The Tech Landscape #183 🎩
Facebook’s social ecommerce, Twitter’s watch parties, and opportunities for AR creators: this is issue 183 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.
Another flood of stories this week, but everything was somewhat overshadowed by the news that the US Federal Trade Commission is suing Facebook for illegally maintaining a monopoly, and is threatening to undo its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp. Plenty has been written about this already, so I’ll just add two notes of my own:
First, while I think the WhatsApp acquisition was plainly anticompetive (it gave Facebook the two biggest messaging apps in the world) and should never have been allowed in the first place, Instagram is less certain; it was growing fast, but had 30 million users when Facebook bought it and now has over 1 billion; many people thought at the time a $1bn valuation was way too high, so this seems like hindsight in action.
Second, I’ll just quote Casey Newton: “The FTC’s complaint that there is no real competition in this market is 53 pages long and does not once mention the word ‘TikTok.’ TikTok has 800 million users worldwide. I’m sorry but it’s worth a mention!”
Anyway, enough from me; it’s my birthday today so I’m off to hide for 24 hours.
Top Stories
Not necessarily the biggest stories of the week, but ones that I feel are important because they indicate a couple of trends that are going to be big next year: social ecommerce, and social watch parties.
Instagram launched shopping in (its TikTok clone) Reels. Businesses selling in Reels can add a View Products button to buy, save, or see more information about products.
techcrunch.com/2020/12/10/instagram-launches-shopping-in-reels-its-tiktok-rival/
WhatsApp added a shopping cart for businesses to more easily accept orders of multiple items.
about.fb.com/news/2020/12/making-it-easier-to-shop-on-whatsapp-with-carts/
Twitter acquired Squad, an app which lets people share their screens with each other. This year has seen an explosion in social watch parties and screen sharing, from Disney+ to Messenger, so this is an interesting move from Twitter to buy themselves into the sector.
theverge.com/2020/12/11/22169773/twitter-acquires-squad-screen-sharing-video-chat
XR
Snap announced new features for Lens developers, including face morphing, ‘tween’ animation, and configurable templates, a ‘no-code’ visual scripting interface, and a lens management tool, as part of an update to its Lens Studio.
lensstudio.snapchat.com/news/powerful-updates-in-lens-studio-3-3/
Spark AR is helping to promote creators by adding portfolio pages on Facebook and Instagram and a gallery of effects on Facebook.
sparkar.facebook.com/blog/introducing-creator-portfolios-ar-gallery
Google added 50 new animals to its AR search results.
twitter.com/Google/status/1337506620612485120
Niantic will make a developer kit available to AR creators in Japan early next year. Its the first country to get a glimpse at what the company has been building. [Link target in Japanese.]
twitter.com/NianticJP/status/1336907381754585091
Snapchat and Perfect Corp are collaborating to bring more shoppable AR cosmetics try-ons to the platform. L’Oreal and Gucci are among many brands to have already had some success with this.
businesswire.com/news/home/20201210005585/en/Perfect-Corp.-and-Snap-Inc.-Partner-to-Support-Interactive-AR-Try-On-Experiences-for-Beauty-Brands
Walmart (US) closed down Insperience, its in-house VR startup. Outside of gaming and (to a lesser degree) fitness, VR appears to be struggling for use cases.
protocol.com/walmart-storeno8-insperience-spatialand
Cognixion (no, me neither) announced an AR headset with brain computing interface, to help people with communication disorders to interact with the world around them. Very interested to see how well this works (if it does).
tweaktown.com/news/76526/this-ar-headset-can-read-your-brain-and-speak-for-you/index.html
Everything Else
Smart Home Google and Samsung announced a smart home partnership, where Nest devices can be controlled through Samsung’s SmartThings app, and SmartThings hardware can be controlled through Google’s Home app. More Samsung devices will be compatible with Google Assistant in future, as Bixby is slowly phased out.
blog.google/products/assistant/smarter-smart-home-google-and-samsung/
Gaming Google Stadia can now stream directly to YouTube. This was one of the features touted at launch a year ago, and its most obvious advantage, so seems lax to have waited so long to add it.
theverge.com/2020/12/7/22162574/google-stadia-opens-youtube-livestream-feature-december-8
Gaming & Entertainment GTA V announced The Music Locker, an in-game space for live virtual events. Incredible that the game is now seven years old, and still going strong because of its community.
rockstargames.com/newswire/article/61822/the-music-locker-the-underground-club-for-everyone
Entertainment Virbela (no, me neither) launched Speakeasy, a platform for creating and hosting virtual events, with customisable avatars and branded stages. Fortnite and Roblox have pioneered the space this year, but one advantage they have is that people are already using their platforms frequently, not just visiting for the occasional event.
virbela.com/blog/holiday-parties-the-virbela-speakeasy
Advertising Google will allow users to opt out from seeing ads for alcohol or gambling. The controls will launch for YouTube users in the US at first, extending to Google Ads and in other territories through next year.
blog.google/technology/ads/greater-controls-sensitive-ad-topics-your-ad-settings/
Advertising Google launched a programmatic advertising solution for Web Stories, offering a monetisation option to creators of the format its recently thrown its weight behind.
blog.amp.dev/2020/12/10/google-launches-programmatic-ads-for-web-stories/
Operating Systems Google announced its latest feature drop for Pixel owners, with Adaptive Sound (which adjusts the equaliser to suit different spaces), full home screen customisation, and some previously Pixel 5 exclusives like Hold For Me (US-only) coming to older models.
blog.google/products/pixel/december-feature-drop/
Audio Apple Music is now available on Google’s Nest devices. The big tech companies may be rivals for operating systems and hardware, but when it comes to services it makes sense to be permissive because you want your own services to have reach too.
blog.google/products/google-nest/never-miss-beat-apple-music-now-available-new-nest-audio/
Audio Amazon Music is now available in Waze. See above.
androidpolice.com/2020/12/07/waze-rolling-out-integration-with-amazon-music/
Search Google is extending people cards to Search results in Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa. The cards, which are for people to make themselves discoverable by search when they might not have a web presence, launched in India earlier this year.
africa.googleblog.com/2020/12/introducing-people-cards-easy-way-to.html
Health Apple’s Fitness+ subscription service launches (in select English-speaking countries) on 14th December. It offers workout video content plus tracking through Apple Watch for the equivalent of $80 per year.
apple.com/newsroom/2020/12/apple-fitness-plus-the-future-of-fitness-launches-december-14/
Stats of the Week
App downloads rose 10% this year, with in-app spending up 25%, according to App Annie. TikTok was the most downloaded app, while Zoom saw by far the biggest growth of any app in the Top 10.
appannie.com/en/insights/market-data/2020-mobile-recap-how-to-succeed-in-2021/
Gaming content on YouTube was watched for 100bn hours in 2020, with 10bn of that happening live.
blog.youtube/news-and-events/youtube-gaming-2020/
Almost 17 million people have taken part in Roblox’s treasure hunt to promote the book Ready Player Two, the company says.
twitter.com/READYPLAYER2/status/1336710255200378881
This might be the last newsletter of the year, depending on what gets announced this week. If it is, I wish you lots of festive joy and merriment.
If you’ve found this newsletter valuable this year, why not buy me a coffee? I appreciate every single one I get. Alternatively, perhaps you could consider telling a friend or colleague about this newsletter instead? That’s just as valuable to me.