Tech Brew Ride Home - Thu. 12/02 – Square Changes Its Name To Block

Episode Date: December 2, 2021

Square changes its name to Block. Apple is hinting at unexpectedly weak iPhone demand. TikTok adds monetization tools. How many people have never used the Internet? And the story behind that whole Spotify Unwrapped thing. Sponsors: FindYourFidelity.com Dataiku.com Links: Jack Dorsey’s Square changes corporate name to Block (CNBC) Apple Tells Suppliers iPhone Demand Has Slowed as Holidays Near (Bloomberg) Instacart Plans 15-Minute Delivery Trial as Rival Startups Grow (The Information) Microsoft Teams Essentials is a new standalone version for small businesses (The Verge) TikTok adds creator monetization features, including tips and video gifts (TechCrunch) 37 Percent of the World's Population Has Never Been Online, U.N. Report Finds (Gizmodo) The art and science of Spotify Wrapped (Protocol) 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 right home for Thursday, December 2nd, 2021. I'm Brian McCullough today. Square changes its name to block. Apple is hinting at unexpectedly weak iPhone demand. TikTok ads monetization tools, how many people have never used the internet, and the story behind that whole Spotify unwrapped thing. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. I guess Jack had a whole plan that we just weren't aware of. The other company that Jack Dorsey still runs, Square is changing its name to Block, effective December 10th, and also they're renaming Square crypto to spiral, as its business, they say, shifts towards technologies like the blockchain,

quoting CNBC. Jack Dorsey's payments giant said in an announcement that the new name, effective December 10th, quote, acknowledges the company's growth and creates room for further growth, and quote, Block will still trade under the ticker SQ on the New York Stock Exchange. We built the square brand for our seller business, which is where it belongs. Dorsey, co-founder and CEO said in a statement, Block is a new name, but our purpose of economic empowerment remains the same. No matter how we grow or change, we will continue to build tools to help increase access to the economy, end quote. The name Block, quote, has many associated meanings for the company, building blocks, neighborhood blocks, and their local businesses,

communities coming together at block parties, full of music, a blockchain, a section of, of code and obstacles to overcome, Block said in a statement, end quote. Obviously, there's a ton of snark about this that I could share from Twitter, but we also talked about it at length on last night's Twitter space with the great Vlad Savov, so I'll save that conversation for when the show releases on Saturday. I was a bit salty about all this, shall we say, maybe because it was 9 p.m. at night and I was tired. But listen to the episode and tell me if I'm becoming a grumpy old man or if I'm just really tired of name changes. Apple stock hit a new all-time high yesterday, or maybe it was the day before,

and folks were like, are they about to become the first $3 trillion company? They were getting close, but Apple stock is down heavily today as much as 4% because of, I think, this. Sources are telling Bloomberg that Apple, which cut its projected iPhone, 13 production targets for 2021 by up to 10 million units already, has been telling suppliers that it may not make up that shortfall in 2022 as had been originally planned, quoting Bloomberg. Already Apple had cut its iPhone 13 production goal for this year by as many as 10 million units, down from a target of 90 million because of a lack of parts, Bloomberg News reported.

But the hope was to make up much of that shortfall next year when supply is expected to improve. The company is still on track for a record holiday season with analysts projecting a sales increase of 6% to $117.9 billion in the final three months of the calendar year, but it won't be the blockbuster quarter that Apple and Wall Street had originally envisioned. Shortages and delivery delays have frustrated many consumers, and with inflation and the Omicron variant bringing fresh concerns to pandemic-weary shoppers, they may forego some purchases. That could mean skipping the iPhone 13 altogether and waiting to upgrade next year when its successor comes out. The current lineup, which starts at $799 for the standard model and $999 for the pro, is considered a modest update from the iPhone

12, which had a whole new design. Bigger changes are expected for the 2022 model, giving some shoppers a reason to wait, end quote. I've said before that I've been surprised at how big the delivery space is. In basically every market around the world, there seems to be an endless amount of players willing to take a shot at getting you toilet paper and potato chips to your doorstep in about 15 minutes. I just spoke to another such company this week as a possible investment for the ride home fund. But imagine if you're the OG of the modern cohort of these types of delivery companies. Let's say you're Instacart. Are you concerned that maybe you're being lapped by these new upstarts?

