Category Archives: Snapchat

Week 119 News Roundup – Snap Earnings, Twitter 280, iPhone X First Impressions

We’re back on our normal schedule for this week’s News Roundup episode, and back to covering three distinct topics. This week those are: Snap’s disappointing earnings and the proposed changes to the product and strategy there; Twitter’s broader rollout of the 280 character limit and criticism over its use of user verification, and Aaron and Jan’s first impressions of the iPhone X, which we’ve both been using for a few days now.

As always, you’ll find links to these stories and other things we discussed underneath the SoundCloud player embedded below.

As ever, you can also find the podcast on iTunes, in the Overcast app, or your own favorite podcast app. Here is the RSS feed for the podcast if you want to add it manually to your app of choice.

Show notes:

Here are some useful links relating to this week’s episode (Tech Narratives links unless otherwise stated):

As ever, we welcome your feedback via Twitter (@jandawson / @aaronmiller), the website (podcast.beyonddevic.es), or email (jan@jackdawresearch.com).

Please leave us a comment or get in touch via Twitter to give us feedback. We’d love to hear from you. You can reach the individual hosts on Twitter (@jandawson@aaronmiller), or via email (jan at jackdawresearch dot com). We also have a dedicated Podcast Twitter handle at @BDPcast. And we’d love it if you would leave a review of the podcast on iTunes or in your podcast app of choice.

Week 115 News Roundup – Oculus, Apple/Spielberg, Movies Anywhere, Snapchat Context Cards, Twitter

This week’s episode kicks off with a discussion of Netflix’s price increases, and the context and reason for those. Next, we do a deep dive on Google’s event this week and all that it announced, from new Pixel phones to new members of the Home family and a few other products also unveiled. Lastly, we talk about the other event that happened on Wednesday this week, the launch of the first voice-enabled speaker from Sonos.

As always, you’ll find links to these stories and other things we discussed underneath the SoundCloud player embedded below.

As ever, you can also find the podcast on iTunes, in the Overcast app, or your own favorite podcast app. Here is the RSS feed for the podcast if you want to add it manually to your app of choice.

Show notes:

Here are some useful links relating to this week’s episode (Tech Narratives links unless otherwise stated):

  • Oculus:
    • Jan’s Take on Tech Narratives ($): https://www.technarratives.com/2017/10/11/★-oculus-announces-199-standalone-headset-other-hardware-and-software-news/
    • Oculus: https://www.oculus.com/blog/pioneering-the-frontier-of-vr-introducing-oculus-go-plus-santa-cruz-updates/
  • Apple/Spielberg:
    • Jan’s Take on Tech Narratives ($): https://www.technarratives.com/2017/10/10/apple-signs-deal-for-reboot-of-spielbergs-1980s-series-amazing-stories/
    • Wall Street Journal: https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-signs-content-deal-with-steven-spielberg-1507656455
  • Movies Anywhere:
    • Jan’s Take on Tech Narratives ($):
      https://www.technarratives.com/2017/10/12/disney-warner-sony-21st-cf-universal-join-movies-anywhere-digital-locker-service/
    • Variety: http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/movies-anywhere-launches-with-joint-studio-backing-1202587915/
  • Snapchat Context Cards:
    • Jan’s Take on Tech Narratives ($): https://www.technarratives.com/2017/10/10/★-snapchat-adds-context-cards-for-ride-sharing-restaurant-booking-other-services/
    • [contact-form][contact-field label=”Name” type=”name” required=”true” /][contact-field label=”Email” type=”email” required=”true” /][contact-field label=”Website” type=”url” /][contact-field label=”Message” type=”textarea” /][/contact-form]

      Snap: https://www.snap.com/en-US/news/post/introducing-context-cards/

    • Jan’s Techpinions piece: https://techpinions.com/google-and-the-disintermediation-of-search/51316
  • Twitter Abuse:
    • Jan’s Takes on Tech Narratives ($):

