Tech Brew Ride Home - Thu. 11/03 – How About Some Non-Twitter News?

Starting point is 00:00:00 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 right home for Thursday, November 3, 22. I'm Brian McCullough. Today is TikTok still in danger of running a foul of government bans? WhatsApp gets groups. Gmail gets package tracking. Instagram gets NFT minting. Patreon gets video hosting. Layoffs come for stripe.

Starting point is 00:00:52 Yes, there were some new Twitter details too. And is the Adobe Figma deal in trouble? Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. I kind of want to front load today with non-twitter. news, if I can, for our sanity, if nothing else. So how about this? TikTok plans to update its privacy policy on December 2nd to confirm that its staff outside of Europe, including staff in China, can access the data of European users, quoting the Guardian. The Chinese-owned social video app is updating its privacy policy to confirm that staff in countries, including China, are allowed to access user data to ensure their experience of the platform is, quote, consistent, enjoyable, and safe. The other countries where European user data could be accessed by

Starting point is 00:01:41 TikTok staff include Brazil, Canada, and Israel, as well as the U.S. and Singapore, where European user data is stored currently. Data could be used to conduct checks on aspects of the platform, including the performance of its algorithms, which recommend content to users and detect vexatious automated accounts. TikTok has previously acknowledged that some user data is accessed by employees of the company's parent bite dance in China. The Privacy Policy Update, which applies to the UK, the European Economic Area, and Switzerland, and which goes live on December 2nd, takes place against a backdrop of political and regulatory pressure over use of data generated by the app, which has more than a billion users worldwide,

Starting point is 00:02:22 end quote. I'm mentioning this because I keep seeing things and hearing things, that there remains a movement, at least here in the U.S. to do some sort of TikTok ban. I wonder how European governments are going to feel about the news we just discussed. The rumors I'm mentioning have never been reliable enough for me to make a headline out of them, but I'm just letting you know there are still rumblings like that out there. WhatsApp has announced communities, a group messaging feature for larger, more structured groups of up to 1,024 people. This is rolling out worldwide in the coming months, quoting TechCrunch. Designed to help organizations, clubs, schools, and other private groups better communicate and stay organized.

Starting point is 00:03:11 Communities bring a number of new features to the messaging platform, including admin controls, support for subgroups and announcement groups, 32-person voice and video calls, larger file sharing, emoji reactions, and polls. Communities themselves can support groups of up to 1,024 users and offer end-to-end encryption. Some of the features developed for communities like emoji reactions, large file sharing up to 2 gigabytes, and the ability for admins to delete messages had already made their way to the WhatsApp platform ahead of today's launch.

Starting point is 00:03:42 Now the company says polls, 32-person video calls, and larger group sizes will also be supported on WhatsApp more broadly outside of communities. The new feature may initially draw some comparison with Facebook groups, as they both support things like subgroups, file sharing, admin functionality, and more. But while Facebook groups are often used by disconnected strangers who share a common interest, WhatsApp communities are meant to be used by members who may already be connected in the real world. Unlike on Facebook, WhatsApp is phone number-based, meaning people joining these discussion groups already have some familiarity with one another, as they may have exchanged phone numbers

Starting point is 00:04:16 or at least have shared their number with a group admin. However, the phone numbers will be hidden from the wider community and only made visible to admins and others in the same subgroups as you. This is meant to balance users' demand for privacy with the need to allow fellow group members to reach you. For instance, you may not personally know every parent on your kids' sports team, but you're likely comfortable interacting with them in a private group setting that may exist as a subgroup of the entire school's community. In addition, unlike Facebook groups, which can be discoverable on the platform, WhatsApp communities are hidden. There will not be a search and

Starting point is 00:04:51 discovery feature available. You have to be invited to join, end quote. In the coming weeks, Google will update Gmail to show live package tracking for order confirmation emails under the sender's name in the inbox, quoting TechCrunch. The feature works by looking for emails that include tracking numbers, then using that information to determine the order's expected delivery date, and flagging this for you right in your inbox. That means when you're scanning through your email list in Gmail, you won't have to click on your order confirmation emails to see when your package is due to arrive. Instead, this information will be displayed just below the email sender's name and subject line in the inbox and a small green

Starting point is 00:05:35 label. You'll notice a little truck icon followed by text indicating the order status, followed by the delivery date. This label will be updated as the order progresses with information like label created, the arrival date or the delivery date, Google says. If you do click to open the order confirmation email, it will now include a summary card at the top that offers a bit more detail, including a timeline with checkmarks that shows the current order status, order placed, shipped, or delivered, and a link that takes you to the order detail page. Google says the new feature will be available in the U.S. across most major shipping carriers in the coming weeks. The expectation is that this feature will arrive ahead of the holiday shopping season when it would be most useful, end quote.

