Twitter

Elon Musk’s Twitter deal has to close by Friday or the trial is back on • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 26, 2022Posted in Elon Musk, Social, TwitterNo Comments

Elon Musk’s on-again off-again plan to buy Twitter is on track to culminate in the billionaire taking control of the company this week. Musk is expected to close the deal by Friday, October 28, putting him officially in charge of one of the most prominent social networks in the world. Musk reportedly informed bankers of his plans to adhere to an October 28 deadline in a call on Monday. A collection of banks including Morgan Stanley and Bank of America is footing his purchase with $13 billion in debt, which they plan to hold onto, at least in the short term. Twitter’s stock traded around $53 on Wednesday, barely shy of the $54.20 a share Musk offered for the company earlier this year. Musk’s agreement with the banks helping him finance the deal isn’t the only thing holding him to a deadline. The more pressing matter here is that the Delaware Chancery Court judge overseeing the litigation between Musk and Twitter set a deadline for this Friday if Musk intends to avoid his day in court. Failing to seal the deal by the date would mean that Delaware Chancery Court Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick could initiate a November trial. Twitter issued this statement about today’s news: We received the letter from the Musk parties which they have filed with the SEC. The intention of the Company is to close the transaction at $54.20 per share. — Twitter Investor Relations (@TwitterIR) October 4, 2022 Twitter sued the erratic SpaceX and Tesla CEO over the summer to force him to buy the company. The two sides traded arguments and documents in court filings in the subsequent months, while Musk doubled down on his insistence that he had the right to walk away from the deal. Musk’s legal team grasped at straws, including making some misleading and generally confusing claims about Twitter’s user number measurements, muddying the waters further. In the mean time, the legal fight surfaced a trove of private messages between Musk, his financial advisors and other close contacts who he talked to about the deal. In early October Musk did another 180, agreeing to buy the company — if he could kill the trial scheduled for October 17. After another round of back-and-forth court filings and furious letter writing, Judge McCormick agreed to hold off on the trial if Musk gathered his financing and finished the acquisition by October 28. Musk also signaled his plans to finish the deal this week, changing his Twitter bio to “Chief Twit” and his location to Twitter HQ.

Elon Musk reportedly wants to lay off 75% of Twitter’s staff • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 21, 2022Posted in Elon Musk, Layoffs, Social, TwitterNo Comments

Musk has previously gestured at plans for layoffs if he were to buy Twitter, but those cuts could go even deeper than previously imagined. According to a new report from the Washington Post, Musk plans to purge 75% of Twitter’s workforce, or around 5,600 employees. If Musk’s vision for a much leaner platform comes to fruition, Twitter would be forced to operate with a sliver of its current staff. Between broader economic factors and ongoing criticisms that Twitter has failed to deliver on its promise (at least as far as investors are concerned), Twitter was always going to trim its workforce. But cutting the staff down by three quarters isn’t what most people had in mind. The Post noted that Twitter already planned to cut around a quarter of its workforce — but leaving a quarter of the workforce is a different situation altogether. A grain of salt is necessary here. While Musk reportedly described his aggressive plan over the past few months, there’s often a gulf between his words and the reality of the situation. Musk might want to lay off 75% of Twitter’s workforce — what dollar-signs-for-eyes investor or CEO wouldn’t want to make more money with fewer pesky salaries to pay! — but it’s also conceivable that Twitter wouldn’t even be able to operate if cut to the bone. Musk clearly lacks a fundamental understanding of some serious issues the company faces, some of which could only be resolved by more investment in key areas. The SpaceX and Tesla CEO was keen to lean on Twitter’s former head of security turned whistleblower Peiter Zatko when it suited him, but some of the dire security and safety needs that Zatko brought up certainly wouldn’t be resolved by gutting the whole company. Musk also barely has a grasp of the content moderation issues the company grapples with, another area that benefits from having more humans involved — not just a thrifty algorithm at the wheel. Certainly, and sadly, trust and safety would likely face deep cuts if Musk has his way. It’s also totally plausible that the 75% number is just another trick he pulled out of his hat to impress whoever he was talking to, maybe bankers he was courting for the acquisition or the various slavering rich men he texts with. For the sake of Twitter’s already very stressed current workforce, we definitely hope that winds up being the case. The deal, which is now to back on track after months of Musk sowing chaos, is expected to close by October 28.

