Tech Brew Ride Home - Mon. 11/12 - What Exactly Is TikTok?

Episode Date: November 12, 2018

SAP buys Qualtrics, the Galaxy S10 might be coming in February and the Galaxy F might be coming in March, what exactly is TikTok and why you should care, and Jony Ive has an exclusive new product design. Links: SAP to buy Qualtrics for $8 billion (Axios) How One Family Built $8 Billion Startup Far From Silicon Valley (Bloomberg) Samsung Electronics to release first foldable smartphone in March: sources (Yonhap News Agency) Snap’s former No. 2 exec Imran Khan is building an online shopping startup (ReCode) Facebook quietly launches a TikTok competitor app called Lasso (The Verge) A Guide to TikTok for Anyone Who Isn’t a Teen (Slate) Netflix to Test Lower-Price Plans as It Seeks More Asian Users (Bloomberg) At Netflix, Who Wins When It’s Hollywood vs. the Algorithm? (WSJ) Jony Ive’s latest design is the ultimate diamond ring – made only of diamond … (9to5Mac) The Fading Battlefields of World War I (The Atlantic) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On April 4th, 2023, around 2 in the morning, a man was found stabbed multiple times on a sidewalk in downtown San Francisco. Hey, who did this to you? What happened next turned the story into a political firestorm. Reports have identified the victim as Bob Lee, the founder of Cash App. From Bloomberg Podcasts, this is Foundering, the Killing of Bob Lee, beginning April 16. Welcome to the Tech Meme Ride home for Monday, November 12th, 2018. I'm Brian McCullough. Today, SAP buys Qualtrix.

The Galaxy S-10 might be coming in February and the Galaxy F might be coming in March. What exactly is TikTok and why you should care? And Johnny Ive has an exclusive new product design. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. Dan Premack at Axios reported late last night that SAP is buying user experience management platform Qualtricks, which was already planning an IPO later this month. The purchase price was apparently $8 billion, all in cash. I always find it adorable how Axios frames their stories, so let me quote using their

framing. Why it matters, this would be the largest ever purchase of a VC-backed enterprise software company and the third largest sale of any SaaS company behind Oracle buying NetSuite for 9.3 billion NSAP. buying Concor for $8.3 billion, end quote. Apparently, the Qualtrix IPO was already oversubscribed, and it looked like if the IPO did go through, it was probably going to achieve a valuation of $5 billion.

So at $8 billion, SAP had to pay up considerably to head the IPO off at the pass. Qualtrix had raised $450 million in VC funding over its lifetime, most recently at a $2.5 billion valuation. The company claims it has been cash flow positive for 16 years, and Bloomberg has a helpful profile up of Qualtricks. It's one of those inspiring entrepreneurial stories. Ryan and Jared Smith are the brothers behind the company,

which they founded in their parents' basement in Utah. In broad strokes, the company helps companies survey their customers. But, quoting Bloomberg, Qualtricks' approach is based on what it calls experience management, or XM, according to. to Sequoia's Shrier. That involves analyzing every aspect of the customer experience to drive loyalty and referrals, which it deems crucial at a time when social media gives individuals more power than ever to speak out, end quote. The Smith's resisted taking on any venture capital

for many years, and CEO Ryan Smith once reportedly turned down a $500 million buyout offer. Because they were so stingy with their capital raises, the Smith family reportedly still holds 87.6% of the company, which is worth about $7 billion now at that purchase price. And that's all in cash. And they get to continue running the company. Again from Bloomberg, quote, Smith is something of a fixture in a Utah startup scene that encompasses ancestry.com, inside sales.com, and recently listed, DOMO Inc.

His ardor for the Beehive State means Qualtricks is a supporter of such events as the Silicon Slopes, Utah Conference, which showcases local companies as well as the region's snowboarding and skiing. Sources are telling the Janhap News Agency that Samsung will launch its new flagship Galaxy S-10 smartphone in February, most likely at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

The S-10 will reportedly have 5G support, so that will be a huge deal if one of the best-selling Android flagships is also the first to have 5G capabilities. Doesn't guarantee that you'll be able to use that 5G right away, of course, but it would still be a major milestone. But also interesting, remember that photo phone Samsung teased just last week. It will supposedly be called the Galaxy F, the letter F,

and it might be coming in March. Rumors are that this might be an exclusive device, exclusive either to various launch partners or sold only directly through Samsung itself. And don't expect it to come cheap. Jan Haap estimates that the Galaxy F could cost as much as $1,70, though reportedly Samsung hasn't, quote, settled on a final price yet. Remember that Samsung CEO DJ Coe says he wants to ship

