Tag Archives: Blog

News: Daily Crunch: Copenhagen-based Leapwork lands $62M Series B co-led by KKR and Salesforce Ventures

• August 26, 2021
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Hello friends and welcome to Daily Crunch, bringing you the most important startup, tech and venture capital news in a single package.

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here.

‘Ello and welcome to Daily Crunch for August 26, 2021. Or as someone called it recently, Friday Jr. We have lots and lots of news today, with a slight bias toward big items from Big Tech companies. But first, do note that we’re going to spend a lot of time talking fintech at Disrupt this year, and TechCrunch just announced that Techstars’ Saba Karim is coming. It’s going to be great! — Alex

The TechCrunch Top 3

• Airbnb expands who can help host Afghan refugees: Want to help with Airbnb’s push to house refugees fleeing Afghanistan? The company announced today that it will allow anyone to help, not merely existing hosts. Hopefully this expands the pool of housing stock available and gets more folks housed. We’re all human, so let’s help one another.
• Apple’s commission rigidity fades further: Apple’s hard-line 30% commission is softening yet again, with the company planning to offer lower take rates for news purchases, at least for publishers who take part in the Apple News app. So it’s good news, with a strong arm-twist to go along with it. Why is Apple fighting so hard to continue rent-seeking in the mobile economy? Because it’s lucrative as heck, that’s why.
• Major tech companies pledge huge dollars for cybersecurity: U.S. tech giants Apple, Google and Microsoft are pledging to work on cybersecurity with extra fervor, they said in a White House meeting. Microsoft is pledging to spend $20 billion on the effort, and Google $10 billion. Apple has promised to “establish a new program to drive continuous security improvements throughout the technology supply chain,” TechCrunch writes. All this is good news, but we do wonder how much of the pledged spending was already penciled into future budgets.

Startups/VC

The other day we noted that our own Brian Heater was launching a newsletter. He still is, and one of its pre-launch entries today sports a headline that I cannot improve upon: “I don’t know what to do with those tossed salads and robot legs.” Heater gets 100 points for getting that past the editors. You can sign up for the robot newsletter here.

• Otter.ai expands transcription capabilities: If you need to record a conversation and transcribe it, Otter is a great tool to use. I know that because I’m an Otter customer — with my own money — and depend on it heavily. Its news today is that the service is rolling out its “Otter Assistant feature for Microsoft Teams, Google Meet and Cisco Webex,” after previously launching support for Zoom.
• Compa raises $3.9M to build better job offer software: Hiring is a pain in the backside, and in today’s superheated talent market for a number of startup-friendly gigs, it’s even more irksome. To combat those facts, Compa has built software to support recruiters in their work by helping them “manage their compensation strategies to create and communicate offers that are easy to understand and are unbiased.” The startup just came out of stealth.
• Playbook wants to build the Dropbox for designers: Yes, in years past Dropbox was the Dropbox for designers, but today it’s an enterprise storage and productivity tool. So now there’s Playbook, which wants to assume Dropbox’s old mantle. And it just raised $4 million in a round led by Founders Fund.
• Picsart raises $130M: Today’s SoftBank and/or Tiger round is Picsart, for whom the Vision Fund 2 just led a $130 million transaction. Details were light, but the company is now a unicorn that crested the $100 million revenue mark. So if you were curious if mobile-first creator tools could scale, well, they can.
• Atheneum raises $150M for its research and survey product: When I first saw this news I was very excited. Because I live near a private library called the Athenæum. However, this is not that, and so my local temple to books did not just raise $150 million. A startup with the name did, however, and the customer base for its research and survey service is already 500 big companies deep.
• Leapwork proves that no-code is still hot by raising $62M Series B: Based in Denmark, and raising that country’s largest-ever Series B, Leapwork is making waves with its no-code tool that helps with process automation. I suppose at the union of two hot trends it is not a surprise that the company is doing well — process automation is booming, and everyone is short on developers.
• Finally, recent TechCrunch hire Kate Park is out today with a piece digging into AI voice and synthetic speech startup LOVO, which just put together a $4.5 million round. Perhaps it can fill in for TechCrunchers on our podcasts when we have colds.

You can’t hack your YC application, but here’s what to avoid

Forget what you’ve heard: There are many shortcuts to success.

Tapping into someone else’s experience is a tried-and-true method, which is why two-time Y Combinator participant Chris Morton wrote a guest post for Extra Crunch with advice for founders hoping to be accepted by the famed accelerator.

Morton, who has also reviewed thousands of YC applications, shares his thoughts on when to submit an application, what to do if you miss the deadline and whether you’ll need to relocate if accepted.

