π‘ How to make π°π° in your π΄π€
Happy International Womenβs Day β and welcome to this weekβs Pulse!
Hope youβre all safe. Itβs been a super clean week around hereβ¦ too cleanβ¦ I mean so clean itβs annoyingβ¦ but what other options do we have? And thatβs on top of how busy it was!
Iβm guessing itβs the same at your end, so letβs dive in and scroll - slowly though! and WASH YOUR HANDS.
β πππ π£π―π¬πͺ [ πππππππππππ ππ ]
By the way, did you know you could support Pulse (and me) by becoming a member? Just sayinβ
π NEWS
Twitter starts testing its own version of Stories, called βFleets,β which disappear after 24 hours [TechCrunch] β itβs currently live Brazil; so if youβre not in Brazil and wanna try it as i did, use a VPN. Btw, I was rooting for Twitter Stories and posted this a while back.
Jack Dorsey says he is reevaluating plans to spend part of the year in Africa amid the coronavirus outbreak and βeverything else going onβ [Verge] β he means Elliot Management trying to take over Twitter and force him outβ¦ but you know, letβs blame it on the COVID-19β¦ i mean, why not? If you like the story, listen to this episode of Pivot.
Indiaβs Supreme Court strikes down central bankβs two-year-old ban on cryptocurrency trading in the country [Bloomberg] β now almost 20% of the world population will be βallowedβ to trade βΏitcoin & crypto, and thatβs huge!
Quibi, the short-form video streaming service, has a launch date (6 April) and is giving people a 90-day free trial in hopes theyβll actually sign up [Verge] β apparently, itβs a US-only launch with 50 shows and movies at launch and 175 originals in its first year with no episode lasting more than 10 min.
Waymo raises $2.25B to scale up its autonomous vehicles operations [VentureBeat] β and itβs from Silver Lake, Andreessen Horowitz, parent-company Alphabet, and othersβ¦
Apple to pay up to $500M to settle a US class-action lawsuit accusing it of quietly slowing down older iPhones [Reuters] β Battery-gateβs costing Apple!
Amazon to launch a food delivery service in India in March, charging restaurants commissions of 10-15%, about half of what Swiggy and Zomato charge [EconomicTimes] β a classic case of how being able to operate on low/negative margins can kill off small competition; and Amazonβs really good at that!
An international team of astrobiologists claim that organic molecules discovered by NASAβs Curiosity Mars rover could be evidence of ancient life on Mars; βthiophenes,β which are special compounds found in coal, crude oil and white truffles back on Earth, could be a sign of ancient life on the Red Planet [Futurism] β but is it from biotic or abiotic origin?
π a gift for you.
π¦ CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19)
Unfortunately, itβs still hereβ¦ so, here what you need to know:
and if youβre wondering where the vaccine is, listen to this Planet Money episode.
Austinβs emergency declaration cancels SXSW, scheduled for March 13-22, due to concerns over COVID-19 [CNBC]
Tech giants (Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Twitter) plan to pay their hourly workers regular wages as they ask their staff to work from home [Axios]
Google says it will not host an in-person I/O event this year, due to coronavirus fears, and will instead offer a series of online events [9to5Google]
Apple - and is rejecting coronavirus apps that arenβt from health organisations, according to app makers [CNBC] - and so is Google.
COVID-19βs impact on consumer and business behaviour [Apptopia]
π§ INSIGHTS
Can it get easier/creepier? - Credit: Tracey Hocking on Unsplash
How to Make Money in Your Sleep
Remember TikTok, the fun short video app? People are now live streaming themselves sleeping, and go viral, gain followers, and even make money off of it! π€
Many fledgling creators dream of waking up to viral fame and riches. Now that dream is beginning to look a lot like reality.
Hundreds of TikTok users have begun live-streaming themselves overnight, while they sleep. Brian Hector, 18, did it just last week. Thousands of people tuned in. Some even donated to him.
βI woke up the next morning and ended the live and went over to my mom and was like, βMom, I literally just made money falling asleep,ββ said Mr. Hector, who has more than 347,000 followers on the app.