Starting point is 00:06:23 Meta is letting select Instagram creators in the U.S. test a toolkit for minting NFTs and selling them on and off the platform. Meta says it won't charge fees for this until 2024, quoting to Crypt. At launch, Instagram will use the Polygon blockchain for NFT minting. The app will also pull NFT metadata from OpenC so that collection names and descriptions can be viewed on Instagram. Meta will roll out the new NFT features to a select group of artists and content creators first before offering the features to a broader audience the company shared in a statement. Creators such as photographer Drifter Shoots, visual artist Ilse Valfrey, and artist Amber Vittoria,

Starting point is 00:07:06 are among those selected for early access. to the new Instagram NFT features. Today, Facebook and Instagram support displaying NFTs on the Ethereum, Polygon and Flow blockchains, allowing users to connect their wallets to their accounts to display NFTs. Support for Solana and Phantom wallets is coming soon. Why the big NFT push? Meta says it believes in the vision of Web3 and wants creators to leverage NFTs to better monetize their content. Our strategy for Web3 technologies, including blockchain, is focused on helping creators make a living. Meta's head of Commerce and Fintech, Stephanie Casreal said, end quote. Speaking of Making a Living, Patreon has announced a native ad-free video hosting tool for creators,

Starting point is 00:07:54 expanding on support for third-party players, currently available to a select group in beta, quoting the verge. The update marks a major shift in how creators on Patreon can share video content with fans. Previously, creators had to upload videos to third-party platforms like YouTube and Vimeo, and then embed video players or share links with subscribers. Uploading to a third-party app had its wrinkles, however, like videos being shared outside of paying subscribers. The native and ad-free Patreon player allows creators to upload their content directly to the platform,

Starting point is 00:08:27 select thumbnails for their videos, and view audience data like view count. Creators will also be able to select who can view the video without worrying whether links will be shared outside of subscribers. The player has been in beta with a select group of creators, and beginning today, will be available to all creators on the pro and premium plans. One of the key features is the ability to make custom teasers, short clips of up to two minutes long that creators can offer to the public for free. The idea, Patreon says, is that the previews can convert people into paying subscribers

Starting point is 00:08:58 by giving them a taste of what the creator has to offer. To start, creators on pro and premium plans who aren't making adult content will get 500 hours of uploads through the end of 2023. Patreon says it will roll out a more. detailed payment structure sometime in 2024, and creators will get a six-month extension to use their allotted 500 hours. If a creator runs out of video hours, they can request more during this early period before the pricing structure is in place. Video creators are the largest category on Patreon and even other types, like podcasters or visual artists, upload video content

Starting point is 00:09:31 for fans. But for some creators, having to use a third-party hosting platform has also made it a thorny and frustrating topic, end quote. All right. Can't put it off any longer. Sources have seemingly confirmed that Elon Musk plans to cut around 3,700 jobs at Twitter, or half the company's workforce, beginning tomorrow, November 4th. Twitter will apparently also reverse its work-from-anywhere policy, which does line up with the way that Elon seems to roll. Remember, he was early in pushing for Tesla employees to come back to the office. Bloomberg says that Twitter aims to charge for verification as soon as November 7th, giving current verified users a multi-month grace period and also making the edit button free, if you're a subscriber, quote,

Starting point is 00:10:25 the badges will be part of an $8 a month subscription that could go live as early as Monday, according to people familiar with the plans. Users who already have a blue verification badge will have a multi-month grace period before they will either need to pay for the badge or lose it, said one of the people who requested anonymity discussing plans. that aren't public. The company also plans to expand access to its edit function. The edit feature currently available to so-called Twitter Blue users, who pay $4.99 a month will be open to the rest of users for free, one of the people said. That change could be implemented as soon as this week,