“Remember that your application should be good enough to get an interview, not win a prize,” says Morton. “Go back to work instead of spending more time perfecting an application.”

(Extra Crunch is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.)

Big Tech Inc.

To close out our news roundup today, a wall of Big Tech news for your diversion:

• Google kills Streams, its clinician support app: Google is very good at making things and even better at killing them. If Google was a novelist, it would self-kill so many darlings that it would only produce novellas. Regardless, that Streams is dead is not a huge surprise, but for some likely a real bummer.
• Want some Netflix games? Move to Poland: Netflix is getting into games, which is not a huge surprise given that games are a bigger business than movies, to pick an example. But not everyone is going to get their hands on its mobile titles at once. Poland is up first. That’s not shocking as far as market selection goes, given the popularity of video games in Europe and the reasonable size of the Polish market.
• Facebook considers launching an election policy decision board group oversight Entmoot coven thing: In more evidence that Facebook may be slightly too large a company to fit into the modern world as a single entity, and that maybe single-human, complete shareholder control should go the way of monarchy, the social giant is “looking to create a standalone advisory committee for election-related policy decisions.” Does that inspire confidence? You tell me.
• Lordstown gets new CEO: This is a hard, high-profile gig, so it must have been something of an adventure to fill. Still, troubled public EV company Lordstown has secured new leadership that TechCrunch reports is “Daniel A. Ninivaggi, a longtime automotive executive and former head of Carl C. Icahn’s holding company.” Let’s see if he can turn the company around.
• Wrapping up, if you are a paid YouTube subscriber, here’s some good news.

TechCrunch Experts: Growth Marketing

TechCrunch wants you to recommend growth marketers who have expertise in SEO, social, content writing and more! If you’re a growth marketer, pass this survey along to your clients; we’d like to hear about why they loved working with you.

If you’re curious about how these surveys are shaping our coverage, check out this interview Anna Heim conducted with Robert Katai: “Romanian marketing expert Robert Katai explains how to get the most out of your content.”

News: Politico sells, Forbes SPACs and Vice cuts

• August 26, 2021
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 The Equity crew felt that there was enough media news out recently that we simply had no choice but to fire up a Twitter Space and have a chat. The above episode is a discussion of a few things, in a loose and relaxed manner, so don’t take any of the Verizon jokes too



The Equity crew felt that there was enough media news out recently that we simply had no choice but to fire up a Twitter Space and have a chat. The above episode is a discussion of a few things, in a loose and relaxed manner, so don’t take any of the Verizon jokes too seriously, Verizon, as we still work for you. For a few more days.

Regardless, here’s what Danny and Alex got into:

• Politico sells for $1 billion: Its new parent company Axel Springer is also buying the rest of Politico Europe and all of Protocol at the same time. This deal exploded everyone’s Twitter feed due to its scale, and the fact that it was one heck of an exit for a media company. One billion dollars? For media? In this economy? Yes!
• Forbes is going public via a SPAC: Yep, the venerable Forbes magazing and its enormous digital arm are taking the blank-check route to the public markets, which means that we got its numbers and time to stroll through them. Our take is that Forbes has done massive work to take its IRL brand and extend it into the digital world. The company has big plans to boot, and will be worth more than $800 million when it combines.
• Layoffs hit Vice: As Vice turns its focus to video content — you’ve heard this story before — it is shedding some of its editorial staff. The layoffs were a stinkbomb on Media Twitter after the other news of the week, but were sadly not a huge surprise. The company’s union decried them as something of a yearly recurrence. Not good, not good at all.

And there’s more media news to come. Our parent company Verizon Media is expected to close its sale to Apollo on September 1 or sometime soon after, which means we will either be hosting Equity regularly as always, or we’ll be hosting the RUDE (Recently Unemployed Due to (Private) Equity) podcast.

News: Twitter starts to roll out paid Ticketed Spaces on iOS

• August 26, 2021
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Twitter announced today that some hosts on Spaces, its live audio feature, will now be able to sell access to Ticketed Spaces. Applications for Ticketed Spaces first opened in June for users who are over 18, hosted three Spaces in the last 30 days, and have at least 1,000 followers. “We’re continuing to work closely

Twitter announced today that some hosts on Spaces, its live audio feature, will now be able to sell access to Ticketed Spaces. Applications for Ticketed Spaces first opened in June for users who are over 18, hosted three Spaces in the last 30 days, and have at least 1,000 followers.

“We’re continuing to work closely with people who are already hosting Spaces for Ticketed Spaces,” a Twitter representative told TechCrunch. Twitter declined to say how many people it’s rolled out this capability to so far, or when users can expect a more universal rollout. For now, anyone on iOS can buy tickets to Spaces hosted by people who have access to the feature.