Seems like maybe you are. Sources are telling the information that Instacart is planning to launch. a 15-minute or less grocery delivery pilot for U.S. customers using existing partners, quote, as part of the proposed program, Instacart would pay a company that manages couriers to quickly deliver goods from the same grocery stores whose merchandise Instacart already offers to his existing customers, most of whom currently receive their orders within two hours or less. Instacart recently asked several logistics companies to submit proposals for the ultra-fast delivery program with plans to launch an early version of the service in a U.S. city as early as February,

the people said. If it did so, Instacart would thrust itself into competition with ultra-fast grocery delivery startups, including Joker, Getter, and Gorillas. If Instacart stuck with the program, it would suggest that the instant delivery model, which has faced some skepticism, could be here to stay even as the startups in the sector burned through venture capital. The ultra-fast delivery startups, which include Joker and Getter in the U.S., follow a different model than Instacart, which operates an app-based marketplace for retailers such as Costco and Kroger and uses freelance contractors to handle the deliveries. The startups, in contrast, buy grocery and convenience items at wholesale prices and sell them at a markup. They operate a network of warehouses

known as dark stores in cities to be able to deliver the goods in 15 minutes or less to nearby homes. The food is typically transported by employees rather than freelance contractors. The instant delivery model swept through European cities, such as London and Amsterdam during the pandemic. lockdowns and has expanded in New York and other U.S. cities this year. Instacart's pilot program would aim to match these startups' delivery pace without owning the inventory given it has publicly committed to not competing directly with retailers. The company in May announced a priority delivery service that would allow customers in certain U.S. cities to receive groceries in as little as 30 minutes. Still, Instacart representatives recently reached out to at least one instant

delivery startup, New York-based Boik. That's B-U-W. with the proposal to help with Instacart's new program. Boyk then proposed becoming a supplier on the Instacart app, just like Kroger and other stores, one of the people said. The talks are ongoing, this person said. A spokesperson for Instacart said that the company is, quote, constantly exploring even faster delivery options, but has no plans to work with any quick commerce players.

Unlike other companies entering the grocery and convenience space, were focused on empowering, never competing with retailers, the spokesperson said, end quote. Microsoft yesterday announced Teams Essentials, a standalone version of Teams for small and medium businesses, with a simplified UI, a focus on meetings, and no office apps included for a price of $4 per user per month,

quoting the Verge. This standalone version makes Teams even more of a Zoom competitor as Microsoft is dropping its Slack-like channels functionality in favor of a more simplified chat interface and a focus on meetings and video calls. Microsoft Teams Essentials fills the gap for smaller businesses that has existed since Teams launched nearly five years ago. Until now, small businesses have had to choose the Microsoft 365 Business Basic Plan priced at $5 per user per month and increasing to $6 in March,

or rivals like Zoom, Slack, Google Workspace, and more. The differences between Microsoft Teams Essentials and Microsoft 365 Business Base. Basic plans are primarily around Teams functionality and cloud storage. Essentials only offers 10 gigabytes of OneDrive storage compared to the one-terabyte available on Business Basic. Essentials also lacks meeting recording and transcripts functionality, real-time translation, breakout rooms, and whiteboard integration. Microsoft Teams Essentials also drops the Teams and channels functionality of Teams, so it's more targeted at businesses that rely on apps like Teams or Zoom for video calling and meetings. Private and group chat will still work

in Microsoft Teams Essentials, however, end quote. TikTok has added monetization tools for creators, including stripe-powered tipping and video gifts, starting in the U.S., the UK, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain, quoting TechCrunch. The company is additionally expanding access to its creator marketplace, launched in 2019, which helps brands connect with creators for sponsored content and recommendation videos. Now TikTok creators with at least 10,000 followers will be able to sign up for the TikTok creator marketplace to collaborate with brands on various opportunities. Meanwhile, the tipping and video gifting feature will allow creators to make money from their videos while offering a way for

fans to show their support for their favorite creators in new ways. Combined, these features put TikTok in more direct competition with other social media platforms like Instagram or YouTube, where creators have a variety of ways to generate revenue from their content. TikTok says creators will receive 100% of the tips. Tippers pay a small processing fee to TikTok's payment provider stripe to cover service fees, but the company itself isn't taking a slice of that revenue. This way, the payments can also avoid the app stores in-app purchase fees. Meanwhile, video gifts are similar to live gifts, but allow creators to collect diamonds, the virtual gift, on their short videos instead of only on their live broadcast.

However, live gifts only require creators to have 1,000 followers, while video gifts require 100,000 followers like tips. The Creator Next online portal also links creators to other monetization opportunities, including the Creator Marketplace and TikTok's Creator Fund, which pays creators directly for popular content, end quote. Just some numbers for you here, but somehow this kind of surprised me. According to a report by the United Nations, 2.9 billion people or 37% of the world's population have never used the internet. Now, I know, of course, I'm in North America. North America is not the world, but I did think that internet penetration had grown faster than that. I'm not saying I expected everyone to have been online for a long time now, but I thought it was at least more than that,

at least over the last few years with the arrival of feature phones that can access the internet. At the same time, though, global internet users, according to this report, rose from 4.1 billion in 2019 to 4.9 billion in 2021, so, you know, nearly a billion new internet users added in the last couple of years is not bad, although the reasons why were not great, quoting Gizmodo. The report posits that a COVID connectivity boost was likely the result of lockdowns, pivots towards remote work and school, and huge increases in e-commerce and online banking. Overall, global internet users grew by more than 10% in 2020, the largest annual increase in a decade, the report notes. But these massive increases only tell part of the story.

