Welcome to the Tech Meamride Home for Friday, November 17th, 2023. I'm Brian McCulloch today. Surprisingly almost everyone, Apple is adopting the Google lead RCS messaging standard. IBM suspends advertising on X. Amazon is selling new cars on Amazon.com. The rebirth of Quibi, the surprising biggest mobile game of the year, and of course, the weekend long-rate suggestions. Here's what you missed today in the world of tech. Did not see this one coming and nobody else did either.
Apparently, this lead paragraph from 9-5 Mac kind of says it all quote, in a surprising move, Apple has announced today that it will adopt the RCS Rich Communication Services messaging standard. The feature will launch via a software update later next year and bring a wide range of iMessage style features to messaging between iPhone and Android users. Apple's decision comes amid pressure from regulators and competitors like Google and Samsung.
It also comes as RCS has continued to develop and become a more mature platform than it once was. RCS brings many iMessage style features to cross-platform messaging between iPhone and Android devices. This includes things like read receipts, typing indicators, high quality image and videos, and more. Apple's implementation of RCS will also give users the ability to share their locations with other people inside techs threads the company says.
Unlike regular SMS, RCS can work over mobile data or Wi-Fi as well. But at the time of this writing, iMessage isn't going anywhere. It will continue to be the messaging platform used for all communication between iPhone users. RCS will simply supplant SMS and MMS and exist separately from iMessage when available. SMS and MMS will also continue to be available as a fallback when needed. Apple says this is not Apple opening up iMessage to other platforms.
Instead, it's the company adopting RCS separately from iMessage. And to end encrypted. And Apple just took that up a notch with advanced data protection for messages in iCloud. Meanwhile, Apple says that RCS does not currently support encryption that is as strong as iMessage. Apple's decision to adopt RCS follows years of pressure from some of its competitors, including Samsung and Google. Until today, the company resisted that pressure and instead doubled down on iMessage.
It has, however, rolled out some improvements to the SMS experience between iPhone and Android devices. And before you get too excited about this, again, this does not mean an end to the color bubble divide. Because Apple says that green bubbles will still be used for RCS messages while iMessages will continue to be blue to denote what it considers the safest way for iPhone users to communicate. 9-5 Mac again.
This shouldn't come as a surprise as I reported this morning, iMessages isn't going anywhere. Apple is adding RCS as an upgrade to SMS and MMS while iMessage will exist separately. Again, today's news is not Apple opening up iMessage to other platforms. On Android, SMS texts are denoted by a light blue color while RCS messages are denoted by a dark blue. Based on what we know, Apple's implementation will be blue for iMessage and green for RCS and SMS and quote.
IBM has suspended its advertising on X globally after Media Matters said X had been placing ads for IBM, Apple, Oracle, and others alongside pro-Nazi material, quoting the Financial Times. On Thursday, left-leaning nonprofit Media Matters put out a report saying it had found adverts from big brands including IBM, Apple, Oracle, and Comcast's Exfinity and Bravo running next to content quote that touts Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party end quote.
IBM has zero tolerance for hate speech and discrimination and we have immediately suspended all advertising on X while we investigate this entirely unacceptable situation the company said in a statement. Comcast said it was looking into the matter Apple and Oracle did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The news will complicate efforts by X Chief Executive Linda Yaccarino to reassure marketers that the platform is now safe for their brands.
Yaccarino, who used to head up advertising at Comcast NBC Universal before joining the social media platform in June, has been on a charm offensive meeting ad agencies and brands and has insisted the company is investing in technology to ensure brands run next to desirable content. Some brands have also been concerned about post made by Musk himself, the Tesla Chief on Wednesday, drew criticism when he appeared to agree with a post espousing an anti-Semitic theory.
Quote, X's point of view has always been very clear that discrimination by everyone should stop across the board Yaccarino said in a post shortly after publication of the FT article. When it comes to this platform, X has also been extremely clear about our efforts to combat anti-Semitism and discrimination and quote. In one screenshot, Media Matter showed an Oracle advert placed underneath a post, including a photograph of a picture of Hitler and a quote by him about quote truth.
Another screenshot showed an Xfinity advert beneath a post praising the third Reich and quote. For the first time, Amazon is going to let US auto dealers sell new vehicles on its platform starting in 2024 with Hyundai, which will include Alexa in its cars beginning in 2025, quoting the journal. Hyundai customers who want to skip going to a dealership will have a new option next year, shopping on Amazon.com.
