We crawled into an abandoned school bus, trespassed through dilapidated hallways, dodged fleeting thunderstorms and wandered through empty streets of Chinatown late into the evening. For two summery weeks, I couldn’t have been happier. New York City was in lockdown. I’d been quarantined in my dinky apartment, disheartened and restless. I was anxious to do
We crawled into an abandoned school bus, trespassed through dilapidated hallways, dodged fleeting thunderstorms and wandered through empty streets of Chinatown late into the evening. For two summery weeks, I couldn’t have been happier.
New York City was in lockdown. I’d been quarantined in my dinky apartment, disheartened and restless. I was anxious to do something creative. Thankfully, the Hasselblad X1D II 50C arrived for review, along with approval from the studio heads for socially-distanced, outdoor shoots.
Taking pictures of the mundane (flowers, buildings, and such) would’ve been a disservice to a $10,000 camera kit, so instead, my friends and I collaborated on a fun, little project: we shot portraits inspired by our favorite films.
Image Credits: Veanne Cao
Equipped with masks and a bottle of hand sanitizer, we put the X1D II 50C and 80mm F/1.9 lens (ideal for close-ups without actually having to be close up) through its paces in some of NYC’s less familiar backdrops.
Before I get into any trouble for the last photo – Alex and Jason are professional stuntmen and that’s a rubber prop gun. They were reenacting the penultimate scene fromInfernal Affairs – a brilliant piece of Hong Kong cinema (much better than the Scorsese remake).
While the camera is slightly more approachable in terms of cost and ease of use with a few upgrades (larger, more responsive rear screen, a cleaned-up menu, tethering capabilities, faster startup time and shutter release), the X1D II is essentially the same as its predecessor. So I skipped the standard review.
Image Credits: Veanne Cao
What it is, what it isn’t
The most common complaint about the X1D was its slow autofocus, slow shutter release and short battery life. The X1D II improved on these features, though not by much. Rather than seeing the lag as a hindrance, I was forced to slow down and re-wire my brain for a more thoughtful shooting style (a pleasant side effect).
As I mentioned in my X1D review, Apple and other smartphone manufacturers have made shooting great pictures effortless. As such, the accessibility has created a culture of excessively capturing everyday banalities. You shoot far more than you’ll ever need. It’s something I’m guilty of. Pretty sure 90% of the images on my iPhone camera roll are throwaways. (The other 10% are of my dog and he’s spectacularly photogenic.)
The X1D II, however, is not an easy camera. It’s frustrating at times. If you’re a beginner, you may have to learn the fundamentals (ISO, f-stops, when to click the shutter), but the payoff is worth it. There’s an overwhelming sense of gratification when you get that one shot. And at 50 megapixels, it’s packed with details and worthy of hanging on your wall. Shelling out a ton of money for the X1D II won’t instantly make you a better photographer, but it ought to encourage you to become one.
Without the contrived studio lights and set design, our outdoor shoots became an exercise in improvisation: we wandered through the boroughs finding practicals (street lights, neon lights… the sun), discovering locations, and switching spots when things didn’t pan out.
We explored, we had purpose.
My takeaway from the two weeks with this camera: pause and be meaningful in your actions.
Welcome back to The TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter. It’s broadly based on the daily column that appears on Extra Crunch, but free, and made for your weekend reading. Want it in your inbox every Saturday morning? Sign up here. Ready? Let’s talk money, startups and spicy IPO rumors. It’s been a bizarre few
Welcome back to The TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter. It’s broadly based on the daily column that appears on Extra Crunch, but free, and made for your weekend reading. Want it in your inbox every Saturday morning? Sign up here.
Ready? Let’s talk money, startups and spicy IPO rumors.
It’s been a bizarre few weeks, with Robinhood raising a torrent of new funds to keep its zero-cost trading model afloat during turbulent market conditions, other neo-trading houses changing up their business model and more. But amidst all the moves in startup-land, something has been itching in the back of my head: Why are several rich people pumping crappy assets?
It’s fine for a retail investor to share trading ideas amongst themselves; it has happened, will happen, and will always happen. But we’ve seen folks like Elon Musk and Chamath Palihapitiya use their broad market imprint to encourage regular folks — directly and indirectly — to buy into some pretty silly trades that could lose the retail crowd lots of money that they may not be able to afford.
Think of Elon coming back to Twitter to pump Doge, a joke of a cryptocurrency that is highly volatile and mostly useless. Or Chamath putting money into GameStop publicly, a move that he is better equipped than most to get into and out of. Which he did. And made money. Most folks that played the GameStop casino have not been as lucky, and many have lost more than they can afford.
Caveat emptor and all that, but I do not love folks with savvy and capital leading regular people into risky trades or into assets that are not backed by long-term fundamentals, but instead a small shot at near-term returns. Yoof.
Finally, keeping up the theme of general annoyance, Senator Hawley is back in the news this week with an attention-focused announcement of an idea to block big tech companies from buying smaller companies. As you would expect from the insurrection-friendly Senator, it’s not an incredibly serious proposal, and it’s written so vaguely as to be nearly humorous.
But as I wrote here on my personal blog about all of this, what does matter out of the generally irksome pol is that there is bipartisan interest in limiting the ability of big tech companies to buy smaller companies. For startups, that is not good news; M&A exits are critical liquidity events for startups, and big companies have the most money.
It’s no sauté of my onions if startup valuations fall, but I think there’s been plenty of attention noting that some Democrats and some Republicans in the U.S want to undercut top-down tech M&A, and not nearly enough notice concerning what the effort might do to startup valuations and funding. And if those metrics dip, there could be fewer upstarts in the market actually working to take on the giants.
Food for thought.
Market Notes
The Exchange caught up once again with Unity CFO Kim Jabal. We did so not merely to make jokes with her about games that we like or don’t like, but to keep tabs on how Jabal thinks as the financial head of a company that was private when she joined, and public now. A few observations:
GAAP v. Non-GAAP: I asked about Unity’s recent Q4 net income, measured using generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP. It was impacted by some share-based comp numbers. Jabal was clear that her team and investors are more focused on non-GAAP numbers. Why? They strip out non-cash charges like share-based comp and provide a different perspective into corporate performance. This is standard startup practice, but her comment shows how if your company is growing quickly post-IPO, you can stick to adjusted metrics and have no issue. If growth slows, I bet that changes.
COVID: Will the COVID bump to gaming stick? Per Jabal, when her company has seen a bump in engagement historically, results don’t tend to fall back to prior plateaus. I wonder if this will be the case for all COVID-boosted parts of the startup and big-tech landscape. If so, it’s very good news.
Know your metrics: Jabal said that her key metrics are non-GAAP operating margin and free cash flow — apart from growth, I’d add. That’s super clear and easy to grok. Startup CEOs, please have a similar distillation ready when we chat about your latest round.
And speaking of startups, let’s talk about a company that I’ve had my eye on that recently raised more capital: Deepgram. I covered the company’s Series A, a $12 million round in March 2020. Now it has raised $25 million more, led by Tiger, so this is a fun case of big money investing early-stage, I think. Regardless, Deepgram was a bet on a particular model for speech recognition, and, then, its market. its new investment implies that both wagers came out the right way up.