Twitter previously stated that it will take a 3% cut of creators’ earnings from Ticketed Spaces. But since the feature is only currently available on iOS, that means that Twitter will be subject to Apple’s 30% in-app purchase fee, so a creator will only see 67% of each ticket sale. If a creator’s total lifetime earnings on Twitter — including Ticketed Spaces and Super Follows — exceed $50,000, then Twitter will raise its 3% commission to 20%.

Ticketed Spaces would differentiate Twitter aside from its live audio competitors. Clubhouse and Instagram let listeners tip speakers or award badges in a live audio space, but the apps haven’t enabled advance ticket sales.

News: Zendesk acquires AI automation startup Cleverly to advance customer service

• August 26, 2021
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Zendesk is looking to grow its customer service capabilities, and today it announced the acquisition of early-stage artificial intelligence startup Cleverly. Financial terms of the deal are not being publicly disclosed at this time and Cleverly has not been entirely public about the size of its funding. Founded in 2019, Cleverly is based in Lisbon,

Zendesk is looking to grow its customer service capabilities, and today it announced the acquisition of early-stage artificial intelligence startup Cleverly.

Financial terms of the deal are not being publicly disclosed at this time and Cleverly has not been entirely public about the size of its funding. Founded in 2019, Cleverly is based in Lisbon, Portugal and, according to its site, has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. 

The startup was also listed by TechCrunch in an article earlier this year looking at the startup scene in Lisbon as being one of the most exciting deep tech companies in the region, according to Stephan Morais, partner at Indico Capital Partners.

Cleverly’s product platform provides a series of artificial intelligence-powered capabilities, including a triage function to automatically tag incoming service requests to help categorize workflow. The startup also has what it refers to as AI-powered human augmentation with its agent assist capability that aims to help customer service agents provide the right answers to inquiries. The company’s technology already integrates with Zendesk, as well as with Salesforce.

As to why Zendesk is acquiring Cleverly, Shawna Wolverton, EVP of product at Zendesk, noted in an email to TechCrunch that the two companies have a similar vision for the future of customer service. 

“Cleverly and Zendesk want to democratize AI, so companies can create practical applications that make it possible for businesses to get started with AI right out of the box — without a team of data scientists required,” she said. 

Wolverton added that AI has the ability to help customer experience teams deliver great customer service. She expects that the next generation of great customer experiences will be created by intelligent software, enabling humans and AI working closely together to deliver this at scale.

Wolverton noted that her company will be welcoming all of Cleverly’s team to Zendesk beginning August 30, including founders Christina Fonseca as VP of Product and Pedro Coelho as principal engineering lead, Machine Learning.

Zendesk already has a series of AI-enabled capabilities that can help organizations automate customer conversations, boost agent productivity and increase operational efficiency, including the Answer Bot, which is a chatbot for customer interactions providing answers pulled from Zendesk’s knowledge base. Zendesk’s Content Cues AI-powered feature in turn helps to automatically review support tickets and also can identify areas where content in a company’s help center can be updated to be more useful to users.

“With Cleverly, we will deliver a range of capabilities that automate key insights, further reduce manual tasks and improve workflows, and overall lead to happier, more productive support teams,” Wolverton said. “We will have more news to share on that front once the team is up and running.

Zendesk’s business has been growing in 2021 overall, reporting second-quarter fiscal 2021 revenue of $318.2 million for a 29% year-over-year gain.

 

News: Boox tablets are welcome options in the growing oversize e-reader niche

• August 26, 2021
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When it comes to e-paper devices, the Kindle is of course the first brand people think of, though I’ve done my best to spread the Kobo and reMarkable gospel as well. Chinese e-reader maker Boox is a relatively new entrant to the space, and its devices are experimental but useful options in the niche market

When it comes to e-paper devices, the Kindle is of course the first brand people think of, though I’ve done my best to spread the Kobo and reMarkable gospel as well. Chinese e-reader maker Boox is a relatively new entrant to the space, and its devices are experimental but useful options in the niche market of monochrome tablets. In fact, they make my new favorite small device.

A brand from parent company Onyx, Boox has a wide array of devices, some might say too wide, ranging from pocketable to medium-sized e-readers to A4-sized tablets. Its branding is not particularly memorable and slightly updated versions come out quite regularly — one device I hoped to test was actually being replaced by the time I got around to writing this article.

The unifying aspect is the OS, a modified version of Android 10 with a few special-made apps for reading and productivity. Made with Chinese consumers in mind, the services probably aren’t ones you will have heard of.

I tested several devices from Boox, the simplest being the Poke 3 e-reader, then the larger and more complex Note2, followed by the svelte Note Air and enormous Max Lumi. Most recently I have been looking at the Nova3 Color, which uses E Ink’s latest Kaleido Plus color screen.

