JOMO: A daily digest of interesting tech, product and design news

[Akshay.Kanade]

An Apology | JOMO for 11th Feb

In today’s JOMO: Zomato sees red, Twitter is ded and an apology is read (just about made it rhyme)

In the news

CIA collecting bulk data on Americans without oversight, senators say - Ars Technica

Two US senators have asked the Central Intelligence Agency to release the details of a secret bulk data collection program that has apparently ensnared Americans.

Supposedly this is a big thing in the US. Back home… well, the less said the better

Delivery Hero CEO apologizes to investors after 30% stock plunge, vows to stay the course - CNBC

Delivery Hero CEO Niklas Ostberg said he’s “truly sorry for all shareholders” after the food delivery firm’s stock price plunged 30% on Thursday.

Back home… well, the less said the better

Twitter Down

By the time you read this, Twitter most likely is back up

Startups, funding etc

Binance, led by the world’s richest crypto billionaire, is taking a $200 million stake in Forbes - CNBC

Forbes was founded more than a century ago by the grandfather of editor-in-chief and two-time presidential candidate Steve Forbes

This is quite the reverse of what this section is meant for

New products, features, launches

Google confirms Samsung, OnePlus, and others will use its dynamic color themes on Android 12 - Verge

Flipkart joins live commerce rush driven by influencers - ET

Another source familiar with Flipkart’s plans told ET that its live shopping product has been active for almost a month.

Design, Research

Designing Harmony into Dynamic Color - Google Material Design

How Material enables makers to design with custom colors while respecting user choice. Material’s new color system is algorithmic. This means that all colors that Material provides are generated from a set of rules, rather than the manual process of hand-picking colors that designers are used to.

Fascinating read

Interesting read

Indian food delivery group Zomato’s shares fall on stalling revenue growth - FT

“After Paytm, there was this general distress in the market about the valuation of tech stocks,” said Satish Meena, an independent technology analyst. “The valuations are very high, and there’s no way they can become profitable in the near future.”

It’s quite amazing the impact Zomato’s results have had on the other tech companies (platforms) that recently IPOed

Cool Products, websites and tools

Ditto Insurance

Spam-free, personalized insurance advice

Wonder why this is on PH today. Ditto, by makers of Finshots, has been around for some time now. Interestingly, their main CTA is ‘Book a free call’ followed by ‘WhatsApp us’

Poll for the day

Have you tried ‘live’ commerce?

What is it?

Yes

No

Curated from:

Morning Brew, Verge, Techcrunch, Techmeme, CNBC, Hacker News, Product Hunt and more

[Akshay.Kanade]

Dinobabies | JOMO for 14th Feb

In today’s JOMO: Of millennials & dinobabies, bouncing QR codes and managing all your online returns

In the news

IBM called older workers ‘dinobabies,’ wanted them ‘extinct’ - InWire

“These filings reveal that top IBM executives were explicitly plotting with one another to oust older workers from IBM’s workforce in order to make room for millennial employees,”

How noble

Startups, funding etc

Reliance invests $200 million in InMobi’s Glance - Reuters

The investment, made through Reliance’s Jio Platforms unit, values Glance at $1.7 billion to $1.8 billion post-money, according to a source involved in the deal.

Supposedly Glance is pre-installed on 60-65% of Android smartphones.

New products, features, launches

Snapchat will introduce revenue sharing on ads in creators’ stories - TC

The distinction between Snap, Insta and Youtube is fast disappearing

Coinbase’s bouncing QR code Super Bowl ad was so popular it crashed the app - Verge

Interesting read

The simple system I’m using to stay in touch with hundreds of people

Incase you need it

Here’s what actually happens to all your online shopping returns - Rest of World

Ordering clothes from Chinese brands like Shein is easy. Sending them back is a lot more complicated.

If you’ve user Aliexpress, you already know the story. If not, definitely worth reading

Cool Products, websites and tools

Dino Game

Compete against the world in the much beloved Dino game

Nice and simple

Poll for the day

Are you a dinobaby?

No

Yes

What is a dinobaby?

Curated from:

Morning Brew, Verge, Techcrunch, Techmeme, CNBC, Hacker News, Product Hunt and more

[Akshay.Kanade]

All at Sea | JOMO for 15th Feb

In today’s JOMO: A ‘Chinese’ company gets banned, about Note apps and Google shows some Flex

In the news

Sea’s $16 Billion Crash Signals Trouble Beyond India Shutout - Bloomberg

Sea Ltd. lost more than $16 billion of value in its biggest daily market drop after India abruptly banned its most popular mobile gaming title. Investors are growing concerned the ban may just be the start of the company’s troubles.

Why is this important news? Sea also runs Shopee, an app that gained a lot of traction recently in India. In Nov, the Delhi HC had asked the govt its response on a PIL seeking a ban on Shopee

Zomato hits all-time low, slips below IPO issue price - ET

Analysts, though, continue to be gung-ho on the stock. A consensus recommendation of 19 analysts is ‘buy’, Refinitive database showed. Eight of them have a ‘strong buy’ rating while seven say ‘buy’. Only three analysts are bearish on the counter, while one says ‘hold’.

Staying the course?

Startups, funding etc

Buffett’s Berkshire bought about $1 billion worth of Activision shares before Microsoft deal - CNBC

New products, features, launches

Instagram now lets you send private Story likes - Engadget

Previously, the only way to respond to a Story was to either send the creator a direct message or an emoji reaction. In either case, your response would show in their messages inbox, thereby cluttering the interface.

One upside of this, maybe intentional, is more engagement and hence more of a ‘rush’ for the creator to see the likes (goes without saying, it has an equal downside if those likes dont come by)

Google Messages, with RCS in tow, is now Samsung’s default messaging app in the US - 9to5Google

Small but significant move. Here’s MKBHD’s explainer on the battles between iMessage(blue bubble) and SMS in general(green bubble)

Google turns old Macs, PCs into Chromebooks with Chrome OS Flex - Ars Technica

Google is positioning Chrome OS Flex as an answer to old Mac and Windows PCs that might not be able to handle the latest version of their native OS and/or that might not be owned by folks with budgets to replace the devices. Rather than buying new hardware, consumers or IT departments could install the latest version of Chrome OS Flex.

Nice move Google. And smaart

Interesting read

Notes apps are where ideas go to die. And that’s good.