And I was chatting with the CEO of Databricks recently (more here on its latest megaround), who mentioned the huge gains made in AI, and more specifically around generative adversarial networks (GANs) NLP, and more. Our read is that we should expect to see more Deepgram-ish rounds in the future as AI and similar methods of approaching data make their way into workflows.
And fintech player Payoneer is going public. Via a SPAC. You can read the investor presentation here. Payoneer is not a pre-revenue firm going out via a blank check; it did an expected $346 million in 2020 rev. I’m bringing it to you for two reasons. One, read the deck, and then ask yourself why all SPAC decks are so ugly. I don’t get it. And then ask yourself why isn’t it pursuing a traditional IPO? Numbers are on pages 32 and 40. I can’t figure it out. Let me know if you have a take. Best response gets Elon’s dogecoin.
The public markets have been so active lately that it’s hard to drum up excitement for yet another company making its way to the bull market. But, in the case of Bumble, a dating app where women message first, next week’s public debut is worth paying attention to. The market for dating startups has long
The public markets have been so active lately that it’s hard to drum up excitement for yet another company making its way to the bull market. But, in the case of Bumble, a dating app where women message first, next week’s public debut is worth paying attention to.
The market for dating startups has long had an 11-year-old elephant in the room: Match Group. The Dallas company owns popular dating brands including Tinder, Hinge, OkCupid, and more, which some saw as the singular exit point for startups that help people meet.
Bumble, founded by Whitney Wolfe Herd, will change that narrative with its entrance into the public markets. Bumble is seeking to raise more than $1 billion upon debut. The company could be worth between $5.73 billion and $6.14 billion, looking at a diluted valuation.
Bumble’s choice to swipe past the classic route to sell to Match Group tells us that Wolfe Herd is bullish that the exit environment is strong for dating apps, as loneliness amid the pandemic continues to impact the masses.
Cleo Capital’s Sarah Kunst, a former senior adviser to Bumble, tells me that Bumble is making history in a few ways, and “may well unleash a tidal wave of new funding and startups in the space.”
“As the youngest woman to ever take a company public, Whitney has proven that dating, a category long shunned by venture investors, is a highly lucrative and fast growing sector,” Kunst said. “She also is at the vanguard of several dawning realizations in tech: companies founded outside of Silicon Valley, companies founded by women, and gender parity on boards.”
We’ll be all over this on TechCrunch and Extra Crunch next week, but in the meantime, let’s get through the other news of the week. Make sure to follow me on Twitter so I can bother you the remaining six days of the week.
Pandemic-era valuations
Valuations are simply the price that an investor thinks a startup is worth — nothing more, nothing less. When a big event happens in the world of startups, such as a massive exit or blockbuster IPO, startups within the sector-of-interest often enjoy a boom in valuations.
Here’s what to know: This week, we explored whether edtech enjoyed that same burst of energy. According to over a dozen investors, edtech isn’t seeing skyrocketing valuations. It’s a surprise to me, but venture capitalists have their theories as to why (and seemingly are energized enough by exit opportunities in the meantime).
Etc: Beyond edtech, this survey can give us key intel on how sectors that faced a pandemic lift, such as fintech and e-commerce, are valued and ranked by investors. It might suggest that the noise is louder than the actual dollars and cents.
Don’t let the Demo Days fool you: Venture capital is getting bigger, faster, and older. But if you’re an angel who invested in a startup that was meant to go public in 2014, you might be getting a little bit impatient and want your capital back.
Here’s what to know: The tool, CartaX, finally launched this week after being teased out for months. Upon launch, Carta sold nearly $100 million of its own shares on its own cap table, at more than double its last valuation post-Series F round.
Etc: Carta is, of course, hoping that its cap-table management business will help it pull off the operation unlike others who have tried and failed. Here is some context from Danny Crichton:
That wave of liquidity startups ran into two problems: One was regulatory, and the other was a lack of company information about cap tables and that company’s current financial picture. Stock buyers were essentially flying blind while buying into companies, which some investors were more than willing to do, but that blindness limited the market demand for secondary shares significantly.
Image: JaaakWorks/iStock/Getty Images
The art of a startup narrative
It’s normal if sculpting a story out of the hot mess that is your day-to-day doesn’t feel natural. It’s like writing a story before you know exactly what you want to accomplish with each and every word. The difficulty doesn’t diminish the necessity, though.
We were very heads down, building these open-source projects and trying to create good software, and we just hadn’t thought a lot about the narrative. Over the years, that’s gotten a lot better, but it’s also become a lot more self-evident to us and much clearer as we write and build the business,” said Raj Dutt, Grafana’s co-founder and CEO.
Etc: Speaking of advice, here’s one warning story by Silicon Valley editor Connie Loizos about how an insurtech startup got their idea swiped (and funded) by their own venture backer. And to offset that stress, here’s one inspiring story, by yours truly, about how one woman went from user to chief executive of a startup in less than a year.
detail of a microphone with some bokeh on background
It’s almost our second birthday, and in lieu of presents, want to send us candidates? The Extra Crunch team, which I’m a part of, is hiring for new contract positions to help us dig out what’s really going on in the world of startups.
@EquityPod: A lake house architect, Miami VC, and homeowner walk into a wine bar
In this week’s podcast, the Equity team got their west coast correspondent back (aka me) and had a good ol’ time talking about everything from Miami to millennial homes.
Listen to the podcast to hear us chat about Drizly’s new parent, a new Nellie Levchin-backed startup, and UiPath’s big new valuation. We, of course, got into off topic conversations such as a sommelier that hates people and the lake house dynamic.
You’ve landed on Human Capital, a weekly newsletter detailing the latest in diversity, equity, inclusion and labor. Sign up here to receive the newsletter every Friday at 1 p.m. PT. The events of this week perfectly encapsulate the variety of worker and workplace-related struggles happening in the tech industry. Google settled some discrimination allegations with
You’ve landed on Human Capital, a weekly newsletter detailing the latest in diversity, equity, inclusion and labor. Sign up here to receive the newsletter every Friday at 1 p.m. PT.
The events of this week perfectly encapsulate the variety of worker and workplace-related struggles happening in the tech industry. Google settled some discrimination allegations with the Department of Labor, Amazon agreed to settle a complaint with the FTC over stolen tips from Flex workers and the Alphabet Workers Union filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board. It was quite the week so let’s get to it.
Grocery delivery startup Dumpling faces backlash
Dumpling workers said this week they have been misled by the Instacart alternative’s business model, Vice reported. Additionally, workers told Vice the company shut down their Facebook post where they were protesting pay changes.
From Vice:
But Dumpling is now in hot water with many of the gig workers on its platform, which it calls “business owners.” These business owners say the company has misled them about how much autonomy and control they’d have on the platform, and has shut down their Facebook group after workers on the platform spoke out against a series of changes the company made to its pay model in the latter half of 2020. When Dumpling closed the Facebook group, it said the group “ha[d]n’t lived up to its positive intent.”
Alpha Global walks back its announcement
Remember when Alpha Global announced an alliance of Alphabet workers around the world, including those affiliated with the recently-formed Alphabet Workers Union in the U.S.? Well, it turns out that wasn’t entirely true. Alpha Global has since issued a revised statement clarifying it did not have buy-in from AWU.
