We help your business grow: April 2019

Tuesday, April 30, 2019

India’s Times Internet isn’t ceding ground to US rivals Facebook and Google

The aggressive push by Silicon Valley companies and Chinese firms to win India, one of the last great growth markets, has decimated many local businesses in recent years. With each passing day, Amazon is closing in on Walmart-owned Flipkart’s lead on the e-commerce space. Uber is fighting with Ola for the tentpole position of the ride-hailing market; and Google and Facebook dominate the ads business, to name a few. But a handful of companies in India have not only survived the growing competition, but they have built businesses that are positively thriving.

Media conglomerate Times Internet, one such company, says that its properties now reach 110 million users each day and 450 million users each month. To put this in context: Facebook and Google have about 300 million monthly active users in India. Facebook, which is mired in controversy over the spread of misinformation on WhatsApp in India (and other regions), has not revealed its growth in the nation in last two years. But in a marketing pitch, the juggernaut says its family of apps (marquee Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram) reach 350 million users in the nation each month.

In a rare industry move, Satyan Gajwani, vice chairman of Times Internet, shared an overview of the conglomerate’s business on Tuesday, revealing the ever growing tentacles of its ambitions.

If the numbers are so huge, why self-publish? Gajwani declined to comment but his company is in a unique situation. For all its scale, Times Internet remains one of the least talked about conglomerates of its size in the country. Most news organizations in India compete with its media outlets, which may explain why it is under-reported in the press.

The ever-growing portfolio of Times Internet companies

The subsidiary of 181-year-old Bennett Coleman and Company Limited (popularly known as Times Group) operates more than three dozen properties, including newspaper Times of India, online outlet Indiatimes, advertisement business Colombia, venture arm Tventures, and streaming services Gaana and MX Player. And nearly all of these properties are growing, Gajwani said.

For instance, Times Internet’s news outlets have amassed 265 million monthly active users. The Times of India, the country’s most read newspaper and news website, alone has 212 million monthly active users, up by 44% since last year. Times Internet’s regional digital periodicals such as NewsPoint, Navbharat Times, Maharashtra Times, Vijay Karnataka now have 122 monthly active users, he said.

Music streaming service Gaana, which raised $115 million from Tencent and others last year, reached 100 monthly active users in March this year, the service announced last week. MX Player, a video playback app that doubles as a streaming service that Times Internet acquired for some $140 million last year, is one of the most popular Android apps in emerging markets.

During the first month of ongoing IPL cricket tournament, one of the hottest events in India, 118 million users tuned into Times Internet’s Cricbuzz, a news and entertainment service dedicated to sports. As the ecosystem of mobile gaming begins to gain major traction in India, Times Internet says it is building a portfolio of apps in this space, too.

Its lifestyle properties such as MenXP, iDiva, and Whats Hot have 40 million monthly active users and its videos clock more than 200 million views each month. These properties are exploring an additional revenue channel by selling products directly to customers, Gajwani told TechCrunch in an interview.

Times Internet vice chairman Satyan Gajwani

Moving beyond ads

Chasing that avenue illustrates Times Internet’s growing push to grow its business beyond ads. Most of Times Internet’s properties are built on top of ads and don’t cost users anything for access. Its own advertising business, called Colombia, now supplements some advertisement on its network and is used by more than a dozen outside brands including Ola, ABP News, and Hotstar.

But online advertising still can’t compete with those of TV and print in India, Satish Meena, an analyst with research firm Forrester told TechCrunch. So in recent years, Times Internet has announced a number of subscription services across many of its properties.

“Especially for premium publishers, an ads-only business model is not likely to last or sustain in the long run,” Gajwani said. Last year, Times Internet announced Times Prime, a subscription bundle that includes access to premium version of Gaana, an ad-free experience on Times of India, and discounts on a number of third-party services such as food delivery Swiggy, retailer BigBasket, and theatre chain PVR Cinemas. Gajwani said Times Internet has hit a million customers across its subscription services.

Part of Times Internet’s push to expand its revenue channels is its growing focus on Tventures, its VC fund that made early investments in a number of startups including edtech startup Byju’s and logistics startup Delhivery, two unicorns. It has also invested in ride-hailing service Shuttl, and cricket fantasy app MPL among others.

Gajwani said Tventures looks at “use cases that can benefit from its growing network.” And that’s one of the big advantages of Times Internet’s scale. The properties they own enjoy great advertisement benefits across its sprawling network. “There are very few companies — with exception of Google and Facebook — that have our level of scale,” Gajwani said.

Can't resist sharing this sexy-as-hell company profile. Fabulous showcase of the sheer volume of incredibly ambitious stuff that Times Internet has delivered ..And that staggering revenue figure! No small feat. Congratulations @satyan https://t.co/lVH0bCmZpJ

— Anant Goenka (@anantgoenka) April 30, 2019

Times Internet, which employs over 5,000 people, also operates Times Bridge, an investment firm that ties with international brands to help them launch in India. Some of its strategic partners include Uber, Airbnb, and Coursera. It also partnered with a number of news outlets including Business Insider, TechRadar, Huffington Post (which, like TechCrunch, is owned by Verizon Media Group), AdAge, PCMag, and Gizmodo Media properties Lifehacker and Gizmodo to launch them in India.

But it isn’t all success, there have been less successful ventures particularly in the media segment.

The Indian versions of Lifehacker, Gizmodo, TechRadar, and PCMag failed to attract significant audiences in the nation and have already closed shops. Huffington Post ended its partnership with Times Internet in 2017 and it now wholly controls Huffington Post India.

