Tech Brew Ride Home - Tue. 05/12 - Quibbling With Quibi

Episode Date: May 12, 2020

Is Uber about to gobble Grubhub? Twitter does something Facebook and YouTube did a long time ago. Details on Apple’s forthcoming over the ears headphones. New releases for developers and music producers. And look, let’s have a conversation about Quibi. Sponsors: TinyCapital.com Rhone.com/ridehome promo code: ridehome Links: Twitter launches labels, warnings on misleading COVID-19 information (Reuters) Exclusive: AirPods Studio to feature head and neck detection, custom equalizer settings, more (9to5Mac) Apple releases 'major' update to Logic Pro X (AppleInsider) Microsoft's VS Code 1.45 is out: GitHub integration plus JavaScript debugger update (ZDNet) Jeffrey Katzenberg Blames Pandemic for Quibi’s Rough Start (NYTimes) 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 Tuesday, May 12th, 2020. I'm Brian McCullough. Today is Uber about to gobble Grubhub. Twitter does something Facebook and YouTube did a long time ago.

Details on Apple's forthcoming over-the-ears, headphones, new releases for developers and music producers. And look, it's time to have a conversation about Quibi. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. At the time of this writing, shares in food delivery company Grubhub, are soaring more than 24% on rumors that Uber has made an offer to acquire that company with an agreement possible as soon as this month. I literally have nothing else to share at this moment because the news is just breaking, but the rumors are being reported by Bloomberg News. Grubhub was currently valued around $4.5 billion, so this would not be a cheap acquisition for Uber

if indeed it happens. And all I'll say is this. This is something that has been widely anticipated for a while now because it's so obvious. consolidation in the on-demand delivery space is something that has needed to happen for a while now, and seamless is the obvious candidate for a takeover because it's not as big as some of the other larger players, but it still has huge market share. Here's a conversation that just took place on Twitter between Jason Del Rey and Dan Primack. Jason said, quote, an Uber deal has been a matter of who and when, not if. Buy Grubhub and you get a big profitable

player, but still have to deal with wild spender in DoorDash. Buy DoorDash, and you get to take out an aggressive spender, but burn more cash. Maybe just comes down to DoorDash costing too much, end quote. But Dan retorted, Grubhub is only profitable based on a model that Uber doesn't follow, and which Grubhub is moving away from, because it lost share to Uber slash DoorDash. To which Jason responded, quote, yep, so does Uber go hybrid with that model, or is it really just that DoorDash is too expensive with Uber's big market cap drop? Or is it possible, Jason doesn't have all the answers, end quote. Twitter is adding labels and warning messages to tweets

about COVID-19 that contain misleading or disputed content. And Twitter says they intend to expand this new labeling system to other topics going forward, quoting Reuters. Twitter's new labels will provide links to more information in cases where the risk of harm from the tweet is not severe enough to be removed, but people could be confused or misled, Twitter said in a blog post. The company said that depending on the propensity for harm and type of misleading information in the tweet, warnings may also be added to say the tweet conflicts with guidance from public health experts before a user views it. Twitter said these labels, which will look similar to ones launched to flag synthetic and manipulated media, will also apply to tweets that

have been sent before Twitter's announcement and will be used regardless of who sent the tweet. one of the differences in our approach here is that we're not waiting for a third party to have made a cast iron decision one way or another, said Twitter's public policy director, Nick Pickles. We're reflecting the debate rather than stating the outcome of a deliberation, he added. Twitter said it would not take action on tweets with information unconfirmed at the time of sharing, but it could place warnings or labels on disputed claims, as well as those confirmed as false, end quote. So two things to note here. This is Twitter finally doing what even you and Facebook have been doing for a while now. And also, this seemingly would apply even to tweets

from the President of the United States, if I'm reading that correctly. Aviv Ovadya tweeted, quote, great step forward in theory, albeit much belated, except there is still literally no way to report such misleading information if you aren't a trusted partner. It's odd how Twitter is both proactively monitoring and not collecting data needed for monitoring, end quote. And Lisa Kaplan tweeted, quote, Look, I'm as skeptical as everyone else, but we got to start somewhere. So while I'm not giving out participation trophies for what should have been done four years ago, and this is hardly groundbreaking, choosing optimism because it's all we have right now, end quote.

