Twitter announces paid Super Follows to let you charge for tweets - Twitter announced a pair of big upcoming features on Friday: the ability for users to charge their followers for access to additional content, and the ability to create and join groups based around specific interests.  - Super Follows will allow Twitter users to charge followers and give them access to extra content.  - That could be bonus tweets, access to a community group, subscription to a newsletter, or a badge...

YouTube’s ‘supervised experiences’ help parents choose what content their kids can see Ring's new Video Doorbell Pro 2 will have a built-in radar Biden Orders Broad Supply-Chain Review Amid Chip Shortages Apple Takes Step to Prevent Further Spread of 'Silver Sparrow' Malware on Macs Bill establishing cyber abuse takedown scheme for adults enters Parliament Explainer: The Online Safety Bill   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

During the great Facebook News ban of 2021, The ABC’s News app climbed to the number one downloaded app in Australia, ironically replacing Facebook in the number one spot.  Each day of the ban I’d re-check the charts to see whether order had been restored. Yesterday, the ABC news app had fallen but in its place was a new social network called Poop Map. Poop Map is a social network where users, called “poopers”, “drop poops” on their location. As with most social networks, it has the ability...

Is this the end of Facebook’s news ban?  - It looks like news is coming back to Facebook.  - Facebook says it will reinstate news content on its platform after the government agreed to last minute amendments to the media bargaining code. - Campbell Brown, Facebook’s vice president of global news partnerships, said the company would restore news in “coming days”  - Here’s the quote: “After further discussions with the Australian government, we have come to an agreement that will allow us...

In the UK, Uber drivers are self employed   - First to London where the UK’s Supreme Court has ruled Uber drivers are indeed workers not self-employed.   - The decision means drivers could be entitled to employment benefits such as a minimum wage and holiday pay.  - The case dates back to a complaint made in 2016 by two Uber drivers.  - Uber maintained it was just a booking app, that requires independent contractors to provide the actual transport.  - The ruling could leave the...

Facebook ban follow up  - Following up on the big story last week, and unsurprisingly news consumption dropped after Facebook banned news from its platform.  - Data compiled by measurement company Nielsen found that the ban had an immediate impact on publishers.    - Nielsen used its Digital Content Ratings methodology – which provides data each month on traffic volumes for tagged websites and apps regardless of the source being on or off-platform – to track total sessions and total time...

Facebook ban follow up  - Following up on the big story last week, and unsurprisingly news consumption dropped after Facebook banned news from its platform.  - Data compiled by measurement company Nielsen found that the ban had an immediate impact on publishers.    - Nielsen used its Digital Content Ratings methodology – which provides data each month on traffic volumes for tagged websites and apps regardless of the source being on or off-platform – to track total sessions and total time...

Holy crap! Facebook has deleted all news sources. And here’s some of the stories that caught our eye this week, but didn’t warrant a full discussion:  Bitcoin (BTC USD) Cryptocurrency Price Jumps to $50,000 - If you had bought $100 bitcoin in 2011, it would've been worth $6.1m this week  Is no one buying the small phone?  - Sorry, small-phone lovers: The iPhone 12 mini was Apple’s 2020 sales flop - But wait!  - iPhone 13 Mini Still Expected Despite Lackluster iPhone 12 Mini...

Media Code Google, Nine agree commercial terms for news content  - Another day, another deal with Google. Nine reportedly struck a $30 million-a-year cash deal with Google on Wednesday. (although neither side are officially confirming it yet) - The AFR is reporting Junkee Media inked a smaller agreement and Guardian Australia and the ABC could have agreements wrapped up by the end of the week. That follows the Seven West deal we spoke about earlier in the week.  - Under the proposed...

What is Clubhouse  - Clubhouse is a real-time audio-based social network  - Clubhouse lets you create and join "rooms," where you can then chat with others in a big conference call. It’s just audio & you can drop in and out of rooms at any time.  - Once the conversations are over the room closes and  - There’s a lot of discussion around start-ups and clubhouse itself. But there’s also NBA watch parties and  - Clubhouse is like crack for big LinkedIn users - I see it as an audio...

Media Code update  Seven West Media and Google strike long-term partnership  Federal government concession sends tech giants scrambling  After chat with Mark Zuckerberg, Treasurer thinks deals under media code are 'very close'  Google, Seven strike News Showcase deal Seven West Media strikes deal with Google, swings to net profit - As we round the home stretch of the media code law - with the vote expected this Friday, last minute deals are being made…  - Seven West Media has inked a deal...

Clubhouse issues  https://onezero.medium.com/clubhouse-is-suggesting-users-invite-their-drug-dealers-and-therapists-a8161b3062fc - Clubhouse has become big news recently and because of that, it is under more scrutiny  - Will Oremus has looked at how Clubhouse uses your contacts, and its not great - Like most apps, if you grant it access to your contacts, it uploads your entire address book  - It you dont allow it to upload your contacts, you dont get the much prized invites to invite...