Through TikTokβs live feature, viewers can donate digital βcoinsβ that can be cashed out for money. On Mr. Hectorβs first sleep-stream, he said, he received about $10 worth of coins β not riches, exactly, but more than heβd usually be paid to go to sleep ($0).
Read more on NYTimes [by Taylor Lorenz].
π STATISTICS
How's your country doing? - Credit: Statista
The State Of Gender Equality Across The EU
The European Institute for Gender Equality has released its 2019 Gender Equality Index. The research was conducted across 6 core domains - work, money, knowledge, time, power and health. It found that advances in gender equality are still moving at a snailβs pace but that the EU is heading in the right direction. The average index score for the EU rose from 66.2 points out of 100 in 2015 to 67.4 points out of 100 in 2019. Sweden had the highest score of any country in 2019 with 83.6 points while Greece had the lowest with 51.2 points.
via Statista.
Top Apps Worldwide for February 2020 - Credit: SensorTower
Top Apps Worldwide for February 2020 by Downloads
TikTok was the most downloaded non-game app worldwide for February 2020 with nearly 113 million installs, which represented a 96.5% increase from February 2019. The countries with the most installs of the app during this period were India at 41.3% of its total downloads and Brazil at 8.6%.
WhatsApp was the second most installed non-game app worldwide last month with about 96 million installs, which represented a 42.4% increase from February 2019. The countries with the largest number of WhatsApp installs were India at 49%, followed by Brazil at 6.7%. Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger rounded out the top five most installed non-game apps worldwide for the month.
Read more on SensorTower.
π± TOOLS & APPS
Unscreen: Remove video and GIF backgrounds 100% automatically
Like Remove.bg, but for GIFs and videos!
Slide to Subscribe: With Slide to Subscribe, you get more email subscribers by allowing anyone to subscribe with just a slide. Works anywhere, itβs GDPR and CCPA compliant - and itβs free.
About to test it on for Pulse! π
Sleep Cycle: analyses your sleep & wakes you up slowly [iOS | Android]
Iβve been using it for over two years with paid premium features and I love it. Gives me lots of stats and graphs about my sleepβ¦ Itβll compliment making money while Iβm asleep! π
π SPOTTED
Facebook Messenger beta has made a few changes to its settings menu
- Dark mode can now be switched to βsystem settingsβ
- Message requests inbox shortcut added
- Spam messages folder added
- Data + storage, βMβ translation option, payments, and emoji options settings all removed https://t.co/22Ccj2mGjX
Spotify is working on βHey Spotifyβ voice activation https://t.co/PqZI01WZre
π§ AUDIO STIMULATION
Terms Of Service - Planet Money
An online review turns into a fine-print nightmare β until the victims fight back.
You know all those terms of service we all automatically agree to when signing up on websites and downloading or buying stuff online? They can come back and bite us β sometimes though!
The Meteor Is Coming: The Fat Jewish on 2020, Social Media, and RosΓ© - Business Casual
Josh Ostrovsky, aka The Fat Jewish, takes us on a roller coaster ride of content, from selling his Babe wine brand to AB InBev to Mike Bloombergβs meme campaign for the White House β before he dropped out of the race, of course.
Itβs a super fun episode, if youβre interested in influencer [marketing] space.
π¦ TWEETS of the WEEK
My pre-coronavirus lifestyle is beginning to disgust me
See if you can spot the math error. π€¦ββοΈ https://t.co/V3b7pRqYUe
Remote work starts out fun, then instantly turns into the hunger games once you and your spouse have conflicting video calls and only one "professional" space.
I wonder how many pixels I've seen in my lifetime
I also wonder who'd be at the top of the current leaderboard for most pixels seen
π FUN STUFF
Low Budget cosplay - Credit: Reddit/u/Random-Barbarian
Only five weeks old & already working on her selfie game - Credit: Reddit/u/MrXXXY
That's all for this week...
Stay safe β and share Pulse with someone you like. If theyβre not as tech-savvy as you are, teach them how they can subscribe. And thenβ¦
Wash your damn hands β by Seth
Ciao!