📡 Are you a leader or a follower?
👋Hey Pulse Receiver!
How’s it going? First, hit reply and let me know where you’re reading Pulse from! Let’s get to know each other better!
Then, here’s something super interesting: a video-infographic showing the most popular social networks (2002-2019). Watch it a few times. Each time, keep an eye on one network and how it’s done in the last 17 years - if it existed then or if it exists now!
Now, dive in!
- Ben from Perspective IX
📰 News
Facebook’s crypto currency is rumoured to be launching next week. Here’s the full list of backers obtained by the Block, and it includes familiar names like Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, Uber, Coinbase, Ebay and more.
Adobe’s prototype AI tool automatically spots Photoshopped faces and during Adobe’s testing, it was right 99 per cent of the times. [Verge]
Uber’s been busy: a new self-driving car with Volvo [Verge], Food-delivery service with drones in San Diego [Bloomberg], and flying taxis in Melbourne [Reuters].
🧠 Insights
Curve or Cliff? - Credit: Juan Davila on Unsplash
When you’re traveling ahead of the curve, it’s silly to imagine that the road will be straight and flat.
It’s actually more like a cliff. With bumps.
That’s all part of the deal. That’s why it’s not called the curve. You’re in the void, uncharted, ahead of what’s behind.
In fact, ahead of the curve, the weather is pretty lousy too. Often with catastrophic lightning storms.
On the other hand, if you choose to work inside this messy metaphor, you get the thrill of finding a new path instead of merely following the old one.
from Seth Godin’s Blog.
🗳 Poll of the Week
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📊 Statistics
Online Platform Time - Credit: BOND Internet Trends 2019
Online Platform Time = YouTube & Instagram Gaining Most
BOND (Mary Meeker’s) Internet Trends 2019
From 17Q2 to 18Q4, % Internet users using select platforms more than once per day globally:
Facebook lost 1%, but still at the top
YouTube (+5%) & Instagram (+6%) now rank 2nd and 5th with the highest gains
❗️We’ll be back later with more analysis of this year’s report. For now, you can take a look at all 333 slides here or download them as PDF here.
Email & Mobile Notifications in Driving Loyalty - Credit: Reuters Institute
Email & Mobile Notifications in Driving Loyalty
Generating more direct traffic to websites and apps is an important priority for publishers, with email newsletters a particularly favoured tactic for retaining subscribers but also for attracting new users. The Washington Post operates around 70 different newsletters and has found that recipients consume around three times as much content as those who don’t use email news. RI’s own data this year show that 42% of US digital subscribers have used one or more email newsletters in the last week compared with 35% in the UK but just 17% in Norway and 19% in Sweden. It is clear this is one area where Nordic publishers could learn a few tricks from the United States.
Email remains extremely effective with older, highly engaged news users, even if overall usage has not grown over the last five years. By contrast, mobile notifications tend to be used by younger groups and have shown considerable growth in weekly use – up from 3% to 20% in the UK and 6% to 19% in the United States since 2014.
❗️We’ll be back later with more analysis of this year’s report. For now, you can take a look at all the slides in PDF format here.
The Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report 2019: The Reuters Institute’s eighth annual Digital News Report is based on a survey of 75,000 news users in 38 countries across the world: 🇬🇧🇦🇹🇧🇪🇧🇬🇭🇷🇨🇿🇩🇰🇫🇮🇫🇷🇩🇪🇬🇷🇭🇺🇮🇪🇮🇹🇳🇱🇳🇴🇵🇱🇵🇹🇷🇴🇸🇰🇪🇸🇸🇪🇨🇭🇹🇷| 🇺🇸🇦🇷🇧🇷🇨🇦🇨🇱🇲🇽| 🇦🇺🇭🇰🇯🇵🇲🇾🇸🇬🇰🇷🇹🇼| 🇿🇦
Gaming Sales vs Music+Video Sales in the 🇬🇧- Credit: Statista
UK gaming sales beat music and video combined
The video games sector has had a blockbuster year in the United Kingdom. The Entertainment Retailers Association published figures showing that the gaming market is now double what it was worth in 2007. Last year, FIFA 19, Read Dead Redemption 2 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 all sold in excess of one million physical copies.
UK video games sales totalled a colossal £3.864 billion last year, a figure that’s higher than revenue from music and home video combined. Total music and video sales in the UK came to £1.335 billion and £2.338 billion respectively.
via Statista.
📱 Tools & Apps
How Is Everyone? An attempt to find out how the world is feeling 🌍
Shop Grid: A landing page for your Instagram bio, powered by Buffer.
Phrasee: AI that writes better than you.
Not exactly an app, but here’s How to create a simple RSS feed reader on iOS via TNW.
🎧 Audio Stimulation
TED Radio Hour - A Better You
Many of us are lured by the promise of self-improvement, but find it hard to follow through. In our 100th episode, TED speakers reveal ways to discover our better selves. TED speakers include entrepreneur Jia Jang, Headspace co-founder Andy Puddicombe, psychologist Emily Balcetis, technologist Matt Cutts, and New York Times columnist David Brooks. (Original broadcast date: June 16, 2017)
🐦 Tweets of the Week
My son (4 years old), who has grown up watching us talk to Siri and Alexa, thinks you can talk to anything that has a screen or is plugged into the wall. This morning he told the toaster to order him a new lego set.
and this thread 👇
Hmm. My faculty chair is writing me. I wonder what he wants. https://t.co/FwAAdkoLsY
🎮 Fun Stuff
The Nokia Fossil! Probably still has 50% battery left! - Credit: reddit/u/SexyHotBabe
This is not goodbye...
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Ciao!