Category: TECHNOLOGY
Twitter tests a ‘tweets per month’ counter
Twitter is testing a feature that lets you see how many times a user tweets per month. Reverse engineers spotted this in development about a month ago, but as of this morning, some Twitter users have shared that they have gained access to this feature.
For those of us who already know that we spend way too much time on the app, this feature feels a bit … intimidating. But it could probably be useful as a metric when determining whether to follow someone. If someone tweets thousands of times a month, maybe you don’t want them on your timeline — or if they barely tweet at all, maybe you don’t think it’s worth throwing them a follow.
“This is part of an ongoing experiment in which we want to learn how providing more context about the frequency of an account’s Tweets can help people make more informed decisions about the accounts they choose to engage with,” a Twitter spokesperson said.
Based on past studies, it’s not surprising that the general reaction to this feature among dedicated users is horror at how much we tweet. In 2019, the Pew Research Center found that 10% of Twitter users create 80% of the tweets on the platform. The study also showed that the median user on Twitter only posts twice per month. As of last quarter, Twitter has 237.8 million monetizable daily active users.
So, if you feel personally attacked by Twitter’s “tweets per month” test, you may be entitled to compensation. For legal reasons, that was a joke, although we assume Twitter’s lawyers are a bit preoccupied at the moment.
Update, 8/1/22, 6:55 PM ET with comment from Twitter.
https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/01/twitter-tests-a-tweets-per-month-counter/
Study of Facebook friendships explores how economic mobility works in the US
A large-scale study of Facebook data sheds new light on the ties between Americans — and how those relationships in turn shape economic outcomes.
A research team led by Harvard economist Raj Chetty published the results today across two papers in the journal Nature, exploring how social connections lead to economic opportunity. The researchers examined data from 21 billion friendships on Facebook, collected from 72.2 million U.S.-based Facebook users between age 25 and 44 who listed their zip code.
The first paper looks at those outcomes through the lens of “economic connectedness” — basically how close people from different economic classes are to one another. The researchers found that people with lower incomes were more likely to improve their financial situations over time if they were connected to people with higher incomes.
“The share of high-SES friends among individuals with low SES — which we term economic connectedness — is among the strongest predictors of upward income mobility identified to date,” the researcher writes. “If children with low-SES parents were to grow up in counties with economic connectedness comparable to that of the average child with high-SES parents, their incomes in adulthood would increase by 20% on average.”
Research on income mobility isn’t just for idle academic interest. As the researchers point out, more knowledge about the social ties that bind communities and how those lead to different economic outcomes can inform interventions designed to help elevate low-income communities and provide them with more financial opportunity.
The second paper dives into those connections themselves and how they are formed. The Harvard team found that connections between high- and low-income people were often forged through structured social organizations, like schools and religious groups. Still, the researchers found that even with social exposure to other income levels, people were still more likely to forge social bonds with other people who share their socioeconomic status.
The research is interesting and potentially consequential given the widening wealth gap in the U.S. Upper-income families continue to accumulate wealth at a quickening pace, leaving the have-nots even farther behind. And the top 5% of wealthiest U.S. families are growing their wealth the fastest of all.
“Differences in economic connectedness can explain well-known relationships between upward income mobility and racial segregation, poverty rates, and inequality,” the researchers write.
With the largest user base of any social platform ever created, Facebook offers a wealth of potential data for researchers interested in studying myriad aspects of human behavior and social structures. Historically, Facebook parent company Meta has a somewhat fraught relationship with researchers, particularly those interested in shining a light on how the social network itself shapes society, but there are signs that Meta is warming up to more outside research.
Meta also remains sensitive to potential abuses of the vast trove of personal data it monetizes. The company is still living down a reputation for lax data management in the aftermath of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, even four years later. Still, the …read more
https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/01/facebook-meta-economic-mobility-nature-study/
Missfresh Highlights Troubles Facing Chinese Online Grocers
The country’s once hot grocery-delivery sector has cooled after continuous losses, a regulatory clampdown and a slowing economy. …read more
Use Twitter’s iOS app without signing up for an account in Twitter’s latest test
In its latest effort to boost users and specifically app usage, Twitter is testing out a new way to get people engaged: those who are new to the social network will be able to give the app a test drive without signing up for an account. The limited functionality will let those who download the Twitter iOS app (ie, not Android for now) read tweets, and follow up to 50 users. You will also be able to search for tweets, explore news and trending topics, and get notifications.