Kanye joins the ranks of arrogant billionaires buying their own echo chambers • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 18, 2022Posted in EC News Analysis, kanye west, parler, social media, Startups, Twitter, VentureNo Comments

After a whirlwind month of spewing racism, antisemitism and just straight oddities, Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, announced his intention to buy right-wing extremist “free speech” platform Parler. Coincidentally, we’re sure, the app’s CEO is George Farmer, who is the husband of Kanye’s new best friend, conservative political pundit Candace Owens. In announcing the deal yesterday, Parler’s parent company said that Kanye made “a groundbreaking move into the free speech media space and will never have to fear being removed from social media again.” “The proposed acquisition will assure Parler a future role in creating an uncanceable ecosystem where all voices are welcome,” the company wrote in a statement. The deal is expected to close this upcoming quarter. The financial aspects of Kanye’s acquisition of Parler have not been disclosed. In the past, billionaires and racists could just say whatever they wanted, knowing the class they wished to oppress wouldn’t call them out in fear of retaliation or harm. These are not those days. With his agreement to buy Parler, Kanye represents yet another conservative billionaire attempting to wield control and influence over social media platforms, using the notion of free speech as a guise to continue fomenting hate speech and ginning up right-wing ideologues.

Kanye West is buying ‘uncancelable’ social media platform Parler • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 17, 2022Posted in Facebook, Instagram, kanye west, parler, Social, TwitterNo Comments

Kanye West, the rapper who also goes by the name Ye, has reached an agreement to buy “uncancelable free speech platform” Parler, the two said in a statement Monday, in a move they said will help individuals express their conservative opinions freely. As part of the deal, financial terms of which were not disclosed, Parler has agreed to sell fully to West, but the social network will continue to receive technical support from Parlement Technologies, including access to its private cloud services and its data center infrastructure. The deal is expected to close in the ongoing quarter. West, who has accused Meta and Twitter of censoring him in recent weeks, said in a statement: “In a world where conservative opinions are considered to be controversial we have to make sure we have the right to freely express ourselves.” West, who also runs apparel and sports businesses, was locked out of his Instagram and Twitter accounts earlier this month for posting antisemitic messages. Parler, which is considered a haven for conservatives and has attracted fans of former President Donald Trump, made a return to the Google Play Store last month after it was pulled by Google following the Capital riots in January 2021 for its role in inciting violence. “The proposed acquisition will assure Parler a future role in creating an uncancelable ecosystem where all voices are welcome,” the company said in a statement. Parler, based in Nashville, was founded in 2018 by John Matze and Rebekah Mercer, the daughter of the billionaire hedge fund manager and Breitbart founder Robert Mercer. The company, which has sought to rail against censorship and presented itself as “free speech,” added a content moderation layer to the platform last year in bid to be restored by Apple’s App Store. Parler has amassed a little over 250,000 monthly active users on its iOS and Android apps, according to market intelligence platform Sensor Tower. (The data was shared to ZebethMedia by an industry executive.) In a survey of more than 10,000 people, Pew Research reported earlier this month that 38% had heard of Parler. Parlement Technologies chief executive George Farmer said in a statement: “This deal will change the world, and change the way the world thinks about free speech. Ye is making a groundbreaking move into the free speech media space and will never have to fear being removed from social media again. Once again, Ye proves that he is one step ahead of the legacy media narrative. Parlement will be honored to help him achieve his goals.”