Gajwani admitted that Times Internet realized working with some niche publishers isn’t so sustainable. “We have some partnerships that we maintain that are doing well such as Business Insider,” he added. Today, Times Internet is no longer primarily looking at publishers for future partnerships, and instead focusing on “platforms and technologies.”

A couple of hiccups aside, the biggest challenge for Times Internet going forward is generating sufficient revenue from ads and convincing enough users to become paying customers. Times Internet generated $202 million in fiscal year 2018 at a loss of $23 million, according to regulatory filings. In an interview last week, Gaana CEO Prashan Agarwal said his music streaming service, which dominates the market but is not profitable, will introduce a number of premium plans across a wide range of price tiers to attract users.

Gajwani said he also hopes to build Colombia into one of the biggest ad networks in India and tap 20 million paying subscribers by 2023. He said some properties within Times Network could raise additional cash from outside investors in the coming future. These are ambitious goals, but Times Internet is one of the few firms in India that realistically has a shot at co-existing with dominant overseas tech platforms.

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/30/indias-times-internet-isnt-ceding-ground-to-us-rivals-facebook-and-google/

AWS opens up its managed blockchain as a service to everybody

After announcing that they were launching a managed blockchain service late last year, Amazon Web Services is now opening that service up for general availability.

It was only about five months ago that AWS chief executive Andy Jassy announced that the company was reversing course on its previous dismissal of blockchain technologies and laid out a new service it would develop on top of open source frameworks like Hyperledger Fabric and Ethereum.

AWS launches a managed blockchain service

“Customers want to use blockchain frameworks like Hyperledger Fabric and Ethereum to create blockchain networks so they can conduct business quickly, with an immutable record of transactions, but without the need for a centralized authority. However, they find these frameworks difficult to install, configure, and manage,” said Rahul Pathak, General Manager, Amazon Managed Blockchain at AWS, in a statement. “Amazon Managed Blockchain takes care of provisioning nodes, setting up the network, managing certificates and security, and scaling the network. Customers can now get a functioning blockchain network set up quickly and easily, so they can focus on application development instead of keeping a blockchain network up and running.”

Already companies like AT&T Business, Nestlé and the Singaporean investment market, the Singapore Exchange, have signed on to use the company’s services.

With the announcement, AWS joins other big enterprise players like Azure from Microsoft and IBM in the blockchain as a service game.

Microsoft wants to make blockchain networks enterprise-ready with its new Coco Framework

from Microsoft – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/30/aws-opens-up-its-managed-blockchain-as-a-service-to-everybody/

Workplace, Facebook’s enterprise edition, gets a reboot to boost activity and cut down on noise

At F8 today, Facebook is unveiling a major redesign for its desktop app — the first big update it’s made since 2014 — and a refresh of its mobile apps as it begins to bring its many functions, features and apps under a more unified umbrella. And along with that, Workplace, its enterprise version, is also getting a renovation. Aimed at increasing access to different features like Groups, Chats and Notifications, the update brings their functionality closer together, and on top of that introduces more of Facebook’s famous algorithm to suggest people and groups tailored to you.

“We’ve redesigned the experiences so that the code bases remain the same,” Karandeep Anand, the head of Workplace, said of the new updates and how they relate to Facebook.

Workplace announced in February that it now has 2 million paying users, along with “millions” more using the free or Workplace for Good versions, and now the name of the game for the company is engagement.

Getting more people to use Workplace more regularly as part of their daily work life increases the likelihood that companies will continue using (and paying for) it — and crucially not jumping to a competitor. As Slack approaches its IPO and prepares itself for more public scrutiny, and Microsoft continues to double down on new features, that strategy is perhaps more important than ever.

To that end, the company today showed off a new desktop version of Workplace that gives it parity with the mobile app and Facebook’s updated consumer desktop experience.

We’re running a series of screenshots here of how the new pages on desktop look, and the second set of images are screenshots of the “old” Workplace, so that you can see how it was cleaned up.

[gallery ids="1819673,1819675,1819676,1819677,1819678,1819680,1819681,1819683,1819684"]

And here are some shots of the older version:

[gallery ids="1819753,1819752,1819751"]

On the UI side, the new design notably brings two key Workplace features — Groups and contacts for Chats — out of the right-rail graveyard, where many users are believed to have stopped looking years ago to ignore ads — and into the left column, which used to provide a menu of tools and further information about your organization. The idea is that, by putting them on the left, it will make it more likely for people to turn to these lists and engage with them more.

“We’re making usage significantly more tighter and coupled between posts and Groups,” said Anand. “The idea is to bring messaging into the same room as wider conversations.”

Notifications, meanwhile, is getting its own “inbox,” so to speak. This is a clever turn that essentially expands the list of actions that have happened that are relevant to you, so that you can click on each one and jump to a view of that relevant piece of content, separate from being in the main default page. This is a useful way for people who might be very busy to look quickly through a series of different updates without the distraction of looking at the rest of their Workplace feed.

Distraction is a theme here: Another new update is that Workplace now has a “focus” mode in sections like Groups that take away the left navigation column so you can look specifically at the content you are working on without lots of alerts from other groups, individuals or the company at large. Given the immense amount of distraction that we have these days from notifications, this could be a welcome change for some.

On top of the UI changes, Facebook is giving Workplace a bigger international twist as well. The app is now available in 46 languages, and Facebook will be offering more auto-translation options to its users to leverage that.