Evernote to OneNote, Moleskins to Field Notes, Roam to Obsidian. We blame the tools, the techniques. Surely they’re to blame. A new app will be better.

Then we dump our newest thoughts into it, try the latest features to organize notes, until we’re back to safely forgetting things. Then the illusion gets shattered again, and we’re on to the next new thing.

Thought provoking and a nice read… We’ve all been there

Cool Products, websites and tools

UI Generator

Get mockup UI in seconds

Poll for the day

Would you buy Zomato stock now?

Yes

Nope

Wait and watch

Curated from:

Morning Brew, Verge, Techcrunch, Techmeme, CNBC, Hacker News, Product Hunt and more

[Akshay.Kanade]

TEAMMates | JOMO for 16th Feb

In today’s JOMO: Google does an Apple (almost), some ARM twisting and doo doo doo doo doo

Credit to @bkconn on Reddit for today’s headline idea

In the news

Google to phase out cross-app ad tracking on Android devices - Axios

Google announced Wednesday it will phase out cross-app ad trackers on Android smartphones, a move aimed at increasing data privacy for consumers using its operating system.

For Meta, in markets like India, this changes things a lot

Zuckerberg Calls Staff ‘Metamates’ in Memo Outlining New Vision - Bloomberg

Zuckerberg mentioned the employee label in his conclusion: Meta, Metamates, Me. As explained by Meta executive Andrew Bosworth on Twitter, it’s a naval reference. “It’s about the sense of responsibility we have for our collective success and to each other as teammates,” Zuckerberg wrote.

Sounds like something that was drafted in a hurry. Honestly Metamates? What’s next Primates? Visit Reddit for some fun

Baby Shark is getting a full-length movie - Verge

“Baby Shark” — the impossibly catchy viral earworm of a children’s song that’s also the most-watched YouTube video in history — is getting a full-length film, set for release in 2023, Paramount announced.

If you dont know what the Baby Shark phenomenon is all about, here’s some background: Baby Shark is the first YouTube video to surpass 10 billion views

Startups, funding etc

African fintech Flutterwave triples valuation to over $3B after $250M Series D - Techcrunch

Becomes Africa’s ‘most valuable’ startup

Interesting read

Google Search Is Dying

It is obvious that serving ads creates misaligned incentives for search engines. The founders of Google pointed this out themselves when they were just getting started. Unfortunately, these thoughts on the failings of ad-based search engines read like an instruction manual for what Google did next.

They’ve dialed it up to the max recently to squeeze out every last cent before their inevitable collapse.

Try using Google Search’s related properties to really see this in action: Hotels, Flights etc. Btw, if you ever wonder what’s the alternative ,do try DuckDuckGo sometime

How SoftBank’s costly bet on the “Internet of things” backfired at Arm - Ars Technica

Arm remains the dominant player in designing chips for smartphones, still the most ubiquitous form of computing but a source of much slower growth in recent years. Ahead of an initial public offering that could come as soon as this year, the company is racing to solidify its position in new markets that it has underexploited to date, while trying to drive up profits to appeal to a new set of investors.

Cool Products, websites and tools

Anania

Analyze your data in plain English

Poll for the day

Have you watched the Baby Shark video?

Errr… what?

Yes!

No

Curated from:

Morning Brew, Verge, Techcrunch, Techmeme, CNBC, Hacker News, Product Hunt and more

[Akshay.Kanade]

‘Good bots’ | JOMO for 17th Feb

In today’s JOMO: Eric Schmidt says 5G in US is Pathetic, Twitter brings labels for ‘good bots’ and Flipkart cuts grocery delivery time in half

In the news

Amazon strikes global deal to accept Visa credit cards - BBC

The online retail giant had last year threatened to stop the use of Visa credit cards in the UK due to the fees Visa charged to process payments. Amazon customers in Singapore and Australia also had to pay a surcharge if they used a Visa credit card to purchase goods.

‘Pathetic’ performance has left U.S. ‘well behind’ China in 5G race, ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt says - CNBC

China’s median download speed was just over 299 megabits per second in the third quarter of 2021 versus 93.73 megabits per second in the U.S., according to Speedtest, a company which measures internet speeds.

DoorDash Surges as Pandemic Dining Habits Boost Orders to Record - Bloomberg

DoorDash Inc. soared 25% in early trading on Thursday after the company reported a record number of people ordered from the food-delivery app in the fourth quarter

Just the other day Delivery Hero fell 30%. Similar results, different geographies, different market reaction. Strange

New products, features, launches

Twitter lets you tip creators with Ethereum - Engadget

The expansion also adds support for a trio of payment services, including Barter, Paga and Paytm. You can send tips by visiting the Tips icon in someone’s Twitter profile.

Twitter officially launches labels to identify the ‘good bots’ - TC

Flipkart launches 45-minute grocery delivery, to scale up operations next month - ET

The country’s leading ecommerce platform plans to scale up the 45-minute grocery delivery service known as Flipkart Quick to more cities next month, a company insider said.

Interesting read

Amid controversy, BharatPe’s Ashneer Grover milks new-found fame, taps Gen Z audiences - ET

Grover has found an audience who like his unfiltered and unabashed personality on Shark Tank India.

This article just reeks of ‘PR stunt’ and ‘paid publicity’. If so, kind of indicates how deep in trouble Mr Grover is

Curated from:

Morning Brew, Verge, Techcrunch, Techmeme, CNBC, Hacker News, Product Hunt and more

[Akshay.Kanade]

Not so Neu | JOMO for 18th Feb

In today’s JOMO: Tata’s ‘Nue’ Superapp, Joe’s pay package and a Pinterest for memes

In the news

China Wipes $26 Billion Off Meituan’s Value With New Fee Policy - Bloomberg

Meituan tumbled the most in nearly seven months after China issued new guidelines asking for food delivery platforms to cut fees, showing that investor angst over the nation’s tech giants remains high.

First payments, then gaming, then edtech, now food delivery… China is sparing no one

Spotify reportedly paid $200 million for Joe Rogan’s podcast - TC

Nepal has adopted the digital payment platform backed by the Indian government - Quartz

To deploy UPI in Nepal, the NPCI’s global arm, NPCI International Payments (NIPL), has partnered with its Nepalese counterpart, the Gateway Payments Service (GPS), and Bengaluru-based Manam Infotech. In 2021, NIPL partnered with Singapore and Bhutan to accept UPI-based payments. It also tied up with the UAE’s Mashreq Bank to enable Indian travellers to pay for their purchases.

