Monthly Archives: November 2020

News: Daily Crunch: Twitter will bring back verification

• November 24, 2020
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Twitter prepares to hand out more blue checkmarks, YouTube suspends OANN and Discord is raising a big funding round. This is your Daily Crunch for November 24, 2020. The big story: Twitter will bring back verification Twitter paused its blue checkmark verification system in 2017 as it faced controversy over who gets verified — specifically

Twitter prepares to hand out more blue checkmarks, YouTube suspends OANN and Discord is raising a big funding round. This is your Daily Crunch for November 24, 2020.

The big story: Twitter will bring back verification

Twitter paused its blue checkmark verification system in 2017 as it faced controversy over who gets verified — specifically over the decision to verify the organizer of the infamous and deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville.

Since then, Twitter has done occasional verifications for medical experts tweeting about COVID-19 and candidates running for public office, but it hasn’t brought back the program in a systematic way.

Now Twitter says it will relaunch verification in 2021, and that it’s currently soliciting feedback on the policy. Initially, verification will focus on six types of accounts: government officials, companies/brands/nonprofits, news, entertainment, sports and activists/organizers/other influential individuals.

The tech giants

YouTube suspends and demonetizes One America News Network over COVID-19 video — YouTube said, “After careful review, we removed a video from OANN and issued a strike on the channel for violating our COVID-19 misinformation policy.”

Instagram businesses and creators may be getting a Messenger-like ‘FAQ’ feature — This new feature will allow people to start conversations with businesses or creators’ accounts by tapping on a commonly asked question within a chat.

Fortnite adds a $12 monthly subscription bundle — The $11.99 monthly Fortnite Crew fee entitles players to a full season battle pass, 1,000 monthly bucks and a Crew Pack featuring an exclusive outfit bundle.

Startups, funding and venture capital

Discord is close to closing a round that would value the company at up to $7B — The new funding comes just months after a $100 million investment that gave the company a $3.5 billion valuation.

Dija, a new delivery startup from former Deliveroo employees, is closing in on a $20M round led by Blossom — Few details are public about Dija, except that it will offer convenience and fresh food delivery using a “dark” convenience store mode.

Marie Ekeland launches 2050, a new fund with radically ambitious, long-term goals —  Ekeland used to be an investor at French VC firm Elaia, where she backed adtech firm Criteo.

Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch

As edtech grows cash rich, some lessons for early stage — The valuation bumps for both Duolingo and Udemy underscore just how much investor confidence there is in edtech’s remote learning boom.

Working to understand C3.ai’s growth story — As its IPO looms, how quickly did C3.ai grow in its October quarter?

Decrypted: Apple and Facebook’s privacy feud, Twitter hires Mudge, mysterious zero-days — Zack Whittaker’s latest roundup of cybersecurity-related news.

(Extra Crunch is our membership program, which aims to democratize information about startups. And until November 30, you can get 25% off an annual membership.)

Everything else

Biden-Harris team finally get their transition .gov domain — This comes after the General Services Administration gave the green light for the Biden-Harris team to transition from political campaign to government administration.

India bans 43 more Chinese apps over cybersecurity concerns — India is not done banning Chinese apps.

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 3pm Pacific, you can subscribe here.

News: Gift Guide: Smart cooking gadgets for the smart cookies on your list

• November 24, 2020
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If you’re spending a lot of time at home this holiday season, you might as well spend at least some of that time in the kitchen and making delicious meals. There are plenty of smart kitchen gadgets out there, but it feels like the best among them are really delivering standout experiences for smarter, better and more connected cooking options.

Welcome to TechCrunch’s 2020 Holiday Gift Guide! Need help with gift ideas? We’re here to help! We’ll be rolling out gift guides from now through the end of December. You can find our other guides right here.

If you’re spending a lot of time at home this holiday season, you might as well spend at least some of that time in the kitchen making delicious meals. There are plenty of smart kitchen gadgets out there, but it feels like the best among them are really delivering standout experiences for smarter, better and more connected cooking options.

This article contains links to affiliate partners where available. When you buy through these links, TechCrunch may earn an affiliate commission.

The all-in-one restaurant replacement

Thermomix TM6

The Thermomix has been around for a while now, but the new TM6 model takes its concept of being a one-stop countertop cooking station even further. This new version is packed with smarts, including built-in Wi-Fi, and the inset touchscreen tablet control makes it super easy not only to follow along with recipe instructions, but also to find and save new recipes using Cookidoo, the software companion service to Thermomix’s hardware.

