Tech Brew Ride Home - Wednesday, Apr. 11, 2018 - A Spotify/Hulu Bundle

Episode Date: April 11, 2018

Zuckerberg’s back on the hot seat, Spotify and Hulu have a new bundle, changes might be coming to Gmail, we might have new Spectacles soon, and Uber adds a car rental option. Stories from: @KaleighRogers, @sarahjeong Links:Four Questions Congress Should Ask Mark Zuckerberg (Wired)Let’s Talk About Mark Zuckerberg’s Claim that Facebook 'Doesn’t Sell Data' (Motherboard)Here's How Much Facebook Donated to Every Lawmaker Questioning Mark Zuckerberg this Week (The Verge) Credits: Produced by @brianmcc and the @techmeme staff Music by @jpschwinghamer 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 Ride Home for Wednesday, April 11th, 2018. Today, Zuckerberg's back on the hot seat. There's a new Spotify Hulu bundle.

Changes might be coming to Gmail. There might be new spectacles in our future, and Uber ads car rental options. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. This morning, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was back on Capitol Hill, this time testifying before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. A few interesting tidbits from today. Congresswoman Anna Eschew, who represents Silicon Valley, asked Zuckerberg if any of his own personal data was included in the data sold to malicious third parties. Zuckerberg said yes.

Representative Frank Pallone asked Zuckerberg for a yes or no answer on whether he'd commit to changing default settings to minimize the collection of users' data. Zuckerberg demurred saying, quote, this is a complex issue that I think deserves more than a one-word answer. Representative Jan Schakowski read a long list of Zuckerberg's public apologies, going all the way back to his apologies for FaceMash at Harvard. Quote, you have a long list of apologies, the representative said. She then said that this was an indication that, quote, self-regulation does not work. The headlines and analysis from yesterday's nearly five hours of testimony

before the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committees rolled in overnight, a few takeaways from yesterday. Zuckerberg didn't rule out the possibility that one day Facebook might offer a paid version of its service that would presumably not show ads and, in theory, collect less data on us. He insisted that there would always be a free version of the service, but he told one senator that a paid version was something Facebook would consider.

When Senator Lindsay Graham asked Zuckerberg to name Facebook's biggest competitor, he couldn't come up with one. When asked if Facebook was too powerful, Zuckerberg said, it certainly doesn't feel like that to me. But Graham seemed determined to press home the idea that Facebook was a sort of de facto monopoly. Quote, if I buy a Ford and it doesn't work well and I don't like it, I can buy a Chevy, Graham said. If I'm upset with Facebook, what's the equivalent product that I can go sign up for? Senator John Kennedy told Zuckerberg, quote, Your user agreement sucks. I don't want to vote to have to regulate Facebook,

but by God, I will. A lot of that depends on you. Zuckerberg was asked about persistent rumors that Facebook listens in on your phone calls in order to better target ads. Senator Gary Peters asked, yes or no? Does Facebook use audio obtained from mobile devices to enrich personal information about users?

No, Zuckerberg said. artificial intelligence also came up a lot in Zuckerberg's answers as a sort of panacea for issues like content moderation. And interestingly, a photojournalist from the Associated Press managed to snap a picture of Zuckerberg's own notes during the Senate hearing. Among the interesting tidbits in the photo, if questions arose about whether or not Facebook should be broken up, the suggestion on the page was to counter with the notion that that would put the U.S. at a strategic disadvantage. quote, U.S. tech companies' key asset for America. Breakup strengthens Chinese companies, the note said. Facebook apparently wanted to parry attention back toward Apple.

One note read, quote, lots of stories about apps misusing Apple data, never seen Apple notify people. Finally, there was seemingly an emergency go-to statement if the questioning got especially heated. A note read, quote, if attacked, respectfully I reject that. Not who we are, end quote. As I mentioned yesterday, a lot of senators seemed to be embarrassingly uninformed about what Facebook actually does or at least how it functions. Senator Orrin Hatch asked Zuckerberg, quote, How do you sustain a business model in which users don't have to pay for your service? Senator, we run ads, Zuckerberg replied.

