Zebeth Media Solutions

Author : zebethcontrol

Spotify revamps its Apple Watch app with larger artwork and new features, like direct downloads • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in AppsNo Comments on Spotify revamps its Apple Watch app with larger artwork and new features, like direct downloads • ZebethMedia

Spotify today announced it’s revamping its Apple Watch experience. The new version of the small-screen streaming app has been redesigned to make it easier for users to find the music or podcasts they want to hear from the “Your Library” section, as well as catch up with the latest podcast episodes, download playlists for offline listening, and more. Overall, the app has also been updated with larger artwork and smoother animations, making it feel more like a sized-down version of the Spotify mobile app, rather than the text-heavy experience it was previously. First launched in 2018, the Spotify app for Apple Watch has been through a few iterations over the years. Notably, it gained standalone streaming support two years ago, making it a more useful streaming companion for on-the-go listening. Last year, it also helpfully added the ability for Premium users to download playlists and podcasts to Apple Watch for offline listening. This year’s update, meanwhile, seems to be aimed at taking better advantage of the bump in screen real estate provided by more recent Apple Watch models, like the new Series 8 and the slightly older Series 7. You’ll notice the updated app now is more colorful, thanks to the larger artwork, and the titles are easier to read in its new layout. Podcast pages better resemble their mobile counterparts, too, with artwork, the run time, and a big, green play button above the show’s episode list — an improvement on how the older version of the app would just show a list of episodes as text. Image Credits: Spotify With today’s changes, Spotify says the app’s design will make it easier for users to find content, like favorite tracks, artists or episodes in “Your Library.” Here, you’ll also be able to swipe to “like” tracks and you’ll be able to toggle shuffle mode “on” or “off ” before you start playing. Image Credits: Spotify For podcast listeners, the update will now allow you to see where you left off in an episode so you can jump back in and finish listening on your watch. The app will also now mark new episodes with a blue dot so it’s easier to see when your favorite show has updated, similar to how the mobile app uses a blue dot to flag shows with new and unplayed episodes on the home page. Another new feature helps you download content to your Apple Watch without having to use the Spotify app on your smartphone. Before, subscribers who wanted to download playlists, albums, or podcasts would do so by tapping on the “Download to Apple Watch” option in the Spotify mobile app. The updated version of the Spotify app for Apple Watch, however, will allow users to download favorite playlists directly from the Watch app itself. This makes it easier to quickly prep your watch with some music for your workout or run, perhaps, or other times when you plan to leave your phone behind. The updated Spotify Apple Watch app is rolling out starting today and will become available to all users globally in the coming week, the company says. That means you may not see these changes immediately, but should soon. Spotify also suggests that users update their Apple Watch to the latest version of watchOS.

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Volvo unveils flagship SUV with 370-mile range • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in EV, suv, Transportation, volvoNo Comments on Volvo unveils flagship SUV with 370-mile range • ZebethMedia

Volvo unveiled its flagship electric vehicle Wednesday, a seven-passenger SUV that can travel 370 miles on a fully charged battery. The debut of the Volvo EX90 is a “huge step forward” in the automaker’s quest to become a fully electric brand by 2030, CEO Jim Rowan said during a livestreamed launch event. Slated to arrive early 2024, the SUV marks the brand’s “new era” of software-defined vehicles, sporting technology and safety features expected to trickle down to the rest of the lineup. The EX90 embodies Volvo’s key marketing message — that no one should be killed or seriously injured in a new Volvo car — as it aims for EVs to comprise half of the 1.2 million vehicles the company is targeting in mid-decade global sales. The standard system features 16 ultrasonic sensors, eight cameras, five radar systems, and lidar fitted to the roofline, helping the car see up to 820 feet in complete darkness, according to Volvo. “All of these work together to form an invisible shield of safety,” said Rowan, who called the EX90 “the safest car Volvo has ever produced.” He said the system is designed with AI capabilities to become more tailored to the driver’s behavior over time. As the latest in the industry’s crop of “software-defined vehicles,” the SUV relies upon core compute technology. The guts are created with partners, including Google, Apple, Nvidia, Luminar and Qualcomm. The EX90’s 370-mile range puts it ahead of the majority of new battery-electric SUVs on the market, including the Ford Mustang Mach-E and Tesla Model X. It also features bidirectional charging to use the car’s battery as an extra energy supply source to power home appliances and feed energy back to the grid. The automaker said Wednesday it plans to unroll a Volvo app, with details to come, and expand its subscription-based ownership and Care by Volvo maintenance programs to more cities and countries.