In our announcement of the Alpha Global alliance, UNI mistakenly included CODE-CWA and the Alphabet Workers Union (AWU) as members of the Alpha Global Alliance and a quote from AWU Executive Chair Parul Koul, without receiving proper authorization from CWA, the Alphabet Workers Union’s elected Executive Council, or Ms. Koul. We take full responsibility and have addressed this situation to prevent it from happening again.
But by the time Alpha Global made the announcement, the damage had already been done, according to The Verge. Some AWU members expressed their concerns with the way things went down, and some are now pushing to disassociate from the Communications Workers of America.
In a filing with the National Labor Union, AWU alleged Google vendor Adecco violated the law by trying to silence employees. The complaint alleges employees were punished for discussing their pay. The complaint was filed against both Adecco and Google
Google CEO meets with HBCUs
In light of recent departures of Black leaders at Google, CEO Sundar Pichai met with five HBCUs last Friday. The meeting itself was relatively uneventful — they reportedly didn’t even talk about the allegations from Dr. Timnit Gebru and April Curley — but HBCUs and Google provided the following joint-statement to CNN:
“We are all encouraged about the future partnership. The meeting paved the way for a more substantive partnership in a number of areas, from increased hiring to capacity building efforts that will increase the pipeline of tech talent from HBCUs.”
Google settles discrimination allegations with DOL
Google agreed to pay $2.59 million to more than 5,500 current employees and former job applicants as part of a settlement with the U.S. Department of Labor over allegations of systemic discrimination as it relates to compensation and hiring.
Google also agreed to reserve $250,000 a year for the next five years to address any potential pay equity adjustments that may come up. That brings Google’s total financial commitment to $3.8 million — a drop in the bucket for the company, whose parent company Alphabet has a market cap of $1.28 trillion.
The settlement comes after the DOL’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs found pay disparities affecting female software engineers at Google’s offices in Mountain View, as well as in offices in Seattle and Kirkland, Washington. The OFCCP also found differences in hiring rates that “disadvantaged female and Asian applicants” for engineers roles at Google’s locations in San Francisco, Sunnyvale and Kirkland.
Two Google workers quit to show solidarity
Vinesh Kannan, a software engineer, quit Google in light of Dr. Timnit Gebru and April Curley’s negative experiences at the company.
In a tweet, Kannan said what they experienced “crossed a personal red line I wrote down when I started the job. I know I gained a lot from Google, but I also gained a lot from both of their work, and they were wronged.”
David Baker, who was a director focused on user safety, left Google last month, saying Gebru’s departure “extinguished my desire to continue as a Googler,” according to Reuters.
Amazon agreed to pay $61.7 million to settle FTC complaint over stolen tips from Flex workers
Amazon will pay $61.7 million to compensate the drivers who loss out on the tips they were owed.
According to the complaint against Amazon and its subsidiary Amazon Logistics, the company had advertised that it paid 100% of tips to drivers. But in reality, Amazon used the customer tips to cover the difference after it lowered the hourly rate — a change it didn’t inform drivers about, the complaint says.
The FTC also alleged that Amazon didn’t stop this behavior until it became aware of the FTC investigation in 2019.
Amazon union vote on the horizon
Despite Amazon’s motion to postpone the Bessemer, Alabama union election, the National Labor Relations Board on Friday denied the company’s request. The election will go as planned via mail-in ballots beginning on Monday, February 8.
Context: Amazon has been vocally anti-union, with a website dedicated to convincing workers not to unionize, as well as fliers posted inside the workplace — even in bathroom stalls, according to The Washington Post.
Workers protest future Amazon fulfillment center
Over in Oxnard, Calif., workers protested at the site of a future Amazon fulfillment center, disrupting the construction efforts, Vice reported. The strike aimed to challenge the fact that Amazon contractor, Building Zone Industries, hired non-union workers from out of the state for the job. There were reportedly more than 100 people who participated in the strike and refused to cross the picket line to work on the project.
CA Supreme Court rejects lawsuit challenging Prop 22
The California Supreme Court shot down the lawsuit filed by a group of rideshare drivers in California and the Service Employees International Union that alleged Proposition 22 violates the state’s constitution.
“We are disappointed in the Supreme Court’s decision not to hear our case, but make no mistake: we are not deterred in our fight to win a livable wage and basic rights,” Hector Castellanos, a plaintiff in the case, said in a statement. “We will consider every option available to protect California workers from attempts by companies like Uber and Lyft to subvert our democracy and attack our rights in order to improve their bottom lines.”
The suit argued Prop 22 makes it harder for the state’s legislature to create and enforce a workers’ compensation system for gig workers. It also argues Prop 22 violates the rule that limits ballot measures to a single issue, as well as unconstitutionally defines what would count as an amendment to the measure. As it stands today, Prop 22 requires a seven-eighths legislative supermajority in order to amend the measure.
Don’t miss TC Sessions: Justice
I’m spearheading an upcoming virtual event, TC Sessions: Justice, that’s going to dive into all of these topics. You’ll be able to hear from speakers like AWU Executive Chair Parul Koul, former Amazon warehouse worker Christian Smalls, Uber Chief Diversity Officer Bo Young Lee, Backstage Capital founder and Managing Partner Arlan Hamilton and others.
For the latest episode of the Original Content podcast, we looked back at “Soul,” which was released on Disney+ at the end of last year. The new Pixar film tells the story of Joe Gardner, a high school music teacher and jazz musician voiced by Jamie Foxx. Joe seems to be on the verge of
For the latest episode of the Original Content podcast, we looked back at “Soul,” which was released on Disney+ at the end of last year.
The new Pixar film tells the story of Joe Gardner, a high school music teacher and jazz musician voiced by Jamie Foxx. Joe seems to be on the verge of his big break when he accidentally falls down an open manhole, sending him to a distinctly Pixar-ish twist on the afterlife, and eventually on a metaphysical quest to return to his body before an important concert..
Anthony has been wanting to talk about “Soul” for a while — it was easily his favorite movie of 2020, but he watched it right after we recorded our discussion of the best streaming content of 2020.
And if you’re worried that this is nothing more than 40 minutes of praise, well … you’re not entirely wrong. Both of us liked it a lot, appreciating both its vibrant (and in retrospect, melancholy) portrayal of New York City life before pandemic lockdowns and social distancing, as well as its inventive portrayal of the worlds our souls go to before we’re born and after we die. (It was so inventive that Jordan had to wonder whether any unusual substances may have been involved in its genesis.)
Still, we did acknowledge some of the criticism of “Soul,” particularly certain viewers’ disappointment that even though it’s the first Pixar film with a Black protagonist, Joe actually spends a large portion of the film as a disembodied blue spirit — entertaining from a story perspective, but not quite an unambiguous victory for representation.
You can listen to our review in the player below, subscribe using Apple Podcasts or find us in your podcast player of choice. If you like the show, please let us know by leaving a review on Apple. You can also follow us on Twitter or send us feedback directly. (Or suggest shows and movies for us to review!)
If you’d like to skip ahead, here’s how the episode breaks down:
0:00 Intro
0:20 “Soul” review
18:35 “Soul” spoiler discussion
The SPAC mania continues unabated, with new SPACs being filed with the SEC on an almost hourly basis at times. SoftBank, the Japanese telecom conglomerate which has also been running the gigantic Vision Fund and its successor, doesn’t want to be left out. Yesterday, it filed back-to-back SPAC registration statements for two new blank-check companies.
