📡 You mean this much to us
Hello and welcome to Pulse — the weekly techie/businessy newsletter from @perspectiveix. I’m your host, Ben, and I’m sending you this Pulse in the middle of my moving-in day — in the middle of a pandemic!
You see, instead of helping my wife, I’m writing this (she insisted)… You and Pulse mean this much to both me - and her!
Please support us by becoming a member — or by sending this to a friend and asking them to subscribe to Pulse [this one’s free]; if they don’t know how you probably shouldn’t be friends with them!
JK! Teach them, please!
Now, let’s get down to business!
🗞 NEWS
Fortnite offering free Disney+ [link], Facebook’s antitrust seems pretty close [link], and Virgin Galactic’s first spaceflight [link]
Twitter against violence & lies, Netflix TV, and iPhone 13 — already! [link]
Earnings, Facebook fighting disinfo, and New emojis [link]
Election, Laws, and Lockdowns [link]
Instagram messing with voters, Spotify’s independence, and Amazon’s new boxes [link]
Baby Shark, TikTok’s new deal, and One more thing [link]
Election hacks, Facebook’s special conservative treatment, and Huawei’s chips [link]
Whatever you do, don’t do it alone - Credit: Pablo Heimplatz on Unsplash
📊 STATISTICS
India overtakes US as Snapchat's top market for downloads
It took 15 months (from May 2019 to July 2020) for India to go from the #6 market, representing 4% of Snapchat’s downloads, to the #1 market, representing 20% of its downloads. That lead has been increasing as October 2020 saw India represent 32% of Snapchat’s downloads.
Over the past 18 months, Snapchat’s new user acquisition has become increasingly top heavy. India + the United States now make up 50% of the app’s new users.
Read more on Apptopia.
and now that you’re reading about snapchat, feel free to add me: perspectiveix — i’m pretty active. also, i made a lens that’s gone pretty viral and on its way to 1 MILLION views — and i’m like 🤯 you can try it here and see my other lenses here.
now back to more stats 👇
App Downloads and Spending Continued to Climb in Q3
Global consumer spending on Apple’s App Store and Google Play grew by 32% YoY in Q3 2020 to reach $29.3 billion, per data from Sensor Tower Store Intelligence.
The faster-than-average growth in spending is thought to reflect the ongoing impact of COVID-19 along with consistent growth in adoption, globally.
Read more on MarketingCharts.
Uber Pivots to Food Delivery Amid Pandemic
Two days after scoring a big win on election day, when Californians passed Proposition 22, a ballot measure that exempts gig economy companies from a law that would require them to classify most of their workers as employees rather than contractors, Uber reported its third quarter results on Thursday.
While the company missed revenue expectations, as the pandemic continues to wreak havoc on its ride-hailing business, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said there were early signs that the company’s core mobility business would fully recover.
The report once again highlighted the shift that Uber’s business has been undergoing during this time of restricted mobility. The company’s food delivery segment continued to outperform its core ride-hailing business, as the latter saw gross bookings plummet by 75% in the first nine months of 2020 and the former just about doubled in size.
Read more on Statista.
📱 TOOLS & APPS
BallerTODO: Ditch the list! Organise like a baller, get stuff done.
i’m giving this a shot coz todo lists are not working well for me…
Tint & Shade Generator 2.0: Precise tints and shades from any colour in 10% increments
one of my favourite tools — and it’s super handy… now with new features
🔍 SPOTTED
TikTok is working on search filters [link]
TikTok is working on the “Mutual” tab to show the mutual connections [link]
Instagram is working to natively support Rooms calls [link]
GitHub is working on bulk notification management [link]
Facebook is working on the Archived Chats folder in Messenger [link]
🐦 TWEETS of the WEEK
Never disconnect from yourself to connect with others.
The price of trying to make everyone else happy is making yourself miserable.
i know this is my tweet — and it’s a little self-promotional — but the quote’s from 👆 and it really resonated with me; so 👇
"impatience with actions; patience with results." — @naval
😂 FUN STUFF
i did not make this, so apologies to the original creator — i don’t even remember where i saved this from. sorry.
Taking annual leave during the pandemic like https://t.co/JvjwIFib3O
That's all for this week...
pulse being prepared... remember this waiting for the next week’s issue... see ya!