There is also another level of changes taking place that are more under the hood but also interesting: Facebook is introducing more algorithmic features into Workplace, by tapping into your “work graph” to suggest people and groups that you might interact with.

Up to now, there was already some algorithmic tweaking to Workplace: admins could bump certain news items into people’s feeds so that they were seen by more employees; and similarly the News Feed didn’t run in a chronological order but was based on what you interacted with, which groups you were already a part of and so on, to bring you content that was deemed more relevant.

Now that is being expanded to connections and groups. The aim here is pretty clear: By giving you a more tailored list of people and content, Workplace will hopefully keep your attention for longer. Anand says that it’s important for Facebook and Workplace to continue to keep parity in their code bases, but it’s moves like this that underscore how Facebook aims to keep the ethos of the two products aligned as well.

from Microsoft – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/30/workplace-facebooks-enterprise-edition-gets-a-reboot-to-boost-activity-and-cut-down-on-noise/

Spotify Q1 hits 100M paying users, 217M overall, beats on sales but loss widens to $159M

As Amazon reportedly gears up to offer its own hi-fi music streaming service, Spotify has posted its Q1 figures. One significant milestone: the world’s currently biggest music streaming service reported that it now has 100 million paying users (up 32 percent on a year ago) and 217 million subscribers overall in 79 markets, picking up 2 million users in India since launching there in February.

In financial terms, however, the picture is more mixed. Its €1.511 billion ($1.68 billion) in sales just beat analysts’ estimates for revenues of $1.64 billion. But earnings per share seems to have taken a big hit. The company, which is still unprofitable, posted negative EPS of €0.79 (or negative $0.88), while analysts on average were expecting only negative EPS of $0.39.

Its net loss is now €142 million ($158.6 million), down from €169 million in the same quarter a year ago.

Spotify as investor also provided an update. It noted that the value of its investment in Tencent Music is now €2.3 billion, going up €652 million in the quarter, and it also confirmed that it paid a total of €358 million for three podcasting acquisitions in the period: €308 million for Gimlet Media and Anchor FM, and €50 million for Parcast. To downplay the size of that deal, or at least provide some more context, it noted that the combined purchase consideration “is roughly equivalent” to Spotify’s cumulative free cash flow over the last three quarters.

This, plus decent guidance for the quarter and year ahead, has made the market relatively happy: Spotify’s shares are up nearly five percent in pre-market trading.

Spotify noted that “most metrics” exceeded the company’s own expectations, although the 217 million monthly active user figure — while up 26 percent — was lower than midpoint of its 215-22- million expectation.

Premium (paid) revenues represent the bulk of Spotify’s revenues at the moment — €1,385 million versus just €126 million from advertising, and still growing at a higher rate than its advertising business (34 percent vs. 24 percent).

Because of that, partnerships, which help to bring in more paid subscriptions, continue to be a huge part of Spotify’s business model. This quarter, it noted that promotions with Google Home Mini and Samsung, and a reduced price of $9.99 for a bundle sold with Hulu, all contributed to its strong revenue performance (however that reduced price provides one clue to why margins are not great). Its group subscriptions — specifically the Family plan — also had a strong impact, it noted.

Guidance for the next quarter and year, meanwhile show continued growth for the company at a relatively similar rate. The thinking is that this should help Spotify eventually even out its losses, although that won’t happen in the year ahead:

For next quarter, Q2, Spotify expects MAUs of between 222-228 million, up 23-27 percent Y/Y; Premium subs of 107-110 million, up 29-34 percent Y/Y; revenues of €1.51-€1.71 billion, up 18-35 percent; gross margin of 23.5-25.5 percent; and an operating loss of €15-€95 million.

For the full-year, Spotify expects MAUs of 245-265 million, up 18-28 percent Y/Y; Premium subs of 117-127 million, up 21-32 percent Y/Y; revenues of €6.35-€6.8 billion, up 21-29 percent Y/Y; gross margins of 22.0-25.0 percent; and an operating loss of €180-€340 million.

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/29/spotify-100-million-q1/

Week-in-Review: Tesla’s losses and Elon Musk’s new promises

What a complicated week for Tesla.

The electric car-maker announced this week that it had lost more than $700 million in the first quarter of 2019, an unpleasant surprise for investors that came during its quarterly earnings report.

But that was just like the 3rd or 4th most interesting piece of Tesla news that took place this week. CEO Elon Musk also avoided writing another check to the SEC for his tweeting habit and Tesla showcased some of its self-driving dreams at an event devoted to autonomy.

Let’s check the news hits out one-at-a-time:

First, let’s talk Tesla money. On its Q1 earnings call, Tesla CFO Zachary Kirkhorn called it “one of the most complicated quarters.” Investors were already expecting a loss, but a bunch variety of factors led to the $702 million loss which came after two quarters of profitability. Musk had already said that deliveries were lower-than-expected, they ended up shipping 63,000 cars, a nearly one-third drop from the previous quarter. Add that to the partial expiration of the federal electric vehicle tax rebate and there are some answers but still some lingering questions.
Next, the company laid out some big promises for its self-driving future, but none was more intriguing than Elon Musk announcing that Tesla was planning to launch a robotaxi network in 2020, though the CEO was strong on the caveats that local laws would pretty much guide how such a service was rolled out.