With the ability to blend, mix, chop, sauté, steam, slow cook, sous-vide and much more, the Thermomix really can handle just about every task involved in cooking. Yes, it comes with a hefty price tag, but when you consider all the various kitchen gadgets it’s replacing – and the added benefits it includes, like the built-in guided recipe service – it becomes clear that the asking price is actually a bargain.

Price: $1,499 from Thermomix

The trusty temp taker

MEATER Plus

If you think you don’t have a knack for cooking meat properly, you might actually just be lacking a crucial tool – a good meat thermometer. The MEATER Plus is that and more, with connected features that provide you with real-time temp monitoring via mobile app, as well as a full guide of proper, safe temperatures for cooking all kinds of meat, and awesome charts and graphs of both the ambient temperature of whatever appliance you’re using to cook, in addition to the internal temp.

The Plus version of MEATER extends its Bluetooth range via the connected base, providing you with enough reach to monitor an outdoor cook throughout your house, for instance. The totally wire-free design and magnetic base is a nice touch for storage and convenience, and you can easily connect other MEATERs if you’re cooking a variety of things at once.

Price: $99 from MEATER

The smoking star

Weber SmokeFire EX6

I used to enjoy BBQing quite a lot, but that was before I discovered the joys of a smoker. The Weber SmokeFire EX6 is one of two debut pellet smoker grills created by the iconic outdoor grilling company, and it’s the bigger version that provides enough grilling surface for you to feed a large family or a small sports team.

The SmokeFire EX6 has had some growing pains since its introduction to the market earlier this year, but consistent and frequent firmware updates delivered over-the-air to its Wifi-connected controller have made it a top performer. You can use built-in cooking programs, along with up to four hardwired temperature probes, to prepare whatever you’re making to perfection. Low and slow, or high and hot, the EX6 does it all.

Price: $1,199 from Amazon

The go-to grill

Spark One

While a smoker offers a lot of benefit especially for lower-temp cooking, it’s hard to beat a charcoal grill for everyday use, particularly with foods like hamburgers, fish and steaks, as well as roasted veggies. The Spark One is a smart grill that takes everything that’s good about the tried-and-tested ‘green egg’ style cooker and updates it with connectivity and convenience.

Spark Grills has simplified charcoal grilling with their pre-formed Briqs, which are single-piece charcoal fuel blocks that slot perfectly into the Spark One and that ignite quickly via electric igniter to get to temp. Built-in fans keep the temperature consistent for the best possible, predictable cooks of all types of foods.

Price: $599 (Black Friday price through Cyber Monday) from Spark Grills

The toastmaster

Revolution Cooking R180

The Revolution R180 High Speed Smart Toaster is true to its name, cooking toast faster than most. But more than its speed, it deserves praise for its precision: What you see is what you get thanks to a visual doneness selector on the large touchscreen interface. It’s also got custom modes for bread, bagels, waffles, English muffins and even toaster pastries, as well as fresh, frozen and reheated versions of each.

It’s an expensive toaster, but you probably don’t know what toast could be if you haven’t yet tried toast made by the R180.

Price: $240 from Amazon

 

News: Netflix removes ‘Chappelle’s Show’ at Dave Chappelle’s request

• November 24, 2020
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Netflix started streaming “Chappelle’s Show” at the beginning of November — but barely more than three weeks later, it has taken the Comedy Central sketch show off its service. Co-creator Dave Chappelle offered some context for the decision in an Instagram clip of what appears to be a recent standup set, in which he described

Netflix started streaming “Chappelle’s Show” at the beginning of November — but barely more than three weeks later, it has taken the Comedy Central sketch show off its service.

Co-creator Dave Chappelle offered some context for the decision in an Instagram clip of what appears to be a recent standup set, in which he described any company streaming the show as “fencing stolen goods.”

Not that he’s accusing Comedy Central of violating its deal with him. Instead, it’s the contract that he’s criticizing, and he said he signed it “the way that a 28-year-old expecting father that was broke signs a contract.”

He continued:

People think I made a lot of money from ‘Chappelle’s Show.’ When I left that show, I never got paid. They didn’t have to pay me because I signed the contract. But is that right? I found out that these people were streaming my work and they never had to ask me or they never have to tell me. Perfectly legal because I signed the contract. But is that right? I didn’t think so either.