Startups, funding etc

ElasticRun turns unicorn after $330 million funding led by SoftBank, Goldman Sachs - FE

ElasticRun enables rural kirana shops to access consumer and food brands through its e-commerce platform. It aggregates warehouses, transporters and micro entrepreneurs on its platform and offers the under-served stores network to brands, mostly FMCG.

Very interesting use case

New products, features, launches

Battery recycling startup Redwood will take those old EV batteries off your hands - Morning Brew

The problem they’re trying to solve: California has seen an alarming rise in fires caused by batteries at recycling facilities. But organizing safe battery recycling, especially for a rapidly growing EV market, is more complicated than a Christmas with divorced parents. Redwood claims it can not only take care of battery waste safely, but also recover 95% of the materials

Keep an eye out for them

Interesting read

Tata Group’s super app TataNeu is not so super - TC

But the app is comically buggy, horribly slow and the integrations merely point to different Tata services via an in-app browser – sometimes with the desktop view on a phone.

Yikos. Maybe it will get better, but definitely not a good start for an app set to launch next month

Cool Products, websites and tools

Memeterest

Pinterest for meme templates

Best part? It’s India based: so no more spending hours on google etc to get the right one

Poll for the day

Should food delivery apps be regulated?

Yes

No

Curated from:

Morning Brew, Verge, Techcrunch, Techmeme, CNBC, Hacker News, Product Hunt and more

[Akshay.Kanade]

Suspended | JOMO for 7th Mar

In today’s JOMO: More tech giants suspend operations & sales in Russia, a ‘Navi’in IPO and a tech reviewer joins Google

PS: naviin in Marathi means new (more like naveen)

In the news

Netflix suspends service in Russia - Reuters

Think of a tech giant and it is likely under some form of suspension: Netflix, Apple, Samsung, TikTok to name a few. Infact the ones that aren’t taking a stand are facing pressure

Startups, funding etc

Indian fintech CredAvenue turns unicorn with fresh $137 million funding - TC

Bansal’s Navi to file for Rs 4,000-crore IPO this week - ET

Navi’s growth is either phenomenal or Mr Bansal is playing the game of the bigger fool

New products, features, launches

Indian carrier Airtel launches credit card - TC

The Airtel Axis Bank Credit Card will provide customers with pre-approved instant loans and buy now pay later offerings and reward them for paying Airtel services’ bills and making transactions on Airtel’s app

Airtel’s reach makes this an important launch. Also a win for Axis Bank, if done right

Netflix is launching a daily trivia series called Trivia Quest - Verge

A new episode of Trivia Quest will hit the service every day throughout April, with 30 episodes in total

In the hunt for engagement, Netflix shall one day no longer feel like Netflix. Do read the last comment (on why this isnt called a game, but a series)

Interesting read

A heartfelt farewell: by Dieter Bohn - Verge

After 20 years in media, I’ve decided it’s time to do something new. If you’ve been a Vergecast listener, you know that disclosure is our brand, so here’s mine: I’m headed to Google to work on the Platforms & Ecosystems team.

Maaan. Didn’t see this coming. Dieter is probably one of the best tech reviewers out there and definitely the wittiest. You will be missed, Dieter

Poll for the day

Have you used Navi?

No

Yes

What is Navi?

Curated from:

Morning Brew, Verge, Techcrunch, Techmeme, CNBC, Hacker News, Product Hunt and more

[Akshay.Kanade]

Call Russia | JOMO for 8th Mar

In today’s JOMO: Amazon Amping it up, Chrome is faster than Safari and Calling Russia

In the news

Better.com employees learned of layoffs when severance checks appeared in payroll app - TC

Better.com execs reportedly planned the layoffs for March 8 but moved the date to March 9 when news of the initial date leaked.

Apparently, when execs realized their mistake, they deleted the checks from some people’s Workday accounts. According to the employee, the severance checks arrived without any additional communication from the company.

From knowing you’ve been fired via a Zoom call, to knowing you’ve been fired by looking at your bank account. The company’s name is a but ironical, no? Worse.com is more accurate

Swiggy hires JP Morgan, I-Sec for $1 billion IPO - ET

Startups, funding etc

Google to acquire cybersecurity company Mandiant for $5.4B - VentureBeat

New products, features, launches

Amazon launches a ‘live radio’ app, Amp, which lets you play DJ with the Amazon Music catalog - TC

The new app, which was previously reported by The Verge when in development under the name Project Mic, represents Amazon’s somewhat belated entry into the live audio market.

Google says Chrome on macOS is now faster than Safari - TC

Version 99 of Chrome on macOS manages to score 300 points on the Speedometer benchmark, which was originally developed by Apple’s WebKit team. This, Google points out, is the fastest performance of any browser yet.

Interesting read

Tech’s cult of thinness needs to come to an end - Verge

But the company (Apple) finally caught on, first removing the butterfly switches to go back to the bulkier scissor switches and then going even bigger and heavier with its 2021 redesign. The latest 16-inch MacBook Pro is almost 9 percent heavier than the old model and thicker to boot, despite the fact that Apple’s new Arm-based chips take up less space than its old Intel CPUs and discrete GPUs

Cool Products, websites and tools

Call Russia

If you speak Russian, call Russia and tell them what is happening in Ukraine: As bombs and missiles rain down on Ukraine’s cities and towns, only personal connections can bypass Putin’s lies and deliver the truth to Russians. Vladimir Putin has lied to Russians for decades. He is lying about Ukraine now, and he has blacked out sources of truth. It is our responsibility and our duty now to talk to Russians to help end this war.

Poll for the day

In Tech products: which do you prefer?

Thin and light

Thick and sturdy

Balanced

Curated from:

Morning Brew, Verge, Techcrunch, Techmeme, CNBC, Hacker News, Product Hunt and more

[Akshay.Kanade]

Studio Feels | JOMO for 9th Mar

In today’s JOMO: Apple brings in the ’Studio feels’, Twitter now has ‘Shops’ and why the Ukraine war is a critical moment for crypto

In the news

CCI clears Amazon’s proposal to buy Catamaran’s stake in Cloudtail parent - ET

In 2019, in order to comply with the new foreign direct investment regulations for ecommerce, Amazon had been forced to reduce its stake in Prione from 49% to 24%, with Catamaran owning the rest.