The SPAC mania continues unabated, with new SPACs being filed with the SEC on an almost hourly basis at times.
SoftBank, the Japanese telecom conglomerate which has also been running the gigantic Vision Fund and its successor, doesn’t want to be left out. Yesterday, it filed back-to-back SPAC registration statements for two new blank-check companies.
SVF Investment Corp 2 is $200 million and SVF Investment Corp 3 is a $350 million vehicle. Both SPACs have a standard roughly 15% over-allotment option, which means that their final sizes will likely end up at $230 million and $400 million respectively assuming that the underwriters take their option (number three has a slightly smaller over-allotment if you’re checking my math).
One interesting component of both SPACs is that they have what is known as a forward purchasing agreement connected to SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2. That agreement allows the second Vision Fund to purchase shares into these SPACs when they begin their business combinations with their target startups, essentially giving it the right to buy into the mergers. The Vision Fund has a $100 million agreement with SVF 2, and a $150 million agreement with SVF 3.
As with all SPACs, a registration statement is merely a filing of an intention to raise money, although these days, the vast majority of filings are later consummated.
As the numbering indicates, SoftBank had an earlier SPAC that it filed in December and officially closed on January 7 of this year. That vehicle targeted a total fundraise of $604 million including the underwriters’ over-allotment option. It also included a $250 million forward purchase agreement with the second Vision Fund similar to these latest two vehicles.
What are these SPACs looking for? Well, according to the filings, “We intend to identify, acquire and manage a business in a technology-enabled sector where our management team have differentiated experience and insights. Relevant sectors may include, but are not limited to, mobile communications technology, artificial intelligence, robotics, cloud technologies, software broadly, computational biology and other data-driven business models, semiconductors and other hardware, transportation technologies, consumer internet and financial technology.”
That seems to cover a lot, but just in case, the filings note that “However, we may consummate a transaction with a business in a different or related industry.” So basically anything.
There is no timeline yet for when the SPACs could potentially close, but typical timing is 4-8 weeks given market averages.
The warrant ordered Google to turn over a set of user account data. Civil liberties groups have criticized the use of these dragnet search warrants.
Police in Minneapolis obtained a search warrant ordering Google to turn over sets of account data on vandals accused of sparking violence in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd last year, TechCrunch has learned.
The death of Floyd, a Black man killed by a white police officer in May 2020, prompted thousands to peacefully protest across the city. But violence soon erupted, which police say began with a masked man seen in a viral video using an umbrella to smash windows of an auto-parts store in south Minneapolis. The AutoZone store was the first among dozens of buildings across the city set on fire in the days following.
The search warrant compelled Google to provide police with the account data on anyone who was “within the geographical region” of the AutoZone store when the violence began on May 27, two days after Floyd’s death.
These so-called geofence warrants — or reverse-location warrants — are frequently directed at Google in large part because the search and advertising giant collects and stores vast databases of geolocation data on billions of account holders who have “location history” turned on. Geofence warrants allow police to cast a digital dragnet over a crime scene and ask tech companies for records on anyone who entered a geographic area at a particular time. But critics say these warrants are unconstitutional as they also gather the account information on innocent passers-by.
TechCrunch learned of the search warrant from Minneapolis resident Said Abdullahi, who received an email from Google stating that his account information was subject to the warrant, and would be given to the police.
But Abdullahi said he had no part in the violence and was only in the area to video the protests when the violence began at the AutoZone store.
The warrant said police sought “anonymized” account data from Google on any phone or device that was close to the AutoZone store and the parking lot between 5:20pm and 5:40pm (CST) on May 27, where dozens of the people in the area had gathered.
When reached, Minneapolis police spokesperson John Elder, citing an ongoing investigation, would not answer specific questions about the warrant, including for what reason the warrant was issued.
According to a police affidavit, police said the protests had been relatively peaceful until the afternoon of May 27, when a masked umbrella-wielding man began smashing the windows of the AutoZone store, located across the street from a Minneapolis police precinct where hundreds of protesters had gathered. Several videos show protesters confronting the masked man.
Police said they spent significant resources on trying to identify the so-called “Umbrella Man,” who they say was the catalyst for widespread violence across the city.
“This was the first fire that set off a string of fires and looting throughout the precinct and the rest of the city,” the affidavit read. At least two people were killed in the unrest. (Erika Christensen, a Minneapolis police investigator who filed the affidavit, was not made available for an interview.)
Police accuse the Umbrella Man of creating an “atmosphere of hostility and tension” whose sole aim was to “incite violence.” (TechCrunch is not linking to the affidavit as the police would not say if the suspect had been charged with a crime.) The affidavit also links the suspect to a white supremacist group called the Aryan Cowboys, and to an incident weeks later where a Muslim woman was harassed.
Multiple videos of the protests around the time listed on the warrant appear to line up with the window-smashing incident. Other videos of the scene at the time of the warrant show hundreds of other people in the vicinity. Police were positioned on rooftops and used tear gas and rubber bullets to control the crowds.
Law enforcement across the U.S. are increasingly relying on geofence warrants to solve crimes where a suspect is not known. Police have defended the use of these warrants because they can help identify potential suspects who entered a certain geographic region where a crime was committed. The warrants typically ask for “anonymized information,” but allow police to go back and narrow their requests on potential suspects of interest.
When allowed by law, Google notifies account holders of when law enforcement demands access to the user’s data. According to a court filing in 2019, Google said the number of geofence warrants it received went up by 1,500% between 2017 and 2018, and more than 500% between 2018 and 2019, but has yet to provide a specific number of warrants
Google reportedly received over 180 geofence warrants in a single week in 2019. When asked about more recent figures, a Google spokesperson declined to comment on the record.
Civil liberties groups have criticized the use of dragnet search warrants. The American Civil Liberties Union said that geofence warrants “circumvent constitutional checks on police surveillance.” One district court in Virginia said geofence warrants violated the constitution because the majority of individuals whose data is collected will have “nothing whatsoever” to do with the crimes under investigation.
Reports in the past year have implicated people whose only connection to a crime is simply being nearby.
NBC News reported the case of one Gainesville, Fla. resident, who was told by Google that his account information would be given to police investigating a burglary. But the resident was able to prove that he had no connection to the burglary, thanks to an app on his phone that tracked his activity.
In 2019, Google gave federal agents investigating several arson attacks in Milwaukee, Wis. close to 1,5000 user records in response to geofence warrant, thought to be one of the largest grabs of account data to date.
But lawmakers are beginning to push back. New York state lawmakers introduced a bill last year that would, if passed, ban geofence warrants across the state, citing the risk of police targeting protesters. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND) grilled Google chief executive Sundar Pichai at a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing last year. “People would be terrified to know that law enforcement could grab general warrants and get everyone’s information everywhere,” said Armstrong.
Abdullahi told TechCrunch that he had several videos documenting the protests on the day and that he has retained a lawyer to try to prevent Google from giving his account information to Minneapolis police.
“Police assumed everybody in that area that day is guilty,” he said. “If one person did something criminal, [the police] should not go after the whole block of people,” he said.