Chappelle went on to describe himself as “furious” when he heard that Netflix was streaming the show:

So you know what I did? I called them and I told them that this makes me feel bad. And you want to know what they did? They agreed that they would take it off their platform just so I could feel better. That’s why I fuck with Netflix. Because they paid me my money, they do what they say they’re going to do, and they went above and beyond what you could expect from a businessman. They did something just because they thought that I might think that they were wrong.

Speaking of deals, Netflix signed a reported $60 million deal with Chappelle in 2016 for the rights to three stand-up specials.

“Chappelle’s Show,” meanwhile, is still available on HBO Max (he has some choice words for HBO executives, as well) and on Comedy Central and CBS All Access — which, like Comedy Central, is owned by ViacomCBS.

 

 

News: Gift Guide: Smart exercise gear to hunker down and get fit with

• November 24, 2020
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Home exercise gear is always a nice holiday gift choice for anyone who has expressed interest in staying healthy and getting more fit, but during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic it’s more relevant than ever.

Welcome to TechCrunch’s 2020 Holiday Gift Guide! Need help with gift ideas? We’re here to help! We’ll be rolling out gift guides from now through the end of December. You can find our other guides right here.

Home exercise gear is always a nice holiday gift choice for anyone who has expressed interest in staying healthy and getting more fit, but during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic it’s more relevant than ever. Luckily, smart exercise and health gear is smarter than ever, making it perfect for the gift list this season.

Big machines

Bowflex Velocore bike

Bowflex’s latest excercise bike is a great follow-up to their solid C6, and it has a unique trick up its sleeve – leaning. The Velocore unlocks to allow side-to-side leans during workouts, which adds a good amount of core stabilization to your existing spin exercises.

The Velocore also offers an integrated display in either 16″ or 22″ sizes, and that provides access to Bowflex’s own JRNY video fitness instruction. It’s a great subscription service, though it doesn’t include live classes like Peloton. Luckily, Bowflex supports Peloton’s software as well, so you can also use that with the Velocore if that’s your preference.

Price: $1,699 (16-inch) or $2,199 (22-inch) from Bowflex direct or Best Buy

Hydrow rower

Rowers are a great way to get in some indoor cardio, and a nice change-up from treadmills and bikes that also works out your upper body. The Hydrow is the most technologically advanced of these out there, with a large, high-quality display that provides access to both live and on-demand classes via its virtual service. It’s also engineered to really feel like you’re getting the same kind of resistance you would from actual water.

Price: $1,995 (price as of publication) from Hydrow direct

Peloton Tread

If you’re looking for a treadmill with smart features, Peloton’s is easily the best option available. The new Tread is the way to go for most, since it’s nearly $2,000 cheaper than the original which is now the Tread+, and it still offers a huge display for those interactive and on-demand peloton classes, and everything you need for a full-body workout as well. It’s not available in retail across the U.S. until March, but it’s a good advance gift if a treadmill is on the list.

Price: From $2,495 from Peloton direct

Smart and small

JAXJOX KettlebellConnect 2.0

Smart weights come in a variety of shapes and sizes, but JAXJOX’s next-generation smart kettlebell is one of the all-around best and most convenient smart weights out there. The selectable weight ranges from 12 to 42 lbs, and the smart features on board provide real-time reporting on performance, along with the ability to sync with the JAXJOX mobile app for on-demand guided workouts.

Price: $229 from JAXJOX

Tangram Factory SmartRope Rookie

If you’re even more space constrained, a jump rope is essentially a whole-body gym in a tiny, portable package. The Tangram Factory Rookie is a more affordable, smaller and higher version of their original SmartRope, with built-in activity tracking, long-lasting battery, and a fully-adjustable rope length that allows it to be used by both children and adults of all sizes.

Price: Starting at $39.95 from Tangram Factory direct or Apple Store

Activity and health monitoring

Withings BPM Core wireless blood pressure monitor

The Withings BPM Core is a connected blood pressure monitor that provides a lot of extras, including measurement of your heartbeat with a digital stethoscope, and an electrocardiogram (ECG) feature to monitor for any potential atrial fibrillation. Withings is building all their hardware these days to clinical validation standards, so this is a surefire way to keep on top of these key signals of health.