Startups, funding etc

Tiger Global, others invest $75 million in Money View - ET

Founded in 2014, Money View provides personal loans, as well as buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) products worth up to Rs 5 lakh, to individuals.

New products, features, launches

Apple’s Mac Studio is a new desktop for creative professionals - Verge

Apple claims that the Mac Studio with M1 Max will deliver 50 percent faster CPU performance than a Mac Pro with a 16-core Xeon and 2.5 times faster CPU performance than a 27-inch iMac with a 10-core Core i9. The M1 Ultra configuration purportedly has 3.8 times faster CPU performance than that 27-inch iMac and is up to 90 percent faster than the 16-core Mac Pro.

Starting at… cough… cough… $3999 for the Ultra Studio

Twitter expands e-commerce efforts with launch of mobile storefronts, Twitter Shops - TC

Twitter today is introducing a new shopping feature called Twitter Shops, which will allow merchants to curate a collection of up to 50 products to showcase on their Twitter profile

Interesting read

The Russia-Ukraine war is a critical moment for crypto - Morning Brew

From funding the Ukrainian military to aiding its citizens, crypto is raising questions about the possibilities of borderless currency. Ukraine has disbursed $15 million of its total cryptocurrency donations to purchase military gear, including weapons, bulletproof vests, and medical supplies, Bloomberg reports.

Wonder if NGOs are thinking about this… interesting use case for donations

Freeing up 60% of storage for apps - Google Developers

One of the main reasons users uninstall apps is to free up space. To prevent unnecessary uninstalls and help users get more out of their devices, we started working on a new feature that would enable app archiving. Archiving is a new functionality that will allow users to reclaim ~60% of app storage temporarily by removing parts of the app rather than uninstalling it completely

Poll for the day

Do you delete apps on your phone to save memory?

Yes!

No

Have lots of memory

Curated from:

Morning Brew, Verge, Techcrunch, Techmeme, CNBC, Hacker News, Product Hunt and more

[Akshay.Kanade]

Superfast problems | JOMO for 10th Mar

In today’s JOMO: We discover that Truecaller is a fintech in the garb of a caller ID app, Blinkit ‘gets’ money from Zomato and Twitter’s plans to get next 100mn users

In the news

Not much here really… apart from the war

Startups, funding etc

Typeform takes $135M to tickle more marketers - TC

“We’re using this funding to support our focus on becoming the essential platform for the marketing tech stack. The gold standard for digital interactions that feel like real conversations.”

Game streaming platform Loco raises $42 million to build ‘Twitch for India’ - TC

Blinkit gets $100 million from Zomato, in talks to raise another $300 million - ET

Well… the backstory is that this was rescue money rather than an ‘investment’

Interesting read

How Truecaller’s success banks on India’s inadequate privacy laws - Caravan

Surprisingly, the company has not taken any measures to seek consent from the billions of unconsented numbers, and is silently building up its enormous database through third-party APIs. The massive size of Truecaller’s database begs the question of what the firm is doing with this database. Our investigation revealed that one of the possibilities was that the firm may be building a complete financial profile of its registered users.

Very interesting read… and some hacks and workarounds Truecaller is using to build its database. Btw you most likely have a ‘pre-approved personal loan’ of Rs 5L’against your number

How Twitter plans to add its next 100 million users - Verge

Among their goals is fixing an age-old problem with Twitter: the fact that most people come to the service and don’t post. Anita Butler, head of consumer design, puts it bluntly: “We don’t have trouble getting people to sign up for Twitter. What we have trouble with is retaining those customers.”

Retention…retention…retention

Poll for the day

Do you use Truecaller?

Yes

No

No, but my number is listed on it

Curated from:

Morning Brew, Verge, Techcrunch, Techmeme, CNBC, Hacker News, Product Hunt and more

[Akshay.Kanade]

Pay™ment Failure | JOMO for 14 Mar

In today’s JOMO: A lot of ‘negative’ news, reality checks and investigative journalism.

In the news

China’s Tencent faces possible record fine for anti-money-laundering violations - WSJ

Financial regulators recently found that WeChat Pay had broken China’s anti-money-laundering rules and had lapses in compliance with “know your customer” and “know your business” regulations, the Journal said.

Sounds familiar to an Indian ‘payment’ firm. Speaking of which…

Paytm says payments bank did not share data with Chinese firms - TC

The Reserve Bank of India, the nation’s central bank, on Friday barred Paytm Payments Bank from accepting new customers, citing certain “material supervisory concerns,” which it did not outline.

So after the BharatPe debacle, Indian fintech gets another blow? Or is there more to this? Btw, the stock is now down 68% from listing price

Trell to lay off hundreds of employees amid probe - ET

The management of influencer-led social commerce startup Trell, which is under investigation for alleged financial irregularities, is looking to lay off hundreds of employees amidst growing uncertainty about the implications of the probe.

Design, UX & Research

Google “hijacked millions of customers and orders” from restaurants, lawsuit says - Ars Technica

Restaurants say blue “order online” button saps profits, diverts customers. When users click the “Order Online” button, they’re directed to a page that in many cases contains large links to food delivery companies, complete with their logos.

New products, features, launches

HBO Max and Discovery Plus will merge into one app - Verge

Turning out to be quite a bundle

Google forces YouTube Vanced to shut down ‘due to legal reasons’ - Verge

Vanced is a popular third-party YouTube app for Android, particularly because it allows YouTube users to block all video ads on YouTube without a Premium subscription.

Interesting read

How a Reliance-funded firm boosts BJP’s campaigns on Facebook - Al Jazeera

Six days before Jio took it over, NEWJ amended its “Articles of Association” to give its “investor”, in this case Jio, control over what content NEWJ produces, aggregates or disseminates. Jio lent another 84.96 million rupees ($1.12m) to NEWJ at a negligible 0.0001 percent annual interest rate in the financial year ending March 2021. Jio counts Facebook as an investor.

This article is doing the rounds on Twitter a lot, with a lot of people expressing shock. Somehow, not surprised at all. At this point, in India, nothing much surprises me.

