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Tag: #Twitch

Antitrust in the Tech Industrial Age

Antitrust in the Tech Industrial Age

Facebook is being sued for antitrust violations and AGs in most of the states have signed on. According to the Chicago Tribune, “Lawmakers of both major parties are also calling for stronger oversight of Facebook and other tech industry giants. They argue that the companies’ massive market power is out of control, crushing smaller competitors and endangering consumer privacy and choice. Facebook insists that its services provide useful benefits for users and that complaints about its power are misguided… The FTC and the Justice Department reportedly have been investigating Amazon and Apple, respectively…and Justice Department prosecutors are pursuing a separate antitrust case against Google, one that mirrors its case against Microsoft 20 years ago. Microsoft lost that one, although it escaped a breakup when an appellate court disagreed with the trial judge’s order.”

Om Malik published this piece (My advice to the attorney generals: It’s not about Zuck) and we agree. His point: the Microsoft case didn’t help much in reining in the company. “I would argue that they are doing what they have always done – using their market size as a moat and expanding into new markets. We don’t realize it just yet. Today, they control two major professional networks that will have as big, if not more, significant impact on society in the future — GitHub and LinkedIn…

“My view is that it is okay for these companies to continue and buy younger companies, but they should be restricted to only buying companies that enhance their core and not allowed to buy into new markets. For example, Facebook should not have been allowed to buy Instagram or WhatsApp… In a previous article for The New Yorker, I pointed out, “This loop of algorithms, infrastructure, and data is potent. Add what are called network effects to the mix, and you start to see virtual monopolies emerge almost overnight…”When it comes to Facebook, I wrote, “The more we use it, the more data we give the company, and the more it is able to control where we turn our attention.” Facebook, as a result, “thanks to this loop of algorithms, infrastructure, money, and data, is a winner-takes-all company. Read More...

Is It Time to Shoot the Messenger?

Is It Time to Shoot the Messenger?

Image by Jan Alexander from Pixabay

Calm down, we’re talking about delivering your message via online video. It seems that everyone is doing a videocast these days and given that one has one’s choice of either Facebook Live, LinkedInLive, YouTube, Periscope, DLive, Twitch, et al and out in beta, mmhmm, there is certainly no shortage of platforms. Or people who feel that they need to say something, whether or not they necessarily have something to say.

Careers have been launched via these platforms: look at PewDie Pie, the gamer/comedian who started out by playing videos of games, threw in some comedy and became one of the most viewed channels on YouTube. Or Harry Stebbings, who was a mere 20 years old when he launched his Twenty Minute VC, featuring, yes 20-minute interviews with investors, keeping them short, snappy and getting right to the point. Twenty minutes. That’s all it took. In fact, the now 24-year-old Stebbings recently launched his own micro VC fund (20VC).

“Podcasts are becoming big business — in part because of how well they can attract and keep audiences at a time when so many other media formats are finding it hard to pin down that elusive metric of engagement,” says Techcrunch. Read More...

Online Dating and the Missed Opportunity

Online Dating and the Missed Opportunity

Image by Tumisu from Pixabay

App dating is a crap shoot, to be sure. We have friends who have been using the dating apps for years, to no avail, despite the number of apps available and the number of people using them. As of 2017, Tinder alone had over 100M downloads  and 57 million monthly active users (both free and paid).

So where’s the disconnect, literally?

In our opinion, expectations and preconceptions could be part of it. Too much surface information and not enough commonality might be part of it, too. Our friends who use the apps and potentially initially ‘meet’ someone immediately hit LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram et al to cross reference. Read More...