Price: $250 from Withings (coming soon)

Withings Body Cardio

Withings is really nailing it with home health monitoring equipment these days, which is why the Body Cardio smart scale is another recommendation in this list. The Body Cardio not only measures weight, but also provides you with a body composition breakdown giving you approximate body fat percentage and body mass index for even more detailed fitness tracking. Plus, it monitors heart rate as well.

Price: $119.96 (price at publication) from Withings

 

 

News: Working to understand C3.ai’s growth story

• November 24, 2020
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The end-of-year IPO wave continues, this time with C3.ai moving closer to its own formal debut by updating its S-1 filing with third-quarter data. The new data provides the market with a much better look into how the unicorn AI company’s business has progressed during the COVID-19 era, and should help public investors price the

The end-of-year IPO wave continues, this time with C3.ai moving closer to its own formal debut by updating its S-1 filing with third-quarter data.

The new data provides the market with a much better look into how the unicorn AI company’s business has progressed during the COVID-19 era, and should help public investors price the company’s equity as it looks to float.

TechCrunch previously explored C3.ai’s performance through the its July 31 quarter. Today we received information about its subsequent fiscal period, the quarter ending October 31.

We noted during our initial dig into C3.ai’s numbers that while the AI startup has had strong historical revenue growth — from $92 million to $157 million in the fiscal years ending April 31, 2019 and 2020 — in more recent quarters, its pace of expansion has slowed.

This brings us to the October 31, 2020, period. Let’s explore what changed for C3.ai and what did not.

C3.ai’s growth story

In the October 31, 2019, quarter C3.ai generated $38.9 million in total revenue, counting both its subscription (high gross-margin) and services (low gross-margin) incomes. That figure grew to $41.3 million in the January 31, 2020, quarter.

News: Pay-per-mile auto insurer Metromile is heading to public markets via SPAC

• November 24, 2020
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Metromile, the pay-per-mile auto insurer that earlier this year laid off a third of its staff due to economic uncertainties caused by COVID-19, is taking the SPAC path to the public markets. The company, which was founded in 2011 and is led by CEO Dan Preston, said it has reached a merger agreement with special

Metromile, the pay-per-mile auto insurer that earlier this year laid off a third of its staff due to economic uncertainties caused by COVID-19, is taking the SPAC path to the public markets.

The company, which was founded in 2011 and is led by CEO Dan Preston, said it has reached a merger agreement with special purpose acquisition company INSU Acquisition Corp. II, with an equity valuation of $1.3 billion.

Metromile said it was able to raise $160 million in private investment in public equity, or PIPE, in an investment round led by Chamath Palihapitiya’s firm Social Capital. Existing investors Hudson Structured Capital Management and Mark Cuban, as well as new backers Miller Value and Clearbridge participated. Metromile will have about $294 million of cash at closing.

The company plans to use those proceeds to reduce existing debt and accelerate growth, specifically to hire employees to support its consumer insurance and enterprise businesses, and grow beyond its eight-state geographic footprint to a goal of 21 states by the end of next year and nationwide coverage by the end of 2022.

Metromile is credited for disrupting some of the inefficiencies of the auto insurance business model, notably how consumers are charged. Instead of a standard flat fee, Metromile charges customers based on their mileage, which it is able to measure via a device plugged into the vehicle. Some two-thirds of U.S. drivers are considered low-mileage, according to Metromile. By charging per mile, Metromile says its customers save 47% on average compared to their previous insurer.

The company developed a mobile app, which besides allowing users to file claims, offers other features such as alerting the driver of possible parking violations due to street sweeping activity. Now, with three billion miles of driver data, the company is able to make predictive models that help lower customer costs and improve their overall experience.

The company also built out an enterprise division in 2019 that offers a cloud-based software as a service to large legacy insurers. Metromile licenses components of its platform, including claims automation and fraud detection tools.

The COVID-19 pandemic created initial headwinds for Metromile, which had been one of the fastest-growing startups in the Bay Area. Metromile ended up laying off about 100 people as it aimed to pare back its workforce. The company said at the time that its business was affected by pandemic-related stay-at-home orders, which caused its customers to drive less. The pandemic also prompted U.S. drivers to shop around for insurance and look for deals that supported their shift to lower mileage.

Investor Cuban said in the company’s SPAC announcement sees an upside for the business.

“During these times of financial hardship, unemployment and work from home, Metromile provides an important insurance alternative,” Cuban said. “The option to pay for insurance by the mile is a game changer and why I’m incredibly excited about Metromile’s future!”