What YouTube’s “Rs 6,800 cr economic impact” report does not tell you - Like, Share, Subscribe

Now for a report with 27 data points and detailed case studies to boot, you’d think there would be at least one chart calling out the split of the Rs 6,800 crore number across these 3 industries, to provide a clearer picture of how much of this value is captured by “creative entrepreneurs” considering this fledgling ecosystem is liberally used by Youtube as the face of their PR efforts in India. But it does not.

Excellent read

Poll for the day

What do you make of the Paytm ban by RBI

Something’s fishy

It is what it is

Dont know, dont care

Curated from:

Morning Brew, Verge, Techcrunch, Techmeme, CNBC, Hacker News, Product Hunt and more

[Akshay.Kanade]

Netflix is just TV | JOMO for 15th Mar

In today’s JOMO: Vimeo hates creators, Twitter does a rollback and we find that 75% of the top shows on Netflix are just… TV shows

In the news

South Africa regulator refers Meta to tribunal over dominance - Reuters

It also said the company had “imposed and/or selectively enforced exclusionary terms and conditions regulating access to the WhatsApp Business API, mainly restrictions on the use of data”.

To be fair, Whatsapp Business has come a long way, and improved. Yet, it’s API remains easy to access for some (via partners or as large companies), while continuing to be exclusionary in some ways (for smaller companies)

Vimeo is telling creators to suddenly pay thousands of dollars — or leave the platform - Verge

In a letter to shareholders in February, Sud spells the shift out in black and white: “Today we are a technology platform, not a viewing destination. We are a B2B solution, not the indie version of YouTube.”

This is Vimeo basically showing small creators the er… you know what. Clear opportunity for a video platform for creators (Nebula?) or maybe its too late and video = Youtube forever

Tesla hikes prices on all cars, with cheapest Model 3 now nearing $50K - Ars Technica

Weren’t EVs supposed to get cheaper?

Startups, funding etc

Zomato and Blinkit reach agreement for merger - TC

Timing

New products, features, launches

Twitter kills the tabbed timeilne experiment following criticism - XDA

As pointed out by many Twitter users, this new change took away the ability to display the latest tweets by default. Sure, you could pin the “Latest Tweets” to the home page, but there was no way to set it as the main timeline

Good to see. But maybe Twitter could have checked with users before shipping. Also wrote about this in Feb, on our thread: How to complicate a simple user flow

Interesting read

These are Netflix’s Most Popular Shows (According to Netflix) - Bloomberg

Asian markets are the most different. The shows that are popular in Japan and South Korea aren’t popular elsewhere, with a few exceptions. While some South Korean shows do travel, most of them do not. The same goes for India. This underscores the challenge ahead for Netflix in Asia. It’s been able to delight audiences in North America, Latin America and Europe with more or less the same library of titles. It has to tailor its offering in each market, but only so much.

Key takeaways: TV shows account for about 75% of viewing; The average Netflix hit disappears after two weeks or less. This an some really nice graphs and other insights

Poll for the day

Do you watch TV shows on Netflix?

Yes!

Nope

Dont use Netflix

Curated from:

Morning Brew, Verge, Techcrunch, Techmeme, CNBC, Hacker News, Product Hunt and more

[Akshay.Kanade]

10 sec outrage | JOMO for 22nd Mar

In today’s JOMO: A big leak, dealing with Zoom fatigue and a ‘startup’ ditches ‘social selling’ (guess which one)

In the news

Hacker group Lapsus$ leaks 37GB of Microsoft source code for Bing and Cortana - XDA

The leak supposedly contains 90% of the source code for Microsoft’s Bing Maps, and 45% of the source code for Bing itself and Cortana, and according to security researchers speaking with BleepingComputer, the files look like legitimate internal code from Microsoft. Additionally, emails and documentation Microsoft engineers used to publish mobile apps are apparently included in the leak.

Oops. Related: Okta hack puts thousands of businesses on high alert

New products, features, launches

Instagram expands its product tagging feature to all US users - TC

Prior to the expansion, only creators on Instagram could tag products from businesses in their posts.

Zoom’s new virtual avatars let you show up to your next meeting as a dog - Verge

Yes, but why? ‘At least one study has indicated that constantly looking at yourself to make sure you’re presentable and reacting appropriately is part of what makes being in video calls all day so tiring’ Why not just have Zoom calls, with video off, by default?

Interesting read

Google was quietly collecting your Messages and Phone app data - Android Central

A new study found that the Messages and Phone apps were quietly sending your text and call information to Google. Both communications apps did not get user consent or offer users the opportunity to opt out, potentially violating the EU’s GDPR.

Google does collect IP addresses and maps your location, without your permission. So what is new here?

Meesho resellers lose business and friends as the company goes direct - Entrackr

In mid-2021, the company suddenly switched tracks and decided to become an e-commerce platform by going to the customers directly, cannibalising the businesses of 15 million, mostly women resellers. Contrary to assertions on female empowerment, women resellers feel Meesho has robbed them of their livelihood, after offering sustained earnings for years. Today 75% of Meesho’s revenue is from direct selling.

Money, money, money, it’s so funny… in a rich man’s world. Looking at it another way: Meesho got the users from resellers. And then left them for dead

Zwift’s push into competitive cycling could change esports - Morning Brew

Since its launch in 2014, the multiplayer platform has quietly grown to around 4 million users, according to Chris Snook, director of public relations for Zwift. Racers can bike through fantasy worlds and certain gamified power-ups, or boosts that allow them to move faster for a brief time.

Poll for the day

Which would you prefer on Zoom?

Normal video

Transform into a dog

Video off

Curated from:

Morning Brew, Verge, Techcrunch, Techmeme, CNBC, Hacker News, Product Hunt and more

[Akshay.Kanade]

Coup de grace? | JOMO for 4th Apr

In today’s JOMO: Musk buys Twitter stake, let’s talk trust issues and would you prefer Free Netflix with ads?

PS: turns out the Morning Brew also had ‘trust issues’ as a headline recently, but for entirely different stories. Great minds… think… and all that

In the news

Elon Musk Takes 9.2% Stake in Twitter After Hinting at Shake-Up - Bloomberg

Elon Musk took a 9.2% stake in Twitter Inc. to become the platform’s biggest shareholder, a week after hinting he might shake up the social media industry.

