📡 When 😱 becomes the new normal.
Welcome to the first Pulse of the last month of the decade!
It’s been a super busy week, but busy is better than boring, isn’t it? How was yours? Hope it was great!
Before you scroll away, if you enjoyed this issue, please tell a friend about it. I’m always looking for new readers to discover Pulse. Thank you.
- Ben from [ perspective ix ]
📰 News
Uber lost its licence to operate in London after TfL (Transport for London) finds drivers faked identity [Cnet]; however, Uber will continue to provide service while it appeals against TfL decision [Guardian].
Virgil Griffith, a lead Ethereum Foundation researcher, has been arrested in the US for allegedly giving a presentation on cryptocurrency in North Korea, where discussion touched on evading sanctions. Griffith maintains his presentation contained basic concepts that could be found online [Vice].
Twitter decided to remove inactive accounts and free up those usernames [Verge], but then people reminded Twitter about people who passed away and their accounts are memory to the other, so Twitter promised to pause the programme until they figure it out [Axios].
Intel says it sold its modem business to Apple at a ‘multi-billion dollar loss’ because Qualcomm 'strangled competition’ - how’s that gonna go in the court? [BusinessInsider]
EU antitrust regulators are conducting a preliminary investigation into Google’s data collection practices [Reuters].
Black Friday online sales grew 19.6% YoY to $7.4B, as Thanksgiving sales rose 14.5%, to $4.2B; Cyber Monday sales are expected to reach $9.4B, up 18.9% [TechCrunch].
Facebook complies with Singapore’s fake news law and adds a label that is visible to local users, under the users’ post, saying the post contains false info [Reuters].
Latin Dictionary’s Journey: A to Zythum in 125 Years (and Counting). Researchers in Germany have been working on the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae since the 1890s. They hope to finish in 2050, but that might be optimistic [NYTimes].
🧠 Insights
There's no relaxing anymore, is there? - Credit: Pineapple Supply Co. on Unsplash
It’s all happening at once, and we have to choose.
What to read, listen to, answer?
A spam from a scammer
An @ mention on Slack
A voice mail from the boss
An email from a customer
A DM on Slack
A last-minute sale email from a store you’ve never visited
A year-old blog post
A new blog post
A new podcast
A …
[sorry, got distracted.]
The idea that we can strip mine attention, wasting what we don’t need, is long gone. Like oysters and oil before it, attention is a scarce resource, and we need to use it wisely. Too often, it feels cheaper to simply take what we can get, but when we overreach, the cost in trust is real.
And each of us gets the same amount of attention to spend each day. It’s a competitive advantage to figure out how to focus it to get something done.
from Seth Godin’s Blog.
Attention: it’s our most valuable resource and we take it for granted. I’m just sayin’.
📊 Statistics
Mobile Subscriptions Outlook - Credit: Ericsson Mobility Report
Mobile subscriptions outlook
13 million 5G subscriptions are expected by the end of 2019. By 2025, this number is forecast to reach 2.6 billion.
LTE will remain the dominant mobile access technology for the forecast period, peaking in 2022 at 5.4 billion subscriptions.
83 percent of all mobile subscriptions are forecast to be smartphone subscriptions by 2025.
via Ericsson.
⬇️ Download Ericsson Mobility Report November 2019.
Apple's domination in wireless Earbuds market - Credit: Statista
Apple Dominates Growing True Wireless Market
Apple’s new noise-cancelling earbuds, the Airpods Pro, have largely received raving reviews since their release on October 30. A month later, they look like they’re going to be on many people’s holiday wishlist, but even before the release of the Pro model Apple has been dominant in the market for true wireless earbuds.
According to Counterpoint Research, the Cupertino-based tech giant accounted for nearly half of the 33 million units of true wireless hearables sold worldwide in the third quarter of 2019. That puts Apple miles ahead of its closest competitors Xiaomi and Samsung, who accounted for 9 and 6 percent of worldwide sales, respectively.
According to the market researchers from Counterpoint, Apple’s market share used to be even bigger, but as more and more companies are entering the market, the iPhone maker is getting a smaller slice of a larger pie.
via Statista.
📱 Tools & Apps
Find the Invisible Cow: coz it won’t find itself! 😂 It’s a super funny website. Just give it a try.
multi.link: Create beautiful pages for you and your brand.
🎧 Audio Stimulation
Risk it all: Matt Ball dissects the streaming wars on Business Casual
Picking apart precisely what’s made the streaming wars just that—wars, from Disney to Netflix, Apple to Amazon.
How do subscriber counts, ad dollars, and content spend equate to small, individual battles, each with winners and losers? Matt Ball, verified media guru and former global head of strategy for Amazon Studios, has the answers. Plus…
How Amazon has impacted the media landscape.
When we’ll be able to declare who owns the future of streaming.
Why Netflix is still the streamer to beat.
🐦 Tweets of the Week
Flight attendant: Is there a doctor on this flight?
Dad: *nudging me* that should've been you
Me: What?
Dad: I poisoned your ginger ale but the dipshit flight attendant gave it to the lady in 17B by mistake.
Me:
Dad: Fuckin’ Spirit Airlines...
Remote work benefits I never considered:
💄less time/money on makeup
🍻no after-work expectations
🍔Save a fortune on lunches
🚗family only needs one car
📢feel heard by colleagues
👔no expensive uniforms
🚸get kids from school
🤮avoid sick people
🩲pants optional
What else?
There is a snake that grows 0.5 cm per second. https://t.co/XWC9k47P2E
🎮 Fun Stuff
Can you relate? - Credit: LOLNEIN.com
Here is why you shouldn't censor sensitive info with the black highlighter on iOS
Either don’t use highlighter to censor, or tap on the highlighter again and make the it 100% opaque.
This is not goodbye...
This is a reminder that the next decade is only 30 days away.
Ciao!