a million foldable devices in 2019. Earlier this year, Imran, Khan stepped down as the second in command at Snap, one of a slew of executive departures that raised eyebrows, but no departure was more whispered about perhaps than cons, as he was the chief strategy officer at Snap, overseeing all of Snap's businesses and monetization efforts. Well, Recode thinks that they know what Khan is up to next. An e-commerce startup, quote, still in stealth and funded primarily by Khan, the startup will be a new online commerce platform for brands to sell their goods, similar, at least in high-level concept,

to more established players like Amazon or Jet.com, according to a source familiar with the plans. Unlike those platforms, Kahn's new startup will likely be more focused or specialized on particular product categories. Kahn, who is founder and CEO of the new venture, has a small team of a half-dozen employees working on the project and just hired Dollar Shave Club's VP of Engineering, Jason Bosco, to run engineering. Khan declined to comment on the record about his new project when contacted by Recode over the weekend, end quote. Recode further notes that Khan has never been a founder before, and his background was in the banking industry. So except for the commerce initiatives he started while

at Snap, he has no previous experience in commerce e or otherwise. So more eyebrow raises, I suppose. Facebook has quietly released an app for for iOS and Android called Lassau that is designed to compete with TikTok. Now, the story here is Facebook trying once again to release a copycat app to compete with an app that it feels might be a threat and a competitor. Facebook, of course, does not necessarily have a stellar track record with copycat apps, with the notable exception, of course, the way it cloned stories from Snapchat. However, I think the bigger story here is TikTok itself, which I've been meaning to cover recently because, well, it's getting to be a thing.

Censor Tower reported last week that TikTok's monthly U.S. App Store installs in October were higher than those of Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, or YouTube. So TikTok may be a major new player on the scene. What is TikTok? Well, it's a tween and teen-focused social app owned by Beijing-based bite dance. It was formed by a merger with social app musically. TikTok is known as Doyin in China, where until now it enjoyed most of its popularity, though the app has now reportedly reached a global monthly active user count of 500 million people across 150 countries.

In essence, TikTok is a short-form video and long. live video social platform powered by music. So you could think of TikTok as China's take on Vine, Instagram, Snapchat, but with a healthy dose of karaoke thrown in for good measure. TikTok videos are 15 seconds long when recording within the app, but users can also string together videos to make stories up to 60 seconds long. Lipsink videos were the original killer application when the app was known as musically, and that continues to be a big focus, though as Slate.

notes in its TikTok explainer, quote, Dancing is particularly big on the app, which makes sense, given its musical roots, and so are other movement-based activities like gymnastics, cheerleading, and parkour. Comedy is huge, though it's often lip-sync-based comedy, which is something better experienced than explained. Here is a video of a girl lip-sinking to the viral Catch Me Outside clip from the episode of the Dr. Phil show that gave us rapper Bad Baby. Also on the app, media companies like NBC Universal and 17 host short shows that are aimed at its young users.

Basically, you can find a little bit of everything on TikTok, end quote. So I've not tried out TikTok yet for myself, I must confess, but on the ride home subreddit, of which more on that at the end of the show, listener P. Navarre's wrote, quote, TikTok today is both on the cusp of popular culture and the most meme-dense social network I've ever known. It's the new Tumblr, where onboarding until you feel like you belong is a process of several weeks. And God forbid, you disconnect for a moment and fall behind, end quote. Very interesting and very worth watching, I think. Netflix is apparently going to test lower-priced plans, but only in Asian markets in order to boost subscribers there. This would be a change of strategy overall, though, for Netflix, which has

maintained or been raising prices in most of its major markets. However, in Asia, Netflix faces a slew of free and lower-priced video services that are priced as low as $2 to $5 per month. And especially in Southeast Asia, Netflix has yet to rack up 2 million subscribers in any country. So a lower-tiered service would help Netflix shed the premium branding it seems to have acquired by default. And Netflix recently announced more than 100 film and TV projects.

targeting viewers in India, Korea, Japan, Thailand, and Taiwan. It also recently set up local headquarters in Singapore. But I also want to point you to a story from over the weekend in the Wall Street Journal. It's about Netflix's developmental MO, more generally. We know that one of Netflix's biggest strengths is all of the viewership data that it has, which helps it determine what is and what might be popular, so it can greenlight new shows more efficiently and effectively. But at the same time, Netflix has been signing huge deals to lock in talent to create those shows.

