📡 When you're the world's 💰💰💰 man
Welcome to this mid-October Pulse!
How was your week? Everything is getting spooky, but I’m not - just yet. I mean, we still got two weeks, right? Why rush it?
In other news, my Twitter challenge with my bank, Starling Bank, is still on; and it’s not getting any less delightful!
Also, since a couple of days ago, I’m looking at Instagram stories stats and their reach. I’m now gathering data, so if you want, reply to this email, with your number of followers (roughly), and the average number views you get on your stories. If I get enough data, I’ll share the results.
Now, let’s dive into this issue.
- Ben from [ perspective ix ]
📰 News
Apple has found itself smack dab in the middle of a PR crisis that’s pissing off pretty much everybody. Apple’s app store approval, rejection, approval and seemingly final rejection of HKMap has been quite the saga [TechCrunch].
Payment companies are dropping out of Facebook’s Libra project. Visa, MasterCard, Stripe, Mercado Pago, and eBay have all quit Libra cryptocurrency project ahead of a big meeting in Geneva next week [Reuters].
Google’s Pixel 4 briefly went up for preorder on Best Buy Canada [TechCrunch] ahead of their annual hardware event on Tuesday. Here’s what you can expect from the event: Pixel 4, a new Pixelbook, new Nest devices, and more [Verge].
Facebook paid just £28m tax after record £1.6bn revenues in UK. Profits on social media app surged by more than 50% to £97m in latest tax year [Guardian].
After the scrutiny on Facebook’s Libra, now Telegram must halt sale of its crypto token due to an SEC emergency restraining order. The Gram network is supposed to go live by October 31st [Reuters].
Ensuring politicians in the 2020 election stay truthful is hard work, so Facebook has decided it’s going to sit this one [TechCrunch].
🧠 Insights
Little Amazon! - Credit: Daniel Eledut on Unsplash
Is Amazon Unstoppable?
In 2017, a few months after Forbes named Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, the world’s richest man, a rumor spread among the company’s executives: Bill Gates, the former wealthiest person on earth, had called Bezos’s assistant to schedule a lunch, asking if Tuesday or Wednesday was available. The assistant informed Bezos of the invitation, and told him that both days were open. Bezos, who had built an empire exhorting employees to be “vocally self-critical,” and to never “believe their or their team’s body odor smells of perfume,” issued a command: Make it Thursday.
Read more on the New Yorker.
📊 Statistics
News consumption by Generation - Credit: Statista
The Generational Divide in News Consumption
Some people like to stay on top of the news cycle throughout the day by checking Twitter, Facebook and their favourite news websites. Others prefer to be served a selection of the day’s important happenings by the evening news on TV. Whether you prefer one or the other may come down to your age and what you have become accustomed to in the past.
According to data published in the Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report, there is a generational divide when it comes to news consumption. While the large majority of those who grew up with the internet see it as their most important news source (and are accessing it primarily through their smartphones), those who relied on the TV news for a daily news fix for decades still tend to prefer the television over online news sources.
Very few people still rely on print publications as their primary news source, indicating that the role of newspapers has shifted from conveyor to commentator of news.
via Statista.
2019 Tech Update: Mobile and Social Media Usage, by Generation
Millennials and Gen Xers continue to have the broadest access to smartphones and the heaviest use of social media versus other generations. However, the adoption of smartphones and social media for the oldest Americans, the Silent generation, has taken off, per a study by the Pew Research Center.
Here are some quick takeaways from the report:
93% of Millennials Own A Smartphone
One in 3 Silents Owns a Tablet
Three in 4 Gen Xers Uses Social Media
via MarketingCharts.
Instagram’s new Threads app had a weak launch compared to other recent IG products, according to the market research firm Apptopia https://t.co/atxVGGo83X
Instagram Launched Threads
An app on top of Instagram’s ‘close friends’ feature with a modern UI in a more direct competition with Snapchat.
Have you downloaded it? Will you?
📱 Tools & Apps
Twitter for Mac: The new Twitter app built on Apple’s Catalyst [macOS]
TripCost: Travel like a local
Milk Icons: Beautifully designed vector icons [both free and paid licenses]
🎧 Audio Stimulation
Geekout with Matt Navarra - 6. Hashtag inventor (and much more) Chris Messina
Chris Messina is the inventor of the hashtag, but he’s been asked about that far too many times for us to bring it up much here. Good thing that he’s a deep thinker about products, platforms, and social engagement, and has lots to say about topics we love on this podcast.
Chris joins Matt Navarra and Martin SFP Bryant to discuss whether social media is at an inflexion point, and where it goes next. We also go in deep on Instagram’s motivations behind launching the rather threadbare new app Threads; whether users will ever be asked to pay for Facebook; how to deal with information overload, and lots more.
Meanwhile, Matt and Martin talk over the week’s news and share the latest tests and tools you need to know about.
🐦 Tweets of the Week
Dark mode on Instagram just ruined the grid of so many influencers.
“Good marketing makes the company look smart. Great marketing makes the customer feel smart.” – Joe Chernov
Use Twitter to decorate my room https://t.co/ZHpeV9HtFh
🎮 Fun Stuff
What I always feared - Credit: Reddit/u/fakduplaif
Hey printer! - Credit: Instagram/system32comics
ok guys i think i did it... i found the worst post on the internet https://t.co/I7t3uQWvgx
This is not goodbye...
This is a question: have you recommended Pulse to anyone? Ever?
Now, think about your answer and do the right thing.
Ciao 👋