pay purchase into four equal payments without interest or late fees - or pretty much Apple’s in-house BNPL.

Powered by the Mastercard network, Apple Pay Later is available everywhere Apple Pay is available in the U.S., both in apps and on the web.

This brings Apple in direct competition with fintech players like Affirm, Klarna, Square/Afterpay, and even Amazon. Meanwhile, the space has been on a drawdown recently as investors pull back amid higher interest rates and a global growth slowdown. Affirm’s stock was down ~70% year-to-date. Klarna laid off 10% of its workforce.

We’ll track the event as it unfolds.

Friendship Over?

Nike escalated its legal battle with sneaker marketplace StockX, saying it purchased four pairs of counterfeit shoes on the platform despite the company’s promises that it is only marketing authentic footwear. Nike asked a federal judge to let it add claims of counterfeiting and false advertising to the current trademark-infringement lawsuit against StockX.

Nike sued StockX in February in federal court in Manhattan, accusing the marketplace of “blatantly free-riding” on Nike’s trademarks and goodwill with a service called Vault NFTs. StockX argued that its NFTs aren’t digital sneakers but simply listings for physical sneakers that are stored in its vault and can be traded by users.

Leaning Out and In

Sheryl Sandberg announced on Wednesday she will step down from her role as Chief Operating Officer of Meta (Facebook), after 14 years as one of the most powerful figures at a company that transformed Silicon Valley. In a way this is her leaning out.

During her time at Facebook, now Meta, she saw the company through a meteoric rise and an ongoing storm of controversies. Facebook, with Sandberg as one of its most public faces, has weathered scrutiny over the Cambridge Analytica breach, the January 2021 attack on the US Capitol, and most recently documents leaked by the whistleblower Frances Haugen that revealed some of the platform’s most toxic impacts. There’s also been persistent speculation on why Sandberg is leaving, some of which center on her disagreement on Meta’s metaverse aspirations.

Meanwhile, Jennifer Wong is poised to be Aritzia’s CEO.

The Vancouver grown boutique is today a multi-billion-dollar, publicly traded fashion giant, with 68 stores in Canada and another 33 in the United States, a rapidly expanding e-commerce arm and $857 million in net revenues during fiscal 2021, despite all the bumps of being a bricks-and-mortar outfit during a pandemic. And Jennifer Wong has been there for the whole ride, starting out as a salesperson.

We’re also recruiting for our ABD Team!

This week, we want to highlight a new BizOps position. ABD team has increasing needs for cross-functional collaborations, strategic alignment, and project management. We are looking for results-oriented individuals to drive organizational changes and push forward some of our strategic initiatives.

Also, check out our other positions that we are actively hiring.

Join Us!

Don’t forget that nominations are open for our Expert Circle! We’re on our Third Cohort!

Please spread the word and show us some love 😘

If you like what we are doing, please consider sharing it with your friends, family, and colleagues. We are a nonprofit organization that is 100% run by volunteers who might look just like you. We are sending a weekly digest every Tuesday. Until the next time!

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This week we have TikTok’s growing marketing prowess and Affirm’s fight has a new ally.

Don’t forget that nominations are open for our Expert Circle! We’re on our Third Cohort!

Analytics, Digital, Design In Action

TikTok The Brand Manager

TikTok is extending its Marketing Partner Program, adding new partners such as Sprout Social, Hootsuite, Sprinklr, Emplifi, Dash Hudson, Khoros, Brandwatch and Later . The expansion will allow marketers to manage their TikTok accounts without leaving their 3P content marketing platforms.

This builds on the MPP’s initial launch last November 2020. Marketers can manage and optimize their content campaigns directly through partner platforms. Marketers can now schedule and publish content on TikTok, while also managing cross-platform content. Brands can now track profile and video metrics in real time and compare performance to other platforms. Ultimately, this helps brands optimize their strategies by better understanding their audience.

Meanwhile, Google announced it would roll-out ads in YouTube Shorts around the world. Google wants advertisers to connect their product feed to their campaigns and make their video ads on YouTube Shorts more shoppable. Shoppable video ads are already available in TikTok.

Affirm’s New Ally

Buy now, pay later (BNPL) platform Affirm is partnering with Stripe to drive growth, making Affirm’s Adaptive Checkout available to Stripe users in the U.S. Through the venture, Stripe merchants will be able to use Affirm’s adaptive checkout service, which allows customers to split purchases of up to $30,000 into installments, with a maximum credit limit of $17,500.