And in doing so, it is apparently learning an old Hollywood lesson. The entertainment business is about talent and relationships. And sometimes you have to maintain good relationships with that pricey talent. So if you're Netflix and you've written a check for $150 million to secure the services of Shonda Rimes, say, What happens if Shonda's new shows aren't quite as popular as you hoped? Do you defer to the algorithms and cancel them? Or do you do your best to keep Shonda happy? It's something that apparently Netflix has already been wrestling with.

Last year, executives from the tech and content teams hotly debated whether to renew Glow, a show about professional women wrestlers in the 1980s, whose co-executive producer is Gen G. Cohen, creator of Orange's The New Black. a flagship Netflix show. The tech side argued the show should be canceled because of lackluster viewership, people familiar with the situation said. The Hollywood side felt it was worth continuing the show, given the importance of Ms. Cohen to Netflix and the critical acclaim Glow had received.

There were serious conversations from the tech side pressuring the Hollywood side not to renew it for a second season, said one participant in a heated discussion over the show. Glow ultimately survived, end quote. What did I say last week? Everything old is new again. So Johnny Ive has a new product out that he's designed, and it is a diamond ring made entirely of diamond. No, this is not an Apple product, not an I diamond,

but you've got to admit that this is on brand for Johnny. He does love working with various materials. Aluminium, anyone? So apparently Ive and designer Mark Newsom teamed up to create a ring composed entirely of diamond itself. The ring was designed for a special product red auction to be held at Sotheby's on December 5th in Miami. The ring is expected to sell for something in the $150,000 to $250,000 range. And I've just got to read you this press release because I think you'll agree it's just classic Johnny, quote. Sir Johnny Ive, Apple's chief design officer and renowned industrial design.

Mark Newson, having curated the red auction five years ago, have this year designed a unique ring, made exclusively for red by diamond foundry. Consistent with their mutual obsession with transforming raw materials into objects of value, Ivan Newsen's design is singular, clear and uncompromised by the traditional metal settings and bands that have previously been required to create quote, diamond rings. Theirs will be created by removing material rather than adding, an ambition made possible by the extraordinary scale of the stone, which will enable the ring to be completely made of this material. Creating a ring-shaped diamond is no small feat.

The diamond block will be faceted with several thousand facets, some of which are as small as several hundred micrometers. The interior ring will be cylindrically cut out for the desired smoothness using a micrometer-thick water jet, inside which a laser beam is cast. The finish ring will have between 2,000 and 3,000 facets. which has never been seen before on a single piece. The gemstone will be created by Diamond Foundry,

this certified carbon-neutral diamond producer who has pioneered and developed the proprietary technology to form diamonds safely and sustainably, end quote. Now I'm wondering if Johnny Ive might have been writing those scripts for those Apple videos all by himself all these years. That voice really does seem to be consistent. Finally, today, it's not tech-related, but you know I'm a history nerd

so I could not let the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I pass without a mention. I have nothing deep or profound to say, nor should I, frankly, but I did want to pass on something I thought was moving and meaningful. It's not something I can quote

or something you can read, but the final link in the show notes today will take you to a photo gallery of the fading battlefields of World War I. 100 years on, nature is gradually taking back these scarred landscapes, which is amazing, because if you've seen contemporary photos of these battlefields from back in the day, you know they were straight up moonscapes, like the most fully

any landscape has ever been destroyed by humanity up until that point. But 100 years on, I especially love the photo of the gravestones that have slowly gotten embedded in the trunk of a hundred-year-old tree as it's grown. Kind of makes you think about what the Bible says. Man is like a mere breath. His days are as a shadow that passeth away. So guess what? Listener S-W-Y-X in S-F decided to go ahead and set up a subreddit for us. It's R-slash ride home.

So Reddit.com slash R-slash-R-R-Home. All one word. Do check it out. About 20 subscribers are already there at the moment. And as I said, I'm not sure what we'll do with it. but I'll basically just follow your lead and we'll let it evolve into whatever it is you guys want it to be, assuming you guys find it useful.

Right now, somebody has posted the links to the weekend Long Reads from this past Friday, so there's another place already for you to find those. And over the weekend, I was posting stories I was considering for the pod this week, for people to vote up or down or comment on. As you'll notice, I read one of the comments today, so we could use it for that. Also, I have been posting stories over the course of the morning that I knew I would use on the show today.

So, again, that's another use. You guys can comment and debate. And maybe I read the comments or just get a feel for how people are thinking about given stories. But also, voting up and down stories would let me know what people are most interested in hearing. And, of course, if you posted stories you found interesting yourself, it would be a good tips resource for me as well. If I ever use stories that I get tipped to by the subreddit, I'll be sure to credit the original poster. Anyway, R-slash ride home. It's there if you want it.

Thanks again to SWYX in SF. Talk to you tomorrow.