Senator Brian Shats asked Zuckerberg whether Facebook could see emails he sends on WhatsApp, which Facebook owns, of course. Obviously, though, you don't send emails on WhatsApp, and WhatsApp has long been. encrypted. Just my own opinion, but I thought some of the questions today from the representatives were a bit sharper and more contentious than the questions Zuckerberg faced from senators yesterday. But Wired also published overnight a useful list of questions that they wished Congress would ask, questions that might get better answers. For example, Zuckerberg got a lot of mileage out of repeating the line that Facebook doesn't sell user data. He repeated that eight times in Tuesday's testimony. Well, that's technically true. It's sort of missing the forest for the trees.

As Callie Rogers wrote in Motherboard, quote, As noble as it may seem that Facebook isn't selling your private data on an open market, the reality is that it serves Facebook to keep that data under lock and key. It's valuable, and by not allowing other entities to access it, Facebook can monetize that same data over and over again. If it sold the data to an advertiser, that data would lose some of its value, end quote. So Wired suggested asking how Facebook tracks users when they're not on Facebook. It also suggested pulling out a laptop and asking Zuckerberg to walk a congressman

through the process of actually changing the privacy settings on Facebook. And one other interesting side note, The Verge tallied up the amount of campaign contributions Facebook has made to the Congress folk that Zuckerberg has been testifying to these last few days. Over the last 12 years, Facebook has reportedly spent $7 million, in campaign contributions. In comparison, Amazon has only spent $4 million over the course of 20 years. The Verge reports that Facebook has contributed a total of $641,685 to members of Congress

that Zuckerberg has been testifying before. The top recipients included Senator Cory Booker, Senator Kamala Harris, and Representative Anna Eschew, who we mentioned earlier. Booker was the top recipient. to the tune of $44,000. Orrin Hatch, the senator who seemed confused by Facebook's business model, was the sixth largest recipient of Facebook campaign contributions, having received $15,000 since 2014.

Spotify and Hulu are teaming up with a combined subscription bundle. For $12.99 per month, first, Spotify premium members, but later this summer, every Spotify user will be able to get Hulu's limited commercial streaming service, as well as Spotify's streaming music service. By itself, Hulu's limited commercial plan is $799 a month, and of course, Spotify is $9.99 a month, so if you sign up for this deal,

you'll be saving around $5 a month by bundling them together. Spotify and Hulu offered a similar bundle back in September, but it was only available to students at that time. The student bundle is notably cheaper, though, coming in at $4.99 a month for both services. Still, this is a great deal for the rest of us, and it's a smart deal for the two streaming companies as well. One of the things people have been talking about lately is subscription fatigue. How many different services are you paying $9.99 a month for or $12.99 a month for, etc.

By joining forces, obviously, Hulu and Spotify hope they can represent a single entertainment charge on your bill that will be sticky. We'll get you to stick around and keep subscribing forever. And for Spotify, it's a chance to preempt Apple's upcoming... video subscription service that will reportedly be bundled with an Apple Music subscription, and of course, an Amazon Prime membership already gets you music and video streaming alongside free shipping on things like laundry detergent. Quote, based on the outstanding performance of the Spotify and Hulu student package, it's clear that consumers love to combine their music and television experiences together.

So said Tim Connolly, senior vice president, head of distribution and partnerships at Hulu. quote, Hulu and Spotify are brands that are defining how fans connect with entertainment in the future, and we are excited to expand our partnership to bring this combined package to all existing and new Spotify premium subscribers, end quote. There is a tiny catch that at the moment the bundle is only available to the 71 million or so existing Spotify premium members, but when this rolls out to everyone this summer, Spotify clearly hopes that they can entice some of those millions of others that have not yet signed up for paid accounts on Spotify.