Twitter is developing a way for users to control who can mention them • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 14, 2022Posted in Apps, Social, social media, TwitterNo Comments

Twitter is developing a feature that has the potential to curb harassment and bullying on the social network. App engineer Jane Manchun Wong discovered that the company is developing a way for users to control who can mention them on Twitter. According to a screenshot posted by Wong, the new controls would give users the option to limit mentions to people they follow or turn off mentions altogether. Of course, you would still have the option to allow anyone to mention you, which is how Twitter currently operates. Giving users the option to turn off mentions altogether would be a dramatic shift for the company, but it would also give users a way to protect themselves from all sorts of bullying and harassment they face on the platform. Although users who are targeted by trolls currently have the option to block or mute users, individually blocking abusive accounts or muting specific tweets does not scale in instances when there may be hundreds of accounts involved in the targeted abuse. As with any other test feature, it’s unknown when or if Twitter plans to roll out the new controls officially. When asked about the possible upcoming change, a spokesperson from Twitter told ZebethMedia that the company doesn’t have anything to share at the moment. It’s worth noting that Twitter privacy designer Dominic Camozzi confirmed the new controls were in the works in a now-deleted tweet, as noted by The Verge, and had asked users for feedback. If Twitter decides to roll out the feature, it would join the social network’s current audience management features. Two years ago, Twitter gave all users the option to limit replies to their tweets. The feature lets you limit replies to people you follow or the people you mentioned in the tweet. With this feature, trolls can still unfortunately Quote Tweet another user’s tweet as a way to send abuse. The new controls uncovered by Wong would likely get rid of this workaround and protect users from incessant trolls. Twitter also rolled out its “Unmentioning” feature to all users earlier this year. The feature allows users to remove their name from another user’s tweet so they’re no longer tagged in it and any ongoing chatter around it won’t keep appearing in their mentions feed. The new controls would take this option even further by preventing your handle from being mentioned in the first place. The new controls would be a welcome addition to the platform and it’s nice to know that Twitter is looking at ways to help users protect themselves from abuse beyond the existing anti-abuse features. Coordinated trolling attacks have been an unwanted part of Twitter’s platform and the company has frequently been criticized for not doing enough to prevent harassment and abuse. Although public figures may be more likely to face higher levels of harassment than other types of users, it’s a problem that isn’t limited to users with a public profile, especially when racist abuse remains a problem on Twitter. The new controls would be a step toward protecting users online from all sorts of abuse and trolling.

Twitter’s making it easier for professional account users to link to their content and services • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 13, 2022Posted in Apps, Social, Twitter, twitter for professionalsNo Comments

Twitter is launching a new ‘Link Spotlight’ feature that lets professional account users add an interactive button to their profiles that links to a specific URL. The social network says the purpose of the Link Spotlight button is to give businesses and professionals a way to drive potential customers to their content, services or products. With this new button, you can refer users to take a look at your menu, listen to your podcast, make a reservation and more. The Link Spotlight feature is currently available to professional account users in the United States. Professional account users can choose to add buttons that say “Listen now,” “See live,””Watch now,” “Stream live,” “Read now,” “View menu,” “Book an appointment” and “Make a reservation.” Once you select a button, you’ll be able to enter a destination URL. The interactive button will then be displayed above your tweet timeline on your profile. 👋 Link Spotlight is now available to all professionals in the U.S. This new spotlight adds an interactive button to your profile that can drive your customers to whatever touchpoint is most important to you – viewing a menu, listening to your podcast, making a reservation, etc. pic.twitter.com/HGJdJcFceZ — Twitter Business (@TwitterBusiness) October 12, 2022 The button options are designed to give creators a more direct way to promote their content, while also giving businesses a way to attract and bring in more customers. The social network says the list of options is currently limited as it tests the new feature, noting that it may consider expanding the list in response to feedback. It’s worth noting that only URLs from Twitter’s allowlist of domains can be added to Link Spotlight. There are 34 domains in this list, including Spotify, Twitch, Grubhub, ChowNow, Vimeo, Etsy, Github, Kickstarter, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, YouTube, Ticketmaster, Soundcloud, Tidal, Deezer, Amazon Music, Substack and more. The full list can be found on Twitter’s Link Spotlight FAQ page. It’s not surprising that Twitter has an allowlist, since it probably doesn’t want to end up linking users to spam websites. Prior to the addition of the Link Spotlight feature, professional accounts have had the option to add a website link in their profiles, but you aren’t able to categorize the link. The addition of Link Spotlights gives professional accounts the option to link to more content or services in a clearer and more direct way. The launch of the new feature comes a few months after Twitter expanded its Location Spotlight feature to all businesses with professional accounts to allow them to display their location address, hours of operation and additional contact information on their profiles. Twitter first introduced Professional profiles last year and it made the option available to all users earlier this year in March. A professional account, which Twitter refers to as “Twitter for Professionals,” gives brands and creators access to additional tools to distinguish their profile. Twitter classifies anyone who uses Twitter for work as a professional.