The truth is if you didn’t turn them on you probably wouldn’t be able to tell that these devices were all from the same company. They have quite different hardware styles, though of course there’s only so much room for expression in a black tablet with a screen in shades of grey.

Little and big

Let’s begin with the simplest and most familiar format, the 6-inch e-reader. In this category we have the Kindle Paperwhite and Kobo Clara HD. The former is probably the best one Amazon makes, but I prefer the latter, even though its build quality is, frankly, poor.

Boox in this space has (among others) the Poke 3, not exactly the catchiest name, but it makes up for that with its form factor: pretty much the platonic ideal for a small reader like this. I liked it so much I broke it out into a separate review, but here are the basics.

The 6-inch, 300-PPI screen is of equal quality to the Kindle and Kobo, and like the Clara HD has a temperature-adjustable frontlight. The front of the device is completely flush, just the way I like it, and has just enough bezel to grip without it becoming too much or too little. The seamless design makes it pocketable and resistant to crumbs and spills (though it makes no water resistance claims). There’s a power button up top (thank you) and a single USB-C port at the bottom.

Regarding the hardware I find it difficult to come up with any criticism at all. It could, I suppose, be lighter, but its dimensions could not be smaller than they are without adversely affecting the ergonomics; a millimeter could conceivably be shaved off the thickness but it would be barely noticeable.

The OS is a highly customized version of Android, with all the pros and cons that comes with. I have always enjoyed the simplicity of Kobo’s interface, though they seem bent on complicating it. Boox’s OS is powerful but busy, uneasy in its decisions of what options to make available and prominent to the user.

The reader app, NeoReader, supports tons of file formats and has a huge set of controls for changing your view, highlighting and notating books and PDFs, and so on. This is more more the larger devices than the small ones, which really only need font adjustment and other basic stuff.

If all you want to do is read e-books you already have sitting on your computer, it’s as easy as dragging them into the “Books” folder on the device’s storage. That tab is what you’ll see when you turn on the device, and it’s always easy to get to. There’s a built-in store that takes up a whole tab, though it isn’t available in the U.S. — then a file manager tab for rooting around in directories — and a tab each for your apps and settings.

The apps are another custom situation: This being a Chinese device, it comes without the usual Google-authenticated App Store, whatever it’s called these days. Instead, it has its own store with dozens of the most-used reading apps, from Pocket and GoodReader to the Kobo and Kindle apps. But these are essentially side-loaded: for instance, the Kindle app is a few months old. That’s far from a disaster, but you do need to commit to a certain amount of trust in Boox and its proxy app store in order to use the device as-is.

Of course, you can also enable Google Play services in the settings, which adds the official store into the mix. But for most people this is already far too much work. We are both spoiled and deprived in our e-reader selection in that they are generally simple and extremely straightforward to use. Someone who is not familiar with Android, using this device and a Kobo or Kindle, would probably opt for one of the latter.

Yet the possibilities are many for those who wish to take the plunge. For my part, I like the form factor of the Poke3 so well that I will brave any OS to use it. Besides, you spend 99 percent of your time on these things in a book, so as long as that part works the rest is just icing on the cake.

At the 6-inch scale, this all seems like way too much. But on Boox’s larger devices, the flexibility starts to make more sense. The idea with the Note 2 (now 3), Note Air and Max Lumi is to provide almost all the capabilities of an Android tablet, but with the benefits of an e-paper screen. Admittedly that makes playing racing games something of a non-starter, but it could be very attractive to the types of people for whom their reMarkable is used more than their iPad.

If you read a lot of documents, doing so on a bright tablet screen — or a dim one, for that matter — sucks. An e-paper screen is better for the task, but the best device for that, the reMarkable, is also very deliberately limited in what it can accomplish, since the whole philosophy of the company revolves around focus. So there are definitely people who want the capabilities of an Android device with the readability of an e-paper one. Or at any rate Boox thinks so.

The Note 2 and Max Lumi seem related: They’re unremarkable black tablets of impressive dimensions and, in my limited explorations of their hardware, what seemed to me excellent build quality. The Note Air, it must be said, is the opposite of unremarkable — in fact, when I saw it, I thought it was a clone of the reMarkable 2!

This first impression turned out to be less than generous on my part, as while the two share some significant design elements, they are in fact quite different and Boox’s facility in creating other devices has led me to give them the benefit of the doubt here. The blue and orange motif isn’t the greatest, but it does help set it apart, and all the devices (especially the Air) are thin and well designed.