In related news, Bloomberg is reporting that Spotify is developing a new version of its app that will make it easier for those millions of free streamers to navigate. With the app update, Bloomberg reports that free mobile listeners will be able to access playlists more quickly and will have more control over what songs they hear on top playlists, features that previously were only available to the paying subscribers. Spotify's stated goal this year is to be able to. reach about 200 million total users and hopes to reach 96 million subscribers, again up from the about 71 million subscribers right now.

Google has been sending emails to G Suite customers telling them that a new design for Gmail on the web is in the mail, as it were. Among the changes reportedly coming soon to Gmail, you'll now be able to access Google Calendar directly from the Gmail interface. You'll also be able to snooze emails so that they'll pop back into your inbox at a time of your choosing. Handy for reminding yourself to respond to something if you don't have the time to do so at this moment.

Also smart replies, which you might be familiar with from your smartphone, are coming to the web interface. And finally, Google seems to be working on some ways to store your emails on your computer so that you don't necessarily have to have internet access just to read your email. Crunch's romaine delay was contacted by a reader who said he had seen a Google employee using the new design interface on a bus. According to that reader, Sahil Bhutani, quote, it was a hybrid of Gmail and inbox. The left side column was more like inbox.com, and the right side was an enlarged version of Gmail. The color in the background had a bluish gradient. Every folder on the left

had an icon just like inbox and dividers to split the categories, end quote. According to the email, G Suite users have been receiving, you will have to opt in to an early adopter program to access the new Gmail ahead of everyone else. But that's something you'll be able to do in about a few weeks' time. You might remember that Snap recently had to announce that the company was writing off close to $40 million as a result of unsold inventory of its spectacles product. If so, you might have assumed that spectacles were dead, an expensive product misfire. However, it looks like you would be wrong. Variety reported late last night that it had seen FCC documents that indicate second-generation spectacles might be in the pipeline and might be debuting in the fall of this year. Cheddar had also reported recently that Snap might be working on two new spectacles models, but the documents Variety saw mentioned spectacles specifically by name as well as using the title Model Zero-Z02, which would strongly indicate that this is the next generation of the wearable.

camera glasses. According to Variety, quote, one of the major hardware changes seems to be the support of 802.11A.C. Wi-Fi standard, which will support faster file transfers in the 5-Gahertz band. Also notable, Snap's original spectacles featured an FCC ID label on the inside of the temples. The new version will instead come with an electronic ID label, accessible within the Snapchat app, which could suggest a redesigned frame. Snap did not respond to requests for comment about this story. There are a few interesting new features coming soon to your Uber app. Uber Today announced that soon they will be showing you new forms of transportation options,

including bike share, public transportation, and even car rental. As for the car rental option in particular, Uber announced a partnership today with Get Around, which lets users rent vehicles from private car owners. This feature will go under the name Uber Rent and will debut later this month in San Francisco. Uber also announced today a partnership with London-based company Masabi, which helps customers book and use public transit over mobile. This comes, of course, after Google has been making efforts to integrate non-traditional transportation options under its brand. On April 9th, if you'll remember, Uber purchased jump bikes, the bike sharing company.

At a press event today in Washington, D.C., Uber CEO Dara Kozwar Shahi said, quote, whether you're using mass transit for your morning commute, taking an e-bike for a midday meeting, using pool to take a ride home or renting a car for the weekend, we want Uber to be there with you, and we want to partner with cities to be a part of our solution moving forward. At a separate event earlier this year, Koswashahi said, quote, I want to run the bus system for a city. I want you to be able to take an Uber and get into the subway. Get out and have an Uber waiting for you, end quote.

Seems like they're deadly serious about Uber becoming the one name you think of when you think about getting around. That's all for today. I've been your host, Brian McCullough. I've produced the show with the expert help of the Techmeme.com editors. We'll see you again tomorrow.