Social Capital’s Palihapitiya is equally bullish on the company, tweeting Tuesday “Buffett had Geico. I pick @Metromile.”

Metromile has hired back staff and returned employees that it placed on furlough this spring. Today, the company has more than 230 employees and doesn’t expect any reductions in the workforce in the future. Instead, the company told TechCrunch it plans to hire additional staff on the expectation that both its consumer and enterprise businesses will grow “considerably” in the next few years.

The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2021. The combined company will be named Metromile Inc., and is expected to remain listed on NASDAQ under the new ticker symbol “MLE.”

News: YouTube suspends and demonetizes One America News Network over COVID-19 video

• November 24, 2020
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YouTube today confirmed that it has suspended right-wing cable channel One America News Network (OAN or OANN for short). The penalty comes after a violation of YouTube’s stated COVID-19 misinformation guidelines. As a result, the network will be barred from posting new videos for a week, while its existing videos will also be demonetized for

YouTube today confirmed that it has suspended right-wing cable channel One America News Network (OAN or OANN for short). The penalty comes after a violation of YouTube’s stated COVID-19 misinformation guidelines. As a result, the network will be barred from posting new videos for a week, while its existing videos will also be demonetized for that period.

A spokesperson for the Google-owned video service offered the following statement to TechCrunch:

Since early in this pandemic, we’ve worked to prevent the spread of harmful misinformation associated with COVID-19 on YouTube. After careful review, we removed a video from OANN and issued a strike on the channel for violating our COVID-19 misinformation policy, which prohibits content claiming there’s a guaranteed cure. Additionally, due to repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation policy and other channel monetization policies, we’ve suspended the channel from the YouTube Partner Program and as a result, its monetization on YouTube.

The service has a three-strikes policy in place, with the first two strikes carrying their own policies. In addition to the above actions, the offending video has been pulled from the channel. This is OAN’s first strike. Per the site:

If we find your content doesn’t follow our policies for a second time, you’ll get a strike.

This means you won’t be able to do the following for one week:

• Upload videos, live streams, or stories
• Create custom thumbnails or Community posts
• Created, edit, or add collaborators to playlists
• Add or remove playlists from the watch page using the “Save” button

Full privileges will be restored automatically after the 1-week period, but your strike will remain on your channel for 90 days.

A second strike in a 90-day period would result in a two-week suspension. A third strike in a 90-day period would result in the channel’s termination.

OAN has become a personal favorite for Trump and his administration recently, particularly in the wake of fallout between the president and Fox News, after that long-favorite cable network called the recent election for opponent Joe Biden.

One America News also came under fire for videos like “Trump Won,” which falsely reported on the election’s results. YouTube opted not to pull that video over disinformation concerns, instead adding a warning and removing ads from the video, noting, “[w]e will continue to be vigilant in the post-election period.”

News: ‘Complete Success’: Rocket Lab’s booster recovery is a big step towards reusability

• November 24, 2020
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Rocket Lab has successfully recovered the first stage of an Electron launch vehicle after it made a controlled splashdown in the Atlantic, marking a major milestone in the company’s quest for a reusable rocket. CEO Peter Beck, speaking to press shortly after the operation, called the mission “a complete success” — and it raised $286,092

Rocket Lab has successfully recovered the first stage of an Electron launch vehicle after it made a controlled splashdown in the Atlantic, marking a major milestone in the company’s quest for a reusable rocket. CEO Peter Beck, speaking to press shortly after the operation, called the mission “a complete success” — and it raised $286,092 for charity to boot.

This was the first major test of Rocket Lab’s improved Electron, which has a modified interstage (above the first stage booster but below the second stage, which takes the payload into orbit) that allows the booster to make a controlled descent after detaching.

The plan for the future is to have a helicopter catch the booster in mid-air, but this first time the team decided to let it splash down first. “Pulling rockets out of the ocean is just not fun,” Beck noted.

Before the mission even starts, a general idea of the descent area is already known, since the trajectory of the rocket has been carefully planned and the weather monitored closely. And as the launch proceeds, the projected descent area becomes more and more clear based on information streamed from the rocket itself.

“Downrange we’ll have a ship and a helicopter based on the ship. It’ll take off at the same time as the rocket and hover over the predicted reentry point,” explained Beck. “The moment we hand over to stage one, it is telemetrying its predicted impact point in real time. The whole time there’s sort of a real time feedback loop.”