All the tablets feature frontlights, and I’m happy to say that my skepticism that it could be done with such big screens was needless. It works well and like the Poke 3 the light is adjustable in both brightness and temperature (though it’s a bit fiddly).

Color e-paper still isn’t quite there

The Nova3 Color has a 7.8-inch screen with the latest color e-paper tech from E Ink. I’ve always been excited for the possibilities of this side of the technology, but color e-paper screens have always suffered from poor contrast, low refresh speeds, ghosting, and other shortcomings. While this latest iteration does go some way towards amending those (and a software update helped further), it is still unfortunately too much of a compromise.

The hardware is similar to the other Boox devices, solid and unassuming. The difference is all in the screen, which shows in color even when the device is off. Color e-paper works by combining the microscopic black and white beads that form images with a layer of color filters that can be changed. This one, like the others, has a frontlight and it helps a lot with making those colors pop, since without it they’re all rather muted.

There is still the issue of ghosting, though if you’re reading, say, a comic, you can easily set it to refresh every page (it takes only a fraction of a second) and the problem is gone. It’s less easy to do this with more dynamic content like a webpage, though of course navigating the web on an e-reader is already something of a novelty.

More troubling to me is the decrease in contrast and effective decrease in resolution that the color layer brings. When color content is shown, there’s a distinct screen door effect to it, no quite like ordinary LCD aliasing but still visible. And when you have greyscale content you sometimes see moire and other interference patterns in mid-tones.

Books look all right but not nearly as clear as an ordinary monochrome E-Ink display; the screen door effect is always present and reduces contrast. It’s still very readable, but when cheaper devices do the job better, it’s hard to justify.

I appreciate Boox making the latest screen from E-Ink available, and it may be useful to some who want a little more tablet DNA in their e-reader (at this point the two categories are not very distinct). But for most people the color does not add enough, and subtracts too much.

Does it all, or stretched too thin?

The OS is the same on all of these as far as I can tell, but on the these devices the focus shifts to interactivity rather than simply reading. Boox makes a Wacom-like pen that can be used to write on the surface of these larger tablets, and it serves its purpose fine, though with nowhere near the responsiveness or accuracy of reMarkable’s.

That said, the final result when sketching or writing was a pleasing one, though the OS takes a moment to catch up and anti-alias the marks. I thought the brush in particular had nice gradations.

One thing the Boox tablets have on others like them (that is to say, the reMarkable, the defunct Sony Digital Paper Tablet, and a handful of other niche devices) is in the PDF handling. The Boox devices let you navigate and mark up PDFs with ease, and the original files are simply saved over with your doodles and notes added. Though marking up a document is easy on the reMarkable, its slightly clumsy app makes sharing and sorting them a bit of a chore. I prefer the simple approach: modify the original file (there’s always a copy somewhere) and email it directly from the device. It’s that simple!

Besides the reader and notebook, there are a handful of included apps that any tablet user might find useful. There’s a browser that’s about as functional as you’d expect — it’s Chromium-based and renders well but ghosts terribly; a voice recorder, a music player, a calendar… and of course you could download plenty more from the built-in or Google app stores. If you wanted to, you could make these quite well-rounded devices.

I’m not entirely sure just how large the market is for this kind of e-paper tablet. But I feel these devices offer something interesting and unique, even if they’re also… well, it’s hard to get around the fact that you can get an iPad for half the price of the larger Boox tablets, and then do most of the same stuff and more.

These e-paper devices have a certain draw, though, and if you plan to read and mark up long documents, it’s way better to do so on one of these than on an iPad, for a number of reasons. With Boox’s lineup in the mix there are more options than ever, and that’s definitely a good thing.

News: After community backlash, Pokémon Go reinstates a COVID safety and accessibility feature

• August 26, 2021
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Pokémon Go announced yesterday that it will permanently keep an in-game feature that made the game easier to play while social distancing. Introduced at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the feature doubled the interaction radius around key augmented reality landmarks that are essential to gameplay. Though Niantic — parent company to Pokémon Go —

Pokémon Go announced yesterday that it will permanently keep an in-game feature that made the game easier to play while social distancing. Introduced at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the feature doubled the interaction radius around key augmented reality landmarks that are essential to gameplay. Though Niantic — parent company to Pokémon Go — removed the feature earlier this month, it chose to permanently reinstate it after weeks of community- and creator-led backlash.

Pre-pandemic, Pokémon Go players needed to be within 40 meters of a PokéStop or Gym to interact with it, but with the now-permanent change, the radius is expanded to 80 meters. Incidentally, disabled players found that this feature made the game more accessible to people with limited mobility. As one of the first mainstream AR mobile games, Pokémon Go is virtually unplayable if you’re unable to travel to real-world landmarks like PokéStops and Gyms — so allowing users to interact with these landmarks from further away (for example, if a wheelchair-user can’t journey off of a paved sidewalk) opened the game up to new players.