Affirm has also recently announced partnerships with Fiserv, Shopify, WooCommerce and Verifone. In contrast, Klarna had to cut its valuation and lay off staff.

We’re also recruiting for our ABD Team!

Check out the following positions that we are actively hiring.

Join Us!

Please spread the word and show us some love 😘

If you like what we are doing, please consider sharing it with your friends, family, and colleagues. We are a nonprofit organization that is 100% run by volunteers who might look just like you. We are sending a weekly digest every Tuesday. Until the next time!

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This week we have Snaps’ canary moment; the text-to-image arms race; chips giant dipping into software; and WhatsApp’s long awaited monetization.

Don’t forget that nominations are open for our Expert Circle! We’re on our Third Cohort!

Analytics, Digital, Design In Action

Oh Snap!

As of this writing, Snapchat parent Snap is seeing its worst trading day and is down 40% from yesterday’s close. The collapse followed Snap’s dismal Q1 report and updated expectations.

“Since we issued guidance on April 21, 2022, the macroeconomic environment has deteriorated further and faster than anticipated,” Snap said in an SEC filing.

Fears around inflation, interest rate concerns, continued supply chain issues and the war in Ukraine have forced some advertisers and brands to rethink ad spend in the current quarter. Companies, including Snap, have been pressured into slowing hiring and cutting back costs in an effort to make up for losses. Indeed, online ad platforms to feel some impact of a significant consumer pullback as advertising is highly cyclical.

Text-to-Image Arms Race

To date, DALL-E, a program created by commercial AI lab OpenAI, has led the forefront of text-to-image technology. (We wrote about DALL-E here). Yesterday, though, Google announced its own take on the genre, Imagen, and it rivals DALL-E in the quality of its output.

The advances Google’s researchers claim with Imagen are several. They say that existing text models can be used for the text encoding portion, and that their quality is more important than simply increasing visual fidelity. That makes sense intuitively, since a detailed picture of nonsense is definitely worse than a slightly less detailed picture of exactly what you asked for.

There’s much work to be done as often, images generated by text-to-image models look unfinished, smeared, or blurry.

Chips Dipping Into Software

Broadcom could announce an agreement to acquire cloud-computing company VMware as soon as this week, according to people familiar with the matter, setting up a tech deal that would vault the chipmaker into a highly specialized area of software.

Broadcom makes a wide range of electronics, with its products going into everything from the iPhone to industrial equipment. Data centers in particular are a vital source of growth, and bulking up on software gives the company more ways to target that market. VMware makes virtual software that allows users to access systems remotely. The companies don’t have overlapping products, but are often used together to manage data centers.

VMware, founded in 1998, is a pioneering Silicon Valley company that has already changed hands more than once. It invented so-called virtualization software, which consolidated applications and workloads on a smaller number of server computers by using each server to handle more than one program.

WhatsApp Would Like to Charge You Now

WhatsApp has launched WhatsApp Cloud API to all businesses worldwide. The new developer tool is a cloud-based version of the WhatsApp Business API — WhatsApp’s first revenue-generating enterprise product — but hosted on parent company Meta’s infrastructure.

Businesses will still only be able to message people who contacted them first, but the API will help them programmatically send shipping confirmations, appointment reminders or event tickets. Clients also can use it to manually respond to customer service inquiries through their own tool or apps like Zendesk, MessageBird or Twilio. And small businesses that are one of the 3M users of the WhatsApp For Business app can still use it to send late replies one-by-one for free.

After getting acquired by Facebook for USD19Bn in 2014, it’s finally time for the 1.5 billion-user WhatsApp to pull its weight and contribute some revenue. If Meta can sell the WhatsApp Business API as an alternative to customer service call centers, the convenience of asynchronous chat could compel users to message companies instead of calling.

We’re also recruiting for our ABD Team!

Check out the following positions that we are actively hiring.

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If you like what we are doing, please consider sharing it with your friends, family, and colleagues. We are a nonprofit organization that is 100% run by volunteers who might look just like you. We are sending a weekly digest every Tuesday. Until the next time!

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This week we have Instacart’s big move; Pain in the valley; Robotic deliveries; Disney’s temporal triumph; and RIP iPod.

We are also proud to announce our latest Expert Circle cohort! You can check out their profiles here.

Analytics, Digital, Design In Action

Carting Ahead

Instacart has filed confidential paperwork for an initial public offering, the company announced Wednesday. Just weeks ago, Instacart slashed its valuation by nearly 40%, in-line with DoorDash and Uber’s share performance.

