We kick off this week’s episode with our usual news roundup. This week, our topics are 5G (and AT&T’s announcement on this topic earlier today), Apple’s rumored March event, and ASICS’ acquisition of the Runkeeper fitness app. Our Question of the Week is finally back after a two-week hiatus for earnings season, and this week we talk about whether Apple should turn iMessage into a platform, and what that would mean. The context here is the Asian messaging apps, such as WeChat, LINE, and Kakao, and the way in which they’ve built platforms around the core messaging experience. As this trend continues, the question becomes whether Apple needs to follow suit, albeit not as a business model but as a way to stay competitive. We talk about what this might actually look like in practice, were Apple to announce it, including user and developer/business features, and the potential for more social elements. Our last topic is Twitter’s earnings this week, and what they signify. We wrap up with our Weekly Pick, which this week is a video service recommended by Aaron.
As ever, there are links to related contents and various formats for the podcast itself beneath the embedded SoundCloud player below.
We invite listeners to submit questions for subsequent weeks in the comments below, on Twitter (@jandawson, @aaronmiller), or via email (jan at jackdawresearch dot com). We also now have a dedicated Podcast Twitter handle at @BDPcast.
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Show notes:
Here are some useful links relating to this week’s episode:
- AT&T’s 5G announcement
- Lauren Goode’s Verge article about the end of indie fitness apps
- Relating to the Question of the Week:
- Imagining MessageKit, by Matt Galligan
- Futures of Text, by Jonathan Libov
- Relating to Twitter earnings:
- Amir Efrati’s Information piece on Twitter
- Josh Constine’s “rant” about Twitter on TechCrunch
- Jan’s post from a while back about Twitter’s channel model
- Jan’s slide deck on Twitter’s earnings
- VidAngel, Aaron’s Weekly Pick.
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