News & Links

Etsy delays payments to sellers due to Silicon Valley Bank collapse / #
One affected Etsy seller said the deposits delay would have a “catastrophic” effect on his business.

Gowalla returns to see if location-based networking is ready for its mainstream moment | TechCrunch / #
One of the original location-based social apps is relaunching at SXSW -- 14 years after its debut

Tim Cook is pressing ahead with the MR headset debut this year, overruling designers' objections / #
New launch will be first steered entirely by CEO and under direction of operations team. Apple expects to sell ~1M units in the first year.

The Final Breaths of Silicon Valley Bank / #
Silicon Valley Bank wasn’t just a bank – it was a central artery in the venture capital circulatory system.

Roku, Etsy among companies impacted by Silicon Valley Bank collapse / #
SVB served a range of roles across the industry; it not only took startups' cash but also offered them venture debt and other loans while providing banking and lending money to venture capital firms. Roku, for example, said that SVB held 26% of its cash and cash equivalents — around $487 million — as of Friday

Twitter’s new $42,000-per-Month API Prices Out Nearly Everyone / #
Tiers will start at $500,000 a year for access to 0.3 percent of the company’s tweets. Researchers say that’s too much for too little data.

Meta plans AR advertising: "A huge deal" / #
Meta wants to be both a metaverse platform and an immersive advertiser. AR Vice President Alex Himel sees it as an unprecedented opportunity.

Here's a first look at Bluesky from Twitter's co-founder / #
The new social network Bluesky, backed in part by Jack Dorsey, debuted on the App Store several weeks ago as a “private beta.” Although new members need an invitation to join Bluesky, there are already a few thousand people there. A "room tour".

Discord Joins the AI Stampede / #
Another company is jumping on the artificial intelligence bandwagon: Discord, which is infusing AI into several platform features, including its mascot bot, Clyde. Clyde shall become a talkative chatbot that can answer user questions and hold extended conversations in real-time.

Meta explores decentralized social network app for text updates / #
Is this the Twitter replacement we've been waiting for?
The app will reportedly let users log in with Instagram and is codenamed P92. Details about the project are scant. The product is still in its earliest stages.

Grammarly is adding ChatGPT-like AI / #
Grammarly announces GrammarlyGO, a generative AI tool that can write and rewrite content in a user's style, available to all users in beta in April 2023.

Spotify’s new design turns your music and podcasts into a TikTok feed - The Verge / #
Spotify wants to be much more than a music player. So its app is turning into much more than a bunch of album covers.

Reddit Announces the Shutdown of ‘Reddit Talks’ its Audio Social Element / #
Reddit Talks was one of the various features that sought to latch onto the social audio boom.

Twitter insiders: We can't protect users from trolling under Musk / #
Twitter insiders have told the BBC that the company is no longer able to protect users from trolling, state-co-ordinated disinformation and child sexual exploitation, following lay-offs and changes under owner Elon Musk.
"When you look at it from the outside the façade looks fine, but I can see that nothing is working. All the plumbing is broken, all the faucets, everything."

Content creators say they struggle to keep up with their audiences as social media platforms evolve / #
As the social media landscapes continue to evolve, with platforms’ ever-shifting focus, the continuing pivot-to-and-from-video, the algorithm and audience changes, social media content creators have been caught in the middle.

TikTok Will Outsource Data Centers in Europe Following Privacy Concerns / #
TikTok wants to conter growing security concerns from European states and institutions with a new data protection concept named "Project Clover".
By 2024, the video platform plans to store all data of European users in new data centres located in Ireland and Norway. Both centers should be operated by third parties.
In the US, the company drives a similar strategy under "Project Texas".

TikTok Whistleblower Alleges Data Abuses Of Chinese Office Against US Citizens / #
TikTok + ByteDance employees — incl. members of Chinese Communist Party known to be on ByteDance’s payroll — can switch between Chinese + U.S. data with nothing more than the click of a button using a proprietary tool called Dorado.

Youtube: Overlay Ads Are Going Away in April / #
In a move to optimize its advertising formats, Youtube will end the "overlay banner" of traditional size at the bottom of videos.

How Some Gen Z Instagram Users Post to Facebook: Unwittingly / #
After Instagram added a Facebook cross-post prompt some young adelst are flummoxed why their photos and stories are on Facebook.

Musk’s New Twitter Dream: Become 'Biggest Financial Institution In The World’ / #
The creation of the “X/Twitter” everything app remains Musk’s end goal for his head-scratching $44 billion purchase of the social media company, the world's second-richest person told Morgan Stanley on Tuesday.

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