The timing of the IPO paperwork appears to have aligned with its ten-year "birthday" as a company, an occasion Instacart's recently installed CEO Fidji Simo published a blog post about Wednesday.

Instacart isn't the only on-demand delivery company looking to attract customers by adding an ultra-fast delivery option. Grubhub announced a partnership last month with ultra-fast delivery startup Buyk, but Buyk shut down and filed for bankruptcy shortly after. In December, DoorDash announced a 10-to-15 minute delivery service in New York City. And Uber announced a partnership last May with GoPuff, a startup that offers 30-minute deliveries of essential goods in more than 1,000 cities.

It has been a tough market for growth tech companies, public or private, with some VCs even marking a recession for the space, following higher inflation and interest rates.

Pain in the Valley

The stock market drop in early May, combined with the continued crises of the war in Ukraine, domestic inflation, and a pandemic now well into its third year, has begun to cause significant pain at later-stage startups, and is now trickling down to companies of all sizes.

Indeed, we have Facebook instituting a hiring freeze, Twitter employees in limbo, Musk notwithstanding, Uber calling hiring a privilege, and an onslaught of layoffs as indicated by Layoffs.FYI.

Globally, fundraising has slowed, with the number of megarounds ($100M or more) and the total amount raised declining in the first quarter, the first time that’s happened in almost two years. “Investor sentiment in Silicon Valley is the most negative since the dot-com crash” 20 years ago, tweeted PayPal co-founder David Sacks, now a partner at the investment firm Craft Ventures.

Robotic Deliveries

Uber Eats is launching two autonomous delivery pilots in Los Angeles on Monday with Serve Robotics, a robotic sidewalk delivery startup, and Motional, an autonomous vehicle technology company.

The Motional partnership was originally announced in December and marks the first time Uber is partnering with an AV fleet provider, as well as the first time Motional is trying its hand at autonomous delivery.

The Motional IONIQ 5 vehicles used in the service have been adapted to enable autonomous deliveries. While Motional has extensive experience moving passengers, this is the company's first time transporting commercial goods. To prepare, its teams have spent months studying every touchpoint between the restaurant and end-customer, and conducted extensive testing in the Los Angeles area.

Disney’s Triumph

Disney’s latest earnings featured a 7.9M increase of subscribers for Disney+, which brings the total to 137.9M, ahead of the 5.2M adds investors were anticipating. This was a stark contrast to Netflix’s performance.

Bob Chapek, chief executive officer, The Walt Disney Company, said in a statement that these positive results “once again proved that we are in a league of our own.” He reiterated in the earnings call that the company is still on track to reach 230 to 260 million subscribers by fiscal 2024.

The House of Mouse is also planning to launch the lower-priced ad-supported option in late 2022 or 2023, whereas its competitor Netflix may be eyeing a Q4 rollout for its own advertising-supported plan.

RIP iPod

It’s official: the iPod is dead. Apple has announced it is pulling the plug on a music icon: the iPod. First introduced more than two decades ago, the device has been quoted to have “revolutionised the music industry”, and was one of the products that introduced many consumers to the brand. 

For the Zoomers out there, the iPod heralded Apple’s return to dominance in the hardware space. It also spawned one of the greatest ad campaigns that would’ve put Don Draper to shame.

In recent years, the company has integrated its music library into its other products, such as the iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, and Mac, and will continue to do so in the future. “Today, the spirit of iPod lives on,” said Greg Joswiak, Senior Vice president of Worldwide Marketing. 

Discussing the importance of the music industry to Apple’s brand, he added it “has always been part of our core at Apple, and bringing it to hundreds of millions of users in the way iPod did impacted more than just the music industry — it also redefined how music is discovered, listened to, and shared.”

For some consolation, Apple is launching a new concert live-streaming series called “Apple Music Live” that will showcase performances from “the biggest stars in music.” The series will kick off on May 20th with a live stream of Harry Styles’ “One Night Only in New York” performance. The concert will be available to stream exclusively to Apple Music subscribers in 167 countries at no extra cost.

We’re also recruiting for our ABD Team!

Check out the following positions that we are actively hiring.

Join Us!

Please spread the word and show us some love 😘

If you like what we are doing, please consider sharing it with your friends, family, and colleagues. We are a nonprofit organization that is 100% run by volunteers who might look just like you. We are sending a weekly digest every Tuesday. Until the next time!

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This week we have Shopify’s new ship; Stripe v. Plaid; TikTok pulls off a Facebook.

We are also proud to announce our latest Expert Circle cohort! You can check out their profiles here.