Wharton’s Mori Taheripour on how to negotiate the right way • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 13, 2022Posted in Commerce, Elon Musk, M&A, Media & Entertainment, negotiation, TwitterNo Comments

Mori Taheripour teaches negotiations at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where she has taught undergraduates, MBA students and executive MBA students how to have better business conversations. Taheripour has also coached corporate clients, including on behalf of Goldman Sachs and Major League Baseball, about how to feel more confident and comfortable in negotiating, a skill that everyone uses daily but which tends to be seen as a kind of dark art. Amid the backdrop of one of the highest-profile negotiations in recent memory, centered on Elon Musk’s ongoing stop-and-go plans to buy Twitter, and aware that many readers are negotiating on their own behalf right now — for more time, more funding, a better exit package, fewer investor protections — we talked with Taheripour earlier this week to ask where negotiations tend to falter and how to help them succeed. Excerpts from that chat follow edited for length and clarity. TC: You’ve been an expert in dispute resolution and negotiation for more than a decade. You also published a book on the topic during the pandemic that’s been well-received. For people who haven’t yet read it, is the ability to negotiate well somewhat intuitive or entirely learned? It’s something you learn, and I actually think most people are better negotiators than they think they are because we do it so much. It’s only when we see negotiations through the lens of things that are really transactional and maybe conflict ridden that people put negotiations in a category of things people don’t really enjoy or they’re really afraid of or that are really uncomfortable, and they want to put it off. But any parent, anybody who’s in a relationship, anybody who has employees, anybody who has a pet . . . is probably really good at negotiations. What are some of the most common missteps people make when they’re in a business-related negotiation process? At the heart of all negotiations is human connection. That’s where the magic happens. Most negotiations are not transactional. The best negotiations are either fostering relationships that we already have, or creating new ones. And once you look at it that way, then negotiations become a conversation. Some conversations are harder than others. But they shouldn’t be if we open our minds to them with a sense of empathy and wanting to be creative and wanting to not focus on any one solution. Your book is about how to “negotiate fearlessly,” yet there’s a fine line between fearless and overconfident. Any pointers for readers who might be wondering how to straddle that line? A lot of this goes back to negative self talk and self sabotage. You’re not going to be an excellent negotiator just because you’re smarter and have a higher IQ. Being an excellent negotiator really starts with you getting out of your own way. Great negotiators are great storytellers who can see themselves from a place of value and fearlessly self advocate. If you don’t believe in yourself, if you don’t fearlessly understand your own self value, then the goals that you set for yourself are diminished. They become safe. They may even become mediocre. And once your goals are watered down and safe, then what you ask for is going to be reflective of those goals, and you’re not going to get enough. The minute you give up your power – you either back off in order to make the other [party] happy or to avoid conflict – then you can’t stay in the conversation. You have to have the self-confidence that you two are part of this conversation and your space is as important as theirs. It doesn’t mean those two things are mutually exclusive; it means that you seek solutions that are mutually inclusive. For people in an M&A type situation right now, what do you make adages to never take the first offer, to push for 20% more? Are any of these truly relevant? The way I teach is not at all prescriptive. I don’t believe in always, and I don’t believe in never. The older we get, our gut instinct becomes stronger and our intuition and emotional intelligence become stronger. We should be using these to navigate conversations, as opposed to trying to remember what a professor said in class. When you’re boxed in like that, it creates a lot of anxiety, especially because no negotiation is the same, and the person sitting across from you, that audience, is always different. Elon Musk has seemingly been trying to negotiate with Twitter, on Twitter, to either knock down the price or get out of the deal or buy himself some time, who knows. Either way, making the conversation — or part of it — so public is obviously by design and I wonder if this will become a kind of case study for future negotiations. He’s playing by completely different rules. Five or 10 years ago, this would probably be a nightmare for shareholders and companies because you want to hold on to what’s happening until it’s all done and then go public with it. But what’s quite traditional is that he’s controlling his own story and the messaging that comes out is his, no matter how confusing. If you think about it, he has been testing the water for far longer than the six months since he proposed buying Twitter. Every time he says anything about Tesla stock, prices change; people react immediately. So I think he saw the power that he had in literally changing markets [by using Twitter]. Do you think there is a master plan here? Do you see any logic in this chaos? Truth be told, I was incredibly surprised when the deal fell apart — and there was the threat of litigation and things got messy and he tried to step away. I thought that for sure if the deal was to happen [after that], the stock price or deal valuation would be a lot lower at least. When [the