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On Friday just past midnight, I stumbled across a Clubhouse room hosted by a well-known figure in the Chinese startup community, Feng Dahui. At half-past midnight, the room still had nearly 500 listeners, many of whom were engineers, product managers, and entrepreneurs from China. The discussion centered around whether Clubhouse, an app that lets people
On Friday just past midnight, I stumbled across a Clubhouse room hosted by a well-known figure in the Chinese startup community, Feng Dahui. At half-past midnight, the room still had nearly 500 listeners, many of whom were engineers, product managers, and entrepreneurs from China.
The discussion centered around whether Clubhouse, an app that lets people join pop-up voice chats in virtual rooms, will succeed in China. That’s a question I have been asking myself in recent weeks. Given the current hype swirling in Silicon Valley about the audio social network, it’s unsurprising to see well-informed, tech-savvy Chinese users start flocking to the platform. Demand for invitations in China runs high, with people paying as much as $100 to buy one from scalpers.
Many users I talked to believe the app won’t reach its full potential or even just find product-market fit in China before it gets banned. Indeed, a handful of well-attended Chinese-language rooms touch on topics that are normally censored in China, from crypto trading to protests in Hong Kong.
If it’s of any consolation, Clubhouse clones and derivatives are already in the making in China. A Chinese entrepreneur and blogger who goes by the nickname Herock told me he is aware of at least “dozens of local teams” that are working on something similar. Moreover, voice-based networking has been around in China for years, albeit in different forms. If Clubhouse is blocked, will any of its alternatives go on to succeed?
Information control
A direct Clubhouse clone probably won’t work in China.
A few factors dim its prospects in the country, which has nearly one billion internet users. The major appeal of Clubhouse is the organic flow of conversations in real time. But “how could the Chinese government allow free-flowing discussions to happen and spread without control,” a founder of a Chinese audio app rhetorically asked, declining to be named for this story. Video live streaming in China, for example, is under close regulatory oversight limiting who can speak and what they can say.
The founder then cited a famous online protest back in 2011. Thousands of small vendors launched a cyber attack on Alibaba’s online mall over a proposed fee hike. The tool they used to coordinate with one another was YY, which started out as a voice-based chatting software for gamers and later became known for video live streaming.
“The authorities dread the power of real-time audio communication,” the founder added.
There are signs that Clubhouse may already be the target of censorship. While Clubhouse works perfectly in China without the need for a virtual private network (VPN) or other censorship-circumvention tools (at least for the moment), the iOS-exclusive app is unavailable on China’s App Store. Clubhouse was removed there shortly after its global release in late September, app analytics firm Sensor Tower said.
Currently, in order to install Clubhouse, Chinese users need to install the app by switching to an App Store located in another country, which further limits the product’s reach to users who have the means of using a non-local store.
It’s unclear whether Apple preemptively delisted Clubhouse in anticipation of government action, given that any later removal of a major foreign app in China could stir up accusations of censorship. Alternatively, Clubhouse might have voluntarily pulled the app itself knowing that any form of real-time broadcasting won’t go unchecked by Chinese regulators, which would inevitably compromise user experience.
Entering China could be way down on Clubhouse’s to-do list given the traction it is gaining elsewhere. The app has seen about 3.6 million worldwide installs so far, according to Sensor Tower estimates. The majority of its lifetime installs originate in the United States, where the app has seen nearly 2 million first-time downloads, followed by Japan and Germany both with over 400,000 downloads.
Clubhouse elites
Clubhouse room hosted by Feng Dahui, a respected figure in China’s startup world. (Screenshot by TechCrunch)
The improbability of uncensored and open discussions on the Chinese internet may explain why the market hasn’t seen its own Clubhouse. But even if an app like Clubhouse is allowed to exist in China, it may not reach the same massive scale across the country as Douyin (TikTok’s Chinese version) and WeChat did.
The app is “elitist,” sort of like a voice version of Twitter, said Marco Lai, CEO and founder of Lizhi, a NASDAQ-listed Chinese audio platform. So far, Clubhouse’s invite-only model has confined its American user base largely to the tech, arts and celebrity circles. Herock observed that its Chinese demographics mirror the trend, with users concentrated in fields like finance, startup and product management, as well as crypto traders.
Even among these users though, there is the question of free time. The other night, I was up at midnight eavesdropping on a group of ByteDance employees. In fact, I’ve mostly been on Clubhouse in the late evenings after work, because that’s when user activity in China appears to peak. “Who in China has that much time?” said Zhou Lingyu, founder of Rainmaker, a Chinese networking community for professionals, when I asked whether she thinks Clubhouse will attract the masses in China.
While her remark may not apply to everyone, the tech-centric, educated crowds in China — the demographic that Clubhouse appears to be targeting or at least attracting — are also those most likely to work the notorious “996” schedule, the long hours practice common in Chinese tech companies. The type of “meaningful conversations” that Clubhouse encourages is desirable, but the app’s real-time, spontaneous nature is also a lot to ask of 996 workers, who likely prefer more efficient and manageable use of time.
Moderators may also need material incentives to remain active aside from the pure passion in connecting with other human beings. One potential solution is to turn quality conversations into podcast episodes. “Clubhouse is for one-off, casual conversations. Those who produce high-quality content would want to record the conversation so it could be for repeatable consumption later on,” said Zhou.
Chinese counterparts
In China, audio networking has played out in slightly different shapes. Some companies place a great deal of focus on gamification, filling their apps with playful, interactive features.
Lizhi’s social podcast app, for example, is not just about listening. It also lets listeners message hosts, tip them through virtual gifts, record themselves shadowing a host who is reading a poem, compete in online karaoke contests, and more.
Interaction between hosts and listeners happens in a relatively orchestrated way, as Lizhi’s operational staff design campaigns and work with content creators behind the scenes to ensure content quality and user engagement. Clubhouse growth, in comparison, is more organic.
“The Chinese products focus more on spectatorship and performance, not so much translating natural social behavior in real life into a product. Clubhouse features are simple. It’s more like a coffee shop,” Lai said.
Lizhi’s other voice product Tiya is considered a close answer to Clubhouse, but Tiya’s users are young — the majority of whom are 15-22 years old — and it focuses on entertainment, letting users chat via audio while they play games and watch sports. That also feeds the need for companionship.
Dizhua, which launched in 2019, is another Chinese app that’s been compared to Clubhouse. Unlike Clubhouse, which relies on people’s existing networks for room discovery, Dizhua matches anonymous users based on their declared interests. Clubhouse conversations can start and die off casually. Dizhua encourages users to pick a theme and stay engaged.
“Clubhouse is a pure audio app, with no timeline, no comment, et cetera,” said Armin Li, an expert in residence with a venture capital firm in China. “It’s a kind of casual and drop-in style for the scenarios where user needs are not clear like hangout or multitasking … Its high community participation, content quality, and user quality are unseen in Chinese voice products.”
The bottom line is: The conversations that happen on Chinese platforms are monitored by content auditors. User registration requires real-name verification on internet platforms in China, so there’s no real anonymity online. The topics that users can discuss are limited, often leaning towards the fun and innocuous.
Why do people in China join Clubhouse anyway? Some, like me, joined out of FOMO. Entrepreneurs are always scouring for the next market opportunity, and product managers from internet giants hope to learn a thing or two from Clubhouse that they could apply to their own products. Bitcoin traders and activists, on the other hand, see Clubhouse as a haven outside the purview of Chinese regulators.
