The Tech Landscape #188 📉
Facebook News, Twitter Birdwatch, and a buying spree: this is issue 188 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.
No blisteringly insightful opinions in this week’s introduction as it’s already midnight and I need to get this into your inbox soon. Hope you’re well!
Acquisitions
Lots of acquisitions announced this week; I guess everyone’s trying to use up their annual budget before the end of the financial year.
Twitter bought email newsletter service, Revue. The service will continue to run separately, but will also be better integrated into Twitter for audience growth. With the recent launches of Fleets and Spaces, and the acquisition of Squad, Twitter is experimenting with an awful lot beyond text.
blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2021/making-twitter-a-better-home-for-writers.html
Snap bought Ariel AI, a startup which specialises in computer vision. The team and technology will be used to help Snapchat’s camera better understand visual scenes and build rapid models—ideal for all AR use cases.
cnbc.com/2021/01/26/snap-acquires-ariel-ai-to-boost-snapchat-augmented-reality-features.html
Stock media site Shutterstock has agreed to buy TurboSquid, a 3D asset marketplace. It’s a smart move with the growth of AR, VR, and a more 3D-focused web.
prnewswire.com/news-releases/shutterstock-to-acquire-turbosquid-the-worlds-largest-3d-marketplace-301214601.html
Amazon bought Umbra, a startup which specialises in large-scale 3D mapping. It’s unclear what its intentions are, but likely this will fit into its long-term plans for the recently-launched Google Maps rival, AWS Location Services. Also good for planet-scale AR.
arcticstartup.com/amazon-buys-finnish-3d-firm-umbra/
Short video entertainment app Clash bought short video entertainment app Byte. Both apps were founded by people previously working on short video entertainment app Vine. Byte will continue while Clash will be pulled from the App Store, although it seems that long-term they will be brought together under the Clash name. And look, I managed to get through this paragraph without mentioning TikTok. Almost.
clashappco.medium.com/byte-app-is-joining-the-clash-family-a21771a4a196
Social
Facebook launched its News tab in the UK. It’s the first market launch outside of the US, and will see participating news outlets paid for the inclusion of their content.
about.fb.com/news/2021/01/new-destination-for-news-in-the-uk/
Twitter launched a pilot of Birdwatch, a community-sourced fact-checking system. Participating users can vote on tweets that identify misinformation to be pinned to the source tweet. It’s US-only and limited access for now.
blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/product/2021/introducing-birdwatch-a-community-based-approach-to-misinformation.html
Twitter will offer Moments outside of its own app for the first time. It’s a partnership with the Dailyhunt social app in India, and perhaps indicates a new effort from Twitter to make its content more broadly available.
techcrunch.com/2021/01/17/twitter-moments-dailyhunt-india/
Instagram added Professional Dashboard for businesses and creators to get insights and resources for their accounts.
business.instagram.com/blog/announcing-instagram-professional-dashboard
Instagram launched the Content Publishing API to make it easier for third-party business tools to schedule posts.
developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2021/01/26/introducing-instagram-content-publishing-api/
Everything Else
XR Google open sourced Tilt Brush, the VR painting application. The code was made available freely as the app is no longer actively developed—Google is 100% out of the VR game now.
opensource.googleblog.com/2021/01/the-future-of-tilt-brush.html
XR LEGO announced VIDIYO, an AR-powered TikTok-like entertainment app for kids. It’s based around physical tiles which come to life through the camera, letting kids film animated Minifigures with music (in partnership with Universal Music Group).
lego.com/en-gb/aboutus/news/2021/january/lego-vidiyo
Video YouTube is experimenting with a feature for sharing short clips of longer videos. Clips of 5-60 seconds can be shared via a URL which will loop the section when viewed.
support.google.com/youtube/thread/95526465
Assistants & Voice Alexa gained new smarter features, including automatically acting on ‘hunches’, calling emergency services, and barking like a dog to deter burglars. The latter two are part of Guard Plus, a home security subscription service.
theverge.com/2021/1/25/22249044/amazon-alexa-update-proactive-hunches-guard-plus-subscription
Privacy Google announced the latest details of Privacy Sandbox, its replacement for third-party cookies.
blog.google/products/ads-commerce/2021-01-privacy-sandbox/
Stat of the Week
Fines totalling over €158m were imposed by EU regulators for GDPR breaches in 2020. That’s a 39% increase over the previous 20 months following the introduction of the regulation.
newdigitalage.co/2021/01/19/gdpr-fines-accelerate-to-top-eur158-million-in-2020/
Facebook continues to grow worldwide, but decline in North America. It now has 1.84bn daily users and 2.8bn monthly, but lost a million users in the US and Canada—the second consecutive quarter of decline. That’s a worry for it, as North America is its most valuable market.
fastcompany.com/90598536/facebooks-daily-active-users-decline-for-a-second-quarter-in-the-united-states-and-canada
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