Since Pokémon Go has long positioned itself as a game that encourages real-world exploration, worldwide lockdowns posed a unique challenge for Niantic. But by making some small changes — like expanding the interaction radius by just 40 meters, increasing Pokémon spawns, and making it easier to obtain more PokéBalls– the game became easier to play from home.

These changes didn’t break the game or contradict its adventurous spirit, which made the rollback of a well-loved upgrade confusing for players, especially in light of the spreading Delta variant. From a financial standpoint, the app thrived during the pandemic. In 2020, Pokémon Go had its best-earning year since its launch in 2016, earning over $1 billion. According to app analytics firm SensorTower, this upward trend continued for Pokémon Go in the first half of 2021 with $642 million. This marked a 34% increase in consumer spending compared to the first half of 2020, when it made $479 million.

After Niantic reduced the interaction radius, Pokémon Go content creators and community members worked together to write an open letter to Niantic, which caused the hashtag #HearUsNiantic to trend on Twitter. The letter expressed that the increased radius made the game safer, more accessible, and less intrusive.

Some players organized a boycott of the game on August 5th, which was referred to as “Pokémon No Day.” That same day, Niantic issued a response letter addressed to the Pokémon Go community.

“Encouraging people to explore, exercise and safely play together in person remains Niantic’s mission. The health and wellbeing of players is our top priority,” Niantic’s statement read. The company formed an “inter cross-functional team” to address these concerns and invited prominent Pokémon Go content creators to share community feedback. While expanding the interaction radius is the first result of the task force, Pokémon Go tweeted that it will share more findings on September 1.

TechCrunch asked Niantic why it initially chose to rebuke these gameplay updates despite positive community feedback, increased revenue, and an ongoing pandemic, but Niantic declined to comment.

Despite players’ visible negative response on social media, SensorTower told TechCrunch that it didn’t see any change in consumer spending or active users for Pokemon Go around the time of the in-game strike. However, there was a significant uptick in negative App Store reviews.

Though the wider interaction radius is now reinstated, some players remain frustrated, since community leaders had previously provided this feedback in June after Niantic announced its plans to roll back these changes.

“Why did it have to take this giant community movement for any of our feedback to be heard?” said creator ZoëTwoDots in a YouTube video.

News: Popcorn’s new app brings short-form video to the workplace

• August 26, 2021
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A new startup called Popcorn wants to make work communication more fun and personal by offering a way for users to record short video messages, or “pops,” that can be used for any number of purposes in place of longer emails, texts, Slack messages, or Zoom calls. While there are plenty of other places to

A new startup called Popcorn wants to make work communication more fun and personal by offering a way for users to record short video messages, or “pops,” that can be used for any number of purposes in place of longer emails, texts, Slack messages, or Zoom calls. While there are plenty of other places to record short-form video these days, most of these exist in the social media space which isn’t appropriate for a work environment. Nor does it make sense to send a video you’ve recorded on your phone as an email attachment, when you really just want to check in with a colleague or say hello.

Popcorn, on the other hand, lets you create the short video and then send a URL to that video anywhere you would want add a personal touch to your message.

For example, you could use Popcorn in business networking scenario, where you’re trying to connect with someone in your industry for the first time — aka “cold outreach.” Instead of just blasting them a message on LinkedIn, you could also paste in the Popcorn URL to introduce yourself in a more natural, friendly fashion. You could also use Popcorn with your team at work for things like daily check-ins, sharing progress on an ongoing project, or to greet new hires, among other things.

Videos themselves can be up to 60 seconds in length — a time limit designed to keep Popcorn users from rambling. Users can also opt to record audio only if they don’t want to appear on video. And you can increase the playback speed if you’re in a hurry. Users who want to receive “pops” could also advertise their “popcode” (e.g. try mine at U8696).

The idea to bring short-form video to the workplace comes from Popcorn co-founder and CEO Justin Spraggins, whose background is in building consumer apps. One of his first apps to gain traction back in 2014 was a Tinder-meets-Instagram experience called Looksee that allowed users to connect around shared photos. A couple years later, he co-founded a social calling app called Unmute, a Clubhouse precursor of sorts. He then went on to co-found 9 Count, a consumer app development shop which launched more social apps like BFF (previously Wink) and Juju.

9 Count’s lead engineer, Ben Hochberg, is now also a co-founder on Popcorn (or rather, Snack Break, Inc. as the legal entity is called). They began their work on Popcorn in 2020, just after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. But the rapid shift to remote work that’s come in the days that followed could now help Popcorn gain traction among distributed teams. Today’s remote workers may never again return to in-person meetings at the office, but they’re also are growing tired of long days stuck in Zoom meetings.