Twitter said this test is available to a small number of users on iOS but didn’t specify if it was limited to a select number of countries.
This is a significant departure from how Twitter’s app is currently set up. Currently, you have to sign up for an account even to view tweets on the app. (And to be clear, you can still view Tweets without signing up or registering on the web.)
But while you can read tweets and reply to them, you can’t retweet or like tweets without an account, or tweet afresh in this experiment.
Nor can you do too much in the way of personalization. Twitter allows Try Twitter users to configure limited personalization based on people you follow and places you’ve been to. You can change location settings under Settings and privacy > Privacy and security > Content you see > Explore settings.
Twitter has long been working on reducing the friction of becoming a Twitter user.
Last year, it introduced third-party sign-in buttons, so that people signing up or logging in could associate their sign-ins with Google or Apple accounts. (That remains an option for those signing up for accounts on Twitter, although it’s moot for Try Twitter.)
Related to that, and more generally, Twitter has faced a lot of criticism for being too complicated for new people to get started and become regular users of the app — something it has been tweaking over the years by making it easier to find accounts to follow, pre-loading suggestions to match people’s interests, and improving the mechanics around tweeting, reading and filtering out content you might not want to see.
In Twitter’s Q2 2022 earnings results announced last month, the company noted that its monetizable daily active users (mDAUs) — a metric that Twitter has crafted for its own usage — have increased 16.6% year-on-year to 237.8 million. It happens to be in a legal dispute with would-be acquirer Elon Musk, which has partly stemmed from a disagreement over user numbers, yet its overall effort to grow its base remains a top priority regardless of how that plays out.
App researcher Jane Manchun Wong first spotted the so-called Try Twitter feature, and later Laura Burkhauser, product manager, confirmed the experiment.
Hyundai Motor eyes acquisition of Korean lidar-free self-driving startup 42dot
Hyundai Motor is considering increasing its stake in, or fully acquiring, the South Korea-based lidar-free autonomous mobility platform 42dot, the latest signal of its growing interest in the fast-growing space.
A spokesperson of 42dot told TechCrunch that the startup is in talks with Hyundai Motor, but cautioned that terms including stake size and deal valuation hadn’t materialized yet. Hyundai Motor did not immediately respond to requests for comments.
Hyundai currently owns a 20.4% stake in the three-year-old startup, whereas 42dot’s co-founder and chief executive Chang-Hyeon Song, who interestingly also leads the transportation-as-a-service (TaaS) team at Hyundai Motor, held a 36.19% stake as of December 2021, according to 42dot’s regulatory filing. The rest is owned by venture capital firms and strategic investors, including LG Electronics, SK Telecom, Lotte Rental, CJ Logistics and LIG Nex1.
The ongoing deliberation signals Hyundai Motor’s accelerating efforts to strengthen its autonomous driving technology that is in line with the Korean automaker’s grand plan to invest $79 billion (95.5 trillion WON) through 2030 into autonomous driving software technology and electric vehicle-related businesses. Hyundai Motor, which has said it aims to secure 7% of the global electric vehicle market by 2030, earmarked $9.2 billion (12 trillion WON) for connectivity and autonomous driving software investment.
The news comes nearly nine months after 42dot raised $88.5 million in its Series A financing round at a valuation of about $425 million to accelerate its TaaS service and urban mobility operation system (UMOS).
South Korean local media Korean Economic Daily first reported the news, citing anonymous sources, that Hyundai is in talks to invest at least 400 billion WON (~$306.4 million) in 42dot. According to the newspaper, Hyundai approached 42dot for the acquisition in June. The proposed deal could be completed this month, the paper said.