The company’s Autonomy Day wasn’t just about plans to trounce the soon-to-be-public Uber on its own ride-sharing turf, the company also dove into the hardware, specifically its new “full self-driving” computer that has already started shipping in new Model 3, S and X models. If you look — not very closely — you’ll see that it’s actually two independent computers designed around redundancy so that there’s less room for a glitch to leave drivers in danger.
Finally, on Friday we learned that Musk and the SEC had reached a deal that let him keep his cash and his Twitter account and avoid being held in contempt of the initial deal. The agreement reach gave Musk a list of topics (list here) that he needs to get pre-approval from Tesla in order to tweet about, a solution that’s probably good for everyone especially the Tesla officials who likely didn’t want to babysit Elon tweeting about anime.

Shoot me tips or feedback
on Twitter @lucasmtny or email
lucas@techcrunch.com

Trends of the week

Here are a few big news items from big companies, with green links to all the sweet, sweet added context.

Know when to Fold ’em
Well, as an update to last week’s “Is Samsung unfolding a flop?“ question, it seems Samsung decided that it probably was doing just that so it has indefinitely delayed the Galaxy Fold’s release to gain a better understanding of what was malfunctioning with the phone’s flexible OLED display. More bizarre: iFixit published a teardown that raised some clear issues with the phone’s build, then brought the post down after Samsung requested its removal via an iFixit partner.
Give us this day, our one-day shipping
Amazon is getting ready to make one-day Prime shipping the default sometime. There are tens of millions of Prime subscribers in the US, but while Amazon has been bumping up the annual price, they’ve been trying to sweeten the deal with media plays that feel hit-or-miss sometimes. Making one-day Prime shipping the default would be a game-changer.
Comcast eyes a Hulu adieu
Hulu, which was once the convoluted lovechild of entrenched TV network powers-that-be has become a full-on Disney production as of late. After picking up a big slice in the 21st Century Fox deal and some more from AT&T’s Time Warner sale, Disney is reportedly in talks to buy the remaining 33 percent stake in the company from Comcast, which would make Hulu an all-Disney affair.
How I Broke This
Mark Zuckerberg has a new podcast, read more about why, and listen to it here.

Special guest

I’m not the first to go wild about enterprise IT, but Box CEO Aaron Levie just published a guest post on TechCrunch about how the world of corporate software has gotten a lot more exciting over the past decade. Check it out.

A new era for enterprise IT

“…We’ve reached a new era of enterprise software and companies are coming around to this model in droves. What seemed unfathomable merely a decade ago is now becoming commonplace…”

Photo by Paul Marotta/Getty Images

GAFA Gaffes

How did the top tech companies screw-up this week? This clearly needs its own section, in order of awfulness:

Facebook gets drilled 3X. Kind of cheating since it’s a list, but I’m all about efficiency:
[Facebook hit with three privacy investigations in a single day]
Facebook preps for an upcoming major privacy failure fine:
[Facebook reserves $3B for future FTC fine]

Extra Crunch

Our premium subscription service continues to churn out some awesome long-reads as a channel for our staff’s niche obsessions. We had a great piece this week on the difficulties associated with determining Huawei’s company ownership, especially when that owner might just be the Chinese Communist party.

Why it’s so hard to know who owns Huawei

“…despite selling 59 million smartphones and netting $27 billion in revenue last quarter in its first-ever public earnings report this morning, a strange and tantalizing question shrouds the world’s number two handset manufacturer behind Samsung. Who owns Huawei?”

Here are some of our other top reads this week for premium subscribers — our staff seemed to write a lot about pitching stories this week…

Want more TechCrunch newsletters? Sign up here.

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/28/week-in-review-teslas-losses-and-elon-musks-new-promises/

Meet the tech boss, same as the old boss

“Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” It seems darkly funny, now, that anyone ever dared to dream that tech would be different. But we did, once. We would build new companies in new ways, was the thinking, not like the amoral industrial behemoths of old. The corporate villains of 90s cyberpunk were fresh in our imaginations. We weren’t going to be like that. We were going to show that you could get rich, do good, and treat everyone who worked for or interacted with your business with fundamental decency, all at the same time.

The poster child for this was, of course, Google, whose corporate code of conduct for fifteen years famously included the motto “don’t be evil.” No longer, and the symbolism is all too apt. Since removing that phrase in 2015, we’ve all witnessed reports of widespread sexual harassment, including 13 senior managers fired for it; Project Maven; and Project Dragonfly. Internal backlashes and a mass walkout led to retractions and changes, courtesy of Google employees rather than management … and now we’re seeing multiple reports of management retaliation against those employees.

Facebook? I mean, where do we even begin. Rootkits on teenagers‘ phones. Privacy catastrophe after privacy catastrophe. Admissions that they didn’t do enough to prevent Facebook-fostered violence in Myanmar. Sheryl Sandberg personally ordering opposition research on a Facebook critic. And those are just stories from the last six months alone!

Amazon? Consider how they overwork and underpay delivery drivers and warehouse workers. Apple? Consider how they “deny Chinese users the ability to install the VPN and E2E messaging apps that would allow them to avoid pervasive censorship and surveillance,” to quote Stanford’s Alex Stamos. Microsoft? The grand dame of the Big Five has mostly evolved into a quiet enterprise respectability, but has recently seen “dozens of” reports of sexual harassment and discrimination ignored by HR, along with demands for cancellation of the HoloLens military contract.

Those are the five most valuable publicly traded companies in the world. It’s far from “absolute power,” but it’s far more power than the tech industry has had before. Have we avoided corruption and complacency? Have we done things differently? Have we been better than our predecessors? Not half so much as we hoped back in the giddy early days of the Internet. Not a quarter. Not an eighth.