With Popcorn, the goal is to make work communication fun, personal and bite-sized, Spraggins says. “[We want to] bring all the stuff we’re really passionate about in consumer social into work, which I think is really important for us now,” he explains.

“You work with these people, but how do you — without scheduling a Zoom — how do you bring the ‘human’ to it?,” Spraggins says. “I’m really excited about making work products feel more social, more like Snapchat than utility tools.”

There is a lot Popcorn would still need to figure out to truly make a business-oriented social app work, including adding enhanced security, limiting spam, offering some sort of reporting flow for bad actors, and more. It will also eventually need to land on a successful revenue model.

Currently, Popcorn is a free download on iPhone, iPad and Mac, and offers a Slack integration so you can send video messages to co-workers directly in the communication software you already use to catch up and stay in touch. The app today is fairly simple but the company plans to enhance its short videos over time using AR frames that let users showcase their personalities.

The startup raised a $400,000 pre-seed round from General Catalyst (Nico Bonatsos) and Dream Machine (Alexia Bonatsos, previously editor-in-chief at TechCrunch.) Spraggins says the company will be looking to raise a seed round in the fall to help with hires, including in the AR space.

News: Netflix begins testing mobile games in its Android app in Poland

• August 26, 2021
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Netflix today announced it will begin testing mobile games inside its Android app for its members in Poland. At launch, paying subscribers will be able to try out two games, “Stranger Things: 1984” and “Stranger Things 3” — titles that have been previously available on the Apple App Store, Google Play and, in the case

Netflix today announced it will begin testing mobile games inside its Android app for its members in Poland. At launch, paying subscribers will be able to try out two games, “Stranger Things: 1984” and “Stranger Things 3” — titles that have been previously available on the Apple App Store, Google Play and, in the case of the newer release, on other platforms including desktop and consoles. While the games are offered to subscribers from within the Netflix mobile app’s center tab, users will still be directed to the Google Play Store to install the game on their devices.

To then play, members will need to confirm their Netflix credentials.

Members can later return to the game at any time by clicking “Play” on the game’s page from inside the Netflix app or by launching it directly from their mobile device.

“It’s still very, very early days and we will be working hard to deliver the best possible experience in the months ahead with our no ads, no in-app purchases approach to gaming,” a Netflix spokesperson said about the launch.

The company has been expanding its investment in gaming for years, seeing the potential for a broader entertainment universe that ties in to its most popular shows. At the E3 gaming conference back in 2019, Netflix detailed a series of gaming integrations across popular platforms like Roblox and Fortnite and its plans to bring new “Stranger Things” games to the market.

On mobile, Netflix has been working with the Allen, Texas-based game studio BonusXP, whose first game for Netflix, “Stranger Things: The Game,” has now been renamed “Stranger Things: 1984” to better differentiate it from others. While that game takes place after season 1 and before season 2, in the “Stranger Things” timeline, the follow-up title, “Stranger Things 3,” is a playable version of the third season of the Netflix series. (So watch out for spoilers!)

Netflix declined to share how popular the games had been in terms of users or installs, while they were publicly available on the app stores.

With the launch of the test in Poland, Netflix says users will need to have a membership to download the titles as they’re now exclusively available to subscribers. However, existing users who already downloaded the game from Google Play in the past will not be impacted. They will be able to play the game as usual or even re-download it from their account library if they used to have it installed. But new players will only be able to get the game from the Netflix app.

The test aims to better understand how mobile gaming will resonate with Netflix members and determine what other improvements Netflix may need to make to the overall functionality, the company said. It chose Poland as the initial test market because it has an active mobile gaming audience, which made it seem like a good fit for this early feedback.

Netflix couldn’t say when it would broaden this test to other countries, beyond “the coming months.”

The streamer recently announced during its second-quarter earnings that it would add mobile games to its offerings, noting that it viewing gaming as “another new content category” for its business, similar to its “expansion into original films, animation and unscripted TV.”

The news followed what had been a sharp slowdown in new customers after the pandemic-fueled boost to streaming. In North America, Netflix in Q2 lost a sizable 430,000 subscribers — its third-ever quarterly decline in a decade. It also issued weaker guidance for the upcoming quarter, forecasting the addition of 3.5 million subscribers when analysts had been looking for 5.9 million. But Netflix downplayed the threat of competition on its slowing growth, instead blaming a lighter content slate, in part due to Covid-related production delays.