Founded in 2019 by former Apple, Microsoft and Naver alum Song, 42dot has developed Akit, a self-driving software and hardware solution, and TAP, an autonomous mobility and logistics platform that offers a number of services across ride-hailing, fleet management, demand-responsive transport, smart logistics and more.
Oui Capital, a pan-African early-stage VC firm, hits first close of its $30M second fund
Though economic cycles like the one the startup world is experiencing are usually short to medium-term, Oyinsan echoes what local investors have communicated these past few months: the return of sticking to first principles and backing companies with strong fundamentals, unit economics, and valuation discipline. This event has created an opportunity for investors, including Oui Capital, to invest up the chain, especially now that it has newly infused capital.
According to Oyinsan, the firm will be looking to cover the full spectrum of investments before Series A, including bridge rounds, an activity it will amplify, particularly during this current venture capital crunch. In relating news, Zedcrest Capital, another VC firm,
Oui Capital, an Africa-focused VC firm based in Lagos and Massachusetts, announced today that it has completed the first closing of its $30 million second fund, Oui Capital Mentors Fund II, as it seeks to strengthen its presence on the continent.
The firm, founded in 2019 by Olu Oyinsan and Francesco Andreoli, launched its debut fund at $5 million. Since then, Oui Capital has made 18 investments in technology sectors spanning different industries such as fintech, logistics & mobility, e-commerce, healthcare, and enterprise software. Some names include TeamApt, MVX, Akiba Digital, Duplo, Ndovu, Maad, Intelligra, Aifluence and Pharmacy Marts.
Oui Capital made eight investments last year and this second fund signals the VC’s intention to keep up with that pace. The $30 million fund, just like the first, will back sub-Saharan startups in the pre-seed and seed stages. So far, the firm has reached its first close at a little over $11 million and expects to complete the final close by Q4 2022.
Managing partner Oyinsan, in an interview with TechCrunch, said Oui Capital’s first fund delivered early solid returns, with a MOIC (multiple on invested capital) in excess of 7 times. He said that one of the reasons why the firm managed to accomplish this lies in the “sparks” that determine which startup to invest in or not: team, market, knowledge of the customer and tech, and customer enthusiasm.
But even though firms follow a manual (like Oui Capital and its aforementioned investment strategies), not all deals turn out great eventually. Oui Capital provides more extensive support for some of these startups by driving partnerships and sales, facilitating hires and providing bridge investments. With respect to follow-on capital, the managing partner said Oui Capital makes such investments proactively as part of the firm’s ongoing portfolio monitoring. As it stands, Oui Capital has made follow-on investments in about 20% of its portfolio companies.
“We go the extra mile with founders whom we partner with and this is why we maintain a relatively smaller portfolio compared to many seed funds. However, there is a critical distinction between the responsibilities of a VC as an investor and as a fund manager,” said the managing partner.
“Being an investor begets the type of die-hard optimism and support as earlier described. Being an effective fund manager also puts the fiduciary responsibility on you to know when to stop devoting scarce resources to problems that might prove too difficult to fix and dedicate these resources to higher-performing companies in your portfolio to minimize losses and maximize investor value.”
The Oui Capital team
Though economic cycles like the one the startup world is experiencing are usually short to medium-term, Oyinsan echoes what local investors have communicated these past few months: the return of sticking to first principles and backing companies with strong fundamentals, unit economics, and valuation discipline. This event has created an opportunity for investors, including …read more
Ambani’s Reliance Jio top buyer in India’s $19 billion 5G airwaves sale
Telecom operators in India agreed to spend $19 billion in the government auction for the 5G airwaves, New Delhi said Monday, the highest from them in any spectrum sale, as the world’s second-largest wireless market readies the rollout of improved and faster voice and data speeds.
Reliance Jio Infocomm, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea competed with one another for seven days and made majority of the acquisitions to purchase 71% of all offered spectrum, which the government said exceeded its expectations.
Tycoon Mukesh Ambani’s Jio, which counts Google and Meta among its backers, was the most aggressive participant with spendings of $11.13 billion, Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said Monday in a press briefing. Google-backed Airtel made spendings of worth $5.44 billion, whereas Vodafone Idea, the Indian unit of British giant Vodafone Group and billionaire Kumar Mangalam’s Idea Cellular, made spendings of worth $2.37 billion.
