Tech Brew Ride Home - Tue. 08/17 – Yik Yak Is Back. Act Accordingly.

Episode Date: August 17, 2021

Yik Yak is back, but can it make it in a Tik Tok world? Concerns about how the Taliban are using WhatsApp. OnlyFans wants you to try out a new safe for work app. TikTok is distributing music via the blockchain. And will BlueSky ever see the light of day? Sponsors: Tovala.com/ride Upstart.com/techmeme Links: Remember Yik Yak? Well, it's back and still anonymous. (Mashable) T-Mobile Confirms It Was Hacked (Motherboard) WhatsApp Can’t Ban the Taliban Because It Can’t Read Their Texts (Motherboard) Facebook ‘Proactively’ Removing Taliban Content, Executive Says (Bloomberg) OnlyFans Creates Its First App With a Twist: No Nudity, No Cost (Bloomberg) And the First Streaming Service to Partner With TikTok Is… (Rolling Stone) Tinder will make its ID Verification option available to all users (The Verge) Salesforce introduces new Slack integrations post-acquisition (Venture Beat) Twitter taps crypto developer to lead decentralized social media initiative Bluesky (The Block) 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, August 17th, 2021. I'm Brian McCullough. Today, Yikyak is back, but can it make it in a TikTok world? Concerns about how the Taliban are using WhatsApp. Only fans want you to try out a new Safe for Work app.

TikTok is distributing music via the blockchain and will blue sky ever see the light of day? Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. It's pretty rare to see a failed app or company return for a second chance at light. especially when the app in question was controversial the first time. But Yick-Yack, the app that creates anonymous message boards for users within a five-mile radius, returned to the U.S. iOS app store yesterday after its 2017 shutdown. Oh, and one more wrinkle to this story, at least at the time of this writing, we don't know who's responsible for the app's resurrection, quoting Mashable.

Details on the relaunch remain relatively scarce. It just sort of showed up on Monday after being teased last week. The announcement video, for some reason, I cannot begin to unpack, featured Brian Baumgartner, who played Kevin Malone on the office. Right now, Yikyak is available only to iPhone users in the U.S., but the app promised it would launch for others soon. In case you forgot, Yikyak promises anonymity creating a forum and message board for users within a five-mile radius. The new version of the app appears pretty similar to how it used to look. My radius, which extends five miles out from my apartment in Brooklyn, already had a number of New Yorkers posting. Naturally, folks were already chatting about hooking up, gossiping, and the scars of the first version of Yikyak.

The original version of Yikyak was around for only a few years, 2013 through 2017, but it made a major impact for better or worse. The first iteration of Yikyak was focused on college kids, the app itself founded by Tyler Droll and Brooks Buffington, two students at Furman University in South Carolina. It was somewhat of an overnight success in 2014, exploding in popularity. Every school had a yikyak community. Once valued at $400 million, the app shuttered in 2017 with some of its engineering talent being bought by the Payment Service Square. It's unclear who is behind the app now, and Mashable has asked the app for clarification. The anonymity the app afforded, however, predictably led to bullying, harassment and threats. The fun bits of college gossip and random posting, however, were often drowned out by kids, frankly, just being mean. Mashable reached out to Yikyak asking about the new version of

the app, but did not immediately receive a response, end quote. As Casey Newton tweeted, quote, you know how sometimes a group of occult priests will work for years in secret to reawaken an ancient evil? Anyway, Yikyak is back, end quote. I have to do an unfortunate follow up here right now. T-Mobile has confirmed that hackers gained access to its systems, following reports that sensitive data, including Social Security numbers, for over 100 million people, was for sale on the dark web. Quoting motherboard, we have determined that unauthorized access to some T-Mobile data occurred. However, we have not yet determined that there is any personal customer data involved, T-Mobile wrote in its new announcement. This investigation will take

some time, but we are working with the highest degree of urgency. Until we have completed this assessment, we cannot confirm the reported number of records affected or the validity of statements made by others. We have been working around the clock to investigate claims being made that T-Mobile data may have been illegally accessed. We take the protection of our customers very seriously, and we are conducting an extensive analysis alongside digital forensic experts to understand the validity of these claims, and we are coordinating with law enforcement. T-Mobile's announcement added, and quote. And this is unfortunate to have to report, but as Motherboard is also reporting, the newly resurgent Taliban, apparently heavily uses what?

