📡 The digital gap between rich & poor. Disruption.
Welcome to this week’s Pulse!
It’s been a super busy week here at PerspectiveIX, but work is something I love! What I really don’t like is catching an untimely cold that won’t let me work! Therefore, this week’s news section is a bit shorter, but the overall Pulse is not!
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- Ben
📰 News
Apparently, Amazon is in ‘advanced talks’ to open HQ2 in Virginia. Although, their Director of Economic Development, Mike Grella, isn’t very happy about the leaks and rumours. Meanwhile, the story of the two workers who have died at an Amazon warehouse in Baltimore is not making anything easier for Amazon.
Reports indicate Apple’s first 5G iPhone could come in 2020. They also note that the company plans to use Intel’s 8161 5G modem chip, although there are still some technical issues around heat dissipation that need to be resolved. Apple has reportedly also been chatting with MediaTek to supply the chips as a “Plan B.”
Beijing-based ByteDance’s 2017 acquisition of tween and teen-focused social app Musical.ly is paying off. The company this year merged Musical.ly with its own short video app TikTok as a means of entering the U.S. market. And last month, TikTok surpassed Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat & YouTube in downloads.
🧠 Insights
Disrupted - Credit: Wahyu Setiawan on Unsplash
An Alternative History of Silicon Valley Disruption
A few years after the Great Recession, you couldn’t scroll through Google Reader without seeing the word “disrupt.” TechCrunch named a conference after it, the New York Times named a column after it, investor Marc Andreessen warned that “software disruption” would eat the world; not long after, Peter Thiel, his fellow Facebook board member, called “disrupt” one of his favourite words.
In Silicon Valley’s telling, however, “disruption” became shorthand for something closer to techno-darwinism. By imposing the rules of nature on man-made markets, the theory justified almost any act of upheaval. The companies still standing post-disruption must have survived because they were the fittest.
Read more on Wired.
Credit: Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
The Digital Gap Between Rich and Poor Kids Is Not What We Expected
America’s public schools are still promoting devices with screens — even offering digital-only preschools. The rich are banning screens from class altogether…
Read more on NYTimes.
📊 Statistics
Snapchat Ad Revenue Share by Format - Credit: MarketingCharts
Agencies’ Snapchat Ad Spend Primarily Directed to SnapAds
Snapchat advertising spend by national marketers was projected to have increased by 10% in Q3 and by 8% through the first 9 months of the year, according to recent figures from Standard Media Index, which sources its data directly from the invoices of 5 of the 7 major media holding companies and leading independent agencies.
Read more on MarketingCharts.
Fine or Joke? - Credit: TheVerge
Facebook’s UK Cambridge Analytica Fine
TL;DR:
$5,100,000,000 → Facebook’s last quarter net income.
$56,000,000 → Facebook’s daily net income.
$2,340,000 → Facebook’s hourly net income.
$644,000 → Facebook’s UK Cambridge Analytica Fine.
Last week, it was reported that #Facebook would face a £500,000 fine from the UK over the Cambridge Analytica scandal - but that is a drop in the bucket. Facebook made $5.1 billion in net income last quarter, a figure that makes the $644,000 fine difficult to see (the USD equivalent of the fine).
An hourly view finally gives some sense of scope. Still, even by that metric, Facebook’s profit dwarfs the fine.
Read more on TheVerge.
📱 Tools & Apps
DJI OSMO Mobile 2: My favourite new toy. Super useful for professional-looking stable video recoding with your smartphone.
🎧 Audio Stimulation
Betterment: Jon Stein
When Jon Stein realised he couldn’t stand the sight of blood, he gave up the idea of becoming a doctor. Instead, he went into finance, but soon grew restless with “helping banks make more money.”
So he decided to build a business where he could help everyday investors make more money: an online service that would use a combination of algorithms and human advisers. Jon launched Betterment at a precarious time — shortly after the financial crash of 2008. But today, the company has roughly 13 billion dollars under management.
Listen to it on NPR.
🎮 Fun Stuff
Did you know this:
😵 The Voice Memo app icon is the waveform for the word “Apple”.
If you record yourself saying "Apple", the waveform is the Voice Memos icon. http://t.co/oSvzE9UA1H
How would the waveform of Facebake look!?
Don't you just love India? - Credit: Reddit/u/talgoldee
Meanwhile in the UK, we’re not jumping to conclusions!
Not jumping to conclusions here - Credit: Reddit/u/8ujhaatu
Does Brexit have a free trial!?
Free Trials - Credit: Reddit/u/DexterViki
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