The Tech Landscape #165 ❗️
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This is issue 165 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.
A few weeks ago, as an experiment, I spent $30 on a Twitter ad promoting this newsletter. I wanted to see how Twitter ads work, and if they’re effective. The good news was, it reached over 7,000 people, at a cost of 0.3p per person, which is very cheap. The bad news was, I got one subscriber, at a cost of £23 per person, which is very expensive. I learned a lot, though.
I Made This
A short video about a couple of accelerating trends in digital fashion—partly because I’m interested in it, and partly because I want to get better at recording and editing short video (you’ll see a few rough spots).
Top Stories
Social Instagram globally launched Reels, its TikTok clone, following releases in a few select markets. Hard to know what to say about this; it’s a clone of TikTok. It adds one more format to an already crowded camera interface, but has the advantage of Instagram’s huge social graph.
about.fb.com/news/2020/08/introducing-instagram-reels/
Messaging Facebook’s Messenger Chat Plugin for websites no longer requires a user to have a Facebook account. The Guest mode means businesses can offer support to all visitors, massively broadening reach.
messengernews.fb.com/2020/08/04/messenger-enhances-chat-plugin-to-help-businesses-reach-even-more-customers/
Social Ralph Lauren announced a “long-term partnership” with Snap, starting with its first ever digital collection which will be available on Bitmoji. This may sound minor, but I think it’s pretty big—see I Made This, above.
twitter.com/Bitmoji/status/1291360359744507905
Fintech Google will launch digital banking through the Google Pay app next year, in partnership with 8 US banks. The banks will provide the services, and Google Pay will be the front-end. It’s the latest move by a tech giant into digital banking in the US, which is considerably behind much of the rest of the world in that sector.
9to5google.com/2020/08/03/google-pay-digital-bank-accounts/
Everything Else
Operating Systems Google launched Nearby Share, its long-overdue AirDrop-like file-sharing feature. Pixel and Samsung phones for now, coming to more phones, Chromebooks, and Chrome in the future. It’s a shame that Apple & Google can’t create a sharing standard.
blog.google/products/android/nearby-share/
Messaging WhatsApp launched a limited web search tool, aimed at combatting mis-/dis-information by letting users find more information on links that are shared to them. This will only work if the quality of search results is high; you feel that if it sends poor-quality results, it may do more harm than good. Interesting to note that it uses Google as the search provider.
blog.whatsapp.com/search-the-web
Hardware Google launched its new budget phone, the Pixel 4a, and announced the two phones coming later this year: the Pixel 4a 5G, and the Pixel 5. The 4a costs £350 (£500 for the upcoming 5G model) with the major selling point being the camera.
blog.google/products/pixel/pixel4a-new-helpful-google-phone/
Hardware Samsung announced its latest hardware range, with two versions of the Note 20 phone, updated earbuds, watch, and tablet, and a second attempt at a phone with a folding screen which promises to correct the mistakes of the previous version.
theverge.com/2020/8/5/21350066/samsung-galaxy-unpacked-note-20-event-biggest-announcements-products-recap
Assistants & Voice Google officially launched its Family Bell scheduling feature for Nest Home/Hub devices, along with broadcasting voice messages to specific Nest devices. It’s positioning these as aids for home learning/schooling.
blog.google/products/assistant/new-school-year-with-google/
Assistants & Voice Google is restarting its program of sending anonymised voice recordings to human reviewers to improve Assistant, on a strictly opt-in basis.
theverge.com/2020/8/5/21354805/google-email-audio-privacy-opt-in-human-reviewers-assistant
Gaming Microsoft will launch its cloud gaming service, xCloud, in September on Android phones and tablets. The service will be available at no extra cost to Game Pass subscribers. Right now this is a straight streaming service, with no games that use exclusive cloud features. No word of a launch on iOS yet, perhaps because of the App Store’s more restrictive policies.
news.xbox.com/en-us/2020/08/04/xbox-game-pass-ultimate-cloud-gaming-on-september-15/
Regulation The TikTok saga elevated with a new executive order from the US government stating a ban on transactions with Bytedance and Tencent (owner of WeChat), and a strong response from TikTok which is likely to lead to it suing the US. No idea which way this will go.
newsroom.tiktok.com/en-gb/tiktok-responds
Stats of the Week
80,000 YouTube channels earned money from non-advertising sources (subscriptions, in-app purchases, etc) in April, an increase of 20% from the previous month. Lockdown has dropped advertising revenue, so its important that alternative funding has increased to compensate creators.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-03/youtube-influencers-charge-for-subscriptions-after-coronavirus-hits-ads
57% of people in a UK/US survey say social media has helped them feel less lonely during lockdown, rising to 64% in people who had previously been ‘digitally detoxing’. The people most concerned about the ill-effects of social media on their mental health have benefited the most from it.
blog.globalwebindex.com/chart-of-the-week/social-media-amid-the-outbreak/
Trying something new with the presentation this week. What do you think?
The most expensive residential real estate deal in Los Angeles was the sale of the Jack Warner Estate in Beverly Hills to Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, for $165 million.