WhatsApp to coordinate and spread messages as the services end-to-end encryption makes banning the group difficult. Quote, a WhatsApp spokesperson declined to answer a series of specific questions about WhatsApp's role and response to the Taliban using its platform. The company spokesperson said that WhatsApp complies with U.S. sanctions law, so if it encounters any sanctioned people or organizations using the app, it will take action, including banning the accounts. This obviously depends on identifying who uses WhatsApp without having access to any of the messages sent through the platform given that the app uses end-to-end encryption. This would explain why WhatsApp hasn't taken action against some account spreading the Taliban's message in Afghanistan. As a private messaging service, we do not have access to the contents of people's personal chats. However, if we become aware that a sanctioned individual organization may have a presence on WhatsApp,

we take action, the spokesperson said. According to the Washington Post, the Taliban sent messages to Kabul residents saying they were in charge of security in the city now and that citizens should report any looting or irresponsible behavior to them. Quote, the Islamic Emirate assures you that no one should be in panic or feeling fear, one message said, according to the article. Quote, Taliban is taking over the city without fighting and no one will be at risk, end quote. Facebook's Adam Mosseri told Bloomberg that Facebook, the company at large, is, quote, proactively removing content from its platforms that promotes or represents the Taliban. Quote, we are relying on that policy to proactively take down anything that we can that might be

dangerous or that is related to the Taliban in general, Mosseri said. Now this situation is evolving rapidly and with it, I'm sure the risk will evolve as well. We are going to have to modify what we do and how we do it to respond to these changing risks as they happen, end quote. The Taliban uses social media to mobilize support, said Emerson Brooking, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and co-author of Like War, the weaponization of social media. Quote, the decisions that are made by Facebook and Twitter in the next couple days will have a direct impact on the lives of the many people

who find themselves under the Taliban's rule, Brookings said in an interview with Bloomberg Television, end quote. As it apparently prepares to raise new funding, OnlyFans has begun promoting what is calling OFTV, a free, safe-for-work app available on iOS and Android, with more than 800 videos already on there. Going Bloomberg. The most common question customers ask Tim Stokely,

the chief executive officer of OnlyFans, is why he doesn't have an app. Some 130 million people use his service every month to follow fitness instructors, get cooking tips, or access nude pictures. But they have to access the service using its website because Apple and Google won't allow OnlyFans in their app stores. That's all about to change.

OnlyFans has created an app called OFTV that offers video featuring many. of OnlyFans's biggest stars. There is a catch, however, there is no nudity. The app offers a library of more than 800 videos, including the original series Unlocked, which features conversations with creators such as Mia Khalifa, Bella Thorn, and Holly Madison. It also includes original videos from Pilates instructors, chefs, and podcasters. The app is available on all the major devices, including iOS, Roku, and Amazon Fire. OnlyFans just released the app in January, but hasn't promoted it at all. Starting this week, the company begins a push to target people who don't

already use OnlyFans. The new app is part of the company's strategy to shed its reputation as a purveyor of pornography and rebrand itself as a vital tool for all online creators. The average person who has heard of OnlyFans still associates it with nudity, but OnlyFans believes the same people who use Patreon to charge their fans for exclusive access to a podcast episode should consider using OnlyFans instead. the more mainstream creators and celebrities it can bring onto its platform, the more accessible the company becomes in the mind of the consumer and the investors. This is a key part of its message as OnlyFans tries to raise money at evaluation north of $1 billion, and Stokely said he hoped

to close a deal by the end of the year, end quote. Tick-Tock has partnered with Audius, a music streaming service built on Ethereum to let users upload their music as Tick-Tock sounds, quoting Rolling Stone. If the music streaming landscape were a horse race, Audius would be a multicolored pygmy unicorn. The young blockchain-powered service may be hard to spot in the dust that trails stallions like Spotify and Apple Music, but it has been steadily making headway since its arrival in 2018.

As crypto emerged as a pop culture buzzword in 2021, Audius grew significantly, rising from less than a million monthly active users in January to 5 million in August. On Monday, company execs tell Rolling, Stone, Audius will take a big jump forward, revealing a first-of-its-kind partnership with TikTok that lets its artists quickly and directly upload their music as TikTok sounds. Currently, there are more than 100,000 artists with music on Audius, which attracts a lot of out-of-the-box thinkers, DIY creators, and underground scenesters.