Analytics, Digital, Design In Action

Holy Ship

Shopify has acquired logistics firm Deliverr for USD2.1Bn. The largest acquisition in Shopify’s history will create an end-to-end logistics platform to unlock fast and easy fulfillment for millions of merchants.

This follows Shopify’s prior investment in 6 River Systems. Shopify has been pressured to match Amazon’s growing logistics foothold and potential merchant solutions business. Ultimately, it’s a race to remove supply chain complexity for merchants of all sizes, regardless of platform, democratizing access to end-to-end logistics for independent brands.

However, despite this, Shopify stock is down close to 80% from its prior highs and investors, employees, and CEO Tobi Lutke is not happy. Indeed, Tobi took to Twitter to question the investor community.

Stripe v. Plaid

Fintech juggernaut Stripe has launched Financial Connections, which allows Stripe’s customers connect directly to their customer’s bank accounts, to access financial data to speed up or run certain kinds of transactions.

Services cover verifying accounts for payments and payouts; to check balances ahead of a payment being made to ensure there’s enough money there; to confirm account ownership. Details like these can help underwrite risk for loans; to track spending patterns and automatically pay bills; and more, financial data that’s useful or necessary to run financial transactions over other Stripe services like Stripe Connect, ACH payments or Stripe Capital-powered loans.

If this sounds familiar then it’s similar to Plaid, another fintech upstart that was supposed to have been acquired by Visa but was blocked by regulators. The tension now is that some people, including Plaid CEO and co-founder Zachary Perret, believe that Stripe may have used its relationship with Plaid to amass information on how to replicate Plaid’s products. Espionage at the highest levels may have played a role.

TikTok Pulls off a Facebook

TikTok is rolling out a new “Friends” tab that replaces the “Discover” tab in the bottom menu of the app. TikTok says the new tab is going to roll out to more users over the coming weeks and that it will allow users on the platform to find content from people they’ve connected with.

TikTok’s decision to move away from a Discover tab is interesting and indicates that it’s looking to offer a new way to recommend content based on your actual friendships, a strategy popularized by social media pioneer Facebook.

Speaking of Facebook, the company is removing Nearby Friends, Weather Alerts, and location history features from May 31st 2022, an indication that it’s waving the white flag in the neighborhood friend-finding market. Ironically, it’s seen that Snapchat - whom Facebook copied so many times - has won the finding market.

We’re also recruiting for our ABD Team!

Check out the following positions that we are actively hiring.

Join Us!

Please spread the word and show us some love 😘

If you like what we are doing, please consider sharing it with your friends, family, and colleagues. We are a nonprofit organization that is 100% run by volunteers who might look just like you. We are sending a weekly digest every Tuesday. Until the next time!

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This week we have Amazon’s shorter leash; Baidu’s driverless taxis; Smartphone makers get slapped; Snap’s latest gadgets; Starbucks can now recharge your car; and, Google does it again!

Don’t forget Nominations for our second cohort are ongoing for our Expert Circle!

Analytics, Digital, Design In Action

Amazon’s Shorter Leash

Amazon’s stock plunged to a two-year low as shares slid as much as 12% on Friday morning after the company reported its first-quarter results. Profits were hit by a USD6Bn headwind from supply chain inefficiencies and general inflation. Amazon's sales increase of 7% in the quarter, compared to a 44% rise in the same period last year, marked the company's slowest growth rate in more than two decades.

Amazon has spent USD100Bn over the past two years, more than its total expenditures over its lifetime, to buttress its logistics and safety capabilities for COVID. However, slowing growth and declining profits never go well together, and it doesn’t help that CEO Andy Jassy was absent during the call. Lastly, Amazon’s results come at a time when the company is seeing a growing push toward unionization from its workforce. Earlier this month, workers at Amazon’s JFK8 fulfillment center voted to unionize, marking a historic day in a hard-fought battle.

Cloud was the lone bright spot, with Amazon Web Services growing ~38% on a colossal base of USD16Bn. Time will tell if the stellar results from AWS can offset the lagging e-commerce unit. Overall, investors want Amazon to reign-in its spend and beef up margins during the the most inflationary period we’ve seen.

Baidu’s Driverless Taxis

Baidu Inc.’s ride-hailing service will deploy cars without humans behind the wheel on Chinese roads for the first time, a symbolic victory in a years-long quest to carve out businesses beyond internet advertising. 

Baidu and AI driving startup Pony.ai Inc. can now dispatch autonomous cars with safety personnel only in the passenger seat, whereas previous regulations mandated a human ready to grab the wheel in an emergency.

