Tech Brew Ride Home - Tue. 04/30 - All The F8 Announcements

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 Tuesday, April 30th, 2019. I'm Brian McCullough. Today, all the news from Facebook's F8 conference. Cheddar gets acquired, alphabet shows weakness, and why does ring the smart doorbell need a news editor? Here's what you miss today in the world of tech.

Starting point is 00:00:58 Facebook's F8 conference kicked off today, and Mark Zuckerberg took the opportunity to reiterate that Facebook is focusing on privacy. This is real, people. Quote, I believe the future is private, Zuckerberg said. This is the next chapter for our services. I get that a lot of people think we're not serious about this. I know we don't have the strongest reputation on privacy to put it lightly, end quote. But to the headlines, let me get as much as I can in here. Even though the keynote is still happening as I type these words,

Starting point is 00:01:33 Facebook is launching a major redesign that among other things will disqualify. the blue bar at the top of the app, but more importantly, we'll focus on groups and stories with greater prominence. Remember how I said my mom hates everything but her groups? Well, Zuck apparently listened. You can now post to groups directly from the homepage. There is also a brand new feature called Meet New Friends, which as Business Insider described it, sort of functions as a platonic matchmaking service. Basically, you can get introduced to people who match your interests inside groups or even in companies you're a part of. The mobile Facebook app featuring these changes will launch right away while it will roll out more slowly on desktops. Speaking of

Starting point is 00:02:18 matchmaking, remember Facebook dating, it's Tinder rival. Facebook dating has added a feature that I can't believe Facebook proper has never had before this because it is straight out of the 2004 web. It's called Secret Crush and basically you can select nine of your Facebook friends who you want to express a non-Platonic interest in. And if your crush has also opted in to Facebook dating, they will get a notification that someone has a crush on them. If they select you as their secret crush, it's a match, and both sides are revealed.

Starting point is 00:02:50 If there's no match, your crush will never know that you've entered their name. Also worth mentioning, Facebook dating is coming to 14 more countries, bringing the total to 19. A desktop messenger app is coming to Windows and Windows. macOS. And again, Stories is getting more prominent inside Messenger, and they're still flogging video, making it easier to watch a video from the Facebook app on Messenger while inviting others to watch together while messaging or on video chat. Messenger will also get a close friends tab, the ability for users to book appointments with merchants and other business tools like

Starting point is 00:03:28 lead generation chatbot templates. Portal is expanding internationally coming to Europe this fall, And it's bringing end-to-end encryption with it, specifically the ability to call your WhatsApp and messenger friends on their portal or their phone from your portal. And, again, privacy, end-to-end encrypted calling. Portal also gets a superframe feature to display your favorite photos. Oculus Quest and Rift S pre-orders are open, and these devices will begin shipping May 21st. And don't forget Instagram. Starting next week, you can buy goods from creators. right on Instagram. If your favorite influencer is, say, wearing a shirt that you like,

Starting point is 00:04:10 you can maybe tap and buy it right there inside Instagram. And starting today, you can launch GoFundMe style fundraisers right inside Instagram as well. Also notable is the news that Instagram is running a test in Canada to hide likes in Instagram feeds on permalinked pages and profiles, quoting from The Verge. Instagram says it wants followers to, quote, focus on the photos and videos you share, not on how many likes they get, end quote. Only the person who owns the account will be able to see how many likes their content received, end quote. As I say, this event is just wrapping up right now, so if there's something that I missed or some deeper analysis is needed, look for that tomorrow.