If you can’t beat them… buy a stake in them? Hopefully this is good news for Twitter, with changes expected to its policies on free speech. But if things dont go too well, it could a ‘coup de grâce’. For Musk though, it’s already a great investment.

India orders antitrust investigation into Zomato and Swiggy conduct - TC

TBH, this was a long time coming. But the timing is curious: NRAI’s appeals fell on deaf ears previously, so what has changed? Incase you have the time (or interest) here’s the full list of complaints by NRAI. And speaking of CCI and ‘trust’

Google found to unfairly block rival payments on India store: CCI

‘Google is imposing unfair and discriminatory conditions in violation of regulations,’ says CCI in its preliminary report dated March 14

This is pretty big news and something that took 3 weeks to come out. CCI’s view on how Google Pay is impacting UPI is also rather (odd) and interesting: “Google’s conduct is also resulting in denial of market access to competing UPI apps since the market for UPI enabled digital payment apps is multi-sided, and the network effects will lead to a situation where Google Pay’s competitors will be completely excluded from the market in the long run”

Startups, funding etc

Fashion Startup Shein Raising Funds at $100 Billion Value - Bloomberg

I do love the way the term ‘startup’ is used these days

Interesting read

Why Netflix Should Sell Ads - Stratechery

While the company once won with a differentiated user experience worth paying for, today Netflix demands scarce attention because of its investment in unique content. That attention can be sold, and should be, particularly as it increases Netflix’s ability to invest in more unique content, and/or charge higher prices to its user base.

Tesla’s (TSLA) Sales Growth is More Important than Musk’s Twitter Stake - Nasdaq

If Musk does wade into politics, the fanatics on both the left and right will remember the time he opposed their views, not the times he agreed with them. Factor in the possibility of upsetting politicians as well as potential customers, and Musk’s stake in a high-profile social media company doesn’t look like a plus for TSLA at this point.

Musk for President? If Trump could… why not

Poll for the day

Which would you prefer?

Free Netflix + ads

Paid Netflix

A mix of both

Curated from:

Morning Brew, Verge, Techcrunch, Techmeme, CNBC, Hacker News, Product Hunt and more

[Akshay.Kanade]

To tweet or not to tweet | JOMO for 11th

In today’s JOMO: Obviously more Musk melon news, Epic’s epic valuation and Gen Z’s new fav app

In the news

Elon Musk won’t join Twitter’s board after all - Verge

“We announced on Tuesday that Elon would be appointed to the Board contingent on a background check and formal acceptance,” Agrawal writes. “Elon’s appointment to the board was to become officially effective 4/9, but Elon shared that same day that he will no longer be joining the board.”

Hawwww. Not surprised. All the best to Parag and the Twitter board. One wonders if all of this is pre-planned. Btw, Twitter stock fell 8% before recovering… hmm. Also: ‘If Musk had joined the board, he would not be able to acquire more than 14.9% of the company’s shares. Now that he’s no longer joining the board, he can theoretically increase his stake, should he wish to’

For those who dont care about Twitter or Elon, worth just ignoring this. Will last a few day/weeks, at least

Regulatory heat forces Coinbase to halt UPI payments in just three days - ET

“There is an understated rule for payment aggregators to avoid crypto exchanges, even after the new taxation regime was announced. All our (Payment Council of India) members are pretty much avoiding powering exchanges,” said Vishwas Patel, chairman of the Payments Council of India and founder of payment gateway service CCAvenue.

And yet, crypto exchanges are working just fine in India. What gives? Guess the lobbying is so high, that everyone feels keeping things grey is the best way forward. Just like, let’s see, ‘skill based gaming’. The headline is slightly misleading from ET too. There has been no ’regulatory heat’ against Coinbase, which btw, is ran a gala event on 7th Apr in BLR to announce its India launch

Startups, funding etc

Epic Games valued at about $32 bln in funding from Sony, Lego firm - Reuters

Epic is the company that took on Apple and, won. Kinda

Fanatics wants to be a $100 billion company – here’s how it plans to get there - CNBC

The e-commerce company, which sells a variety of official sports merchandise directly to fans, is expanding into online sports betting as investors pile in, fueling speculation about an IPO.

New products, features, launches

Google and iFixit team up to offer Pixel parts online - Ars Technica

Following the lead of Samsung and Apple, Google is supporting DIY repairs. Google’s deal with iFixit covers everything back to the 2017 Pixel 2, which is surprising given that many earlier Pixels were made in partnership with Android manufactuers like LG or HTC

Niice

Google Maps brings traffic-light and stop-sign icons to navigation - Ars Technica

Lovely to see Mumbai’s Sea Link toll road vs normal road comparison in the blog post

Interesting read

An incident in SF shows what happens when an autonomous vehicle gets pulled over by police - Morning Brew

More like an ‘interesting watch’. Priceless how the cops react. Makes me think, if this happened in India, would the car ‘negotiate’ or would it say: ‘Tu jaanta hai mera bap kaun hai??’

Expedia and BookMyShow signal revival of travel, events and movies - ET

BMS recorded its highest-ever monthly active users at 70 million, and its highest-ever traffic with 250 million customer visits in the month. Pre-covid, this number was about 200 million on average.

Good to hear

Gen Z’s new favorite app - Axios

BeReal encourages users to send one post every day to their friends to show exactly what they’re doing in real time. In a push toward authenticity, the app snaps photos from the phone’s front and back cameras simultaneously, showing where you are and what you’re doing at the same time. Because users have to send posts within two minutes of getting a randomly-timed notification, they don’t have time to make fancy adjustments. Also, the app doesn’t include any photo editing tools.

Quite the headline. But definitely an interesting app. The social-game like dynamics are really cool. Want to bet against it?

Poll for the day

Have you heard of BeReal?

Nope

Yes

Yes and have tried it

Curated from:

Morning Brew, Verge, Techcrunch, Techmeme, CNBC, Hacker News, Product Hunt and more

[Akshay.Kanade]

Billionaire Shitposters | JOMO for 12th Apr

shitposting: noun (Vulgar slang, obviously)

The activity of posting deliberately provocative or off-topic comments on social media, typically in order to upset others or distract from the main conversation.

In today’s JOMO: We learn more about Wordle’s UX, that DuckDuckGo is also a browser and the story of 3 men the internet worships but are actually shitposters

In the news

TikTok’s ad revenue to surpass Twitter and Snapchat combined in 2022 - report

Twitter and Snapchat are expected to generate $5.58 billion and $4.86 billion, respectively, in advertising revenue for 2022, with the combined value still less than the $11 billion projected for TikTok.