Neither Pony nor Baidu will be charging a fee for driverless rides yet, although both companies are currently running commercial services with robotaxis in Yizhuang, Beijing. This 60sq.km stretch of Beijing, home to ~300K residents, is also where both Baidu’s and Pony’s driverless service will run.

Baidu is transitioning to AI and self-driving after its core advertising revenue shrank in the mobile era. Its smart driving business provides software to carmakers like Geely and runs a ride-hailing platform powered by a fleet of robotaxis in nine cities including Guangzhou and Beijing. Its electric vehicle spinoff raised USD400Mn from external investors, and plans to start mass production in 2023.

Smartphone Makers Get Slapped

The EU Commission has shared the preliminary findings of an antitrust case focused on Apple Pay on iOS devices. According to antitrust investigators, Apple abused its dominant position, as competitors can’t provide NFC-enabled contactless payments on the iPhone to develop other mobile wallets and compete fairly with Apple Pay.

According to regulators, the main issue is that NFC is available in almost all payments terminals but only Apple Pay can wirelessly communicate with payment terminals via NFC. It’s a standardized, safe and seamless way to pay, which could explain why Apple Pay gained market shares.

Meanwhile, India’s anti-money laundering agency has seized assets worth about USD725Mn from Xiaomi India for breaching the country’s foreign exchange laws in a major blow to the Chinese phone maker that commands the Indian smartphone market, with ~40% market share.

Snap’s Latest Toys

We’ve written extensively about Snap before and, even then, its latest products only further prove our views of its pioneering nature. Snap held its latest Partner Summit recently.

First, it has a new mini-drone, called Pixy. Pixy is a mini drone that can act as a camera sidekick when you can’t ask someone to take a video of you. It’s yellow, it’s cute and it’ll be available in the U.S. and in France for $229.99.

Snap also showed new features for its AR experience for concerts - perfect for the reopening - and its avatar base Bitmoji, which goes well with discovering new connections and making it more friendly for other kinds of users.

Last, but not least, we want to spotlight Snap’s growing developer platform. Snap is launching Lens Cloud, a server-side component that will help developers build dynamic, multiplayer experiences. Developers can take advantage of multiuser services, allowing users to interact with each other in the same lens.

Another perk is that location-based services let developers anchor Lenses to places, starting with Central London. For instance, museums could leverage that to enable certain Lenses when you’re pointing your camera at a specific landmark.

Lastly, developers can store assets on Snap’s servers and load them up on demand. It can also act as a sort of memory card. Users can leave a Lens and pick up where they left off later.

Recharging at Starbucks

With the EV race reaching fever pitch, and news billion-dollar initiatives sprouting left and right, an inconspicuous player is looking to partake in the next generation of vehicles. Starbucks is partnering with Volvo and Chargepoint to install EV chargers in its parking lots along a 1,350-mile route from Denver to Seattle, with stops available roughly every 100 miles.

While charging times vary depending on the vehicle, Volvo says its electric cars can go from a 20% charge to 90% in 40 minutes, just about the same time it takes for a coffee break.

Google Fires AI Researcher, Again

Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Less than two years after Google fired two researchers who openly criticized inherited biases within artificial intelligence systems, Satrajit Chatterjee, the researcher who led a team of scientists, was terminated with cause, shortly after Google told his team not to publish a paper that rebutted some of the claims made in a celebrated research paper, published in Nature last year.

In 2020, Google fired ethicist Timnit Gebru following a dispute over a paper with two others following suit. It has been ongoing tension among Google’s A.I researchers, which reflects much larger struggles across the tech industry - social issues entangled with technology advancement and humans who build technology.

We’re also recruiting for our ABD Team!

Check out the following positions that we are actively hiring.

Join Us!

Please spread the word and show us some love 😘

If you like what we are doing, please consider sharing it with your friends, family, and colleagues. We are a nonprofit organization that is 100% run by volunteers who might look just like you. We are sending a weekly digest every Tuesday. Until the next time!

Lastly, here’s a photo from the MET Gala to end this week’s Digest. Stay gorgeous!

Photo: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images

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This week we have Elon’s newest clown car; Amazon-as-a-Service; Snap’s resilience; and, an official Block Head.

Don’t forget Nominations for our second cohort are ongoing for our Expert Circle!

Analytics, Digital, Design In Action

Musk’s New Clown Car

Following a near month-long saga, Twitter’s Board has accepted Elon Musk’s takeover offer for a USD44Bn take over of the social media app, famously labeled as a clown car that fell into a gold mine.