The South Korean automaker announced the move Thursday with Amazon at the Los Angeles Auto Show starting in 2024 US auto dealers will be able to sell new vehicles on the tech company's platform, making Hyundai the first automotive brand to offer such an option for customers. The company said the arrangement will allow customers to purchase a new car on Amazon from a local dealership and then either pick it up or have it delivered.
Perspective buyers will be able to search on Amazon's website for available vehicles in their area by model, color, and features and then complete the process using their chosen payment and financing options. Hyundai said that initially only 15 to 20 dealers will be able to sell their vehicles on Amazon, but that it will expand it to more by the end of next year.
Is this going to help us sell more cars? We believe so, said a representative. Amazon said it expects to increase car brand offerings on its platform by the end of next year as well. A couple of segments now from the putting this on your radar file is quibi not dead or at least does the ghost of quibi live on in a quibi like app called real short. Which is rocketed to the top of the app store charts recently.
Quote tech crunch was quibi a failure or just before its time this month a short video app and quibi like entertainment service called real short found its way to the top of the app store which led to the app gaining 1.9 million downloads so far in the month of November alone. Last Saturday the app also had a daily record in terms of both downloads and revenue with 326,000 new installs and 459,000 in net revenue the latter meaning the revenue it retained after paying app store fees.
This data provided by market intelligence firm app figures raises the question as to whether there's a continued consumer appetite for short form produced entertainment similar to what the failed start up quibi once offered or if real short time at the top of the charts is more of a fluke. Or perhaps one helped by heavy app marketing ad spend the company Sunnyvale based crazy maple studio didn't respond to press inquiries about its apps new found success.
But the studios other mobile products include animated interactive story apps fiction apps and storytelling apps real short fits into that large portfolio as it features short bite size shows with real actors and uses a virtual currency to unlock further episodes users can watch ads to earn coins or they can buy them directly in the app.
As a result of this model the app has been downloaded 11 million times across iOS and Android and has generated $22 million in net revenue to date since its August 2022 launch this month real short even spent a couple of days as the number 2 app in the US and it made it as high as number 1 in the entertainment category for around 4 days.
What's more impressive about this is that real short video content itself is arguably worse than quibbys and quibbys was not always great the acting and writing in real short are so bad that you almost have to wonder if it's intentional at times the stories themselves are like snippets from low quality soaps or as if those mobile storytelling games came to life.
But regardless the app has found a bit of an audience its revenue indicates on average real short generates roughly $2 per download app figures says that's more than quibbys estimated 73 cents per download though that comparison doesn't consider inflation and quote.
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I kind of want to title this one sort of like a tabula ad you know you'll never guess what the biggest mobile game of the year is or the biggest hit mobile gaming might shock you quoting game spot game company scope that it's mobile game monopoly go has now raked in more than one billion dollars and revenue becoming twenty twenty three's biggest mobile game launch according to the company.
I scopedly went on to say that monopoly go reaching one billion dollars and revenue after seven months on the market is faster than any other casual game in mobile game history monopoly go is a free game that makes money through microtransactions as is the way many mobile games handle monetization.
The mobile game market is bigger and more lucrative than console and PC part of the reason why Microsoft bought Activision Blizzard was to get a foothold in the mobile market with titles like candy crush and Diablo immortal EA for its parts spent billions to acquire glue mobile the developer of Kim Kardashians popular mobile game.
In terms of download scoply says monopoly go has been downloaded more than a hundred million times already players have collectively passed go more than forty billion times and got sent to jail more than six billion times scoply said players have sent more than 150 million friend invites scoply went on to say that monopoly go is played by millions of people every day around the world.
monopoly go is a mobile version of the iconic board game and it's the third hasbro property that scoply has worked on following scrap will go and yatsi with buddies.
You might not necessarily be familiar with scoply but it's a gaming giant having previously worked on star trek the walking dead and marvel games beyond license games scoply is behind the popular fall guys like battle royale games stumble guys it was acquired by Saudi Arabia's public investment fund earlier this year for four point nine billion dollars which made it one of the top ten most expensive acquisitions in the world.
And the events of acquisitions in the history of video games and quote. Time for the weekend long rate suggestions only two of them this week first up fast company takes a look at the king of the YouTube gadget reviewers Marques brown Lee quote brown Lee who turns thirty in December has come a long way since he began shooting videos about tech hardware and software in his families suburban New Jersey home at age 15.
