Hi fam
How’s it going?
So, if you go down Pulse archives, you’ll realise that I’ve been publishing it for over 3.5 years, and a lot has changed since I started.
I switched from Mailchimp to Revue to Substack; changed the name back a forth a couple of times, changed the format and content, changed categories, etc…
But one constant about Pulse has been its delivery day. Other than on a couple of occasions [out of necessity], Pulse has always been a Sunday newsletter. Why? Well, mainly because it’s been a summary of the week on my free day.
And that’s about to change too!
I always try to follow my curiosity and learn — and hopefully evolve. One thing I’ve learned is that Pulse [really] needs and takes time and publishing it on Sunday is cutting into the time I want to spend with my wife.
So, I’ve decided to move Pulse to Fridays and make it part of my workday instead of a weekend activity. I think it’ll actually improve it as well. Therefore, today’s Pulse is not a full issue, hence 162.5!
See you on Friday(s)!
— Behrouz
In Today’s Issue
This Week in the News
Article: Digital Advertising in 2022
Tweet: Fair point
And a gift for you.
This Week in the News
Crypto Punk #5822 was purchased for 8,000 ETH (~$23.7M USD) [link]
Cent, the platform which sold an NFT of Jack Dorsey's first tweet for $2.9 million, has halted transactions, citing users minting NFTs of content they don't own, selling unauthorized NFT copies, and more [link]
UK's largest insurer Aviva says VR headset-related damage claims increased by 31% in 2021, with an average claim of ~£650 and TVs being the most damaged item [link]
Twitch has updated its policy to ban usernames that include “references to sexual acts, arousal, fluids, or genitalia” and references to hard drugs from March 1 [link]
Bored Ape Yacht Club members, who have full IP rights for the ape character they own, are pursuing licensing deals to put ape characters on cannabis packaging [link]
Intel’s mining chips, Google Current’s end, and Melania Trump’s NFT [link]
Binance investing in Forbes, Alfa Romeo’s Tonale NFTs, and more NFT PFPs [link]
Apple AR headset rumours again, Samsung’s Unpacked event, and Sony’s AI super driver [link]
DoJ seizes 119,754 bitcoins, Apple unveils Tap to Pay, and Nvidia’s Arm acquisition is off [link]
Peter Thiel is leaving Meta’s board, IRS is backing away from facial recognition, and Meta is threatening the EU to pull Facebook and Instagram out [link]
One Article
Digital Advertising in 2022
Ben Thompson of Stratechery is one of my favourite tech and media analysts and I usually try to consume his content [in pretty much any form].
In his latest blog post, Ben talks about the state of digital advertising in 2022 and how things have changed from six years ago when he thought Facebook and Google have won the space already — but now there’s Amazon!
Those numbers pale in comparison to what I guess we might call the Amazon Advertising IPO, given that the company broke out its advertising for the first time this quarter, revealing $9.7 billion in revenue, a 32% increase year-over-year (Amazon did not break out the unit’s profitability). While that is still a fraction of Google’s $61.2 billion last quarter, or Facebook’s $32.6 billion, it is a larger fraction than you might expect, and several multiples of Snap’s $1.3 billion in revenue. Indeed, given the fact that Amazon is closer in revenue to Facebook than Facebook is to Google it seems fair to characterize the advertising market as dominated not by a big two but a big three.
He goes on and explains Amazon advertising’s advantages, Google’s dominance, Facebook’s risk, Apple’s position and much more. I highly recommend reading the article.
read it on Stratechery.
One Tweet
Fair point
my wife’s a dentist — and even she can confirm that this is a fair point.
🚨 One gift for you.
into VR?
And that’s all for today — see you soon!