Technical support
One thing I find impressive about Clubhouse is how smoothly it works in China. Even when a foreign app isn’t banned in China, it often loads slowly due to its servers’ distance from China.
Clubhouse doesn’t actually build the technology supporting its enormous chat groups that sometimes reach thousands of participants. Instead, it uses a real-time audio SDK from Agora, two sources told me. The South China Morning Post also reported that. When asked to verify the partnership, Agora CEO Tony Zhao said via email he can’t confirm or deny any engagement between his company and Clubhouse.
Rather, he emphasized Agora’s “virtual network,” which overlays on top of the public internet running on more than 200 co-located data centers worldwide. The company then uses algorithms to plan traffic and optimize routing.
Noticeably, Agora’s operations teams are mainly in China and the U.S., a setup that inevitably raises questions about whether Clubhouse data are within the scope of Chinese regulations.
With real-time voice technology providers like Agora, opportunists are able to build Clubhouse clones quickly at low costs, Herock said. Chinese entrepreneurs are unlikely to copy Clubhouse directly due to local regulatory challenges and different user behavior, but they will race to crank out their own interpretations of voice networking before the hype around Clubhouse fades away.
Everyone knows YouTubers and other creators are popular with internet users of all ages. But today, these influencers also have real businesses powered by a range of software tools and service providers who help weave videos, pictures, clips, memes and other types of content into sustainable success. The pandemic added fuel to existing trends pushing
Everyone knows YouTubers and other creators are popular with internet users of all ages. But today, these influencers also have real businesses powered by a range of software tools and service providers who help weave videos, pictures, clips, memes and other types of content into sustainable success.
The pandemic added fuel to existing trends pushing growth in this category. Today, the platforms are bigger and more diverse than ever and many creators have years of experience growing audiences and monetizing online. Parallel to this industry, the rapid overall growth of enterprise technologies allow for many new types of creator-focused products to be built. Top investors in the space are seeing new opportunities for startups to build tools that help creators monetize and grow or solve needs that are specific to creator subverticals like gaming or coaching/education.
For this particular investor survey, we dug through notes from the following:
As with many industries that fall under the broad banner of tech, digital creators saw an acceleration from COVID-19, investors said. The simple fact that millions of us are inside and on our phones a lot has helped creators expand their audiences. (More on this in our digital media investor survey from the other week.)
More people also became creators. Jin noted that the pandemic has led to “people experimenting with creative hobbies and passions,” which smells like rising creator TAM from our perspective.
A broader definition of what constitutes a creator means more potential customers for startups looking to serve them, and perhaps a greater total revenue in the market could be an impact of COVID.
There are ample places for building in the creator economy, including discovery, which O’Malley cited as a key issue. “The best content doesn’t always rise to the top,” he said, adding that “incentives remain to create content that will be viral and get eyeballs” and to nab the content of others over creating net-new material.
Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. The app industry is as hot as ever, with a record 218 billion downloads and $143 billion in global consumer spend in 2020. Consumers last year also spent 3.5 trillion minutes using apps on Android devices
Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy.
The app industry is as hot as ever, with a record 218 billion downloads and $143 billion in global consumer spend in 2020.
Consumers last year also spent 3.5 trillion minutes using apps on Android devices alone. And in the U.S., app usage surged ahead of the time spent watching live TV. Currently, the average American watches 3.7 hours of live TV per day, but now spends four hours per day on their mobile devices.
Apps aren’t just a way to pass idle hours — they’re also a big business. In 2019, mobile-first companies had a combined $544 billion valuation, 6.5x higher than those without a mobile focus. In 2020, investors poured $73 billion in capital into mobile companies — a figure that’s up 27% year-over-year.
This week, we’re taking a look at Clubhouse’s breakout moment — or moments, to be fair. Also, the App Store’s rules were updated, Parler’s CEO was fired and other companies began raising their own red flags about Apple’s privacy changes.
The invite-only audio platform has been on a roll, and has already hosted big names in tech, media and entertainment, including Drake, Estelle, Tiffany Haddish, Kevin Hart, Jared Leto, Ashton Kutcher, and others in the Silicon Valley tech scene. But this week was a breakout if there ever was one, when on Monday, Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk showed up on Clubhouse, topping the app’s limit of 5,000 people in a single room. With others unable to get in, fans livestreamed the event to other platforms like YouTube, live-tweeted, and set up breakout rooms for the overflow. Musk was later joined by “Vlad The Stock Impaler,” aka Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev, who of course talked about the GameStop saga — and was then interviewed by Musk himself.
Then on Thursday, Clubhouse saw yet another famous guest: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who casually went by “Zuck23” when he joined “The Good Time Show” talk show on the app, as Musk had done before him.
The format of the social media network allowed the execs to informally address a wide audience of listeners with whatever they want to talk about — in Musk’s case, that was space travel, crypto, AI and vaccines, among other things. Zuckerberg, meanwhile, used the time to talk about AR/VR and its future in business and remote work. (If you thought Zoom meetings were bad…).
(And who knows, maybe he wanted give the app a try for other reasons, too.)
Listening to Mark Zuckerberg chat on Clubhouse, it’s impossible not to wonder how long before Facebook releases its own version of this product
There is something unsettling about this whole arrangement, of course. Soft-balled questions lobbed at billionaires, journalists blocked from rooms, and so on — all on an app financed by a VC firm, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), that’s said to be interested in cutting out the media middleman, to “go direct” instead. (Not coincidentally, the room inviting the big name guests was co-hosted by a16z’s Andreessen and its new GP, Sriram Krishnan, who is described as having an “optimistic” outlook — perhaps a valuable commodity when much of the media does not.)
Regardless of the machinations behind the scenes that made it happen, it’s hard to ignore an app where the biggest names in tech show up to just chat — or even interview one another.
Where is all this going?, is a valid question to be raised. Some have described Clubhouse as the late-night talk show equivalent. A place where interviews aren’t about asking the hard questions, but rather about whatever the guest came there to say or promote. And that’s fine, of course — as long as everyone understands that when big names arrive, they may do so with an agenda, even when it seems they’re just there for fun.
In any event, Clubhouse proved this week it’s no longer a buzzy newcomer. For now, at least, it’s decidedly in the game.
Companies (besides Facebook) warn investors about Apple’s privacy changes
So far, it may have seemed as if the only two businesses taking real issue with Apple’s privacy changes, including the coming changes to IDFA, were Facebook and Google. Facebook took out full-page ads and weighed lawsuits. Google delayed iOS app updates while it figured out privacy labels. But as other companies reported their fourth-quarter earnings, IDFA impacts were also topping their list of concerns.
In Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel’s prepared remarks, he alerted investors to the potential disruption to Snap’s ad business, saying that the privacy changes “will present another risk of interruption” to advertising demand. He noted that it was unclear what the long-term consequences of those changes may be, too. Unity, meanwhile, attached a number to it: IDFA changes would reduce its revenue by about 3%, or $30 million, in 2021.
Image Credits: Facebook
It may be that no one really knows how damaging the IDFA update will be until it rolls out. These are only estimates based on tests and assumptions about user behavior. Plus, there are reports poking holes in Facebook’s claims, which had said that small businesses would suffer a 60% cut in revenues. Those are surely overstated, Harvard Business Review wrote, saying Facebook had cherry-picked and amplified its numbers.