FIFA gets into the streaming business with the new soccer platform FIFA+ - Techcrunch

FIFA+ is a free, ad-supported platform that will release as an app and website. The free cost might be temporary and there could be a subscription fee going forward.

Pretty significant news this: football is the most watched sport in the world and the timing is right too: before the World Cup in Qatar. No Live game though, yet

After Zomato, Ola pilots 10-min food delivery; Swiggy may explore faster deliveries too - ET

Nice reminder that one can order food on Ola too: they did acquire FoodPanda

New products, features, launches

DuckDuckGo announces a new privacy-focused Mac web browser - Ars Technica

Looks like the playbook is: launch a search engine, launch a browser and so on. Essentially get as close as possible to the first touchpoint to the internet. But at some point one must question what possibly could another browser do to the ‘Chrome dominance’. Guess it’s better to have an alternative than none. Btw DDG has a very interesting Careers page and a nice hiring process with paid assignments (yes, fully remote roles)

Spotify brings live audio shows to its main app, rebrands companion app Greenroom as ‘Spotify Live’ - Techcrunch

TikTok launches its own AR development platform, Effect House - TC

Interesting read

Musk, Thiel, Andreessen and the Current Thing - Bloomberg

Here are three high-profile, exorbitantly wealthy technologists, apparently finding midlife satisfaction in shitposting. They also seem to be firmly enmeshed in the crypto-Twitter world’s flywheel of Narcissus — a self-reinforcing loop where only the most outlandish gestures draw that sweet, gratifying drug that is excessive online attention.

Wordle UX: Sometimes a game just feels good

Every once in a generation something beautifully simple comes along and revolutionizes our lives: the paperclip, Post-its, the iPod, Wordle.

Beautiful read

Poll for the day

Have you ordered food on Ola?

Errr what?

Yes

No, but am aware of it

Curated from:

Morning Brew, Verge, Techcrunch, Techmeme, CNBC, Hacker News, Product Hunt and more

[Akshay.Kanade]

JIRA trouble | JOMO for 13th Apr

In today’s JOMO: Uber rides to get costlier, some stunning macro photos and where is my JIRA ticket?

In the news

WhatsApp permitted to extend payments service to 100 million users in India - TC

Which means, they have breached the earlier threshold of 40mn users

CNN Plus is reportedly drawing fewer than 10,000 viewers a day - Verge

Low viewership rates coupled with a lack of entertaining content (unless you’re into on-demand news and documentaries) give off some serious Quibi vibes — the short-lived service that lasted less than six months

Uber, Ola hikes cab fares in major cities as fuel prices rise - ET

‘To help cushion drivers from the impact of spike in fuel prices, Uber has raised trip fares in cities such as Delhi-NCR and Kolkata by 12% and in Mumbai and Hyderabad by 15%, respectively’, Uber said

New products, features, launches

Amazon has a new name for its free streaming TV service - CNBC

Amazon said Wednesday it’s rebranding its free-to-stream, ad-supported service from IMDb TV to Amazon Freevee. The service was launched in 2019 as IMDb Freedive.

Interesting read

Mark Zuckerberg’s augmented reality - Verge

Meta’s CEO also sees the AR glasses, dubbed Project Nazare, as a way to get out from under the thumb of Apple and Google, which together dictate the terms that apps like Facebook have to abide by on mobile phones.

The Scoop: Inside the Longest Atlassian Outage of All Time

The most common suspicion coming from several sources like The Stack was how the legacy Insight Plug-In plugin was being retired. A script was supposed to delete all customer data from this plugin but accidentally deleted all customer data for anyone using this plugin

The world was saved of so many JIRA tickets not being created. But this whole thing looks like a right mess: ‘Atlassian can, indeed, restore all data to a checkpoint in a matter of hours. However, if they did this, while the impacted ~400 companies would get back all their data, everyone else would lose all data committed since that point So now each customer’s data needs to be selectively restored. Atlassian has no tools to do this in bulk.’ YIKES

Apple unveils the best photos from the Shot on iPhone Macro Challenge - Apple

Over the course of several weeks earlier this year, iPhone photographers from around the world shared their best macro photos for the Shot on iPhone Macro Challenge, making even the smallest details seem epic in images taken with their iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max

Some stunning photographs

Poll for the day

Do you use Whatsapp Pay?

Yes

Have tried, dont use now

No

Curated from:

Morning Brew, Verge, Techcrunch, Techmeme, CNBC, Hacker News, Product Hunt and more

[Akshay.Kanade]

We will respond | JOMO for 18th Apr

In today’s JOMO: We learn that Intel is helping teachers get ‘insights’ on students, e-comm is back down to pre-pandemic levels and that Sequoia will respond, someday

Oh btw, we crossed 100 subs on Telegram. A warm welcome to all who just joined in. Party’s just starting

If you like what you are seeing, share it forward

In the news

BharatePe, Trell, Zilingo investor Sequoia Capital says will respond strongly to wilful misconduct, fraud - ET

Rather an ‘elite’ set of startups this. Shouldn’t Sequoia be responding with their term sheets and cheques? Or maybe that time has already passed? There is a pattern to this and pretty Sequoia isnt the only one. There will more skeletons coming out as and when (and if) the money starts drying out. Stay tuned

Ecommerce logistics firms Delhivery, Ecom Express, Xpressbees give aggregators a price shock - ET

Delhivery, Ecom Express and Xpressbees have simultaneously increased shipment charges by as much as 35-40% for orders received via online logistics aggregators such as Shiprocket, Pickrr, Shipyaari

Everything is no more expensive. Even ‘free’ delivery

Startups, funding etc

Swiggy, Zomato back restaurant management startup UrbanPiper in a $24 million funding round - ET

They recently redesigned their website. Worth comparing the latest one and the one from Mar 31st. Some nice takeaways, esp the Products section and esp for those interested in designing B2B pages

New products, features, launches

Twitter’s in-development Edit button offers hints as to how the feature could work - TC

So much thought around an Edit button. Classic case of making a feature sound more important than it is for the average user.