“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” Musk said in a statement posted to Twitter. “I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential — I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.”

There’s much work to be done, even by someone like Musk who helms Tesla, SpaceX, OpenAI, and Boring. Twitter’s capitalization has been largely flat over its near decade stint, owing largely to management turmoil and lackluster execution. We’re already seeing some pushback, however, regarding the acquisition - highlighting Twitter’s geopolitical importance - from none other than Jeff Bezos.

Meanwhile, Musk’s Boring Co., which has a mission to solve traffic through underground tunnels, has raised a fresh USD675M for its mission.

Amazon-as-a-Service

Newsletter Godfather, Ben Thompson of Stratechery, recently wrote a piece highlighting Amazon’s growing logistics offering that pits it against not only Fedex and UPS, but our homegrown hero Shopify. Indeed, we can’t do Ben’s piece justice here, but we want to highlight the concept of Amazon’s dominance of using Primitives: using its initial scale of AWS and a captive ecommerce customer to rapidly ramp up new business lines that few can pursue.

Over to Shopify, it’s now faced with Amazon’s differentiated merchant offerings, particularly logistics and payments, as epitomized by Amazon’s new Buy with Prime, a solution that brings Amazon's logistics to merchants' online stores. Amazon's merchants will be able to use fast and free delivery, free returns, and other checkout features for their customers. Shopify, on the other hand, has been struggling to ramp its logistics efforts, which it launched in 2019. It has recently acquired Deliverr, but this USD2Bn ticket is a pittance to Amazon’s USD100Bn spend just last year.

Snap’s Resilience

Unlike its eponymous Snaps, Snap’s business strength has proven to be more permanent following its latest results which showed it’s growing faster than its fellow U.S.-based competitors Facebook and Twitter. Meta reported its first loss in DAUs last quarter, while Twitter’s monetizable DAUs grew by 2% in the U.S. and 15% internationally. Snap grew its DAUs 18% year over year to 332Mn.

However, Snap missed its revenue goals in Q3 2021, citing Apple’s big iOS privacy change as the cause. Once iOS users were presented with a choice to opt-out of off-app tracking, most users chose not to hand over more personal data to the apps they use, which impacted the ad business of Snapchat and Facebook. Snap is still reckoning with this curveball form Apple when it comes to ad revenue.

We’ve written about Snap’s growth as a company here, and we’re keen to hearing what they have in store next week during their next Partner Summit. We bet it has some AR with it.

The Block Head

Jack Dorsey, the Twitter co-founder and current Block CEO, is no longer the payments firm’s “chief executive officer.” Instead, the executive is choosing to call himself “Block Head and Chairperson.”

We’re curious who would win: The Block Head or the Technoking.

We’re also recruiting for our ABD Team!

Join Us!

Please spread the word and show us some love 😘

If you like what we are doing, please consider sharing it with your friends, family, and colleagues. We are a nonprofit organization that is 100% run by volunteers who might look just like you. We are sending a weekly digest every Tuesday. Until the next time!

Share our work!

This week we have the Netflix’s watershed moment; Fortnite and Dating apps playing into Coachella and festivals; Instagram amps up its commerce capabilities; and, Amazon’s emerging Cashierless-as-a-Service offering.

Also, check out our latest podcast! It features a homegrown healthcare start-up co-founder discussing her journey and opening up new chapters in life.

Don’t forget Nominations for our second cohort are ongoing for our Expert Circle!

Analytics, Digital, Design In Action

Netflix and Reel

Shares of Netflix plunged 35% after it lost subscribers in its most recent quarter, the first time in almost a decade. Netflix said several headwinds are affecting growth, including increasing competition and the lifting of pandemic restrictions. Its business benefited from coronavirus stay-at-home orders, with more people seeking out digital entertainment. But in recent months people have been spending less time on digital platforms as vaccines rolled out and mandates eased.

Netflix estimated that 100 million households are sharing their subscription passwords with other family or friends. Netflix's customer base fell by 200,000 subscribers during Q1/22 . The drop stemmed in part from Netflix's decision to withdraw from Russia to protest the war against Ukraine, resulting in a loss of 700,000 subscribers. Netflix projected a loss of another 2 million subscribers in the current April-June quarter.

While is this a short-term blip following the lockdown anomalies or a result of heightened competition from fellow streamers and other media like social media or video games remain to be seen.