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Roblox stock drops on widening losses in Q3, but other growth metrics remain strong • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in Gaming, metaverse, Q3 earnings, RobloxNo Comments on Roblox stock drops on widening losses in Q3, but other growth metrics remain strong • ZebethMedia

One of the big players in the “metaverse” space, gaming platform Roblox, saw its stock tumble by over 15% in pre-market trading on Wednesday after reporting a wider-than-anticipated loss in its third-quarter earnings. The company, which caters to a younger demographic with its virtual world gaming platform, reported a loss of $297.8 million, or 50 cents per share, when analysts had forecast a loss of 32 cents a share. Roblox revenue grew 2% year-over-year to $517.7 million in the quarter, but Wall Street tends to focus on another figure called bookings, which represents both the revenue plus the change in deferred revenue during the period and other non-cash adjustments. As the company has previously explained, bookings are equal to the amount of virtual currency, which Roblox calls “Robux,” that’s purchased by its users during a time period — something that Roblox says provides a timelier indication of trends. In Q3, Roblox bookings were up by 10% year-over-year to $701.7 million, above the $686 million analysts expected. Daily active users were also up by 24% from the year-ago period to reach 58.8 million, but average bookings per daily active user fell 11% to $11.94. While Roblox beat estimates on several key metrics, the stock dropped as Wall Street reacted to Roblox’s larger-than-anticipated loss. Despite this setback, many remain more bullish on Roblox in the long-term as a key metaverse player — perhaps even more so than Meta, which is spending billions trying to catch up. There are signs that Roblox is managing to grow and retain its users, even as many among its user base are now aging up. For instance, the company in Q3 noted its fastest year-over-year growth in daily active users is among those ages 17 to 24 — a cohort that grew by 41%. Though there aren’t as many users in that demographic, they monetize better than Roblox’s younger players and now represent 22% of Roblox’s daily active users. More broadly, Roblox’s daily active users over the age of 13 grew by 34% year-over-year and accounted for 54% of all daily active users, the company said. This is up from 38.7% in Q3 2019. In addition, the gaming company said that core markets like the U.S. and Canada are above peak-Covid levels — a time when Roblox, like many other gaming and entertainment companies, had seen sizable growth and activity as pandemic lockdowns kept people at home with nothing to do. Meanwhile, Western Europe and East Asia are now Roblox’s fastest-growing markets, which also monetize better than some others outside the U.S., like Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Southeast Asia. Though it may be hard for Roblox to reach pandemic levels of engagement in the post-Covid era, the company said its September 2022 engagement was nearly 20% higher than in September 2019, pre-Covid. This figure is down 6% from the Covid-impacted time of September 2020, however, but suggests growth has normalized. Monetization (bookings divided by engagement hours) was in line with peak Covid time frames, and 12% higher than in September 2019. Roblox also touted its developer traction, noting there are now 1520 developers building for Roblox who had achieved over 100,000 hours of engagement, up 54% year-over-year as of September 2022. And there were 532 developers that had generated over a million hours of engagement, up 47%. The top 1,000 experiences at the end of the quarter accounted for 85% of Robux earnings and engagement hours, compared with 90% a year ago. “We are delivering strong growth across our core operating metrics, powered by a growing developer community creating high- quality experiences that appeal to a broad, global audience,” said David Baszucki, Chief Executive Officer of Roblox, in a statement. “We are creating innovative technologies to enable deeper forms of immersion, communication and expression to further enhance the value of the platform.” The company said it will continue to invest in its growth including by hiring, expanding the platform, building new tools and experiences, in international growth, and in its older users. Roblox stock is trading at $34.98 as of the time of writing, down by 10.83%.

