📡 The 🔑 to success.
Pulse #134 — Believe in Yourself; and BE YOU; especially, if others think you’re weird.
Authenticity. It’s one of those over-used words in today’s marketing world. Maybe not just in today’s, but definitely over-used now. And you know what, I don’t mean it shouldn’t be, we actually need more of it, but it has to be authentic; not fake authenticity.
Being yourself is the best approach to competition [at least in my opinion] as there’s literally no one better at it than you. It’s where you’re not running the risk of looking absolutely stupid in a conversation because you’re the best at it. But everything else is probably not so… What do I mean?
I mean don’t act like you’re the best in something if you’re not, coz others might be [or probably are] better at it than you and you look like a fool if you’re acting like you’re a know-it-all in that topic.
But if you’re real, authentic, and acknowledge that you know some stuff (and sometimes a good amount), but you’re not the best/only/most knowledgable in the topic, you’ve eliminated that risk.
“That thing that made you weird as a kid could make you great as an adult — if you don’t lose it.” — Kevin Kelly
People are okay with you not knowing something [unless it’s an exam lol], but they more often than not, are not okay with you pretending you know when you actually don’t; coz that could be costly.
If you haven’t seen Avis’ “we try harder” campaign, read this. It’s one of the longest-running marketing campaigns, built on authenticity and owning the reality of Avis being the no. 2 in the market…
It’s super smart and no one would put Avis on the spot for claiming to be the no. 1 or the best or whatever the superlative adjective is in a domain, but we all appreciate Avis trying harder and not taking their customers for granted mentality.
This resonated with me so much that I decided to write about it in this week’s issue, instead of writing about how iXDaily, my daily news telegram channel, turned 1 yesterday.
I think, in a way, this suits the birthday even more as I started the channel knowing that I want to fill [at least] a part of the gap in attention-worthy news in the tech world. Something I’d love to have, but didn’t. Easy access and readable news, not overloaded with ads and promos… somewhere I can catch up with the things I care about… hoping someday it’d become a really good source of tech news without the noise on one of my favourite platforms…
Now, after a sudden surge in interest, in the same week my channel turned one, we passed a milestone too. iXDaily now has over 1,000 subscribers! And it feels really good!
I’m just trying to be myself. Thank you for reading.
I know many of you here read iXDaily, and I wanted to take a moment to thank you for your attention; regardless of the platform.
News
Facebook and Instagram notices in iOS apps tell users tracking helps keep them ‘free of charge’ [link]
President of Elon Musk’s Neuralink venture tweets that he’s left the company [link]
Former Netflix executive convicted of money laundering [link]
Florida bill would fine social media platforms for banning politicians— with the exemption for Disney [link]
No more YouTube TV on Roku, Basecamp employees leaving, and social media boycott in England [link]
Microsoft throwing shades at Apple, EU charging Apple, a $500k meme [link]
Netflix fighting decision fatigue, Amazon suing Trump, and lots of earnings calls! [link]
Spotify goes for Apple Podcasts, Apple Silicon M2, and Instagram’s new features for influencers [link]
Apple’s OS updates, antitrust cases, and bugs + some other stuff [link]
India’s influence on social media, Clubhouse’s latest, and Elon Musk on SNL [link]
🍬 a gift for you. [ocean eyes x dunder mifflin]
Worth Your Attention
TikTok and the vibes revival — Kyle Chayka’s piece in the New Yorker on how social media we’re after moments of audiovisual eloquence; and not narrative or personality.
it’s a super-interesting read; and it begins from Manchester, England :]
PS. this was a really good explanation of vibes: vibes are a medium for feeling, the kind of abstract understanding that comes before words put a name to experience.
99 additional bits of unsolicited advice by Kevin Kelly.
happy birthday KK.
Confusing identity with strategy; another fantastic [and short] post by Seth Godin.
abandoning possibilities and walking away from opportunities simply because they doesn’t resonate with the person we are in this moment… that’s not right…
Chart of the Week
Social Audio Apps Reach 20m Downloads So Far in 2021, Led by Clubhouse
Clubhouse’s worldwide installs quadrupled month-over-month in February, climbing 300 per cent from 2.4 million in January to 9.6 million.
While the app’s downloads fell 72 per cent to 2.7 million in March, that was still up 13 per cent from January. The app has now reached approximately 16.4 million installs to date, the majority of which occurred this year.
read more on SensorTower.
& more stats
Downloads of the top US gig work apps grew 25% YoY in Q1 2021 [link]
The entire GAFAM group, namely Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft, saw profits surge at the beginning of 2021 [link]
Pinterest data shows searches for a post-pandemic life are on the rise, with Gen Z (searches up 96% YoY) leading the way out [link]
Amazon spent $11bn on Prime video and music content in 2020, up 41% from 2019 [link]
Tools & Apps
Talium: Publish beautiful web pages in under 3 minutes
it’s pretty good; and it’s free!
Toucan: Learn a new language just by browsing the internet
Estoy aprendiendo Español…
YesPromo: Free database of 100+ successful self-promotion Reddit posts
Reddit can be a huge channel for launching and scaling a business, but redditors aren’t usually the biggest fan of self-promotions… however, some people do it successfully, and there’s a lot we can learn from them…
Spotted
Instagram is working on collaborative posts [link]; it’s available for Creator accounts [link]
Instagram keeps working on the Limited Comments option by adding a new Privacy option [link]
Instagram is working on a new option for Reels: Stitch [link]
Instagram will indicate trending reels with a flame Fire icon [link]
Instagram is working on the ability to add multiple audio tracks to a Reel [link]
Instagram is working on an option to allow business accounts to show their contact info in the profile [link]
Facebook is rolling out a new menu option on Desktop [link]
Facebook is working on end-to-end encrypted rooms [link]
Pinterest Story Pins are now available [link]
🐦 Tweets of the Week
Fun Stuff
and now we’re done for this week
What did you think of this issue? Your feedback matters — more than you think!