Starting point is 00:04:57 Sort of out of the blue news, cable operator Altice USA has agreed to acquire streaming video network Cheddar for $200 million in cash. Cheddar founder John Steinberg will become the president of Alteese's news unit after the acquisition. If you're not familiar with Cheddar, it has been called CNBC for millennials, as it covers mainly financial news, but from all the platforms that younger people tend to use. I'll let the Wall Street Journal explain. Quote, since its founding in 2016, Cheddar has become ubiquitous on streaming services including the Roku channel, Hulu, Amazon.com's Twitch, and the so-called Skisketon. guinea bundles such as DishCorp's Sling TV and Philo Inc. Cheddar's strategy of negotiating to obtain carriage on a variety of platforms without charging affiliate fees has allowed its distribution

Starting point is 00:05:48 to grow quickly. Cheddar has also struck deals with traditional cable providers. Earlier this year, Cheddar launched on Spectrum cable in New York as a standalone channel. The company's biggest revenue stream is advertising, end quote. Altice was an investor in earlier rounds of financing for cheddar. Let's do alphabet earnings as quickly as we can. Alphabet's Q1 saw revenue of $36.3 billion, up 17% year over year, but roughly 1 billion short of forecasts. Problem is, quoting CNBC, Google is seeing decelerating growth after consistently expanding at 20% or more in prior periods. Revenue increased 17% down from growth of 28% a year earlier, and ad sales rose 15% down from 24% a year ago. Paid clicks on Google properties grew only 39% from the year ago quarter. That's a sharp drop

Starting point is 00:06:45 from the fourth quarter of 2018 when they were up 66% and third quarter when they were up 62%. It means that Google properties are not growing traffic volumes as quickly to make up for declines in advertising prices, end quote. And quoting the Wall Street Journal, growth slowed across the board. Revenues were up 17% year over year compared with 26% in the last year's first quarter. The company's margin, a constant concern for analysts and investors, fell to 18 percent compared with 25 percent last year. The crimped margin can in part be blamed on last month's $1.7 billion fine from European regulators for abusing the dominance of its search engine and limiting competition. Excluding the fine, the company's margin came in at 23 percent and its per share

Starting point is 00:07:30 earnings were $11.90. The longer term issue, however, is competition. Rivals like Amazon, once content to play in their own corners of the Silicon Valley. sandbox are making big plays at online advertising. In a potentially existential threat to Mountain View California-based Google, more online shoppers now begin their searches directly on Amazon than on search engines, end quote. One quick note, because it's always worth checking in on this, Alphabet's quote other bets, including Waymo, Wing, Verily, etc., had Q1 operating losses of $8.68 million on revenues of just 170 million, though that was up from 150 million year over year. What was that someone tweeted recently about Amazon's other bets actually paying off and making

Starting point is 00:08:16 up for the decline in the core business of retail whilst Google's core ad business is still subsidizing its other bets, even while those go nowhere and the core ad business seems to be in some sort of secular decline. Shares of Alphabet opened down more than 7% this morning, which represents the stock's worst intraday loss since 2012. The Wee Company, better known as We Work announced that it has filed confidentially to join the IPO Cavalcade. The company revealed that its 2018 revenue was $1.8 billion with a net loss of $1.9 billion. Let me say that again. We company's net losses were more than its revenue, and those losses total nearly $2 billion a year, and losses are doubling year over year because losses generally move in lockstep

Starting point is 00:09:12 with Wii revenue. Apparently, the company only lost $9333 million in 2017 on revenue of $866 million. As Chris Siaka tweeted, Can't remember the last time I saw a company that has annual net losses that are greater than its annual revenue, end quote. And I would note that Wee's most recent raise from SoftBank was for $2 billion, so that money is now, poof, already gone. And actually, as the Wall Street Journal notes, even we filing for an IPO now is somewhat interesting, shall we say. Quick recap, quote, the decision by WeWork to file for an IPO caught many observers and even some investors by surprise. The company took the unusual step of filing without assistance from bankers,

Starting point is 00:09:57 the person said. The executives planned to start meeting with the investment banks in the coming weeks to have them pitch for roles in the deal. WeWork's executives began compiling the confidential filing late last year at the same time they were discussing with SoftBank the possibility of the fund taking a majority stake in the company, the person said. SoftBank was considering investing as much as $16 billion into the real estate company, $6 billion of new money, and $10 billion to buy shares from existing investors. If that investment had gone through, it could have made an IPO unnecessary for years. But the deal dissolved after some of SoftBank's investors balked,