For starters, a significant portion of new internet users during the pandemic and global, internet users generally connect infrequently and often only through shared devices or via limited low connectivity speeds. Secondly, there's clearly a massive digital divide separating rich nations and poorer developing countries. Ninety-six percent of those still unable to connect to the internet fall in the latter category. There are also huge gaps between urban and rural access, while 76 percent of individuals in urban areas worldwide use the internet. That figure dips down to 39% for those in rural areas. Internet access remains skewed towards men as well, particularly in poorer developing countries. While globally 62% of men use the internet compared to

women, that disparity increased significantly in the least developed country where 31% of men connected to the internet compared to 57% of women. And by the way, I'm just reading that and noticing that those percentages make no sense, but I'm reading you verbatim from the page. continuing now. Though the number of total unconnected users is shrinking, they still collectively represent a massive growth opportunity for international tech companies, and there's no shortage of tech giants already vying to be the ones to bring those last 3 billion people online. All around the world, Google, Facebook, and Amazon are spending billions to build out sub-see internet infrastructure that they bet could bolster global internet speeds and access. Meanwhile,

satellite internet companies are hoping they will be able to provide connectivity to customers in rural areas ill-suited for running traditional fiber. SpaceX holds the lead here with its more than 1,800-launched Starlink satellites, but it could face competition from Amazon's Project Kuiper, which is spending big on licenses and recently acquired Facebook's satellite internet team. It's worth noting, though, that Amazon has launched a grand total of zero satellites into space so far. Overall, the satellite internet space is poised for an era of rapid, expensive consolidation in an attempt to potentially usurp traditional telecoms in remote areas, end quote. Finally today, keep posting those Spotify Rapped images, if this podcast was indeed your most

listened to podcast of the year. Curious about what the story behind Spotify Rapt is, so was I. It turns out that it's quite the success for the music streamer. Quoting Protocol's source code newsletter. Rapt has been a hit for the company ever since Spotify launched its year-in-review campaigns seven years ago. According to market analytics firm Mo Engage, RAPT gives Spotify a big boost in new installs. Its mobile app downloads increased by 21% in the first week of December last year. More than 90 million people engaged with Spotify wrapped in 2020, the company reported.

Why is Spotify the only company that is doing this so well or at all? Spotify has managed to accomplish the most rare of things. Create a genuine cultural moment every year, a day on which everyone on the day on the the internet seems to be talking about the same thing. So why doesn't Netflix offer a look back at all the shows you binge-watched this year? Whereas YouTube's report on all the rabbit holes you went deepest into? Could Twitter tell you about your favorite accounts, most viral tweets, and the person to whom you thirstily reply most often? Which of my Slack messages got the most party parrots? A few users joked about Spotify Rapt being just, quote, data collection,

but make it cool, but it's clear that Rapt is actually the kind of data usage people actually enjoy. There are a few similar things out there like the unofficial Instagram Top 9 tool or Apple's music replay feature, which is frankly just a playlist. Not many, though, and none as good or as popular as Rapp. Part of it is surely just Focus. Apple, Amazon, and YouTube all have music and audio divisions, but for Spotify, music and audio is its entire business. Spotify dominates the conversation not just because it's the largest, but it's also the most adept in this regard. Rapt also gets better as Spotify gets smarter. This year is offering includes things like audio aura, which describes the vibes of your music using colors and moods,

and an automatic movie soundtrack to your life based on your listening habits. Is it silly? Yep. It's also more evidence of how well Spotify has come to actually understand the audio on its platform and all the tools that come with it. Spotify has long talked about wanting to understand audio like it does software, and features like RAPT are what that enables. This isn't necessarily an easy thing to get right. For example, remember a few years ago when Facebook's year-in-review feature showed a lot of people, photos, and posts they'd rather not have been confronted with again. Doing something like this where it's not just your most popular stuff or something similar, but an actual dive into what matters to users takes real thought and care and a deep understanding of the

content itself. In that sense, Spotify might have it easy with audio. But either way, it's much closer than anyone else to getting this sort of thing right, end quote. P.S. keep tweeting those Spotify wrapped screenshots. Don't tweet them directly at me because then I'll be the only one that sees them and I'd rather you tell all your friends what your most listened to podcast is, but feel free to at me at Brian MCC at the end of your tweets because I do like to see them. Listener Jeff is the current leader with his Spotify report showing that he listened to 227 episodes this year for a total of four. 4,491 minutes, which, if we assume, sleeping, you know, eight hours a day means he listened to me for a total of five uninterrupted 24-hour days over the last 365 days. Sorry, I guess. But seriously, that's amazing. Thanks as ever to all of you for listening. Talk to you tomorrow.