Audius might be an indie artist's dream, but major label acts are also welcome. While a major label act could, in theory, upload their whole catalog to Audius, that's not typical, mainly because music executives don't like to ruffle the feathers of Spotify, Apple, and other industry tastemakers when they already have relationships in place. However, fun side projects, exclusive tracks, demos, and mixtapes are fair game. Some of the biggest names with tracks on the platform include Scrilex, Weezer, Deadmouse, Russ, Mike Shinoda, Diplo, and more. Although the fully decentralized platform, which also acts as a musical social network of sorts,

relies on crypto-related technology to operate, that messaging is not jammed the throat of its users. Quote, I would say that maybe 95% of our users have no idea that blockchain is even involved, says Browning. The Ethereum blockchain is just crucial to Audius' direct-to-consumer ethos as it cuts out the middleman and tracks transactions transparently. Audius also supports NFTs, but they're not in the business of buying and selling. The NFTs on Audius instead act as engagement and social tokens, unlocking goodies and extra capabilities. Executives deny having any plans of becoming a marketplace, explaining that there already are a wide variety of options for that. Quote, for us, it would be kind of like duct-taping eBay onto Spotify, Browning ads.

We could do it, but I don't know if that's the best use of our engineering resources. We'd rather just partner with solutions like OpenC, end quote. Tinder says it is going to bring its optional ID verification feature to all members globally in the coming quarters, quoting the verge. The feature will allow users to verify their identities by uploading documentation. In Japan, where the feature has been live since 2019, a passport or license is typically used, but that may vary from place to place. The company said it will take into consideration recommendations from experts and input from Tinder members about which documents would be used in each country, as well as local regulations and laws while it rolls out the feature. Tinder says it will use the feedback to ensure the process is inclusive and privacy-friendly. Cozell, head of trust and safety product at Tinder, said the company is taking a test and learn approach to the ID verification launch. Quote, we know one of the most valuable things Tinder can do to make members feel safe is to give them more confidence that their matches are authentic and more control over who they interact with, Kozl said in a statement.

ID verification will initially be voluntary except as required by local law, and Tinder acknowledges that some users may not want to share their identities online, end quote. This was to be expected, I guess. Salesforce this morning announced deeper integration between its services and Slack, including Sales Cloud and Tableau, following the close of Salesforce's acquisition of Slack, which I believe closed in July, quoting Venture Beat. The enhancements are designed to connect employees, customers, and partners in a single platform, Salesforce says, with the ultimate goal of helping to close deals, resolve cases, and optimize sales campaigns. One of the reasons some employers avoided remote work pre-pandemic is

concerns around worker productivity and their ability to collaborate with distributed team members. According to a recent flex jobs survey, approximately a third of workers who made the transition from in-person to remote work during the pandemic said that their collaboration remained as strong as it was in person, while 29% felt that some things can be more difficult. A similar number of workers said that their ability to collaborate improved a little or a lot with 5% characterizing virtual collaboration as more difficult than in-person collaboration. To address these challenges, Salesforce is introducing account and deal. Slack rooms to sales cloud, which the company says will allow sales teams to interact around a customer deal cycle. The new rooms unify files, conversations, and data in one place, letting reps and partners on board accounts by accessing the room's histories and joining in to help close a deal. A complementary new feature called

automated daily briefs provides reps with a daily list of tasks, meetings, priority deals, and changes to Salesforce records within sales cloud. Meanwhile, swarming an expert finder, two new features in Service Cloud create a Slack channel for service teams to collaborate on high priority cases and automatically identify experts to add to a swarm channel based on availability, capacity, and skills, end quote. Finally today, do you remember Blue Sky, the decentralized social media initiative unveiled by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey in 2019? That's right, making social media based on open standards instead of proprietary walled gardens. But you'll forgive me if my skepticism bleeds through here that blue sky will ever see the light of day, I guess.

But after not much word in the last year or so about the project word came yesterday, that blue sky will be led by Jay Grabber, a former startup founder and cryptocurrency developer, quoting the block. Jay Grabber, a former software engineer for Zcash and Scoochane and the founder of Social Events Startup Happening Inc. will spearhead the effort. Graber said in a tweet, quote, I look forward to partnering closely with Twitter and other companies as we embark on this journey. It won't happen overnight, but we'll share our progress along the way, end quote. Dorsey announced in December 2019 that the social media giant was funding a small group of developers to build Blue Sky, which he described at the time as, quote, a decentralized standard for

social media, end quote. On its official website, the project's stated aim is, quote, rebuilding the social web by connecting disconnected silos and returning control of the social experience to users, end quote. Graber said in a tweet that, quote, my next step will be hiring for the blue sky team, end quote. So, you know, feel free to look past my skepticism if you're looking for a cool job, because you got to admit, if it ever does become a thing, blue sky would be a hell of a project to work on. Nothing for you today. Once again, talk to you tomorrow.