Elon Musk’s X app for ‘everything’ might be a non-starter in the US • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 9, 2022Posted in Elon Musk, Social, Transportation, Twitter, WeChatNo Comments

As Elon Musk again nears a deal to buy Twitter, speculation is resurfacing around how the billionaire plans to transform the social network. Musk’s tweet this week offered a clue: “Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app.” While Musk didn’t elaborate on what X would look like, many reckon he’s aspiring to replicate the success of WeChat, which over the past decade has virtually become the everything app in China. People use it to read the news, hail rides, book doctor’s appointments, pay taxes and carry out a myriad of other daily activities. That perhaps is indeed Musk’s idea given he’s full of praise for the Tencent-owned messager. In his first town hall with Twitter staff in June, the Tesla founder talked up WeChat as a possible vision for the American social network. And, you know, if I think of, like, WeChat in China, which is actually a great, great app, but there’s no WeChat movement outside of China. And I think that there’s a real opportunity to create that. You basically live on WeChat in China because it’s so useful and so helpful to your daily life. And I think if we could achieve that, or even close to that with Twitter, it would be an immense success. WeChat has long been celebrated in the West as one of the greatest inventions that came out of the Chinese internet. And Tencent’s investment in Tesla has probably given Musk an insight into the Chinese internet giant. But is the WeChat model really a desirable product for the U.S.? The exact WeChat features that impress Musk are also the source of criticisms of the app. The all-in-one messenger has in effect erected a walled garden, critics say, where e-commerce transactions only take place over its payments app and information consumed by users is either published within WeChat’s infrastructure or third-party services backed by Tencent. Links from Tencent’s nemeses, like Alibaba and Douyin (TikTok’s sister in China), were inaccessible on WeChat until Beijing’s recent anti-monopoly movement began to tear down the thick walls. A super app might bring convenience to users as they hardly need to leave the platform — which in turn helps drive revenues for the company — but the model can stifle competition and rule out user choices. Putting these concerns aside, could Musk replicate WeChat’s success in the U.S. after all? Unlikely, at least not WeChat in its current state. The messaging app thrived under conditions unique to China, for better or worse. Before diving into what WeChat has done right, let’s not forget that its core as a social messaging app makes it fundamentally different from Twitter, which is a social media platform. The fact that it is a chat app means it’s highly sticky. With over 1.3 billion users, WeChat is the ubiquitous messenger in China, while people go on Twitter mostly to consume information rather than talk to people they know in real life. WeChat’s unfair advantages WeChat didn’t start from scratch. Tencent was already the social networking king of China with QQ, a