Starting point is 00:10:35 and the firm instead invested $1 billion directly in WeWork and bought another $1 billion of existing shares, end quote. Oh, so we didn't even get all of that $2 billion from SoftBank. Cool, cool. Amazon is looking to hire a managing editor of news for its video doorbell company ring to quote, deliver breaking crime news alerts to our neighbors, end quote. Yes, your smart doorbell app wants to deliver you local. crime news, or as the next web headlined it, Amazon wants to deliver crime news and fear

Starting point is 00:11:19 to Ring Doorbell owners. Quote, while the Amazon owned company hasn't explained exactly how this layer of news will fit into its services, it's likely that Ring will surface local crime alerts in its neighbor's mobile app, which is already available and allows people to post updates about suspicious activity around them. The trouble with a security company getting into the crime news business is that it could exacerbate the problem of people growing fearful and paranoid about threats in their area, end quote. Indeed, the problem is, as Neiman Lab director Joshua Benton says, poll after poll, shows that

Starting point is 00:11:52 people stubbornly refuse to believe that crime rates of all types and stripes has been actually plummeting in most localities, the vast majority of localities, for decades. The numbers say crime is down, but people refuse to believe it, preferring to fixate on the latest, if it bleeds, it leads, headline from their local news, perhaps, and moves like this will only make that problem worse. Ring, as we said, already has an app called Neighbors. And if you think Next Door message boards were a jungle of crazy, well, hold somebody's beer. Here's Benton, quote, I downloaded Neighbors. You can do so without owning a ring, aka Lead Generation, and plugged in my address in boring Arlington, Massachusetts, a city of 45,000 that recorded zero murders and only seven

Starting point is 00:12:40 robberies last year. It decided I needed to know that someone in the uniform of a local lawn care service had recently knocked on someone's door instead of using the doorbell and when no one answered left. Also, there was a building fire two towns away a couple days ago. Also, two young people, one male, one female wearing identical t-shirts and halliards with name badges carrying clipboards. In other words, pretty clearly people trying to get signatures for some cause or another, rang a doorbell and then walked away when no one answered. Anyone know who they are? The ring owner asks, perhaps concerned about ISIS infiltration in the Boston suburbs. Call the police, one helpful commenter replies, end quote. As Tom Garah tweeted, editor-in-chief of the internet doorbell

Starting point is 00:13:25 company is a very 2019 media gig, end quote. But in the end of the end-the-end, I'd argue, not a very useful one. Finally, today, Censor Tower says that in Q1 of 2019, apps developed by Chinese firms or by companies with large Chinese investors had revenues of $674.8 million in the U.S. Up 67% year over year. I'm highlighting this because I think that this should be on your radar. It's going to be one of the big narratives of the next decade of the 2020s.

Starting point is 00:14:04 currently were used to most of the apps popular in the world being American, or at least Western, but really American, only things like Spotify or outliers, and were used to things being popular in China or Asia, but not necessarily being popular worldwide, because until now, they didn't tend to translate across borders, unlike big American apps. But things like TikTok and all of the popular games from Tencent are probably only the tip of the coming iceberg. I would say expect that the big apps of the next 10 years are likely to be from everywhere to what degree that means tech is globalizing, or else that we're all going to be moving more towards the Chinese-Asian model for the Internet and tech in general is what remains to be

Starting point is 00:14:52 seen. That's all for today. I've been your host, Brian McCullough. We'll discuss the Apple earnings that are coming out right now, tomorrow. and more from F8 if those headlines need analyzing. But right now I've got to rush home because a certain five-year-old needs a birthday cake. Happy birthday, Penelope. Talk to you tomorrow.

Tech Brew Ride Home - Tue. 04/30 - All The F8 Announcements

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