Festivals as Metaverse Proofs

Fortnite is adding Coachella to its impressive list of in-game collaborations. The annual music festival announced that it’ll release Coachella-themed skins and in-game features for its first foray into gaming. Coachella’s music will also make its way into the game. Up until May 16, Fortnite’s Icon Radio will be playing music from more than 30 artists slated to play Coachella this year.

Video games have been the epicenter of pop culture’s leading edge engagement for a while now, with Fortnite leading the charge. This announcement further cements the growing synergies between digital and physical town squares where people come to congregate. Fortnite has focused more on music and live events in the last few years: Marshmello and Ariana Grande have performed, and artists have been part of musical events built in the game’s creative mode.

Meanwhile, leading dating-app Tinder is launching a new feature called Festival Mode designed to help users connect ahead of their plans to attend concerts or larger music festivals, like Coachella, Bonnaroo, Stagecoach, EDC Las Vegas and others.

Instagram’s Product Tagging

Instagram’s expanding the ability to add product tags in Feed posts to everyone in the U.S. Creators and brands have been sharing how they use and style their favorite products on Instagram and inspiring their communities. This broadly arms Instagram’s creators better monetization opportunities, in-line with the growing race among social media platforms to enable commerce on their sites.

Cashierless-as-a-Service

Amazon announced it will bring its cashier-free checkout technology, Just Walk Out, to a Major League Baseball stadium for the first time. With the addition of these two baseball stadium stores, Amazon continues to expand their cashier-less technology, which is available in Amazon Go and Fresh locations. Amazon began licensing the technology to 3P retailers in 2020.

Amazon is using a combination of artificial intelligence, computer vision, and data pulled from multiple sensors to ensure customers are only charged for the stuff they pick up. Cameras are used to track items as they're taken from shelves.

A patent application filed by Amazon in early 2015 first revealed details about the technology. The patent described a store that would work using a system of cameras, sensors, and/or RFID readers to identify shoppers and their items. Amazon has long shown that it uses itself as its prime use case for potential software offerings, with AWS as the prime example.

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This week we have the debut of OpenAI’s Dall-E 2; Game Engines gearing up; and, Occupy Etsy movement.

Don’t forget Nominations for our second cohort are ongoing for our Expert Circle!

Analytics, Digital, Design In Action

AI Artist

OpenAI, the Elon Musk-backed AI research company, has been at the forefront of using creative endeavors to further AI research. Its AI has defeated multi-millionaire gaming champions. Last year it has unveiled its next foray: a remarkable new AI model called DALL-E (a combination of WALL-E and Dali), capable of drawing nearly anything and in nearly any style.

DALL-E 2 is now out and it’s going to give Dali and the artists at Pixar a run for their paintbrushes. DALL-E is able to take quite complex prompts, such as “Teddy bears shopping for groceries in the style of ukiyo.” It would gladly comply, and out of hundreds of outputs find the most likely to meet the user’s standards. We suggest you try it.

While currently in limited trial mode, DALL-E opens up a lot of exciting applications, as well as risks, particularly in mass production of fake images. In time, DALL-E could become an API, similar to some of OpenAI’s products.

Game Engines and Meta’s Monetization

Fortnite-maker Epic Games announced today that it has raised USD2Bn in funding from Sony and Kirkbi, the parent company of the Lego Group, with both companies investing USD1Bn each. This latest funding round values Epic at USD31Bn. Epic says the new funding will go toward its efforts to build its kid-friendly metaverse and will also support its continued growth.

On the other side of the world, Cocos Technologies, a China-based game engine provider that has been around since 2010, just announced it has picked up USD50Mn in a Series B funding round in a bid to work on development and move beyond games.

The Cocos engine covers all market categories and is widely used and recognized worldwide. China’s mobile game market share accounts for 40%, and the global mobile game market share accounts for 30%. Tencent, NetEase, Nintendo, Ubisoft, and other major game developers have used the Cocos engine to develop and launch their game products.

Meanwhile, Horizon Worlds, Meta’s social virtual reality app, is testing a feature that will let creators sell virtual items and effects within their worlds. This is currently available to a small group of creators, but it’s an important step in Meta’s long game of building the foundation of virtual reality social networking.

Meta is also beginning to test a Horizon Worlds Creator Bonus program for participants in the US. Meta has previously launched these kinds of programs on Instagram, where Meta is pushing its TikTok competitor Reels. This was described as an expansion of Meta’s USD10Mn Horizon Creators Fund, deployed in October.