Nevertheless, Facebook is already testing ways to encourage users to accept its tracking. The company on Monday began showing some users prompts that explained why it wants to track and asked users to opt in so Facebook can “provide a better ads experience.” Users could tap “allow” or “don’t allow” in response to the prompt.
Apple updates its App Store Rules
Apple said these were moderate changes — just clarifications and tweaks that had been under way for some time. For example, the new App Store Guidelines now include instructions about how developers should implement the new App Tracking Transparency rules. Another section details how developers can now file an appeal upon an app review rejection.
Other changes are more semantic in nature — changing person-to-person experiences to “services” to broaden the scope, for example, or to clarify how gaming companies can offer a single subscription that works across a variety of standalone apps.
Parler — the app banned from the App Store, Google Play, Amazon AWS, using Okta, etc., etc. — fired its CEO, John Matze, this week after struggling to bring the app back online. According to reports from NPR and others, the firing was due to his disagreement with conservative donor Rebekah Mercer, who controls Parler’s board. Matze argued the app would need to crack down on domestic terrorism and groups that incite violence in order to succeed, he says, but claims he was met with silence. Parler, meanwhile, said those statements were misleading.
After Parler’s rapid deplatforming following the events at the Capitol, other alternative social networks climbed up the charts to take its place. But these apps have not proven themselves to have much staying power. Instead, the top charts are once again filled with the usual: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, etc.
Maybe it’s actually no fun yelling about the world when no one is around to challenge you or fight back?
Snap beats with revenue of $911 million in Q4, up 62% YoY, versus $857.4 million expected. Snap’s DAU’s climbed 22% YoY to 265M. But stock dropped over a weak Q1 forecast.
PayPal reported stronger-than-expected, pandemic-fueled earnings with EPS up 25.58% YoY to $1.08, beating the estimate of $1.00. Revenue was $6.12 billion up 23.28% YoY year, which beat the estimate of $6.09 billion. The company added 16 million net new accounts, bringing the total to 277 million.
Related, Venmo’s TPV grew 60% year over year to $47 billion, and its customer base grew 32%, ending just shy of 70 million accounts. The company expects its revenues will approach $900 million in 2021.
Spotify reports revenue growth of 17% YoY to €2.17 billion; 345M MAUs, up 27% YoY; and paid subs to 155 million, up by 24%.
Platforms: Apple
The iOS 14.5 beta arrives with a number of notable new features, including most notably, ATT and the ability to unlock your iPhone when wearing a mask, as long as you’re also wearing an Apple Watch. Other changes include worldwide dual-SIM 5G support, AirPlay 2 support for Apple Fitness+, support for PlayStation 5 DualSense and Xbox Series X controllers, support for T-Mobile’s standalone 5G network, a new Siri feature for calling emergency services, a toggle to disable emergency alert sounds, emoji search for iPad, and other small changes in the Reminders, News and Podcasts apps, and more.
Code in the iOS 14.5 beta also suggests new financial features like Apple Card Family for multiuser accounts and a new framework FinHealth that gives automated suggestions to improve your finances.
Apple rolls out new and updated design resources for building apps across its platforms, including iOS 14 and iPad OS 14, tvOS 14 and macOS Bir Sur. On mobile, the new design resources for Sketch have been rebuilt to support color variables, and include numerous minor improvements and bug fixes.
Apple’s services saw a significant outage this week that impacted, among other things, the App Store, leading to blank pages, broken search results and more.
Certain U.S. states will allow casino, sports and lottery games from March 1, 2021.Google already announced a change to Play Store policies, to allow these. In Apple’s updated App Store Guidelines, out this week, it also added “gambling” as one of the app categories that had to be submitted by a legal entity — an indication that it was opening its doors, too.
App Store growth hit a six-month high in January 2021, Morgan Stanley said, citing Sensor Tower data that indicated App Store net revenue grew 35% YoY in the month. In Japan and Germany, growth reached 60% and in the U.S. it was 42% YoY, due to pandemic impacts.
Some users are saying third-party apps have been crashing after syncing an iPad or iPhone with an M1 Mac.
Platforms: Google
Huawei’s HarmonyOS is being pitched as an original in-house creation, but Ars Technica took a deep dive and found it was really just an Android fork.
Google is said to be exploring its own alternative to Apple’s new anti-tracking feature, which may seem counterintuitive, as Google is in the ads business. But according to a report from Bloomberg, the company is looking into a solution that’s “less stringent” than Apple’s. That could provide some pushback in terms of setting an industry standard.
Gaming
YouTube launches Clips, a short-form video feature that lets users clip 5 to 60 seconds of a video and share with others, similar to Twitch’s clips feature. The feature is in limited alpha testing.
Epic Games is warning Australia’s market regulator to take action against Apple for using its market power to force developers to pay a 30% commission on paid apps and IAP. Epic is suing Apple in the country, but wants the regulator to step in now.
Google hasn’t killed game streaming service Stadia yet, but it did announce this week it’s stepping away from first-party games. The company also announced the Stadia Games and Entertainment head Jade Raymond was leaving the company, while the existing staff would be moved to other projects.
Amazon Luna’s game streaming service expands to more Android devices, including Pixel 3, 3XL, 3a, 3a XL; Samsung S9, S9+, Note 9. The service was already available on new Pixel, Samsung and OnePlus devices, among others.
Augmented Reality
Color of Change launches The Pedestal Project, an AR experience on Instagram that allows users to place statues of racial justice leaders on the empty pedestals where confederate leaders once stood (or anywhere else). At launch, there are three featured leaders included: Rep. John Lewis, Alicia Garza and Chelsea Miller.
TikTok partners with WPP to give WPP agencies access to ad products and APIs that are still in development, including new AR formats.
Security & Privacy
YouTube adds its App Store privacy label, detailing the data it uses to track users. This includes your physical address, email address, phone number, user and device ID, as well as data linked to you for third-party advertising and for app functionality, product personalization and more.
Fintech
Venmo is turning into a financial super appwith additions that include crypto, budgeting, saving and shopping with Honey — all of which are planned for this year.
Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev has been asked to testify before the House Financial Services Committee on February 18, over the GameStop debacle. The app still hasn’t recovered its reputation — Play Store reviews have gone back down to 1.0 stars, even after a purge.
Reddit has its best-ever month in terms of installs, thanks to the “meme stocks” frenzy driven by users of the r/wallstreetbets forum. The app gained 6.6 million downloads in January 2021, up 43% month-over-month, growing its total installs to date to 122.5 million across iOS and Android.
Cash App also this week had to halt buying meme stocks like GameStop, AMC, and Nokia after being notified by its clearing broker of increased capital requirements.
Joompay, a European rival to Venmo and TransferWise, has now launched in the market after obtaining a Luxembourg Electronic Money Institution (EMI) license.
Social & Photos
Image Credits: Snap
Snapchat’s TikTok rival “Spotlight” now has 100 million MAUs, the company said during earnings, and is receiving an average of 175,000 video submissions per day. But Snap is heavily fueling this growth by paying out over $1 million per day to the top-performing videos — everyone wants to be TikTok, it seems.