Sources are saying apples over-the-ear headphones that have been hotly rumored for a while now will be called AirPods Studio. And among other bells and whistles will feature head and new. neck detection sensors, as well as automated audio channel routing and much more, quoting 9 to 5 Mac. One of the key features of regular AirPods is earpots, which automatically pauses the song when you take the earphones out. We've learned that AirPods Studio will have a similar feature, but it will work in a different way. Instead of ear detection, Apple is working to include sensors that can detect whether the headphones are on your head or neck. Based on this, we assume that AirPods Studio will

play or pause content when they detect being placed on your head. Neck detection can be used to keep the headset turned on while the music is paused, just like when you take out just one of the AirPods out of your ear. Another new sensor will be able to detect left and right ears to automatically route the audio channels. That means there's likely no right or wrong side to use AirPods Studio, whereas current headphones have fixed left and right channels. Just like the AirPods Pro, Apple's new headphones will have active

noise cancellation and transparency mode. Users will be able to easily switch between the two modes to reduce external noise or hear the ambient sound, end quote. You might remember that Bloomberg recently said that the over-the-ear headphones will be coming in two variants, high-end and low, and will focus on things like fabrics and color types for style plate purposes. And the rumors of the price point remain at the $350. range. Apple has unveiled a big new update to Logic Pro 10, which it is calling the biggest update to that program since its launch. What is new? Aside from a redesign workflow, there's also new live loops with new freeform nonlinear creation, a new sampler and quick sampler featuring NextGen

XS23, new combined three-on-one panels and beat creation with a step sequencer, drum synth, and drum machine designer, also quoting Apple Insider. With live loops on the Mac, logic users can now create music in new freeform and nonlinear ways. Apple notes that loops, samples, and recordings can be organized into a new musical grid with musicians able to can perform and capture arrangements and refine them in logic. Remix FX enhances live loops with electronic effects like bitcrusher, filter, gator, and repeater, and all can be applied in real time. The Logic Remote, app allows users to pair their iPhone or iPad with their Mac to provide multi-touch control over live loops and remix FX. Step Sequencer is a new editor in Logic to program drum beats,

baselines, and melodic parts using an interface inspired by what Apple calls classic drum machine workflows. Step Sequencer combines a pattern-based style of music creation with editing options to provide detailed control over note velocity, repeat, gate, skip, playback direction, and randomization. Sampler is an implementation of the industry. standard XS-24 plugin, redesigned, and fully backwards compatible. And QuickSampler allows users to pick a sound from within logic, the finder, voice memos, or even record directly. And here's some news for developers.

Microsoft's Visual Studio Code 1.45 is out. It's got a whole bunch of new bells and whistles as well, including GitHub integration plus JavaScript debugger updates, TypeScript improvements, faster syntax, high highlighting and more, quoting ZDNet. The automatic GitHub authentication feature lets VScode users clone, pool, and push to and from GitHub repositories without the need to configure a systems credential manager. Additionally, the GitHub pool requests and issues extension for VS code has gained support for GitHub issues with in-line completion suggestions for issues and users, a view for custom queries, and more. This version of VS code supports the new issues feature,

The extension also now lets users clone a repository and publish a repository to GitHub. The VS code team is also encouraging users to try the GitHub issue notebook extension, which is part of its search for a notebook solution that is unbiased and supports different styles of notebooks. The extension only works with VS code insiders and is still under development, end quote. Finally today, I've got to add my two cents to this one. Nicole Spurling at the New York Times got a hold of. Jeffrey Katzenberg to ask him how things are going over at Quibi. She notes in the piece that Quibi fell out of the 50 most downloaded iPhone apps within a week of launching, and it is currently ranked 125 on the App Store list behind the game app,

knock them all. According to Censor Tower, Quibi has only been installed by 2.9 million consumers, though Quibi says the real number is 3.5 million with 1.3 million active users. Note, however, that I said active users, not daily active or monthly active. And here begins the quoting of the piece. Mr. Katzenberg expressed disappointment with those numbers. Is it the avalanche of people we wanted and were going for out of launch, he said? The answer is no.

It's not up to what we wanted. It's not close to what we wanted, end quote. Then there is this money quote that everyone has been sharing. I attribute everything that has gone wrong to coronavirus, Mr. Katzenberg said in a video interview, everything, but we own it, end quote. So let's start there. Quibi is seemingly failing, but it's not our fault. But at the same time, we own the failings. Aren't those two statements directly contradictory? Also, how can it be that the coronavirus moment when people are stuck at home and starved for content and distractions.

How can it be that that has led to record numbers at Netflix, at Disney Plus, at seemingly every other digital distraction out there? While, meanwhile, Katzenberg seems to think that coronavirus has caused Quibi to fail. Well, remember, Katsenberg always envisioned that the value proposition here was Quickbytes, thus the name Quibi, i.e. short form content that you would consume when you were on the go, maybe commuting or standing in line at the grocery store, which of course now can't happen as often. Quoting from the piece again, my hope, my belief was that there would still be many in-between moments while sheltering in place, Mr. Katzenberg said. There are still those moments, but it's not the same.