Occupy Etsy

More than 14,000 Etsy sellers are going on strike as the platform increases its transaction fees from 5% to 6.5%. Kristi Cassidy, an organizer of the strike, concedes that 14,000 sellers isn’t a huge percentage of the marketplace’s 5.3Mn active sellers, but she says, “It’s also quite a bit for just people trying to spread a movement online with no advertising. The amount of support we have gotten when we put this out into the world… people are sharing, it’s spreading entirely organically.”

“Thanks to Offsite Ads, Etsy fees are an unpredictable expense that can take more than 20% of each transaction. We have no control over how these ads are administered, or how much of our money is spent,” Cassidy wrote in the petition.

Meanwhile, Etsy CEO Josh Silverman explained the increase in a message to sellers, saying that this cut of sales will help Etsy invest in marketing, grow its support team by 20% and continue investing in security. However, sellers participating in the Etsy strike have other demands. They want Etsy to cancel the fee increase, crack down on resellers who are peddling mass-produced goods and end the star seller program.

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This week we have Apple’s bigger bite of Fintech; Shein hits Hectacorn status; India’s Super-App; Alphabet’s Wing takes flight; and Twitter’s newest backer.

Don’t forget Nominations for our second cohort are ongoing for our Expert Circle!

Analytics, Digital, Design In Action

Apple’s Next Big Bite

Apple to bring more financial services in-house. Apple is developing its own payment processing tech and infrastructure for future financial products, a move that would reduce its reliance on outside partners over time. Products such as  payment processing, risk assessment for lending, fraud analysis, credit checks, among others, are seen to be considered in this change.

This amplifies Apple’s growing fintech capabilities, building on a lineup that already includes an Apple-branded credit card, peer-to-peer payments, the Wallet app and a mechanism for merchants to accept credit cards from an iPhone. Apple is also working on its own subscription service for hardware and a “buy now, pay later” feature for Apple Pay transactions.

While the change is for future products, this further endangers consumer facing fintech companies such as Block and Affirm. On the other hand, the “pipes”, companies like Visa, Mastercard, Adyen, GlobalPayments, are relatively unscathed.

Shein Hits Hectacorn Status

Chinese fast fashion e-commerce startup Shein is weighing a funding round at a valuation of about USD100Bn. Shein is in talks with General Atlantic for this new funding round, according to Bloomberg. The company counts Tiger Global, IDG and Sequoia among its existing investors.

This puts Shein in a super-elite club of “Hectacorns”, companies that achieve USD100Bn+ in valuation, in contrast to Decacorns (USD10Bn+) or Unicorns USD1Bn+). Shein is also bucking the tough trends we’re seeing in the market.

While no longer a start-up (Shein is 14 years old), the company has come up with a data-driven, supplier-supported formula to success. Its designers closely track social media influencers and runway shows to devise new pieces, a technique that mirrors traditional fast-fashion brands.

India’s Super-App

Indian conglomerate Tata Group unveiled its long awaited super-app, Tata Neu. Tata Neu brings together all of Tata’s digital services and apps on a single platform. On its Play Store page, the app’s description reads: “Consume cutting-edge digital content, make payments, manage your finances, plan your next holiday or perhaps just your next meal – there’s lots to explore and experience in the world of Tata Neu”.

Tata is hoping that customers will find its one-stop shop offering and rewards lofty enough to make the bold switch. Tata plans to offer them “NeuCoins” as reward, where one NeuCoin is equivalent to one Indian rupee.

It’s been remarked that it was only a matter of time before a local Indian champion could rise to the scale of WeChat, Alibaba, Shopee, Grab, Uber, or Amazon. However, while it’s relatively easy to staple different consumer apps together, running them in unison under one app, a super-app, is an exponentially difficult exercise.

Wing Takes Flight

Drone delivery company Wing, a subsidiary of Alphabet, has announced that its drone delivery service will launch for suburban homes on April 7. The Dallas-Fort Worth area is the first in the U.S. with access to on-demand drone delivery, according to Wing.

“This will be America’s most scalable drone delivery operation to date,” said Jacob Demmitt, marketing and communications manager, in an email. “Walgreens team members will process their own orders and load packages onto drones themselves–while Wing oversees the delivery from a remote location.”

This marks Alphabet’s strategic entry into the futuristic and important drone delivery category. Amazon has been trying to crack this market for years, though with relatively steady, not explosive, progress.

Twitter’s Newest Backer

Twitter stock price soars after Elon Musk acquires 9.2% stake. While the stock movement is mostly speculation at this point, it seems the market is anticipating major overhauls in the blue bird’s app following Elon’s wake. He’s already at work trying to gauge the demand for an edit button.

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