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Peacock adds live TV from all local NBC stations to its Premium Plus tier • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in local tv, Media & Entertainment, NBC, peacock, streaming service, televisionNo Comments on Peacock adds live TV from all local NBC stations to its Premium Plus tier • ZebethMedia

Peacock announced that, on November 30, its Premium Plus subscribers will get 24/7 access to their local NBC station in all of NBC’s 210 markets, including live TV programming like local news, sports, weather, and entertainment. Subscribers will soon be able to livestream popular programs like “The TODAY Show,” “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” and “Saturday Night Live” without paying for cable. As part of yesterday’s soft launch, some Premium Plus subscribers already gained access to their NBC local affiliate channel livestream. “With Peacock’s local affiliate livestream, our subscribers are getting the unique combination of the ad-free on-demand content they love with the local news and NBC programming that is already part of their daily life,” Kelly Campbell, President, Peacock and Direct-to-Consumer, NBCUniversal, said in a statement. NBC’s local affiliate stations join brands and channels like NFL, Golf, Premiere League, NBC News, Sky News, TODAY, Hallmark, WWE and others. Peacock is likely including more live TV options to compete with rival Paramount+, which has always included local programming on its platform. Paramount+, with its 46 million subscribers, brings live TV to 99% of the United States, the company claims on its website. After experiencing a slowdown in subscriber growth, it’s also possible that Peacock is urging more of its subscribers to upgrade to Premium Plus. Peacock recently revealed that its total paid subscriber base jumped from 13 million paid subscribers to over 15 million in the third quarter. While it’s unlikely that many Peacock subscribers of its free ad-supported plan will switch over to the $9.99/month Premium Plus tier, its possible subscribers paying $4.99/month for the Premium plan will want to switch over to get 24/7 access to their local NBC station. Plus, $9.99/month is a better deal than paying the hefty price for cable or live TV streaming services like Sling TV. “This is an exciting new offering that expands our best-in-class broadcast and local programming to new audiences,” added Philip Martzolf, President, NBC Affiliate Relations.

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Why mobile subscription management platforms are enjoying tailwinds • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in Adapty, app revenue, app stores, Apps, EC Consumer Applications, mobile app developers, RevenueCat, StartupsNo Comments on Why mobile subscription management platforms are enjoying tailwinds • ZebethMedia

Game engine company Unity and adtech company IronSource finalized their merger this week, aiming to “create an end-to-end for developers to build and monetize games,” ZebethMedia reported. While there’d be a lot to say about the deal from the perspective of game developers, we’d like to look at this from a different angle and wonder who might one day do the same, but for non-gaming apps. Earlier today, we reported that New York-based startup Adapty raised $2.5 million to date to help mobile app developers grow their revenue. While the company is perhaps more focused on customer revenue growth acceleration than some of its competitors, it is not alone in its broader space, which could be described as mobile subscription infrastructure. By magnitude of funding, the leader by far is YC-backed RevenueCat, which has raised $56.5 million in total, including a $40 million Series B in 2021. And with clients like Buffer, Notion and PhotoRoom, it is arguably the one that comes up more often in conversations.

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3 tips for managing a remote engineering team • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in Column, EC Column, EC Future of Work, EC How To, remote work, remote working, StartupsNo Comments on 3 tips for managing a remote engineering team • ZebethMedia

Kuan Wei (Greg) Soh is a technology entrepreneur and angel investor who enjoys building world-class technology teams. Previously, he worked in financial services, the hedge fund industry and at high-growth startups. Remote work is not for every business and it may not be everyone’s cup of tea. When my co-founder and I decided to build a distributed engineering team for our startup, numerous questions raced through our minds: Will they be productive? How will decisions be made? How do we keep the culture alive? Today, we manage a remote team of about a dozen engineers, and we’ve learned quite a bit along the way. Here are some tips we hope you find effective. These are probably applicable to earlier-stage startups and less so for larger organizations. Pair programming In an office setting, employees have ample opportunities to interact with colleagues, and these conversations organically create a sense of authenticity. But in a remote work setting, there is no such privilege. Some of our founder friends have used services to monitor or micromanage their employees during work hours, but we feel this is unproductive and antithetical to building a positive culture. The introduction of pair programming, an agile software development technique where two engineers simultaneously work on the same issue, fosters collaboration and creates opportunities for developers to have conversations as they would in an office pantry. We try to pair two programmers for a sustained period of time (about 10 weeks) before considering a rotation or switch. Some may argue that pair programming is a waste of time on the basis that if each individual can produce X output, then it makes sense to produce twice that output by having each of them work on separate problems. We find this view limiting. Firstly, pair programming results in higher quality, since two brains are generally better than one. When engineering systems are incredibly complex, having a thoughtful “sanity checker” is almost always a good idea, as this prevents mediocre decisions and helps thwart downstream problems, which can be time-consuming to resolve in the future. In my experience, it also leads to faster problem resolutions. To elucidate this point, if problems can be solved in half the time, then in the same time frame, the output of two programmers working as a pair will still be 2x.