It's out of sync, end quote. Yeah, see, here's what I and other people haven't gotten this whole time. If the point of your product is entertainment, why does it? your entertainment seemingly not work in any situation that I might find myself in? You're telling me I would naturally only want quick bites in certain context-specific situations, but not others. Why would I turn to a quick bite only when standing in line outside my house with a quick 10 minutes to spare, but not stuck inside my house for hours at a time, days at a time, with literally nothing else to do. Like, it doesn't work that way for any other form of entertainment. Like, if I'm bored, I'll turn to anything at hand, a crossword, a magazine

article, a Spotify playlist, literally anything that I can turn to to be entertained. It's not like I only do crosswords in the waiting room at the doctor's office, but nowhere else. If the point of a product is to be entertaining, why would you start with the assumption of, well, this product is only designed to be entertaining on Tuesday afternoons? when people are standing on one foot with their left eyes closed. It's just bizarre. Here's another quote. There are a whole bunch of things we have now seen in the product that we thought we got mostly right, he said.

But now that there are hundreds of people on there using it, you go, uh-oh, we didn't see that, end quote. Which at least in the context of the article, seems to be referring to Quibi's recent pivot to allow people to watch Quibi QuickBites on places other than just their smartphones. You can now watch Quibi on your TV if you really want to. And it also might refer to Quibi's only recent decision to allow people to share things like screenshots and other clips of QuickBites on social media, something that Quibi was initially barring people from doing. So wait a minute.

In the year of Our Lord 2020, you didn't think it was important to allow people to watch on a big screen or make your stuff go viral? All right. Then there's this, quoting again. Quibi placed a large bet on news programming for a lineup of shows from NBC, BBC, Telemundo, and ESPN that it filed under the name Daily Essentials. Interest in those segments has been minimal. The Daily Essentials are not that essential, Mr. Katzenberg quipped, end quote. And then there's this final paragraph.

When asked if the success of TikTok gave him pause, considering that it is also a platform built on short form video, albeit of the user-generated variety, Mr. Katzenberg seemed momentarily steamed. That's like comparing apples to submarines, he said. I don't know what people are expecting from us. What did Netflix look like 30 days after it launched? To tell me about a company that has a billion users and is doing great in the past six weeks, I'm happy for them, but what the hell does it have to do with me? End quote. So you created a media platform that did not allow for social media sharing,

that assumed people would want old-style news programs because clearly that's what all the kids are sharing on YouTube and Instagram these days. And you think that the success of TikTok is not even remotely a relevant template to show you what actually works in media in the modern era. If you saw the mobile revolution and your takeaway from that was that people only want to watch things on their phones on the go, when the takeaway should have been, people just want to watch things whenever and however is convenient. Even if that happens to be a small screen that they take out of their pockets, then, like,

were you doing early product testing? and did you just ignore what that testing should have showed you about user behavior? Look, as I've said on Twitter and on Leo Leport's show and maybe even here, I don't remember. My assumption all along has been that Katzenberg once saw a TED talk or a PowerPoint presentation or something like that about how kids today don't have attention spans for anything over 10 minutes, and that one anecdotal data point was something he just simply couldn't get out of his head. after all, as I've said before, he's wanted to do this for 20 years. In the late 90s, it was a company called pop.com, and it was similar short-form stuff that he blew a ton of money on then. But now my new theory is the simple Occam's Razor one of just old-school ego.

Katzenberg is an old-school media mogul who saw YouTube come along and then Netflix come along and all of media upended by these upstarts and it stuck in his craw. Why wasn't he the one who completely transformed media? He knew how to do media better than any of these Johnny Come Lately's. He's literally said that in interviews recently. And no one could tell him otherwise to the tune of $1.8 billion raised. Like Katzenberg was seemingly self-aware enough to know that he couldn't just launch a YouTube clone and be successful, that he couldn't just launch a Netflix Part 2 and have any hope of differentiating and standing out. But then he hung his hat on this short,

gimmick on the on the go gimmick and just yada yadaed over anything else. What if the real Occam's Razor answer to all of this is, maybe the first principle of an entertainment product is not the consumption gimmick you're assuming is required for success in the modern era. Maybe the first principle should always be actually entertaining people, however, and whenever they want to be entertained with no made-up BS artificial constraints layered on top of it. That is all for today. It seems that my wife and my kids have moved up into the home office with me. So now the work environment is very family-friendly in here. Shall we say, family-intensive?

There's a big kindergarten Zoom session going on right behind me as I wrote this script out. And Max is doing his homework in the corner of the room, which his homework consists of watching Spider-Man cartoons on Disney Plus all day. suddenly I'm wearing my studio headphones all morning long while I work. My new key productivity tool is having a long Boards of Canada playlist on Spotify for the purposes of staying focused. Talk to you tomorrow.