messenger akin to ICQ that took off in the PC age. Not long after WeChat launched in 2011, Tencent opened up QQ’s enormous social graph to WeChat, giving people the option to add QQ friends on WeChat. If Musk built X from scratch, he could play around funneling users from Twitter to the new platform. But, sticking with the WeChat analogy, it would be competing in a market crowded with WhatsApp, Messenger, Telegram and others. WeChat is many apps folded into one, and messaging is a gateway through which people come to discover the plethora of features it’s been adding over the years. One of its early killer features is a content publishing feature called Public Accounts. When Public Accounts launched in 2012, Weibo and blogging platforms were the two places for China’s netizens to share their voices. The former had a 140-character limit like Twitter, while blogs were popular mostly among Chinese elites. Built off an everyday chat app, Public Accounts soon attracted everyone from economists to small business owners who wanted to propagate ideas. By the beginning of 2021, 360 million users were reading articles through Public Accounts. Any organization that needs to produce content is on WeChat, from state media to fashion brands. The online media landscape in the U.S. is a lot more diverse. People read news on news apps, seek thought leadership on LinkedIn and encounter brands’ stories through blogs. The majority of businesses in China might not have a website, but they probably maintain a WeChat Public Account. Over time, Public Accounts has morphed into a digital infrastructure for businesses that’s not unlike Shopify. That was made possible with the launch of WeChat Pay in 2013. While America spent the past decade improving magnetic card-enabled transactions, China never had widespread credit card adoption and went straight from paying with cash to mobile payments using QR codes. WeChat Pay quickly attracted users in droves by becoming the default payment option for a few popular apps, including ride-hailing upstart Didi and food delivery platform Meituan — which are both backed by Tencent, one of the most prolific corporate investors in the world. Were Musk to start a new payments solution that follows WeChat Pay’s playbook, he’d have to form alliances with other internet giants to drive adoption. WeChat’s role as the backbone for e-commerce has only become more omnipotent over time. In 2017, it began letting developers build lite apps that run inside WeChat. Businesses that used to hawk products through static Public Account pages could now run WeChat-based stores that have all the basic functions of an e-commerce app. Pinduoduo, the social commerce startup that grew to rival Alibaba in half a century, took off as a mini app thanks to its seamless integration with WeChat’s social features. Imagine you could browse Amazon on WhatsApp, share product pages with your contacts and make a purchase without ever leaving the messenger. After

Twitter gets an Edit button, Instagram increases ads, Google gets serious about wearables • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 9, 2022Posted in Apple, Apps, Google, Mobile, Social, This Week In Apps, TwitterNo Comments