And it’s mostly so gratuitous. Google didn’t need to try to build a censored search engine for China. They don’t need the money — they’re a giant money-printing machine already — and the Chinese people don’t need their product. Amazon doesn’t need to treat its lower-paid workers with vicious contempt. (It’s true they finally — finally! — raised their minimum wage to $15, but it could very easily afford to make their pay and working conditions substantially better yet.) Facebook doesn’t need to … to increasingly act like a company whose management is composed largely of wide-eyed cultists and/or mustache-twirling villains, basically.

Google should have promoted the organizers of their walkout, but there, at least, you can see why they didn’t. Raw fear. The one thing which truly frightens the management of big tech companies, more than regulators, more than competitors, more than climate change, is their own employees.

Is it that the modern megacorps have inherited from their forebears the obsession with growth at all costs, a religious drive to cast their net over every aspect of the entire world, so it’s still not enough for each of those companies to make billions upon billions from advertising and commerce to spend on their famous — and now sometimes infamous — “moonshot” projects? (Don’t talk to me about the fiduciary duty of maximum profit. Tech senior management can interpret that “duty” however they see fit.)

Is it that any sufficiently large and wealthy organization becomes, in its upper reaches, a nest of would-be Game of Thrones starlets, playing power politics with their pet projects and personal careers, regardless of the costs and repercussions? (At least when they are born of hypergrowth; it’s noticeable that more-mature Apple and Microsoft, while imperfect, still seem by some considerable distance the least objectionable of these Big Five, and Facebook the most so.)

I don’t want to sound like I think the tech industry is guilty of ruining everything. Not at all. The greatest trick the finance industry ever pulled is somehow convincing (some of) the world that it’s the tech industry who are the primary drivers of inequality. As for the many media who seem to be trying to pin recent election outcomes, and all other ills of the world, on tech, well —

Honestly I'm a little sick of journalists blaming tech for all that ails us as if "tech" put Hillary Clinton's emails on their front pages for months straight.

— Catherine Bracy (@cbracy) April 24, 2019

But the existence of greater failures should not blind us to our own, and whether we have failed in an old way or a new one is moot. Accepting this failure is — at least for people like me who were once actually dumb/optimistic enough to believe that things might be different this time — an important step towards trying to build something better.

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/28/meet-the-tech-boss-same-as-the-old-boss/

Meet the tech boss, same as the old boss

Honestly I'm a little sick of journalists blaming tech for all that ails us as if "tech" put Hillary Clinton's emails on their front pages for months straight.

— Catherine Bracy (@cbracy) April 24, 2019

from Microsoft – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/28/meet-the-tech-boss-same-as-the-old-boss/

Microsoft’s Mixer now lets streamers reward fans for participation, not just subscriptions

On game streaming platforms today, there’s really only one way to earn status within a creator’s community: you have to become a subscriber. Microsoft’s game streaming service Mixer is today aiming to offering a third path to status through loyalty and participation. In doing so, it hopes to better differentiate itself from larger rivals like Twitch and YouTube.

Channel Progression, as this new feature is called, is a system that rewards community members and a streamer’s fans for more than just their financial contributions. It also takes into account other activity within the channel and on Mixer as a whole.

Members can level up by participating in the stream’s chat, by their repeat visits, by using Skills (aka other forms of expression like stickers, effects and GIFs that are used in chats), and more. That means that viewers will be able to earn rewards and raise their rank by just participating — watching, chatting, following, subscribing, and later, through other actions, as well.

As streamers participate, they’ll rank up, gaining them bragging rights and other perks that will vary by their rank level. They can also check on their rank at any time by clicking on the “Your Rank” button at the bottom left corner of the chat box.

The feature is rolling out on Wednesday May 1, 2019 to all streamers on Mixer — not just Mixer Partner, as it’s designed to not only be a way for streamers to grow their own communities, but for Mixer itself to grow.

In the future, however, Mixer Partners will be able to also reward monetization actions, like subscribing, gift subscriptions, and for spending Embers (virtual currency).

The changes come at a time when there’s been a rise in complaints over how hard it is to get noticed on the leading game streaming site, Twitch. Some smaller streamers told The Verge last summer they spent years broadcasting to no one, and found it difficult to grow their community, despite the effort Twitch has made in this area. More recently, that’s included the launch of a four-person Squad Stream, to help creators get discovered.

Despite this, Twitch’s longtail continues to grow — according to a recent report from StreamElements, the top 1,000 Twitch channels were responsible for 57% of Twitch’s viewership hours in Q1 2019, and the longtail (those beyond the top 10,000 channels) was responsible for 20%. In total, Twitch hit 2.7 billion hours of content watched in Q1, the report claimed.

Mixer, by comparison, is much smaller. Its numbers may have quadrupled since Q1 2019, but that’s only going from 22 million hours watched to 89 million. It still has much, much further to go to catch up with YouTube Live, not to mention Twitch.

Mixer’s channel progression feature was originally announced in November as part of Mixer’s “Season 2” release. It launches tomorrow to all on Mixer.com on the desktop and will roll out to all other platforms in the weeks ahead.

from Microsoft – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/30/microsofts-mixer-now-lets-streamers-reward-fans-for-participation-not-just-subscriptions/

Ford to offer Amazon in-car delivery and on-demand car washes in connected services push

Ford is now part of Amazon’s free in-car delivery service, the latest automaker to partner with the ecommerce and logistics giant.