Even as India is the second largest wireless market, it has been slow in comparison to several markets in setting up the networks for the rollout of 5G technology, which carriers across the globe say offers significantly faster data speeds and could play an instrumental role in applications around innovations in autonomous mobility and telemedicines and robotics among other industries.
The lure of faster speeds is likely to help telecom operators struggling with declining revenues in recent years persuade consumers to pay more for data, analysts say.
“We have always believed that India will become a leading economic power in the world by adopting the power of breakthrough technologies. This was the vision and conviction that gave birth to Jio. The speed, scale and societal impact of Jio’s 4G rollout is unmatched anywhere in the world. Now, with a bigger ambition and stronger resolve, Jio is set to lead India’s march into the 5G era,” said Akash Ambani, Chairman of Reliance Jio Infocomm, in a statement. “Jio is committed to offering world-class, affordable 5G and 5G-enabled services. We will provide services, platforms and solutions that will accelerate India’s digital revolution, especially in crucial sectors like Education, Healthcare, Agriculture, Manufacturing and e-Governance.”
Reliance’s aggressive spendings demonstrate its growing digital ambitions. The oils giant, which launched its telecom operation six years ago, has established itself as the largest wireless carrier in India with over 420 million subscribers. By offering cutrate data prices, Jio won subscribers and forced the industry to lower tariffs, kickstarting an era that has significantly driven the mobile data consumption in the South Asian nation and benefited countless startups.
“The Hail Mary moment there was Reliance Jio’s arrival in the market. It democratized data and smartphones at a scale that we have not seen in countries other than China,” said Karthik Reddy, a VC at early-stage focused venture firm Blume Ventures, in an earlier TechCrunch interview.
New Delhi said Reliance acquired spectrum in 700MHz, 800MHz, 1800MHz, 3300MHz and 26GHz bands, Bharti Airtel acquired spectrum in 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2100MHz, 3300 MHz and 26 GHz frequency bands, whereas Vodafone Idea cornered spectrum in 3300MHz and 26GHz bands.
India said it expects …read more
https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/01/india-5g-auction-ambani-reliance-jio-airtel-vodafone-idea/
Arca’s David Nage on how regulatory scrutiny is impacting venture investment in web3
The regulatory environment surrounding crypto is shifting stateside as the SEC takes aim at major players in the web3 world, promising to shake up business as usual with aggressive action.
This week on Chain Reaction, we sat down with David Nage. Nage is a Principal at Arca overseeing their early stage fund with a primary focus on blockchain and digital assets. On the podcast this week, we dug into a multitude of crypto topics impacting the web3 venture capital world, including struggles with the blockchain gaming sector and a renewed regulatory fervor from the SEC following this week’s report of an investigation into Coinbase.
You can listen to the full interview below.
In our conversation, Nage noted that the recent downturn has already provided plenty of learnings for players in the space, but notes that some of the biggest blowups have disproportionally impacted retail investors. “I wish that we as a society didn’t have to learn through failure, but it appears that we really learn via failure and that’s the way that we grow and prosper,” Nage says.
Nage says that while the regulatory agencies are pushing for investigations, plenty of venture investors are just hoping that they can provide more guidelines and pathways for startup players to operate within legal boundaries while embracing opportunities native to crypto. It’s a lack of guidance that has pushed plenty of venture-backed startups to wait and see before dropping their own token, Nage tells us.
“A lot of these founders understand that a token could provide obvious utility for distributing and and decentralizing the authority of the company and could provide a lot of positive economic incentives for those that are participating, but without regulatory clarity they are pushing that off in a warrant for an indefinite period of time,” Nage says. “So I think that actually having that clarity could be really useful for the thousands of founders out there that are looking to innovate in the space.”
While Nage has some complaints about how the regulatory landscape has developed, he also notes that things have still moved more quickly than he expected. “To think [back] in crypto winter of 2018 that senators would be architecting certain policies regarding digital assets [today] is just a leap and bound and your mind just blows, it’s amazing.”
