šø Wiser! #88: TikTok Search | Twitter Woes | Insta Copycat | Roasted Zuck | Alongās Never Ending Videos
TikTok has eaten Facebookās lunch, now it wants a piece of Google. A Twitter whistleblower causes havoc and gives Musk something to hang onto. Instagram wants to kill off BeReal. The Zuck gets roasted on social media. The Tornado Cash story keeps rumbling on. Amazon has spent 10x more on acquisitions so far in 2022 than in each of the previous 3 years.
And, is Along and their never-ending videos going to be the next big thing for communities?
Welcome to the 88th issue of the Wiser! Newsletter
ā”ļø This weekās issue of Wiser! is brought to with the support of The Business Inquirer
The Business Inquirer is a free weekly newsletter for acquisition entrepreneurs. Each week they present readers with the most interesting business acquisition opportunities along with bite-size commentary. In addition to deal flow, they also curate the best tools, articles, Twitter threads, and other content that can help readers acquire and operate their own businesses.
š¤ Wiser! is a weekly newsletter that helps smart people stay one step ahead of their competition. With insights, strategies and trends from the tech economy, Wiser! makes sense of whatās happening and whatās coming next.
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Twitter Whistleblower Gives Elon Musk False Hope
Insider: A Twitter whistleblower has made some embarrassing allegations this week. Heās known as Mudge, a renowned cyber security expert, the former Head of Security at Twitter and was one of the most senior execs at the firm.
Anyhow: Mudge has made some astonishing claims about Twitter:
- It violated its obligations to the FTC (this is the most serious),
- Security on the social media platform is shite (remember the 2019 hacking of the twitter accounts of the rich and famous?),
- Twitter doesnāt know how much spam is on the platform, and has chosen not to find out (a gift to Team Musk as they try to get out of buying Twitter),
- Itās vulnerable to foreign exploitation and may even have spies on its payroll (apparently the US Gov told Twitter as much!).
Mark Zuckerberg Takes The Metaverse To France and Spain, And Gets Whacked On Social Media!
Ouch: The Zuck is having a torrid time on social media. Last week, the Meta Facebook boss got roasted by BlenderBot3, his own AI chatbot for the Metaverse.
- This week, Meta Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the launch of Horizon Worlds in France and Spain. (Horizon Worlds is the name of the Meta Facebook Metaverse.)
The thing is: The Zuck used a cartoon selfie that has been ripped to shreds across social media. It was even compared to a 2008 Wii game!
Remember: Meta has spent over $10 billion building their Metaverse. The consensus was that the quality of the graphics didnāt match the promise of tomorrowās immersive world for adults!
Zuckerberg was quick to respond to the critics in an Instagram post, promising āMajor updates to Horizon and avatar graphics coming soon.ā He also posted an updated avatar.
Meanwhileā¦
āItās almost like every day you wake up and youāre punched in the stomach.ā
This is what Mark Zuckerberg just told Joe Rogan on this nearly 3 hour podcast.
Itās a fascinating conversation from a man familiar with spreading misinformation on social media talking to a man familiar with spreading misinformation on social media.
During the chat, Zuckerberg claimed that Meta Facebook spent $5 billion last year combatting misinformation. Let me repeat that ā $5 BILLION in one year!
This is a long podcast (3hrs), with a lot of focus on the Zuckās pivot to the Metaverse.
But Rogan does press Zuckerberg on the role and responsibility of the worldās largest social network in dividing America and public opinion.
Here, Zuckerberg resorted to previous form, pushing blame onto social dynamics that pre-date Facebook and social media. The Zuckās general line of deflection is that people get the content they want, itās not his fault that this is inflammatory or fake.
Further Reading
š Big Tech Little Tech Episode #7
In the latest episode of the Big Tech Little Tech podcast, co-host Shaun and I discuss the Amazon One payment system that uses your palm signature to authenticate transactions.
We also talk about the rising popularity of BeReal as a social media platform, the Xiaomi CyberOne humanoid robot, and the latest tech news.
Somehow, we get around to mentioning great drummers! Join us by using one of these links, or find us wherever you get your podcasts:
š APPLE: https://apple.co/3wsLarN
š¶ SPOTIFY: https://spoti.fi/3QPeAsl
š³ AMAZON: https://amzn.to/3AhkpaV
āļø ANCHOR: https://bit.ly/3AjjW8m
š WEB: https://BTLTpod.com
š° NEWSLETTER: Substack
š¦ TWITTER: @BTLTpod
Scarcity and Status: The Secret Sauce Driving NFTart
#6873: This Pudgy Penguin has just sold for 400 ETH (thatās over $600,000 in fiat money). I know, it sounds crazy. It does to me to.
