Author: Steve

What is the Biggest Tech Company That Uses Contractors or Remote Workers?

Google is one of the world’s largest technology companies and at present the majority of its work force are contractors. Its reported that there are over 90,000 direct employees at Google.

Google’s Alphabet Inc. employs hordes of these red- and green-badged contract workers in addition to its full-fledged staff. They serve meals and clean offices. They write code, handle sales calls, recruit staff, screen YouTube videos, test self-driving cars and even manage entire teams – a sea of skilled laborers that fuel the $795 billion company but reap few of the benefits and opportunities available to direct employees. 

Source: Fortune

How much Venture Capital has Spotify Raised and From whom?

Spotify raised a total of $188 million from venture capital and private equity companies before its IPO.

Series A, 10/08 $21.6M
Creandum
Northzone
Li Ka-shing

Series B, 8/09 $50M
Wellington Partners
Li Ka-shing

Series C, 2/10 €11.6M
Sean Parker
Founders Fund

Venture Round, 6/11 $100m
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
Accel Partners
Digital Sky Technologies

source: http://www.crunchbase.com/company/spotify

Is it Free to Upload to Spotify?

Yes. RouteNote is completely free and allows any artists from anywhere in the world to upload as much music as they want to the worlds largest stores and streaming services.

  • Free to uploading unlimited to music to the worlds largest stores and streaming services
  • YouTube Content ID, Facebook Content ID and Instagram included
  • YouTube Networks
  • Distribution in China and other emerging markets.

Should Verizon Create a Consumer Version of BlueJeans Video Conferencing After Acquisition?

Verizon recently announced their acquisition of BlueJeans and it was very well times as it was remote working was starting to explode around the world due to Coronavirus COVID-19.

BlueJeans has long been one of the favourite video conferencing applications for the enterprise, but it has never really catched on outside the large enterprise deals.

Is this an opportunity for Verizon to also create a consumer version on BlueJeans?

Verizon’s BlueJeans acquisition is about more than the work-from-home trend

Discord Launches Noise Cancelling Background Noise Tool (Early Testing Phase)

Discord voice chats have been known to have quite a lot of background noise (especially when one of your friends has a mechanical keyboard). However, for sometime Discord has been working on suppressing that background noise and they currently have a new tool in early testing.

The company stressed that the technology, from Krisp, runs entirely locally and doesn’t share data with anyone else.

Development is still “early” for the noise suppression tech, and a phone version is in development. Don’t despair if the technology still feels rough around the edges, then — Discord still has a lot of work to do before noise suppression exits this test phase.

Apple Maps will Soon Show Everyone All COVID-19 Testing Locations

Apple will soon be showing all users where their closest COVID-19 Test location is in Apple Maps. There will be a red medical glyph icon, and a special banner in the Apple Maps card.

Apple has launched a portal for hospitals, healthcare providers and businesses to register as a COVID-19 testing location. Apple will review the application and when approved, the location will start appearing on Apple Maps.

The testing locations will appear with a red medical glyph icon, and a special banner in the Apple Maps card.

What is the Difference between Xiaomi XIACF and XIACY?

If you searched for Xiaomi ADRs, you’ve inevitably come across both XIACF and XIACY. What’s the difference? You cannot trade XIACF as a retail investor because it’s a “privately placed” ADR under SEC Rule 144A. This means that they’re for qualified institutional buyers (QIBs) only. QIBs want and contribute to the 25x higher average trading volume than XIACY. Volume ensures there are enough buyers and sellers to trade with you. Information and services are also limited to QIBs.

Will Airbnb IPO on a Public Stock Market Any Time Soon?

Short Answer: NO – I doubt it.

Airbnb was in a good position to IPO at the end of last year, but seemed to push it back. Since then the follow has happened:

  • Coronavirus has all but stopped their business.
  • Combination of debt & equity from Silver Lake, Sixth Street Partners
  • Previously raised $4.6 billion
  • Financial Times reported new $25b valuation last week

Airbnb won’t be seeing the public markets any time soon as they really need to focus when the Coronavirus lockdowns start to exit and the world opens up for business again.

If Google owns Waze, and Waze is even better than Google Maps, then why doesn’t Google combine them?

Google Maps has long been my favourite maps platform. However, Waze is widely used by my friends. Google owns both Maps and Waze, but why don’t they combined the two platforms?

Simple – There are two distinct use cases.

Use Case One: Help me Find a Destination

Use Case Two: Help me in my regular commute

Google has made a very good decision on keeping them separate. It’s seems to be the right decision.

Is There an IMDB for the Music Industry?

There is an IMDB for the music industry that is currently in development – Tunedex.

Tunedex seems to offer the world’s largest open music database, which shows the discographies of every musician on the planet.

Tunedex has a lot of opportunities so it will be very interesting to see where it heads in the future.

Why Did Microsoft Buy Wunderlist and Then Kill The Product?

Microsoft buying Wunderlist seemed to fit nicely with the business productivity suite that Microsoft has developed over many year.

The Wunderlist acquisition was only $150 million and it sounds like a lot, but it is only 0.1% of Microsoft’s market capitalisation.

Wunderlist fits in nicely with Outlook and running tasks from within email – plus it can go nicely with Office 365 inside a suite of much larger products – it also might have been to hire the amazing talent at Wunderlist.

Quibi Launches Today! Quibi Will Flop for Sure!

Quibi launches today.

Price point: $4.99

Reason: Immersive video content on a mobile device.

Funding: Quibi has raised over $1.8 billion in funding to date.

I think it’s very easy to see that Quibi is being made by a bunch of executives who aren’t or connected to their target audience. Quibi is built for a younger generation who don’t really want to consumer full length films on their mobile devices only. The younger generation are all about short form content and getting information as fast as possible (eg. TikTok).

p.s. their target audience also don’t have enough money for yet another subscription service at $4.99 per month.

Conclusion: Quibi will be a flop!

Im expecting that we are all sitting here in 12 months saying that they just haven’t been able to get the subscriber numbers that they wanted or needed to hit with $1.8 billion in funding.

Twitch Sees Big Viewership Growth But Needs to Expand Beyond Games to Generate $1 billion in Ad Revenue

Twitch has seen a huge wave of growth in its viewership in most part due to coronavirus. Twitch wants to generate $1 billion in ad revenue and commerce this year, according to The Information. The company reportedly delivered about $300 million in ad revenue in 2019.

The only way Twitch are going to achieve this is by expanding beyond just hardcore gamers. Brands will want to see diversity of content – Games, Music, Chat, Entertainment and more.

Twitch seems to be the first part of Amazon’s grand plan for gaming. Amazon will soon launch its very first game from its recently established gaming studio.

Quibi Launching Tomorrow (Monday 6th April 2020) – Good Timing or Bad Time due to Coronavirus COVID-19?

  • Quibi launch date is Monday 6th April
  • Not supposed to compete with Netflix or Disney Plus
  • Aimed at on the go video streaming (YouTube competitor really)
  • How will it do while launching during Coronavirus COVID-19 epidemic?

Quibi and timing… good or bad??