He uploaded the results under the nom day YouTube of mkbhd for Marques Keith brown Lee and high definition a moniker that has been synonymous with his own name ever since. But by the time he was in college he was a phenomenon in twenty thirteen Googles then senior VP of engineering Vic Gondrada declared brown Lee the best technology reviewer on the planet.
Brown Lee's rise reflects a fundamental transformation that has played out in the tech review ecosystem in the past tech critics gain power through their affiliation with major news outlets but as the old guard moved on the wall street journals Walt Mossberg and the New York Times is David Pogue both left their print purchase in twenty thirteen.
YouTube offered upstart reviewers a platform that no traditional media brand could match especially for reaching young people who'd grown up on the internet today YouTube is the top social media platform among eighteen to twenty four year olds with 84%.
Usage according to com score the second place finisher tiktok lags far behind at sixty one percent and brown Lee has spent the past decade amassing more YouTube subscribers than the journal the times the Washington Post and USA today combined his polished quietly authoritative product evaluations carry a surprising degree of gravitas a rare commodity on YouTube where the most popular creator Jimmy Mr. Beast Donaldson has attracted two hundred and four million subscribers with no expense spared stunts such as feeding a Lamborghini in
the end of the year. The first time he's been able to get into a giant shredder real life brown Lee isn't so different from the calm on screen persona his viewers have bonded with he's just a very for lack of a better word chill individual says Brandon have are who's worked alongside brown Lee as mkbhd's creative director since 2018.
Brown Lee's credibility also explains why makers of everything from smartwatches to electric cars crave the attention of an mkbhd video can bring when a new product is launched the people who pay the most attention are tech enthusiasts and that's
the audience says Carl pie the co founder of nothing which released a smartphone last July that brown Lee covered in two videos that have accumulated more than six million views and eight thousand comments among gadget freaks brown Lee is so universally recognizable that I went so far as to perform a brief impression of him in a recent nothing promotional video dressed in a hoodie from the mkbhd merch store and quote.
And finally from the new yorker in this age of AI coding companions a wreck we have for software development as a profession itself maybe maybe not but this is a beautifully written piece that makes you think about a lot of stuff quote perhaps what pushed Lee seatle the number one ranked go player to retire from the game go was the sense that the game had been forever cheap and by the arrival of AI supremacy when I got into programming it was because computers
felt like a form of magic the machine gave you powers but required you to study its arcane secrets to learn a spell language this took a particular cast of mind I felt selected I devoted myself to tedium to careful thinking into the accumulation of obscure knowledge then one day it became possible to achieve many of the same ends without the thinking and without the knowledge looked at in a certain like this can make quite a lot of ones working life seemed like a waste of time but whenever I think about seatle I think about chess after machines conquered that kind of a lot of things that I think about
the game some 30 years ago the fear was that there would be no reason for anyone to play it anymore yet chess has never been more popular AI has in live in the game a friend of mine picked it up recently at all hours he has access to an AI coach that can feed him chess problems just at the edge of his ability and can tell him after he's lost the game exactly where he went wrong
and while at the highest levels grandmasters study moves the computer proposes as if reading tablets from the gods learning chess has never been easier studying its deepest secrets has never been more exciting computing is not yet overcome gpt 4 is impressive but a layperson can't wield it the way a programmer can I still feel secure in my profession in fact I feel somewhat more secure than before as software gets easier to make it'll proliferate programmers will be tasked with its design its configuration and its maintenance
and though I've always found the fit of parts of programming the most calming and the most essential I'm not especially good at them I've failed many classic coding interview tests of the kind you'll find it big tech companies the thing I'm relatively good at is knowing what's worth building what users like how to communicate both technically and humanely a friend of mine has called this a moment quote
for a venge of the so so programmer as coding per se begins to matter less maybe softer skills will shine and quote 2 weekend bonus episodes for you this week first up I went on the securities podcast which is lux capitals podcast to talk about that whole debate around AI and open source and maybe regulatory capture frankly if you want to hear my thoughts about AI at a really really macro level this conversation allowed me to get my thinking out is
probably the most detailed way I've been able to verbalize thus far so give that a listen and then second a portfolio profile episode you'll want to give this a listen for three different reasons first christmas scene returns to this pod for the first time in many months here's some interesting stories about christ's background second you'll hear about the investment that was the literal inspiration for starting the right home AI fun and third if you are working on AI projects at the end of the day
if you are working on AI projects at scale at all you're going to want to learn about this portfolio company free play talk to you on Monday