 

 

 

 

 

News: Curio Wellness rebrands retail biz, expands its cannabis retail franchises to new states

• August 26, 2021
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Curio Wellness announced its innovative franchise program in 2020, and today it’s bringing the program across the United States. The company is now accepting franchise applications in ten states, including MD, VA, PA, OH, MO, NJ, FL, MA, MI, and IL. The program is designed to lower barriers to opening a dispensary. Anyone can apply

Curio Wellness announced its innovative franchise program in 2020, and today it’s bringing the program across the United States. The company is now accepting franchise applications in ten states, including MD, VA, PA, OH, MO, NJ, FL, MA, MI, and IL.

The program is designed to lower barriers to opening a dispensary. Anyone can apply to secure a franchise license, and diverse founders can seek capital through the Curio Wellness Fund. Curio Wellness expects to be able to sponsor 40 to 50 retail stores. The company is also rebranding its retail operations to Far & Dotter.

TechCrunch spoke to Jerel Registre, Managing Director at Curio WMBE Fund, who says the fund raised 20 million to date and expects to close the fundraising on October 31. He’s proud of the fund’s investor base, pointing to the diverse investor base representing 40% of the fund.

“My focus on the fund is driving diverse entrepreneurship,” Registre said. “The reason cannabis is such a great industry to do that in is that it’s a growing opportunity. It’s just a great ocean to put the boat on in terms of increasing diversity among entrepreneurs. It’s an area of the economy, and it’s a hot industry where there’s an understanding of the need for diversity.”

Registre points out that while the cannabis industry’s customer and employee base are often diverse, there’s often a lack of diversity in the executive and business ownership group. That’s what Curio Wellness is trying to address.

The fund provides selected franchisees with up to 93% of the capital needed to open a location. But it’s more than capital. It’s clear while speaking to Registre that his team is dedicated to formulating a proven strategy for their franchises. He points to Chick-fil-a as an example, saying, while he doesn’t like the company’s relationship with its franchisees, it provides a market-leading cohesive brand statement. Through Curio’s program, franchisees are provided with two phases of support. The first provides capital to franchisees to open their Curio Wellness Center and assist them in obtaining licenses, selecting a location and hiring and training employees. Once the location is operational, the fund intends to provide ongoing support around managing, sales and marketing, store operations, and ensuring employees stay updated on product information.

“After more than two years of effort to design an effective method of providing capital to diverse entrepreneurs in the cannabis industry, it is a personal honor to officially begin the application process and to truly expand diversity and enable economic empowerment in the industry,” said Registre. “The Fund is a true testament to Curio’s goal to address systemic barriers and create generational wealth among aspiring women, BIPOC, and disabled veteran entrepreneurs.”

This program is spinning up at the right time. Cannabis was one of the winners of the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in record sales and consumer acceptance. As a result, the time is right for dispensary ownership to reflect their local neighborhoods better.

News: Facebook will reportedly launch its own advisory group for election policy decisions

• August 26, 2021
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Facebook is looking to create a standalone advisory committee for election-related policy decisions, according to a new report from The New York Times. The company has reportedly approached a number of policy experts and academics it is interested in recruiting for the group, which could give the company cover for some of its most consequential

Facebook is looking to create a standalone advisory committee for election-related policy decisions, according to a new report from The New York Times. The company has reportedly approached a number of policy experts and academics it is interested in recruiting for the group, which could give the company cover for some of its most consequential choices.

The group, which the Times characterizes as a commission, would potentially be empowered to weigh in on issues like election misinformation and political advertising — two of Facebook’s biggest policy headaches. Facebook reportedly plans for the commission to be in place for the 2022 U.S. midterm elections and could announce its formation as soon as this fall.

Facebook’s election commission could be modeled after the Oversight Board, the company’s first experiment in quasi-independent external decision making. The Oversight Board began reviewing cases in October of last year, but didn’t gear up in time to impact the flood of election misinformation that swept the platform during the U.S. presidential election. Initially, the board could only make policy rulings based on material that was already removed from Facebook.

The company touts the independence of the Oversight Board, and while it does operate independently, Facebook created the group and appointed its four original co-chairs. The Oversight Board is able to set policy precedents and make binding per-case moderation rulings, but ultimately its authority comes from Facebook itself, which at any point could decide to ignore the board’s decisions.

A similar external policy-setting body focused on elections would be very politically useful for Facebook. The company is a frequent target for both Republicans and Democrats, with the former claiming Facebook censors conservatives disproportionately and the latter calling attention to Facebook’s long history of incubating conspiracies and political misinformation.

Neither side was happy when Facebook decided to suspend political advertising after the election — a gesture that failed to address the exponential spread of organic misinformation. Facebook asked the Oversight Board to review its decision to suspend former President Trump, though the board ultimately kicked its most controversial case back to the company itself.