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly ZebethMedia series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. Global app spending reached $65 billion in the first half of 2022, up only slightly from the $64.4 billion during the same period in 2021, as hypergrowth fueled by the pandemic has slowed down. But overall, the app economy is continuing to grow, having produced a record number of downloads and consumer spending across both the iOS and Google Play stores combined in 2021, according to the latest year-end reports. Global spending across iOS and Google Play last year was $133 billion, and consumers downloaded 143.6 billion apps. This Week in Apps offers a way to keep up with this fast-moving industry in one place with the latest from the world of apps, including news, updates, startup fundings, mergers and acquisitions, and much more. Do you want This Week in Apps in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here: techcrunch.com/newsletters. Elon Musk is buying Twitter…again…maybe Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / ZebethMedia Elon Musk delivered another week of Twitter deal drama. After initially trying to worm out of the now-overpriced deal, the Tesla and SpaceX exec this week decided he would go through with the purchase after all. It was speculated that Musk may have seen the writing on the wall, and realized this legal battle was one he couldn’t win. (After all, he can’t simultaneously claim he wants to fix the Twitter bot problem by buying the network and then claim that there are just too darned many bots here — and that Twitter is lying about them, when in fact, its SEC filings indicate otherwise. Right?!) But it had also come to light that Twitter had been given the go-ahead by the judge to proceed with a probe that would allow it to seek out information as to whether the Twitter whistleblower Peiter “Mudge” Zatko had contacted Musk’s lawyers before he tried to exit the deal. It seems that Twitter’s discovery had uncovered an anonymous email claiming to be a former Twitter exec involved with Twitter’s Trust & Safety team that had been sent to Musk’s attorney on May 6. And Twitter wanted to find out if the legal team or Musk followed up to determine the sender’s identity. A judge agreed Twitter could dig in — and this was just before Musk changed his mind to move forward with the purchase. So perhaps it was this deep dive into more files and communications that Musk wanted to avoid? Maybe he didn’t want to be asked about this under oath? In any event, Musk said the deal was on and Twitter’s stock jumped over 22% on the news. But the matter wasn’t immediately resolved. As it turned out, Musk and Twitter hadn’t reached an agreement to end their litigation, and neither party had filed anything to stop the court case from proceeding. So the judge alerted them that the trial was still on and would start on October 17, 2022, as planned. But!… Twitter wasn’t ready to take Musk at his word about this sudden change of heart. The judge, however, agreed to give Musk’s team until October 28, 2022 — the date Musk’s team said they could close by — to see if the transaction goes through. If not, the parties will be given November 2022 trial dates, the judge said. Now the deal is hinging on the “receipt of the proceeds of the debt financing,” Bloomberg reported. Morgan Stanley and half a dozen banks underwrote the debt financing for the deal, and given the market conditions, they may find it more difficult to find buyers for the bonds and loans — possibly taking a loss on portions of the package, the report said. But they’re not likely to back out or find a legal means of doing so. Which means…Elon is buying Twitter again. We think! Go ahead, edit Your tweets Image Credits: Bryce Durbin/ZebethMedia And if that wasn’t enough Twitter news for the week, then there’s this other small tidbit: Twitter’s Edit button has arrived. The long-requested feature has now rolled out to Twitter Blue’s U.S. subscribers, in addition to subscribers in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The feature allows users to edit their tweets for up to 30 minutes after posting — something that could help users clarify or correct a mistake in their tweet, fix a small typo or add hashtags, among other things. The edits are logged and visible to the public to prevent abuse. Additionally, Twitter said users can only edit their tweets five times within the 30-minute period, which is also meant to cut down the feature’s abuse. But many are still concerned that bad actors will find a way to take advantage of the addition to edit tweeting in misleading ways. Plus, it comes at a time when user demand for an edit button may have been quelled, given that Twitter last year introduced an “Undo Tweet” feature for its subscribers. This lets users quickly fix a typo after they post — likely cutting down on one of the major use cases for an Edit button. With “Undo Tweet,” users can delay their tweets for up to a minute, giving them time to re-read posts and fix errors, if needed. The edit feature was also one of Musk’s big ideas for fixing Twitter, we should point out. Shortly after taking a board seat at Twitter (remember when that was the big Twitter news?!), he polled his 80.5 million followers to ask if they wanted an edit button — either a tease of the planned announcement or a desire to look like he was already taking action at Twitter. A day later, Twitter announced an edit button was actually in the works after years of saying the opposite. But Twitter denied it was Musk’s idea. While the edit option is now live, its impact may be limited. The majority of Twitter’s users are not

Elon Musk buying Twitter after all, the ‘next Mark Zuckerberg’ and fare thee well, Stadia • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 9, 2022Posted in Elon Musk, Startups, Twitter, Week in ReviewNo Comments