He pointed out that, should something go wrong with the launch, the helicopter is not at risk of being struck by debris going 900 miles per hour, since the trajectory be completely different in that case.

After the second stage detached, the first began its descent, hitting about mach 2 before deploying its pilot chute, then a drogue chute for about a minute to get its speed down, then the main glider chute under which it would normally cruise along a predictable path until being picked up by the helicopter. In this case it was allowed to splash down, however, “within a few miles” of the predicted impact zone. It was going about 9 meters per second, or 20 miles per hour, when it hit the water.

Beck was back at mission control, and happy to be so, he said. “Based on the state of the sea, I’m glad I wasn’t out on the boat. The trip back was on 5-meter swells. I don’t have particularly strong sea legs myself,” he admitted. The descending stage was sending back sparse but accurate telemetry, however, which he was watching as the second stage continued its journey. “It felt like cheating, to take your eyes off the ascent to watch the reentry.”

(He added that “if you were in the room, you’d probably have described me as a giggling schoolboy.” Another Rocket Lab representative on the call confirmed this assessment.)

The recovery ship collected the booster shortly after splashdown and engineers are even now tearing it apart to examine the various parts for wear and damage. “The reentry environments exceed the ascent environments,” Beck explained, meaning that the hardware faces different and more severe conditions in its semi-controlled descent than in the meticulously planned launch.

Although they hope to requalify some components for flight, the engines and a few other parts will not live to launch another day. “It’d be pretty unfair on the engines given the ride they had. It got pretty roasty down there,” Beck said.

That’s all part of the plan, though: using data from this descent the first stage’s heat shield and components will be modified and reinforced to better cope with the rigors of reentry. “We’ll do engines in the future,” Beck said. “The goal is to take the whole stage, charge it up, and fly it again.”

Simple to propose, but a complex task in that every component must be checked and recertified. But given this can be done in parallel with the main Electron production line — which Beck said is turning out a launch vehicle every 30 days and getting faster every month — it should lead to a substantial increase to the number of rockets the company has on hand.

The cost impact of recovery, flying recertified hardware, and other aspects of this are still very much in flux, Beck emphasized. “But the majority of the cost of building an Electron is the stage one, so if you can change that, you can change the economics of the vehicle. It would be nice to have it all figured out next year but it’s very possible it won’t be,” he said.

One thing seems certain, though: reusable rockets are clearly the future if cost is a factor at all.

The launch was a great success in another measure as well: Among its numerous deployments was a 3D printed gnome whose ride was paid for by gaming giant Valve Software founder Gabe Newell . He promised to donate a dollar to Starship Children’s Hospital for every view on the launch’s live stream, and that added up to $286,092.

Gnome Chompski, as he’s called, probably burned up by now, but had a brief and exciting life in space, producing some memorable photos.

News: Discord is close to closing a round that would value the company at up to $7B

• November 24, 2020
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Discord, the communications service that’s become the 21st century’s answer to MUD rooms, is close to closing a new round of financing that would value the company at up to $7 billion, according to sources with knowledge of the round. The new funding comes just months after a $100 million investment that gave the company

Discord, the communications service that’s become the 21st century’s answer to MUD rooms, is close to closing a new round of financing that would value the company at up to $7 billion, according to sources with knowledge of the round.

The new funding comes just months after a $100 million investment that gave the company a $3.5 billion valuation. Discord’s doubling in corporate value comes as the persistent, inept, American response to the COVID-19 pandemic continues to accelerate the adoption and growth of businesses creating virtual social networking opportunities.

Discord built its initial growth on the back of the gaming industry and the rise of multi-player, multi-platform games that supplanted earlier social networks as the online town square for a generation of young gamers (whose numbers globally now spiral north of several billion).

But, as the company’s founders noted when they announced their last round of financing, the Discord use case has extended far beyond the gaming community.

“It turns out that, for a lot of you, it wasn’t just about video games anymore,” wrote co-founders Jason Citron and Stanislav Vishnevskiy in a July blog post announcing the latest financing.

The two men frame their company as “a place designed to hang out and talk in the comfort of your own communities and friends.” Discord, they say, is “a place to have genuine conversations and spend quality time with people, whether catching up, learning something or sharing ideas.”

If that sounds familiar to some of the internet’s earliest users, that’s because it is. Back in the dawn of the world wide web, multi-user dungeons (MUD) provided ways for practitioners of any number of sub cultures to find each other online and chat about whatever tickled their collective fancy.