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Twitter begins to roll out grey checkmarks for high-profile accounts • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in Apps, grey checkmark, Social, social media, Twitter, verificationNo Comments on Twitter begins to roll out grey checkmarks for high-profile accounts • ZebethMedia

A day after announcing that it’d denote high-profile accounts in a way distinctive from the blue checkmark now available to all Twitter Blue subscribers, Twitter has begun to roll out new badges that denote particular categories of official accounts, including government accounts, major media outlets and some public figures. The move is an attempt to safeguard against information spreading and impersonation on the platform as Twitter grapples with the fallout of expanding eligibility for its blue checkmark, which was previously reserved for vetted, expressly-ID-verified Twitter users. The new badges — a grey checkmark beneath the old blue verification checkmark — designate accounts as “Official,” in line with what app researcher Nima Owji revealed less than a week ago in Twitter’s public code. Accounts including ZebethMedia’s and several government officials, among them U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Mitt Romney (R-UT), show the grey check as of this morning. But from a cursory search, there doesn’t appear to be much rhyme or reason to how the badges have been applied. For example, The Wall Street Journal’s account initially didn’t have a grey badge; The Information’s still doesn’t. Nor does Twitter CEO Elon Musk’s.  Image Credits: Twitter Those oversights will be addressed in the coming days presumably — Twitter no doubt has thousands, if not millions, of high-profile accounts to comb through and vet. It’s work it made for itself — as alluded to earlier, the recently-launched Twitter Blue plan that grants subscribers a blue checkmark doesn’t include ID verification, a flaw Twitter users including comedians Sarah Silverman and Kathy Griffin exploited in the past week to show how easy it is to pose as another account. Silverman, Griffin and others who created satirical handles were banned following Musk’s unilateral decision over the weekend to permanently bar from the platform impersonators who don’t make it clear that they’re engaging in parody.

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Tech layoffs may get worse before they get better • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in Continuum, Equity podcast, Layoffs, Nolan Church, Startups, TwitterNo Comments on Tech layoffs may get worse before they get better • ZebethMedia

Carta’s former chief people officer turned entrepreneur chats through his advice for conducting a layoff Natasha Mascarenhas @nmasc_ / 8 hours Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single person, think about their work, and unpack the rest. This week, Natasha interviewed Nolan Church, the CEO and co-founder of Continuum, about his perspective on the tech layoff wave. While we do indeed get into how his vision of fractional work fits into this conversation, we start with the fact that Church helped conduct Carta’s layoffs in 2020 (a low of his entire career, he says) and what that experience taught him about the importance of being direct.  Here are a few of the topics we get into: Twitter’s recent layoffs, Jack’s silence and who should take ownership for what The generic CEO statement on macroeconomic challenges Stripe’s recent layoffs What is the best way to conduct a layoff, and how should you communicate with staff? How does that change based on stage? Is the rumor that all startups should just cut 20% of staff to extend runway accurate at all? If Church could go back in time, would he change anything about the way that Carta conducted its layoffs? What executive role is most likely to be disrupted and why Q1 may bring more doom and gloom into the tech sphere And finally, Church’s attempt to summarize all of 2022 in a headline (I don’t disagree with his final answer, by the way). I’ll fully take ownership for the fact that my column from just two weeks ago (!) has poorly aged. If you or someone you know is whipping up a cool program – like this –  to support those laid off, hit me up on Twitter and I may just create a good news show. Equity drops every Monday at 7 a.m. PT and Wednesday and Friday at 6 a.m. PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. ZebethMedia also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, a show that details how our stories come together and more!