Hi all! Welcome back to Week in Review, the newsletter where we quickly sum up some of the most read ZebethMedia stories from the past seven days. The goal? Even when you’re swamped, a quick skim of WiR on Saturday morning should give you a pretty good understanding of what happened in tech this week. Want it in your inbox? Get it here. most read Stadia’s death: Devin opined on the recent Stadia shutdown, saying the shocking demise of the gaming service was the fault of one entity alone: Google. He writes: “No one trusts Google. It has exhibited such poor understanding of what people want, need and will pay for that at this point, people are wary of investing in even its more popular products.” This Week in Elon Musk: First he stepped in it when he waded into the Russia-Ukraine war with his version of a peace plan that Connie characterized as not very well-received. And then he finally said he’d buy Twitter after all. Twitter told us that the “Musk parties” sent them a letter expressing the billionaire’s intention to go through with the purchase, provided the trial between the two, which was scheduled to start October 17, did not take place. As Taylor and Harri said in their story, however, “given Musk’s chaotic nature, it’s possible that another wrench could be thrown into the works.” Fizz to the “next Mark Zuckerberg”: An app created by former Stanford students to limit social isolation across college campuses received a $4.5 million round this week. The founder, a Stanford dropout, “set out to build an app by college students, for college students, seeking to help his fellow classmates feel less lonely and form meaningful connections on campus.” Google on your Lock Screen: iOS 16 users aren’t limited only to Apple widgets on their new Lock Screens. Google made good on its promise to make its apps available as widgets for quick access. Gmail, Google News, Drive and Chrome are now available, with Search and Apps coming. Search in fashion: South Korean search company Naver said it plans to purchase apparel marketplace Poshmark for $1.2 billion in cash. Edu breach: In what appears to be the largest education breach in a while, hackers released a cache of data stolen during a cyberattack against the Los Angeles Unified School District. audio roundup Didn’t have time to tune in to all of ZebethMedia’s podcasts this week? Here’s what you might’ve missed: For Found this week, we rereleased an episode on delivering remote abortion care with Kiki Freedman from Hey Jane. She also tells us about how her experience at Uber informed her founder mentality and how the startup hopes to change the healthcare industry. Chain Reaction connected with Edward Saatchi, an expert in the web3 space and the founder of The Culture DAO and Fable who discussed how emerging technologies can enable new forms of storytelling and how sectors like crypto and AI are changing what the metaverse might look like. Amanda joined Alex this week on the Wednesday episode of Equity to chat about the creator economy. On The TC Podcast, Haje Jan Kamps, stepping in for Darrell Etherington, talks with Dominic-Madori Davis about how conservative VCs are shaping the startup landscape and, by extension, the world. He also talked with Taylor Hatmaker about all things Elon. And check out the ZebethMedia Live podcast, which is the audio version of our weekly ZebethMedia Live show. This week, hear how Mammoth Biosciences Trevor Martin attracted the best partners to form the company, including Mayfield partner Ursheet Parikh, who wrote an early funding check. Step one? It starts with the vision and mission. techcrunch+ What hides behind the ZebethMedia+ paywall? Lots of really great stuff! It’s where we get to step away from the unrelenting news cycle and go a bit deeper on the stuff you tell us you like most. The most-read TC+ stuff this week? Five key IP considerations for AI startups: Early-stage startups are creating new AI-based solutions but might not know whether the tech can be protected and the best way to do it. In this post, Eric L. Sophir, IP partner at law firm Foley & Lardner LLP, and Matthew Horton, senior counsel and IP lawyer at law firm Foley & Lardner LLP, provide guidance for young companies. Vori’s pitch deck: Haje brings you another pitch deck teardown, this time from Vori, which raised to a $10 million Series A. Want your pitch deck featured on TC+? Here’s more information. Also, check out all our Pitch Deck Teardowns and other pitching advice, all collected in one handy place for you! In on this?