TikTok says it will now downrank “unsubstantiated” claims that fact checkers can’t verify. The app will also place a warning banner overtop these videos and discourage users from sharing them with pop-up messages.
TikTok owner ByteDance sues Tencent over alleged monopoly practices. The suit claims that Tencent’s WeChat and QQ messaging services won’t allow links to Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok.
Instagram confirms it’s developing a “Vertical Stories” feed that will allow users to flip through users’ stories vertically, similar to TikTok.
IRL, an events website and mobile app, has topped 10 million monthly users as it revamps itself into a social network for events, now including user profiles, group events, and chat.
Instagram bans around 400 accounts linked to hacker forum OGUsers, where members buy and sell stolen social media accounts. The hackers used SIM-swapping attacks, harassment and extortion to take over the accounts of “OG” Instagram users who have coveted short usernames or those with unique words. Twitter and TikTok also took action to target OGUsers members, the companies confirmed.
Instagram adds “Recently Deleted,” a new feature that lets you review and recover deleted content. The company says it added protections to stop hackers from accessing your account to reach these items. Deleted stories that are not in your archive will stay in the folder for up to 24 hours. Everything else will be automatically deleted 30 days later.
Triller ditches its plans to do a Super Bowl ad and will now host a fan contest instead. The app has struggled to present a challenge to TikTok in the U.S. market.
Element, a client for federal chat protocol Matrix, was removed from the Play Store this week, for abusive content. But Google made a mistake. This was a third-party client, not the content’s host. And it had already removed the content, based on its own rules. For those unfamiliar, Element is an open network that offers both unencrypted public chatrooms as well as E2EE content. Eventually, the developer got a call from a Google VP who helped the app get reinstated. But the situation, which resulted in 24 hours of downtime, raised a question of how well app stores are prepared to moderate issues that crop up in decentralized platforms and services.
Clubhouse CEO Paul Davison confirmed the company will introduce a subscription tool that will allow creators to make money from their rooms.
Telegram, benefitting from the shift to private messaging and the WhatsApp backlash, became the most-downloaded app overall in January 2021, across both app stores and on Google Play. On the App Store, it was No. 4 and TikTok was No. 1.
Image Credits: Sensor Tower
Streaming Services and Media
Apple-owned Shazam adds iOS 14 widgets for the first time, allowing you to quickly ID any song that’s playing and see your history.
Spotify adds new playlists, podcasts and takeovers for Black History Month, and creates a new “Black History Is Now” hub in the app.
The U.S. version of the Discovery+ mobile app gets more first-month downloads (3.3 million) than HBO Max did (3.1 million), Apptopia found. But it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison, as existing HBO NOW users were upgraded to Max.
Health & Fitness
The Google Fit app on Pixel devices is getting an update that will allow your phone’s camera to measure pulse and breathing rates.
Microsoft rebrands its document scanner app Office Lens to Microsoft Lens and adds new features, including Image to Text, an Immersive Reader, a QR Code Scanner and the ability to scan up to 100 pages. Lens also now integrates with Teams, so users can record short videos to be sent through Team chats. Uh, TikTok’s about documents, I guess?
Government & Policy
Myanmar’s military government orders telecoms to block Facebookuntil February 7, following coup. The government, which seized power following an election, said the social network is contributing to instability in the country.
TikTok will recheck the age of every user in Italy, following an emergency order from the GPDP issued after the January 22 death of a 10-year-old girl who tried the “blackout challenge” she saw on the app. On February 9, every user will have to go through the TikTok age-gate again.
Funding and M&A
Uber buys alcohol delivery service Drizly for $1.1 billion. Drizly’s website and app let users order alcohol in markets across the U.S. but is often hampered by local liquor laws. Gross bookings were up 300% YoY, ahead of the deal.
Vivino, a wine recommendation and marketplace app,raises $155 million Series D led by Sweden’s Kinnevik. The app now has 50 million users and data set of 1.5 billion photos of wine labels.
Mobile ad platform and games publisher AppLovin acquires Berlin-based mobile ad attribution company Adjust in what’s being reported as a $1 billion deal, but is reportedly less. The deal comes at a time when the ad attribution market is being dramatically altered by Apple’s ATT. Mobile Dev Memo explains the deal will give Applovin visibility into which games and driving conversions for Adjust customers, to benefit its own ad campaigns.
Chinese social gaming startup Guangzhou Quwan Network Technologyraises $100 million Series B from Matrix Partners China and Orchid Asia Group Management. The company provides instant voice messaging, social gaming, esports and game distribution and operates voice chat app TT Voice, which has over 100 million users.
Consumer trading app Flink, a sort of Robinhood for the Mexican market, raises $12 million Series A led by Accel.
Commuting platform Hip, which offers both an online dashboard and mobile app, raises $12 million led by NFX and Magenta Venture Partners. The app works with bus and shuttle providers to plan routes for commuters and offers COVID-19 tracing services.
Bot MD, a Signapore-based app that offers doctors an AI chatbot for looking up important information,raises $5 million Series A led by Monk’s Hill Ventures. The funds will help the app to expand elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific region, including Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia and India.
Meditation and sleep app Expectfulraises $3 million in seed funding for its app aimed at new mothers. The company plans to expand the app to become a broader wellness resource for hopeful, expecting and new parents.
Brightwheel, an app that allows preschools, daycare providers and camps to communicate with parentsraises $55 million in a round led by Addition, valuing the business at $600+ million. Laurene Powell Jobs’s Emerson Collective and Jeff Weiner’s Next Play Ventures also participated.
ELSA, a Google-backed language learning app co-founded in 2015 by Vietnamese entrepreneur Vu Van and engineer Xavier Anguera, raises $15 million a round co-led by Vietnam Investments Group and SIG.
Financial super app Djamo gets Y Combinator backing for its solution for consumers in Francophone Africa.
Bumble IPO filing sets price range for up to $1B. The dating app makers aims to sell 34.5 million shares at $28 to $30 apiece, valuing the business potentially at $6.46B.
Downloads
Reese’s Book Club
Image Credits: Hello Sunshine Apps
Actress and producer Reese Witherspoon’s media company Hello Sunshine has launched an app for Reese’s Book Club — the book club that focuses on diverse voices where women are the center of their stories. The book club today has nearly 2 million Instagram followers and 38 book picks that made The New York Times bestseller list. Its books have also been adapted into film and TV projects, including Hulu’s “Little Fires Everywhere,” upcoming Amazon series “Daisy Jones and the Six, Netflix’s “From Scratch,” and forthcoming film “Where the Crawdads Sing.”
The new app lets users keep track of the new monthly picks, browse past selections, join community discussions with fellow readers, hear from authors, compete for prizes and, soon, buy exclusives items that will help fund The Readership, a pay-it-forward platform aimed at amplifying diverse voices and promoting literacy, which may include efforts like installing book nooks in local communities and supporting indie booksellers.
Everyone’s favorite snarky weather app received a major overhaul toward the end of January, which includes a redesigned interface, new icons, tools to design the UI how you want it (an “interface maker”), new “secret locations” (a fun Easter egg) and more. The app has also switched to a vertical layout that fills the screen with information, which also includes smart cards that bubble up with weather info when it’s needed. Carrot Weather is also now a free download with subscriptions, instead of a paid app.
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