Amazon will bring its Key by Amazon In-Car delivery service to eligible Ford and Lincoln vehicles. The service will initially launch in 50 U.S. metro areas, according to Lorin Kennedy, who leads the FordPass business venture at the automaker.

For now, only Amazon Prime members who own select 2017 model year or newer Ford and 2018 or newer Lincoln vehicles can participate in the service. Those vehicles must be equipped with modems that connect to the automaker’s connected car cloud services, FordPass Connect and Lincoln Way.

There are restrictions on packages as well and will require a signature if they weigh more than 50 pounds or are larger than 26 x 21 x 16 inches in size.

Amazon has been moving into the car for a few years now. When Amazon Key initially started, customers could give delivery drivers access to their house with the help of a compatible keypad on their door and a smart security camera.

The service was expanded last year to in-car delivery for Prime members. GM and Volvo were the first to offer the Amazon Key In-Car delivery service.

The ecommerce and logistics giant has also partnered with several automakers, beginning with Ford in 2017, to bring Alexa, its intelligent voice-enabled assistant into the vehicle. Audi, Hyundai, Toyota, and Volkswagen also have equipped some of its newer models with Alexa.

Last year, Amazon introduced Echo Auto, a device that plugs into the car’s infotainment system, giving drivers the smart assistant and voice control for hands-free interactions. Users can interact with the product’s mic array in standard fashion and ask for things like traffic reports, add products to shopping lists and play music through Amazon’s entertainment system.

But the announcement illustrates more than Amazon’s ambitions; it also shows how Ford is looking for new ways to make the car — or truck — an essential asset that does more than provide the means to get around.

FordPass is a big part of the company’s connected car plans. Ford also announced Tuesday that other businesses are able to integrate their apps with Ford and Lincoln connected vehicles to offer additional new services.

One of the first will be car washing services. FordPass and Lincoln Way customers can now buy car washes from Spiffy, Rub A Dub and Sparkl wherever these services are available.

“Through modem capability with connected vehicles, we’re able to leverage a lot more technology,” Kennedy said. “We see this is really just the beginning of what we can deliver to our customers using a connected vehicle.”

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/30/ford-to-offer-amazon-in-car-delivery-and-on-demand-car-washes-in-connected-services-push/

An anecdote and a statistical analysis walk into a bar

The bar is dark and dingy, well-used, with a bit of danger in the air. The sort of bar that wouldn’t be out of place in a Clint Eastwood movie.

The anecdote has been through a lot. There’s the drama with his family, sure, but also the fight he had with his boss today. He needs this job, what with the payments coming due on the house, not to mention his gambling debts…

A guy walks up to the anecdote and taps him on the shoulder. A bad move at any time, but today, it’s particularly ill-advised. Putting down his beer, the anecdote turns, in a rage, about to punch the stranger in the face.

At the last moment, fist poised to strike out, the anecdote stops. This stranger–he seems somehow familiar. Could it be? Is it his long-lost brother?

The valid statistical analysis, the one that’s correct, useful but hard to believe if you haven’t been trained in statistics? He’s in the corner, being ignored.

The most effective statisticians are the ones who aren’t afraid to tell a story. Because anecdotes are the way we navigate the world.

from Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/601397720/0/sethsblog~An-anecdote-and-a-statistical-analysis-walk-into-a-bar/

Monday, April 29, 2019

Amazon is testing a Spanish-language Alexa experience in the US ahead of a launch this year

Amazon announced today it has begun to ask customers to participate in a preview program that will help the company build a Spanish-language Alexa experience for U.S. users. The program, which is currently invite-only, will allow Amazon to incorporate into the U.S. Spanish-language experience a better understanding of things like word choice and local humor, as it has done with prior language launches in other regions. In addition, developers have been invited to begin building Spanish-language skills, also starting today, using the Alexa Skills Kit.

The latter was announced on the Alexa blog, noting that any skills created now will be made available to the customers in the preview program for the time being. They’ll then roll out to all customers when Alexa launches in the U.S. with Spanish-language support later this year.

Manufacturers who want to build “Alexa Built-in” products for Spanish-speaking customers can also now request early access to a related Alexa Voice Services (AVS) developer preview. Amazon says that Bose, Facebook and Sony are preparing to do so, while smart home device makers, including Philips, TP Link and Honeywell Home, will bring to U.S. users “Works with Alexa” devices that support Spanish.

Ahead of today, Alexa had supported Spanish language skills, but only in Spain and Mexico — not in the U.S. Those developers can opt to extend their existing skills to U.S. customers, Amazon says.

In addition to Spanish, developers have also been able to create skills in English in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, and India; as well as in German, Japanese, French (in France and in Canada), and Portuguese (in Brazil). But on the language front, Google has had a decided advantage thanks to its work with Google Voice Search and Google Translate over the years.

Last summer, Google Home rolled out support for Spanish, in addition to launching the device in Spain and Mexico.

Amazon also trails Apple in terms of support for Spanish in the U.S., as Apple added support for Spanish to the HomePod in the U.S., Spain and Mexico in September 2018.

Spanish is a widely spoken language in the U.S. According to a 2015 report by Instituto Cervantes, the United States has the second highest concentration of Spanish speakers in the world, following Mexico. At the time of the report, there were 53 million people who spoke Spanish in the U.S. — a figure that included 41 million native Spanish speakers, and approximately 11.6 million bilingual Spanish speakers.

