Opinion
Auto Added by WPeMatico
The hopes and headaches of Snapchat’s glasses
Snapchat is the only company cool enough to possibly dismantle the Google Glass stigma. Awkward, useless, and a threat to privacy are how many think of computers you wear on your face. Can Snapchat show off the masterful marketing and smooth execution required to produce a product that won’t die on stores shelves or in a desk drawer? To quickly recount the basics, a video of… Read More
Powered by WPeMatico
AirPods and the rise of snackable audio
In just 30 seconds, you can enjoyably consume a viral video or a few Facebook stories. But until now, the shortest thing you could typically listen to was a three minute song, especially when you factor in the time to get your headphones untangled, on, and playing. Hearing anything shorter was more trouble than it was worth. Yet with wireless earbuds going mainstream thanks to the unveiling… Read More
Powered by WPeMatico
Facebook’s video editor is embarrassingly old, and Apple is creeping
You know you screwed up if Apple is about to one-up you on social. Facebook hasn’t upgraded its video editor in well over three years. Lagging far behind Snapchat, YouTube and even Instagram, it’s a stretch to even call the featureless artifact a video editor. Jobless in the self-driving economy
Uber’s self-driving cars will hit the road this month, earlier than anticipated. That’s an exciting surprise…unless of course you’re a driver. They won’t be the only ones affected, though. The consequences of robot-induced unemployment could eventually ripple through the rest of the economy. What will happen to Uber’s 1 million drivers? And the 3.5… Read More
Powered by WPeMatico
After the correction comes The Conclusion
Winter came, and now it’s time for a season of shut downs, sell outs, and saving face. The circle of life includes the stage of death. That doesn’t mean these founders did anything wrong, just not quite enough right. Their experiments are coming to an end.
Two years ago a bunch of startups raised two years of runway. An abundance of early capital had emerged. Angels and VCs… Read More
Powered by WPeMatico
Facebook’s next big platform: Your camera
Facebook can’t build everything. For a decade, its strategy has been to provide the canvas, then let developers paint it however they want. That’s because there’ll always be another game. Another app. Another… selfie filter? Instagram castrated Snapchat like Facebook neutered Twitter
This is the strategy behind Instagram Stories.
Snapchat invented a brilliant format for sharing day-to-day life: photo and video slideshows jazzed up with commentary that disappear after 24 hours so you’ll share an unpolished window into what you see. It quickly eclipsed the popularity of Snapchat’s 10-second exploding private messages, and made the app grow to 150 million daily… Read More
Powered by WPeMatico
Charging startups to apply to an accelerator is exploitative and dumb
Yesterday, a little birdie told me about Nextt, an accelerator (probably more accurately referred to as an incubator) for early-idea-stage startups. The idea is to take a napkin-stage idea and turn it into an MVP of sorts in six weeks. Not a shabby idea, but the insidious thing here is that Nextt charges $100 per idea. Not to participate, mind you — to apply. Read More
Powered by WPeMatico
Platform change, the Yahoo-slayer
In 2000, Yahoo was worth $125 billion. In 2008, it rejected a $44 billion buyout from Microsoft. And today it sold to Verizon for $4.83 billion. The lesson here is, if you won the last computing platform and are on the cusp of the next one you’re not built for, you might want to sell the company.
Mobile fell on an unsuspecting Yahoo like a piano on a cartoon villain. It was a web portal. Read More
Powered by WPeMatico
Will photo art phenom Prisma raise or get bought?
Prisma morphs your photos into fine art like Picasso or Mondrian, and it’s blowing up the iOS app charts. Today it came out in unofficial APK beta on Android. But what will be the fate of this red-hot social product? We’ve heard Prisma is in talks with investors about raising funding, but it might make more sense as an acquisition for Facebook/Instagram, Twitter, or Snapchat. When… Read More
Powered by WPeMatico