This week, there are a lot of points for you to go through in this issue, but I haven’t had the chance to write the starter piece of the newsletter.
Don’t take it the wrong way. It’s not that I don’t pay enough attention to this newsletter; it’s the fact that I’m building something that I think can add value to every one of us who reads it. Take this from me for now; and start scrolling…
I’ll be back soon.
News
Clubhouse’s accelartor programme [link | application]
Another clash of the titans, Marco Rubio on Amazon workers’ unionisation, and behind Beeple’s $69M NFT [link]
Zuck: the ultimate influencer, and a “holy crap!” NFT moment [link]
Apple’s mini overestimation, your data on fire — and remember Parler? [link]
Dropbox’s new acquisition, NFTs, Google’s ChromeOS [link]
Apple’s quick OS updates, Apple’s and Google’s strategy for kids, and OpenAI’s hole [link]
Apple’s VR/AR plans, another hack, and another Russian misinfo campaign [link]
🤣 a gift for you. and here’s another one.
Worth Your Attention
The FinTech industry is revolutionizing the way people manage their finances. Smart apps empower consumers to check their precise budget standing real-time: how much money was spent so far, and how much money is left? To curb spending and increase savings, financial advisors, consumer advocates and academics encourage consumers to keep a close eye on their expenses, implying that FinTech budget apps are a useful consumer tool. However, there is no empirical evidence proving that adopting budgeting apps is good for a consumer’s financial welfare.
Read more on The Budgeting App Trap: When Spending Information Backfires.
Chart of the Week
The World's Largest Online Marketplaces
Thinking about online marketplaces, Amazon and eBay spring to the minds of most Americans and Europeans. And yet, they’re only ranked third and fifth in the world in terms of gross merchandise volume.
Read more on Statista.
& more stats
In 2020, paid music subscriptions in the US reached an average of 75.5 million. That’s an impressive jump from 60.4 million in 2019 and 46.9 million in 2018 [link]
Paramount+ downloaded 277k times in first five days [link]
The 2021 Stanford AI Index [link]
There is no evidence that associations between adolescents’ digital technology engagement and mental health problems have increased [link]
Some social media brand uses…
Tools & Apps
Dollar Street: Watch everyday life in hundreds of homes on all income levels across the world
Emoji Cloud: Add fully vector emoji's to your website
Amigos: Customizable illustrations for any project
Spotted
Facebook is working on audio rooms [link]
Telegram is bringing voice chats for channels [link]
Instagram is working on end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) rooms [link]
Instagram is working on a new tab for the Story archive: People [link]
Instagram is working on the possibility of turning on Reels notifications [link]
SoundCloud is working on importing artists that new users follow on Facebook and Spotify [link]
Clubhouse has tools for their Trust & Safety team to moderate the platform by flagging room titles, change the visibility of the room, boost or flag the room as spam [link]
Twitter is working on audio transcription of Fleet videos and voice tweets to improve accessibility [link]
Twitter is considering increasing the maximum number of people who can be invited to speak from 10 to 15 [link]
Twitter is working on bringing their iOS app’s compose button menu to the Android app [link]
Twitter is working on Tip Jar in TwitterSpaces [link]
Twitter Bookmarks are getting Collections [link]
Medium is working on a new home page for the web [link]
Spotify is working on language preference for music [link]
🐦 Tweets of the Week
tickles & chuckles
and now we’re done for this week
What did you think of this issue?
Also, if you’d let me know what’s your favourite section of the newsletter and what you’d like me to write about in the first section, that’d be great.
You can either reply to this email or just comment here 👇