As the web evolved, so did the number of places and spaces for these conversations to happen. Now there are multivariate ways for users to find each other within the web, but Discord seems to have risen above most of the rest.

As analyst John Koetsier noted in Forbes back in 2019, there were already 250 million Discord users sending 315 million messages a day. Those are the company’s pre-pandemic numbers — and they’re impressive by any standards.

As with any platform that has become popular on the web, Discord isn’t without its underbelly. Three years ago, the company tried to boot a number of its most racist users, but their ability to use the platform to disseminate hate speech has stubbornly persisted.

Until mid-2019, white nationalists were comfortable enough using the service to warrant a shoutout from Daily Stormer founder, Andrew Anglin, who urged his fellow travelers to stop using the service.

“Discord is always on and always present among these groups on the far-right,” Joan Donovan, the lead researcher on media manipulation at the Data & Society Research Institute, told Slate in 2018. “It’s the place where they do most of the organizing of doxing and harassment campaigns.”

To date, Discord has raised $379.3 million, according to Crunchbase, from an investor group that includes Greylock, Index Ventures, Spark Capital, Tencent and Benchmark.

In addition to the cash it raised earlier this year, Discord emphasized a new user experience and added video functionality so that users could communicate more readily (and so the company could compete with Zoom). There are templates available to help users create servers, and the company has increased its voice and video capacity by 200%.

As part of this new focus on product, Discord has launched what it calls a “Safety Center” that clearly defines the company’s rules and regulations and what actions users can take to monitor and manage their use of service for hate speech and abuse.

“We will continue to take decisive action against white supremacists, racists and others who seek to use Discord for evil,” the founders wrote in June.

As we reported at the time, Index Ventures co-founder Danny Rimer, who led the investor group that backed Discord’s latest $100 million cash infusion, was an advocate for the company’s expanded vision for itself.

“I believe Discord is the future of platforms because it demonstrates how a responsibly curated site can provide a safe space for people with shared interests,” Rimer wrote in a statement. “Rather than throwing raw content at you, like Facebook, it provides a shared experience for you and your friends. We’ll come to appreciate that Discord does for social conversation what Slack has done for professional conversation.”

Apparently, investors are doubling down on that assessment.

 

News: Instagram businesses and creators may be getting a Messenger-like ‘FAQ’ feature

• November 24, 2020
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Instagram is developing a new product, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), that will allow people to start conversations with businesses or creators’ accounts by tapping on a commonly asked question within a chat. Those who already have the feature available report they’re able to create set of up to four questions which can optionally be displayed

Instagram is developing a new product, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), that will allow people to start conversations with businesses or creators’ accounts by tapping on a commonly asked question within a chat. Those who already have the feature available report they’re able to create set of up to four questions which can optionally be displayed at the beginning of a conversation with other users.

The feature could be useful for businesses that are often responding to customer inquiries about their products or services, or for creators who receive a number of inbound requests from fans or brands interested in collaborations, for example.

The product’s introduction highlights the extent that Instagram’s messaging platform now overlaps with Facebook Messenger, following the recent launch of the new Instagram messaging experience. In September, Facebook announced Instagram users would have the option to upgrade to a new inbox that now offers a number of Messenger-inspired features — like the ability to change your chat color, react with any emoji, set messages to disappear, and more. The upgrade also introduced cross-app communication between Instagram and Messenger’s platforms.

With these changes, it appears Facebook is paving a road towards making the Instagram messaging experience more on par with Messenger.

Today, the Messenger app offers a similar FAQ option for Facebook Page owners under the Automated Responses section in Messenger’s settings. Here, Page owners or admins can set up a series of frequently asked questions and their responses to those questions which can be presented at the beginning of conversations with their Page — just like this new Instagram feature offers.

The Instagram FAQ option had been spotted earlier this year while in development, but seemed to be only for Business accounts, according to the app’s code.

 

However, new reports and screenshots from one Instagram user with access to the feature indicate the FAQ will be available for creator accounts, in addition to businesses.

The feature was spotted on Monday by social media consultant Matt Navarra, who credited @thenezvm for the new discovery.

Given that @thenezvm has access to the feature now, as the above credited screenshots show, the FAQ option could either be in early testing or starting to roll out more broadly.

It’s likely the former, however, as Instagram declined to comment or provide details, when TechCrunch asked for more information.