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Web3 messaging infrastructure Notifi raises $10M seed round co-led by Hashed, Race Capital  • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in Crypto, crypto startups, Hashed, Race Capital, Startups, Venture, web3 messaging infrastructureNo Comments on Web3 messaging infrastructure Notifi raises $10M seed round co-led by Hashed, Race Capital  • ZebethMedia

Notifi, a communication infrastructure platform for Web3, said Tuesday it has raised $10 million in an oversubscribed seed funding co-led by previous backers Hashed and Race Capital. Other investors include Struck Capital, HRT Capital, Wintermute, Superscrypt founded by Temasek, bringing its total funding to $12.5 million.    The ten-month-old startup wants to address the broken communication model in Web3, which is fragmented across multiple application and messaging platforms like Telegram, Discord and Twitter and across layer-1 and layer-2 blockchain ecosystems. Notifi provides communication infrastructure and software development kits (SDKs) for decentralized applications on blockchain platforms with simplified and customized notifications.    Its platform allows Web3 developers to integrate multichannel communication into their applications without building the infrastructure themselves. “Notifi is similar to Twilio, but unlike Twilio, Notifi has built a Web3-native solution for blockchain developers that enables both on-chain and off-chain messaging across multiple layer-1 ecosystems,” co-founder and chief executive officer of Notifi Paul Kim told ZebethMedia.    Kim and Nimesh Amin (CTO), who previously worked at Amazon Web Services and Oracle Cloud, founded Notifi in January. Kim said its team is comprised of builders of Web 2 infrastructure, so they understand the importance of building and running services at scale with reliability, security and performance.    The startup targets the Web3 ecosystem and all Web2 addressable users. “We’re taking a pragmatic approach to solving the right customer and user pain point rather than building something no one asked for,” Kim continued. “This is why we support both on-and off-chain messaging. Not everything has to be decentralized. As Web3 goes mainstream, the next wave of users will want a simple text or email alert when something important happens.”    Notifi, which launched its SDKs in April this year, has more than 25 customers, including Orca, one of Solana’s biggest DEXs; Zebec, treasury management for DAOs; SynFutures, Polygon’s largest derivatives protocol; Hyperspace, an NFT marketplace; Realms, Solana’s DAO governance platform, and more, Kim said.     Notify will soon launch Notifi Hub, the Web3 inbox to aggregate cross-chain notifications and messaging into one single hub, which is currently in beta, to provide users with a centralized location to track and manage all of their messages and alerts across different blockchains, wallets and dApps.  Image Credits: Notifi   Notifi now supports Solana, NEAR and Ethereum and is expanding to Polygon, Avalanche, Aptos and Sui. The company’s initial launch partners include SynFutures and ZeroSwap on Polygon; Pocket Worlds on Avalanche; Pontem Networks, Aries Market, and Ethos Wallet on Aptos and Sui.    The funding will help Notifi expand support into other layer ecosystems and provide developers with more tools to enable advanced user experience. In addition, it plans to hire and scale its team to meet new needs of its product lines, such as notifications as a service, chat as a service, customer relationship management (CRM) and analytics tools for product messaging, and more, Kim said.   The company may face competition with XMTP and Dialect in the Web3 messaging space. Its differentiator is Notifi’s product is designed to allow for highly customizable experiences that dApps can implement and manage, Kim said, adding that the user experience developers can offer messaging and notification functionality within their native UI with a user experience that feels native to their app or platform.  “Paul and Nimesh bring years of infrastructure experience from Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Oracle and Circle to Web3,” general partner at Race Capital Chris McCann said. “We at Race Capital could not be more thrilled to partner with them in this new round of seed funding and to support them on their mission to empower all Web3 builders to better communicate and interact with their users.”    “Notifi has a bold vision to make communication as easy to set up and maintain as a web application,” said partner at Hashed Baek Kim. “They’ve built a clever, intuitive interface that simplifies the extreme complexities involved in building cross-chain messaging and have received many early accolades from layer 1 blockchains and Web3 developers.” 

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