But hereās the thing: Itās a collectible.
- Is this any more crazy than the 1952 Mickey Mantle baseball card bought for $125,000 on eBay?
- Or the $2.3 million paid for the Treskilling Yellow Stamp (the most expansive postage stamp in the world)?
Because thatās the point, innit?
They all have 2 things in common. They are all scarce (the only 1 in existence). And they all convey status (look what I own).
Thatās why NFTs are so appealing to a digital demographicā¦
First Facebook, Now TikTok Has Its Sights Set On Google
Hungry? TikTok has eaten Facebookās lunch, now it wants a bite of Googleās!
TikTok is testing a feature called ānear-byā in its user feed. The idea is simple. To serve up relevant local content based on your geo-location.
Why? TikTok is already the preferred search engine for 40% of young people. Thatās according to Googleās own research, that showed the young demographics prefer TikTok and Instagram for Google Search or Maps for local information.
- The move will strengthen the appeal of TikTok as as preferred search tool for kids who are spending on average 95 minutes a day on the app (compared to c75 mins for YouTube and zero for Facebook).
Instagram To Launch New Feature To Kill Off BeReal
Authentic: Last week, I wrote an Insights piece for Premium subscribers. It was about BeReal, the Number 1 downloaded photo-sharing app with around 10 million Daily Active Users, up from just 10 thousand less than 18 months ago.
- Itās the app with momentumā¦ and now it looks like it may be getting some competition.
The news is that Instagram is testing a new feature called Candid Challenges, which looks very much like a clone of the selfie-sharing app.
šŖ And they say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery!
Amazonās Bumper Spending Spree on Corporate Acquisitions
Buy, Buy, Buy: Amazon are on track to spend at least $20 billion this year on buying up businesses. Thatās roughly 10 times how much it spent on corporate acquisitions in each of the last 3 years!
And 50% of its lifetime spend on buying up smaller businesses!
Their latest acquisition target is Signify Health, a health analytics company that had a market cap of $6.6 billion before the Amazon bid was made public. Signifyās stock has seen a 30% uplift since. (Remember I wrote this about Amazon buying One Medical just a couple of weeks ago).
So far this year, Amazonās shopping spree includes:
- One Medicalās chain of walk-in clinics for $3.9 billion,
- iRobot, maker of the Roomba home robot vacuum cleaner for $1.7 billion, and
- MGM Studios for $8.6 billion.
The big question: why are they doing it now?
Related News
- Peloton has announced an agreement to sell its products on Amazon. This is the first time Peloton will sell through a 3rd party and opens up an already interested market previously closed to it. Amazon report that there are around 500,000 searches for Peloton on its marketplace every week!). The stock popped 20% on the news, which is seen as a possible first step toward Amazon buying the entire company.
Debate Over Tornado Cash Sanctions Continueā¦
Itās Just Code: Remember last week I wrote about Tornado Case, the computer code that anonymises financial transaction in the crypto space?
- IMHO, the US Treasury sanctioning computer code is a wrong move. Now it seems that a US lawmaker takes the same POV as me!
US Congressman Tom Emmer has written in a letter to Janet Yellan, the US Treasury Secretary, saying āthe growing adoption of decentralised technology will raise new challengesā for regulators.
I rarely find a reason to side with a Republican politician, but on this occasion, I have.
Continue readingā¦ (includes my annotated version of the letter from Congressman Emmer)
The Social Media App That Makes Never Ending Videos
Flywheel Effect: Social media networks rely on collaboration and engagement to grow. Itās called the flywheel effect, namely, the more people that use the network, the more people it attracts to use the network and so it goes, on and on.
- Last week I wrote about BeReal and its novel approach to stimulating engagement amongst friendship groups. (It only works if you are connected to real friends online).
Getting Along: This week I want to introduce you to another new app.
- This one is called Along.
Itās a video sharing app with a difference. Because, unlike videos on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, the videos on Along never end.
Along has removed all restrictions to allow never-ending collaboration videos with multiple creators. It is based on the concept of infinite videos called ātapes.ā
The full, technicolour, content-rich version of Wiser! is available to read FOR FREE at my website, rickhuckstep.com.
On the webpage, apart from being beautifully presented with all the brand colours and identifiers, youād associate with Wiser!, the full version includes a lot more content, links, headlines and images, tweets and videos.
