📡 What do you want to be when you grow up? 👩🚀 vs 🤳
Welcome to this week’s Pulse!
How was your week? Mine was super busy, but it was a good one. So, here’s something you might find interesting 👇
Betaworks are hosting the second instalment of their bi-monthly conference series at their Meatpacking District membership club on Friday, July 26 – RENDER: Human After All.
Initial speakers include Douglas Rushkoff, Teodora Pavkovic, Nir Eyal, Max Stossel, Jessey White-Cinis, Danika Cleary Laszuk, and many more. It’s going to be great.
I was invited, but I can’t make it to NYC 🇺🇸 next week. If you can, RSVP here and use the code PARTNER25 for 25% discount!
Other than this, this week’s issue is packed with stuff for you to enjoy, so without further ado… dive in!
- Ben from [ perspective ix ]
📰 News
Elon Musk often shoots for the moon - sometimes, literally! - but on Tuesday, he spoke about the progress and long-term goals of Neuralink, a company planning to “achieve a sort of symbiosis with artificial intelligence” [TechCrunch] - meanwhile, The SpaceX founder had to deal with SpaceX’s ‘Starhopper’ bursting into 🔥 during a test [TechCrunch ← there’s video here if you’re interested].
FaceApp goes viral again, and so do privacy concerns! US Democrats warn campaigns against using FaceApp because it’s from a Russian company (Senator Schumer wants the FBI and FTC to investigate) [Verge], UK watchdog monitoring privacy concerns [Guardian], and this how FaceApp responds.
Instagram expands its test to hide the number of likes from its being tested only in Canada to six countries: 🇨🇦🇮🇪🇮🇹🇯🇵🇧🇷🇦🇺🇳🇿 [Verge]. Also, Instagram will now warn you before your account gets deleted, and offer in-app appeals [TechCrunch].
Coinbase is taking advantage of its significant user base to give you more information about trading behaviour and price correlation. In addition to price and variation information, you can see what Coinbase customers with large balances are currently doing. You get a buy/sell percentage for each asset [TechCrunch].
Interested in Crypto? Earn $10 worth of EOS by learning about EOS! That’s a pretty good deal, isn’t it? (Limited spots available) How about $10 worth of XLM by learning about Stellar Lumens? (Limited spots available)
This week, we also had 📆 #WorldEmojiDay 2019, and announced live at the National Museum of Cinema in Turin, Italy, the winner of the 2019 award for Most Popular New Emoji went to 🥰 [Emojipedia].
Also, you probably should know about these 11 emojis with very different meanings in different countries [SkyNews], and the fact that in 2019, global emoji count is growing to more than 3,000 [Statista]!
🧠 Insights
Walking in the Space - Credit: NASA on Unsplash
American & British kids would rather be YouTubers than astronauts.
On the eve of the 50th Apollo 11 anniversary, which landed Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the surface of the Moon, LEGO asked The Harris Poll to survey a total of 3,000 children in the United States, China, and the United Kingdom about their attitudes toward and knowledge of space. The results reveal that, at least for Western countries, kids today are more interested in YouTube than spaceflight.
What do you want to be when you grow up? - Credit: The Harris Poll/LEGO
Asked what they would like to be when they grow up, about 3 in 10 American and British children replied that they wanted to be YouTubers or Vloggers. Only in China did children have a clear preference for being an astronaut!
🔗 Read more on arsTechnica.
Also, this Google Doodle narrated by Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins is a great history lesson in less than 5 minutes ↓
50th Anniversary of the Moon Landing - Google Doodle
📊 Statistics
Netflix missing the 2Q19 growth target - Credit: Statista
Netflix’s Subscriber Growth Falls Off a Cliff
Netflix’s subscriber growth in the second Q2 2019 fell way short of expectations as the streaming service’s US subscriber base shrank for the first time since 2011; according to the company’s latest earnings report.
As the above chart illustrates, Netflix’s growth had increasingly shifted to international markets in recent years as the streaming giant expanded to more and more markets. In the most recent quarter, however, international subscriber additions also fell sharply, a fact that many observers attribute to the weak lineup of exclusive shows debuted over the past three months. At 91.5 million, Netflix’s international customers now account for 60% of the company’s paid subscribers, up from just 40% three years ago.
via Statista.
Digital 2019 Q3 Global Digital Statshot - Credit: DataReportal
Social Media Users Pass 3.5 Billion
The number of people around the world using social media grew by more than a quarter of a billion over the past 12 months, to reach the 3.5 billion milestone by July 2019.
More than 46% of the world’s total population now uses social media, but if we focus on ‘eligible audiences’ – people aged 13 and above – the penetration rate increases to 59%, with the latest trends suggesting that it will pass 60% within the next few months.
Some other key points:
93% of Internet users watch videos online
Snapchat’s advertising audience jumped up 19% in the last three months to 369 million.
Facebook still reaches the most 13-17-year-olds (113.3m), followed by Snapchat (66.9m), Instagram (52.9), and Twitter (20.2m).
🔗 Download the complete report.
📱 Tools & Apps
Tint & Shade Generator: Easily make tints & shades in 10% increments.
How to save battery life on your Android phone: Not exactly an app, but pretty useful if you’re an Android user!
🎧 Audio Stimulation
Hidden Brain - I Buy, Therefore I Am
All of us are surrounded by brands. Designer brands. Bargain-shopper brands. Brands for seemingly every demographic slice among us. But have you ever stopped to ask yourself how brands influence you? This episode of Hidden Brain looks at how companies create a worldview around the products they sell, and then get us to make those products a part of who we are.
🐦 Tweets of the Week
When you see this and realise it was posted on Facebook… wrong… on so many levels!
ok guys i think i did it... i found the worst post on the internet https://t.co/I7t3uQWvgx
Did you know? 👇 I certainly didn’t!
Whoa, so they ARE different? https://t.co/OQY1B5MPId
Fact! https://t.co/bQMxVMuINg
🎮 Fun Stuff
Have you ever felt like this online? - Credit: Reddit/u/Burrito001
Installation Time Remaining: 46283 Years - Credit: System32Comics
social media or some weird cult? - Credit: John Atkinson, Wrong Hands
This is not goodbye...
How was this issue? Was it so good you’d wanna keep it all to yourself? Go ahead, don’t share the good stuff…
Until next Sunday! 👋