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/29/amazon-is-testing-a-spanish-language-alexa-experience-in-u-s-ahead-of-a-launch-this-year/

Amazon Pay launches peer-to-peer payments in India

Continuing its investment in India, Amazon today announced the launch of person-to-person (p2p) payments via Amazon Pay for Android users in the country. Customers can now make instant bank-to-bank transactions through the UPI platform on the localized version of the Amazon app, allowing them to settle bills and other expenses with friends, lend or return money with family, pay for services, and more. Notably, the new p2p service will also allow customers to make payments from their bank account to local stores or to Amazon delivery associates at the doorstep, who will scan a UPI QR code within the Amazon app.

The service is built on the Indian government-backed UPI platform, which is regulated by the Reserve Bank of India, and is designed for instant transfer of funds between bank accounts using a mobile device. With the Amazon Pay service, customers can either send or receive p2p payments by choosing a contact from their phone’s address book or by entering in their UPI ID or the recipient’s bank account.

When a contact is selected, Amazon’s app will automatically detect if the person is a registered Amazon Pay UPI customer, and enables the bank transfer. If the contact is not registered for Amazon Pay UPI, the customer then has the option to pay through another BHIM (Bharat Interface for Money) UPI ID or the contact’s bank account, as an alternative.

Amazon Pay also allows customers to make repeat payments more easily by displaying their recent transactions. And all the payments are secured through multi-factor authentication involving the customer’s phone number, SIM details, and the UPI PIN, says Amazon.

When the money is transferred, both the customer and the recipient are notified through in-app notifications and SMS alerts.

“Our goal is to make Amazon Pay the most trusted, convenient and rewarding way to pay for our customers,” said Vikas Bansal, Director of Amazon Pay, in a statement. “The customers trust their Amazon app and we continue to expand payment use cases directly on the app. With this launch, we have the largest selection of shopping and payment use cases on the Amazon Android app which provides added convenience and control to our customers.”

The move will also aid Amazon in its impending battle with Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) in the region. Recently, Amazon launched a program to manage the B2B inventory supply and management of a number of neighborhood mom-and-pop stores (aka kirana stores), according to a report by the Business Standard. The program, which is live in three cities in Karnatsaka, allows retailers and store owners to order online and have products delivered to their doorstep the following day, the report claimed.

The plan is to expand this program across India, if the pilot succeeds.

There are some 12 million Kirana stores in India, and they still account for a majority (~90%) of retail business in the country. However, only 3 percent are tech-enabled. That represents a big opportunity for Amazon, as the stores themselves are beginning to embrace technology in order to compete with online grocers.

Amazon Pay’s P2P feature can help feed into the retailer’s larger plans to bring India’s cash-based customers and merchants into the digital age, at the same time it works to bring e-commerce to the region and cashless payments and other services to neighborhood stores.

Along these lines, Amazon confirmed in March it was rolling out the Amazon Smile code – a QR code that’s scanned to pay for items – to physical stores like Shoppers Stop, and others.

Combined, Amazon’s various payment initiatives can help create customer loyalty to the Amazon brand and build new habits among consumers.

Amazon is getting a late start, however, when it comes to p2p payments in India. Its rivals, Paytm, Google Pay and PhonePe, already support p2p, with Google Pay in the lead.

With the launch of p2p, Amazon is incentivizing customers to use its service by offering up to Rs 120 cashback by sending money through UPI.

The feature is available in the Amazon app for Android, through new “Send Money” and “Request Money” links.

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/29/amazon-pay-launches-peer-to-peer-payments-in-india/

And your company will pay for it

You might be surprised at your company’s reimbursement policy for education.

Not only can you expense that book that will change the way you do your job, but you can probably take a course on the company’s dime (and perhaps even get some time to work on it).

It’s a great deal for the company. You get paid the same, but now you’re smarter, more engaged and more skilled.

And it’s a great deal for you. Because one day, when you leave the company, you’re going to take the smarter with you.

It’s interesting to consider why so few people take advantage of this extraordinary perk.

One reason is that you might not be aware of it (but now you are).

A second reason is that learning might remind you of school, and alas, school has created bad associations for some people who were hurt by the command and control mindset of industrial education.

The biggest reason I encounter, though, is that people are afraid. Afraid to ask the boss, afraid to assert their desire to learn something and afraid that after they’ve learned it, they won’t be able to live up to the increased expectations.

Even as I type this, I hope you can see how silly this is.

Relentlessly lowering expectations can work in the short run (hello George Costanza) but it’s hardly a strategy worthy of you and your next 10,000 days at work.

Enroll. Engage. Learn. And level up. Ask your boss and give it a try.

from Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/601335510/0/sethsblog~And-your-company-will-pay-for-it/

Sunday, April 28, 2019

The first database rule

If you participate in a database about people or their work, the first rule is simple: it should be as simple to fix an error as it is to make one.

If you mischaracterize something, get a digit wrong, sort it wrong, include a typo, inadvertently leave something out, put someone on a list of privilege or denial… every one of these errors is expensive–to you and to the person you’ve misrepresented.

You make it worse, far worse, when you insist that the database can’t be changed.

It’s bad enough that we’ve reduced people and their work to digits. At least we can be agile in fixing our mistakes.