Interesting read

Virtual classroom startup Class is testing Intel’s “emotion AI” tech that claims to detect bored, distracted, or confused students, raising privacy questions- Protocol

“We can give the teacher additional insights to allow them to better communicate,” said Michael Chasen, co-founder and CEO of Classroom Technologies, who said teachers have had trouble engaging with students in virtual classroom environments throughout the pandemic.

Errr… somehow this has the ‘ We dont need no education’ feels. Also, teacher, leave those kids alone cos all in all it’s just another brick in the wall (from the Pink Floyd epic)

The Pandemic Was Supposed to Push All Shopping Online. It Didn’t. - WSJ

E-commerce retailers that rode a surge of online purchases in 2020 are now grappling with the fact that some customers have returned to stores

Tokens From Manchester City to PSG Prove Disappointing - Bloomberg

Analysts caution that demand for fan tokens quickly goes from euphoria to indifference. The main criticism they make is that these have few tangible benefits for the fans.

At the start of the season, fan tokens were all the rage. No longer. And City have had a great season. PSG… less said the better

Poll for the day

Just curious, what should they do?

Take the offer

Ask for more/reject it

Ban him from Twitter!

Incase you happen to be living under the rocks and have no clue what this is about, here’s the context

Curated from:

Morning Brew, Verge, Techcrunch, Techmeme, CNBC, Hacker News, Product Hunt and more

[Akshay.Kanade]

Cutting the cable cutters | JOMO for 19th Apr

In today’s JOMO: American’s are cancelling their streaming subscriptions, some crypto news and let’s talk about bubbles

In the news

DuckDuckGo insists it didn’t ‘purge’ piracy sites from search results - Verge

‘Piracy’ not ‘privacy’. Strange they had to insist on it. Turns out the problem was with Bing, which DDG uses

Better.com conducts third round of layoffs in five months - TC

Let me guess, did the layoffs happen on… Zoom?

Startups, funding etc

Indian crypto exchange CoinDCX tops $2 billion valuation in new $135 million funding - TC

CoinDCX has doubled its valuation to $2.15 billion (post-money) in eight months

Thriving in ambiguity, should we say. Whether crypto trading volumes are thriving or not is not at all important, obviously. Btw, pretty longish article and not a word on the volumes, user growth, revenues and profitability (do they even matter?)

Andreessen Horowitz unveils piloted program for early-stage entrepreneurs - TC

Interesting read

Subscription fatigue, inflation are leading to cancellations - Morning Brew

35% of Americans have canceled a monthly subscription in the past six months due to inflation, according to a recent CNBC survey. Plus, 36% of respondents will cancel a subscription if higher prices persist. But it’s not just Yanks yanking the bill. British households have canceled about 1.5 million streaming accounts in 2022, according to the analytics group Kantar.

Zerodha’s profit more than doubled to Rs 1,000 crore in FY21, says Nithin Kamath - ET

“In our business if markets do well, we do well too,” Kamath had told ET on Friday. “But the market is overvalued, and we have to be prepared for when the bubble bursts. We, therefore, want to keep our business very simple and verticals such as lending does not appeal to us. There is no point overspending and we want to keep our operational cost low,” he had added.

Did someone say bubble? Speaking of which…

The Tech Bubble That Never Burst - NYT

Even as the biggest factor driving investors to high-growth start-ups over the last decade — low interest rates — begin to change, even as economists worry about an impending recession and even as start-ups lower their valuations or suddenly run out of cash, few today are predicting a total collapse.

Beautiful visualisation of the timeline, commentary and funding by NYT. And yes, it’s a free read

Poll for the day

Have you recently canceled a streaming subscription?

Yes

No

Dont have one

Curated from:

Morning Brew, Verge, Techcrunch, Techmeme, CNBC, Hacker News, Product Hunt and more

[Akshay.Kanade]

Netfixed | JOMO for 20th Apr

We wanted to have a different headline, something that expresses what has happened to Netflix stock more ‘explicitly’, should we say. But then better sense prevailed

In today’s JOMO: A bad day at the office for Netflix stock, some De-AMPing and create an app with just text

In the news

Netflix is exploring lower-priced, ad-supported plans after years of resisting - CNBC

In an effort to lure more subscribers, Netflix has increased its content spend, particularly on originals. To pay for it, the company hiked prices of its service. Netflix said those price changes are helping to bolster revenue but were partially responsible for a loss of 600,000 subscribers in the U.S. and Canada during the most recent quarter.

The stock is down 36% as of this writing. An overreaction, but the pandemic driven party is over, for sure. Also Netflix lost 200,000 subscribers. This has happened for the first time in 11 years. Expect consolidation and lots of focus on India

Startups, funding etc

School fee focused fintech platform Financepeer raises $38 Mn - Entrackr

So they offer ‘interest free’ EMI loans to students and get commissions from education institutes. Rather sketchy reviews . Oh and they have Rohit Sharma as their brand ambassador, so must be legit good, no?

New products, features, launches

Brave is bypassing Google AMP pages because they’re ‘harmful to users’ - Verge

Brave’s motives are two fold: while the stated goal is about better security/privacy, it also weans publishers away from AMP, Google’s poster child (publishers specifically enable AMP so that Google ranks their pages higher, while forgetting that they end up losing possible ad revs and give Google even more data). Also, AMP pages suck in terms of experience, TBH

Related: Google’s stated goal for AMP was to make the web faster. Right

Amazon Europe Unit Paid No Taxes on $55 Billion Sales in 2021 - Bloomberg

Amazon.com Inc.’s main European retail business reported 1.16 billion euros ($1.26 billion) of losses in 2021, which allowed the company to pay no income tax and receive 1 billion euros in tax credits, corporate filings seen by Bloomberg show.

Look ma, we are a loss making company. Smart

Interesting read

Meta suffers setback with WhatsApp business payments in Brazil - FT

WhatsApp has struggled to sign up local “merchant acquirers” — companies that process electronic payments and are needed to launch and run the service — and is still awaiting approval from the central bank in the country, its second-largest market with 120mn users.

Cool Products, websites and tools

Loaders

Free loaders & spinners for your next project.

Text to App Generator

Turn text into mobile app without any coding

Er… what? Er… why??

Poll for the day

Would you like to create your own app?

I have an idea

Nah

Already have built one

Curated from:

Morning Brew, Verge, Techcrunch, Techmeme, CNBC, Hacker News, Product Hunt and more