You can hear more of Nage’s interview by listening to our latest episode. Subscribe to Chain Reaction on Apple, Spotify or your alternative podcast platform of choice to keep up with us every week.
Bolt Mobility has vanished, leaving e-bikes, unanswered calls behind in several US cities
Bolt Mobility, the Miami-based micromobility startup co-founded by Olympic gold medalist Usain Bolt, appears to have vanished without a trace from several of its U.S. markets.
In some cases, the departure has been abrupt, leaving cities with abandoned equipment, unanswered calls and emails and lots of questions.
Bolt has stopped operating in at least five U.S. cities, including Portland, Oregon, Burlington, South Burlington and Winooski in Vermont and Richmond, California, according to city officials. City representatives also said they were unable to reach anyone at Bolt, including its CEO Ignacio Tzoumas.
TechCrunch has made multiple attempts to reach Bolt and those who have backed the company. Emails to Bolt’s communications department, several employees and investors went unanswered. Even the customer service line doesn’t appear to be staffed. The PR agency that was representing Bolt in March of this year told TechCrunch it is no longer working with the company.
Bolt halted its service in Portland on July 1. The company’s failure to provide the city with updated insurance and pay some outstanding fees, Portland subsequently suspended Bolt’s permit to operate there, according to a city spokesperson.
Bolt zooms than stalls
Bolt Mobility (not to be confused with the European transportation super app also named Bolt) was on what appeared to be a growth streak about 18 months ago. The company acquired in January 2021 the assets of Last Mile Holdings, which owned micromobility companies Gotcha and OjO Electric. The purchaser opened up 48 new markets to Bolt Mobility, most of which were smaller cities such as Raleigh, North Carolina, St. Augustine, Florida and Mobile, Alabama.
After purchasing Last Mile’s assets, Bolt agreed to continue as the bike share vendor in Chittenden County, Vermont, including cities Burlington, South Burlington and Winooski.
That license was even renewed in 2022, said Bryan Davis, senior transportation planner of the county.
“We learned a couple of weeks ago (from them) that Bolt is ceasing operations,” Davis told TechCrunch via email, noting that Bolt ceased operations July 1, but actually informed the county a week later. “They’ve vanished, leaving equipment behind and emails and calls unanswered. We’re unable to reach anyone, but it seems they’ve closed shop in other markets as well.”
Sandy Thibault, executive director of Chittenden Area Transportation Management Association, told the Burlington Free Press that Bolt communicated that employees were being let go and the company’s board of directors was discussing next steps.
A spokesperson at Burlington relayed similar information.
“All of our contacts at Bolt, including their CEO, have gone radio silent and have not replied to our emails,” Robert Goulding, public information manager at Burlington’s Department of Public Works, told TechCrunch.
Davis went on to say that about 100 bikes have been left on the ground completely inoperable and with dead batteries. Chittenden County has given Bolt a time frame in which to claim or remove the company’s vehicles otherwise the county will take ownership of them.
Bolt also appears to have stopped operating in Richmond, California, according to Richmond Mayor Tom Butt’s e-forum.
“Unfortunately, Bolt apparently went out of business …read more
US startups seeking funds shouldn’t overlook financing from the government
What’s the difference between a startup and a small business? Semantics, mostly. As many startups find themselves struggling to raise funds from venture capitalists as financing continues to decline this year, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) could prove to be a powerful resource for capital, even if startups traditionally look for funds from other sources.
Chris Hurn, the founder and CEO of Fountainhead, knows the potential benefits of taking on government financing. Fountainhead is a nonbank lender of government-guaranteed loans. Hurn said the current generation of entrepreneurs is laser-focused on raising equity-based funding from backers like venture capital firms — but that isn’t their only option, especially as equity gets more expensive in current market conditions.
“The problem is that business owners oftentimes overlook pretty readily available debt capital,” Hurn told TechCrunch. “They don’t have to give up any equity. [SBA loans] can oftentimes be the exact stepping stone they need to get to the next stage.”