(And yes, I’m talking about the conceptual databases each of us carry around in our heads, not just the digital ones on our desks).

from Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/601283034/0/sethsblog~The-first-database-rule/

Saturday, April 27, 2019

As measles returns, Indiegogo joins other tech platforms in banning Anti-Vaccine campaigns

The last year has been the worst on record in the US for measles outbreaks since the disease was declared ‘eradicated’ in 2000. Even though vaccination rates across the country are still high, (according to the CDC) there remains some communities where disinformation campaigns which claim that ‘vaccines are dangerous’ (often called ‘anti-vaxx’ campaigns) have led to parents refusing to vaccinate their children. Sadly, this can lead to a deadly outbreak when members of the public are exposed to someone who has picked up the disease, often overseas. Measles is highly contagious and can be fatal, especially amongst children.

And despite President Trump telling Americans to “get their shots”, 45 has previously appeared to link vaccines and autism. Public health experts say there is no link.

At the same time, over half a million children in Britain have been left unprotected against measles in the past decade and Unicef has called for a renewed focus on immunization.

It’s with this background that some tech companies are starting to realize they may have been part of the problem.

Yesterday Crowdfunding site Indiegogo said it would no longer allow anti-vaccine fundraisers or similarly unscientific, so-called “health campaigns”, to use its platform.

The move came after $86,543 was raised for a documentary, called Vaxxed II, based on the false claim that vaccines cause autism. Although the organization behind it, The People’s Truth, will still get their cash, minus the site’s 5% fee, Indiegogo said it was now planning a new policy to keep similar anti-vaccine projects off its site, a company spokesperson told BuzzFeed News Friday.

The fundraiser did not violate IndieGoGo’s existing policies on untruthful campaigns, but Indiegogo never promoted it on its site, said a company spokesperson. Executive directors of the “documentary”, Polly Tommey and Brian Burrowes, have criticized tech companies’ ‘de-platforming’ of their film as “censorship”.

Indiegogo is the latest in a line of tech companies coming round to the idea of cutting off the oxygen of publicity and cash to such campaigns.

Last month, Facebook said it would be removing anti-vaxx groups from ads and recommendations and making it harder for users to find anti-vaxx pages and posts using Facebook search. Instagram (owned by Facebook) said it would also do something similar to stop recommending inaccurate information about vaccines on its hashtags and in search. YouTube has also reiterated a previous pledge to stop anti-vaxx content from generating advertising cash on its platform.

Meanwhile, Amazon has looked to remove books promoting an unscientific connection made between vaccines and autism, and anti-vaccine documentaries like Vaxxed. Furthermore, GoFundMe has banned fundraising campaigns from anti-vaxxers.

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/27/as-measles-returns-indiegogo-joins-other-tech-platforms-in-banning-anti-vaccine-campaigns/

Snooze is a trap

There’s a button on my email program that allows me to postpone an incoming email to a future day.

Sort of like a snooze button.

The snooze button is a trap. It’s a trap because not only do you have to decide later, but you just expended time and energy to deciding to decide later.

Do it once, move on.

‘Decide once’ is a magical productivity commitment.

There is a certain class of decision that benefits from time. Decisions where more information is in fact useful.

But most of the time, we’re busy making decisions that should be made now or not at all. You end up with a ton of decision debt, a pile of unanswered, undecided, unexplored options. And you’re likely to simply walk away.

If you open an email, you’ve already made the commitment to respond and move on. Not to push it down the road.

In or out, yes or no, on to the next thing.

Snooze is not for you.

from Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/601240462/0/sethsblog~Snooze-is-a-trap/

Friday, April 26, 2019

Nintendo and Sony temper console expectations ahead of E3

E3’s just over a month away, and per usual, the news in the lead up has offered more insight into what we won’t be hearing about at the big gaming show. Late last year, Sony announced that it would be skipping its big annual press conference at the event. The move marks a key absence for the gaming giant for the first time in nearly a quarter of a century, as the company will instead be “exploring new and familiar ways to engage our community in 2019.”

The sentiment should ring familiar for those who follow the gaming industry. Several years ago Nintendo made a similar move, eschewing the in-person press conference for the online Nintendo Direct “Treehouse” it uses to showcase new trailers. It’s a method Nintendo has held to ever since.

Game publisher Square Enix this week happily slid into Sony’s prime-time slot, leaving Microsoft the last of the remaining three major console makers with a press conference at the Los Angeles event. The death of shows like E3 has been overstated throughout the years, of course. These things tend to move in cycles, with much of the hype tied specifically to new system reveals.

Microsoft took the wraps off its disc-free Xbox One S “All-Digital Edition” this month, leaving many wondering what the company could still have up its sleeve for the June event. Earlier this week, meanwhile, Sony batted away suggestions that the PlayStation 5 was coming soon. Details are, not surprisingly, still vague, but the company says the next-gen console won’t be arriving in the next six months.

On its earnings call, Nintendo similarly dismissed recent rumors that it would launch a low-cost version of the Switch. The console has been a wild success for the company on the heels of the disappointing Wii U, but slowing sales have pointed to Nintendo’s longstanding tradition of offering modified hardware. Rumors have largely pointed to a lower-cost version of the system that can only be played in portable mode.

None of this is to say we got some kind of preview. Companies love to tease these sorts of things out, but it does appear that the big three are tempering expectations for the show. That leaves some opening for other players — of course, E3 has long been dominated by the big three. Among the other rumors currently circulating ahead of the show is a 2-in-1 gaming tablet from Nvidia.

from Microsoft – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/26/nintendo-and-sony-temper-console-expectations-ahead-of-e3/

A new era for enterprise IT

Aaron Levie Contributor

Aaron Levie is the Chief Executive Officer of Box.