Starting point is 00:10:59 the person said. The quick turnaround for the new products reflects the speed at which Elon Musk wants to move. One of the company's product leaders in charge of Twitter Blue, Esther Crawford, tweeted on Wednesday that she slept at the office in an effort to to meet her deadlines, end quote. Actually, there's been a lot of tweets and pictures of folks sleeping at the office over there. Also worth noting that Twitter has canceled its CHRP developer conference set for November 16th, but said that it is building, quote, some things that were excited to share with you soon, end quote. So I guess that means we have a bunch of Twitter layoffs in the mail for tomorrow, which reminds me that I've been sitting on some recent notable layoff

Starting point is 00:11:45 headlines, including from this morning. For instance, Vancouver-based Dapper Labs, the NFT startup behind CryptoKitties and NBA Top Shot, has laid off 134 staff or around 22% of its workforce. Dapper Labs has raised more than $600 million to date. Home-buying startup open door laid off around 550 employees or around 18% of its staff after higher interest rates and a shift in prices forced the company to sell homes at a loss. Chime, the Neo-Bank, has laid off 12% of its 1,300-person workforce, or around 150 people citing current market dynamics. Chime raised $750 million at a $25 billion valuation back in August of 2021. And Bloomberg this morning was reporting on a memo that it saw claiming Stripe plans

Starting point is 00:12:37 to lay off 14% of its staff, reducing its headcount by 1,000 to almost 7,000 people to prepare for quote, leaner times. That's a big deal. Stripe, the big private company darling, 14% of staff, signals that Stripe doesn't think it can go public anytime soon, among other things. And finally today, just putting this on all of our radars, sources are telling Axios that the U.S. Department of Justice is preparing to open an in-depth probe into Adobe's $20 billion acquisition of Figma and has been contacting customers, competitors, and investors, as part of the investigation. Quote,

Starting point is 00:13:22 according to one of the people the DOJ has already issued civil investigative demands, information requests similar to subpoenas, an unusual move at this early juncture in the probe. In mid-September, Adobe announced its deal for Figma, a collaboration tool with fierce loyalty

Starting point is 00:13:38 among designers who were quick to voice concerns. Chief among those issues is that Adobe will raise prices for Figma, an upstart competitor, while innovation slows to a crawl. For its part, Adobe has said it does not plan to raise prices and will continue offering so-called freemium versions of Figma. The exact timing of the probe is unclear. The companies

Starting point is 00:13:58 announced their deal on September 15th and are still in the review period mandated by law according to three of the people. The DOJ has the discretion to open a longer optional review period if it has concerns a deal will harm competition. While Figma does not compete with core Adobe products such as Photoshop and InDesign, it quickly surpassed Adobe's own collaboration software AdobeXD after the company launched in 2012. Figma has far surpassed Adobe in collaboration tools for designers, said Tag McCarthy, Chief Design Officer at Digital Product Consultancy, Elswain. It seems pretty clear to me that Adobe is trying to take a player off the board. I expect less competition and less innovation. That's why everyone is concerned,

Starting point is 00:14:40 he said. Along with the merger review, the DOJ is also expected to probe Adobe's past acquisitions, said two of the people who are not authorized to speak publicly about a confidential matter. For Pablo Ruiz, Moosequiz, who heads up Penpot, an open-source competitor to Figma, the deal was a shock to the design community since Figma had long marketed itself as the anti-Adobe. While the market is still in its infancy, if the Figma deal goes through, Adobe will face little competition over the next several years. Musquez said it's a tough market to enter. These tools are very expensive and time-consuming to develop, he said. Musquist pointed to recent layoffs at another competitor's sketch as more evidence of a lack of competition.

Starting point is 00:15:24 And while Penpot experienced a massive increase in sign-ups in the days following the announcement of the deal, the company's tens of thousands of users pales in comparison to Figma, Musquiz said. I'm sure the companies will point to us to show competition, but the massive differences in scale don't fully support that argument, he said. Still, he expects the blowback to the deal to continue driving. growth at Penpot, end quote. I discovered halfway through the morning that the kids have a half day of school today. So everything in my calendar is basically chaos all of a sudden. Probably won't even have this show done by the time I have to go pick them up. Great. Talk to you tomorrow.

Tech Brew Ride Home - Thu. 11/03 – How About Some Non-Twitter News?

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