Bumble is about to go public with a stack of women in the top jobs - Bumble, the dating app where women make the first move, has priced its IPO at $43 per share - The company will begin to trade tomorrow morning/by the time you hear this podcast with a market cap of $7 billion.  - 31 year old CEO and founder Whitney Wolfe Herd will be the youngest woman to ever take a company public - The chair of the board is also female and women occupy 8 of the 11 board seats, that’s 70% … that’s...

An incredibly detailed twitter thread on ACCC report on google * Last week? We took a very high level look at a report from the ACCC into the digital advertising market - this isn't the media code, but moreseo looking at how competition in the digital advertising market which happens to be dominated by Google and Facebook.  * Jason Kint has taken a deep dive into the 222-page report. He is an expert on the Digital Duopoly (Goog & FB) and he is the CEO of Digital Content Next which is an...

Amazon Australia  https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/companies/amazon-australia-still-losing-money-despite-hitting-1bn-sales-in-2020/news-story/212a95c7354bc9962e842ff5519118be?utm_source=TheAustralian&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Editorial&utm_content=AM_BIZREV_Newsletter Amazon breaks through $1 billion revenue mark in Australia  - Amazon Commercial Services, reported $1.12 billion in net sales for the 2020 calendar year, a 99.4 per cent jump from the year prior. -...

This is the Democrats’ plan to limit Section 230 Now It's The Democrats Turn To Destroy The Open Internet: Mark Warner's 230 Reform Bill Is A Dumpster Fire Of Cluelessness - In the last few months of his presidency, Trump - remember that guy? - rallied against the tech companies over Section 230  - Trump believed conservatives were being unfairly targeted on social media, and that’s where his focus was - less moderation  - Democrats have taken a different approach - proposing to change...

Some random kvetching on the media code:  Google's search engine not as good as its competitors for news, research finds How I dumped Google before it dumped me Scott Morrison meets Google CEO Sundar Pichai over media bargaining code - Following on from his call to Satya Nadella of Microsoft, today ScoMo and Frydo got on the blower to Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, to discuss the media code.  - No details of what they discussed has been released, but for those sick of this story,...

Email from Jeff Bezos to employees - Jeff Bezos has informed Amazon staff he is stepping down as CEO, after 27 years running the company he founded  - In an email to staff he said he plans “to focus my energies and attention on new products and early initiatives” - ie, use his enormous wealth to hang out with hollywood celebs  - Taking over is the current head of AWS, Andy Jassy. This makes a lot of sense, as AWS went from a loss leader to one of the biggest services in the world,...

Apple’s App Tracking Transparency coming in early spring – TechCrunch Facebook Preps Antitrust Lawsuit Against Apple — The Information Apple's Tim Cook warns of adtech fuelling a 'social catastrophe' as he defends app tracker opt-in The cold war between Facebook and Apple continues, with Apple once again stating its App Transparency tools will soon prompt users about the amount of data being shared within apps.  The Information reports that Facebook has been working on an antitrust...

Google's ad dominance under fire The Australian reports the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission has raised concerns over Google's dominance in online advertising. Again.  The interim report for the ACCC’s Digital Advertising Services Inquiry warns of a lack of competition and transparency across the $3.4bn display advertising sector and Google’s “ability and ­incentive to favour its own related business interests”. The consumer watchdog’s investigation into display...

Queensland trial uses Spotify to slow down drivers near school zones  Spotify is creating special songs that encourage users to slow down around school zones, as part of a trial in Queensland.  Spotify will use the geolocation information from a user’s phone to identify when they’re within 5kms of a school zone, and sneak in a track with messages to slow down, and watch out for school crossings The audio has been created by local Brisbane artists, and the song will slot into a playlist...

Twitter launches 'Birdwatch,' a forum to combat misinformation Twitter has announced a new service called Birdwatch, which will allow users to flag tweets as misleading The service is being rolled out to a limited number of users who have verified their accounts with a phone number - and Twitter says it is targeting influential users and fact checkers first.  On its blog post, Twitter says “We know this might be messy and have problems at times, but we believe this is a model worth...

Google threatens to leave Australia if Media Code Goes Ahead Search giant Google has hinted off the record it may have to abandon Search in Australia if the media code becomes law. Last Friday, it made the threat public at the Senate enquiry.  Google Australia managing director Mel Silva told a Senate hearing on Friday that the proposed news media bargaining code remained "unworkable", and the company was prepared to exit the Australian market. Google’s issue of course is not the fee...

Amazon is offering to help distribute the COVID vaccine in the US Joe Biden has set a goal of vaccinating 100 million Americans in the next 100 days, and Amazon is offering its distribution centres and logistical expertise to make that happen.  Amazon executive Dave Clark wrote in an open letter that “Our scale allows us to make a meaningful impact immediately in the fight against COVID-19, and we stand ready to assist you in this effort.” Amazon also asks that “frontline workers” such...

US Government weighs in on Media Code In a submission to the parliamentary inquiry to the new Media Code, that would force Facebook and Google to pay for news aggregated on their websites, the US government described the proposed legislation as: unreasonable, impractical, “fundamentally imbalanced” and could run counter to the US-Australia free trade agreement, The Guardian reports. The US position is the Media code may do “undue harm”, and seems to “unfairly attack” just two companies,...