      Twitter Demonstrates its Inconsistency in Policing Abuse Again


      https://www.technarratives.com/2017/10/13/prominent-women-launch-twitter-boycott-on-friday-over-abuse-issues/

    • TechCrunch: https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/12/twitter-breaks-silence-on-mcgowan-suspension/
    • USA Today: https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2017/10/12/rose-mcgowans-harvey-weinstein-tweets-got-her-suspended-fromsome-women-and-men-pledge-boycott-twitte/760130001/

As ever, we welcome your feedback via Twitter (@jandawson / @aaronmiller), the website (podcast.beyonddevic.es), or email (jan@jackdawresearch.com).

Please leave us a comment or get in touch via Twitter to give us feedback. We’d love to hear from you. You can reach the individual hosts on Twitter (@jandawson@aaronmiller), or via email (jan at jackdawresearch dot com). We also have a dedicated Podcast Twitter handle at @BDPcast. And we’d love it if you would leave a review of the podcast on iTunes or in your podcast app of choice.

Week 94 News Roundup – Amazon Echo Show, Snap Earnings, Uber’s Court Case

This is our News Roundup episode for the week, in which we discuss the announcement of Amazon’s Echo Show device with a screen; Snap’s first earnings as a public company; and Uber’s failure to have its court case with Waymo settled in arbitration and related news. Aaron’s away this week, so this is a solo effort from Jan.

As always, you’ll find links to these stories and other things we discussed underneath the SoundCloud player embedded below.

As ever, you can also find the podcast on iTunes, in the Overcast app, or your own favorite podcast app. Here is the RSS feed for the podcast if you want to add it manually to your app of choice.

Show notes:

Here are some useful links relating to this week’s episode:

As ever, we welcome your feedback via Twitter (@jandawson / @aaronmiller), the website (podcast.beyonddevic.es), or email (jan@jackdawresearch.com).

Please leave us a comment or get in touch via Twitter to give us feedback. We’d love to hear from you. You can reach the individual hosts on Twitter (@jandawson@aaronmiller), or via email (jan at jackdawresearch dot com). We also have a dedicated Podcast Twitter handle at @BDPcast. And we’d love it if you would leave a review of the podcast on iTunes or in your podcast app of choice.

Episode 84 – AWS and Outages, MWC Announcements

This week’s News Roundup covers YouTube’s announcement of the appropriately named YouTube TV service, which will offer a bundle of broadcast and cable channels from four major companies for $35; rumors that Apple would replace the Lightning connector on iPhones with USB-C in the fall; and Snap Inc’s debut on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday.

Our Question of the Week is “What is AWS and why are so many people so dependent on it?” Naturally the prompt here is this week’s AWS S3 outage, which caused many sites and services to go down for several hours on Tuesday. We talk through what AWS is, the major products and services that are part of it, how big this is, and the details of Tuesday’s outage, in terms of both the causes and the impact, and whether it’s healthy that so much of the Internet depends on one company.

Our Third Segment is a discussion of some of the phone announcements made at Mobile World Congress this week, from Nokia, BlackBerry, Oppo, LG, and Motorola, and what they tell us about the state of the smartphone market.

Our Weekly Pick is a life hack of sorts recommended by Aaron.

As usual, you’ll find some links to related content as well as other ways to listen to the podcast 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 have a dedicated Podcast Twitter handle at @BDPcast.

As ever, you can also find the podcast on iTunes, in the Overcast app, or your own favorite podcast app. Here is the RSS feed for the podcast if you want to add it manually to your app of choice.

Show notes:

Here are some useful links relating to this week’s episode:

Please leave us a comment or get in touch via Twitter to give us feedback. We’d love to hear from you. Also, we’d love it if you would leave a review of the podcast on iTunes.

Episode 82 – Original Video Content, Snap’s S-1 Filing

We’re back to our usual format this week. Our News Roundup kicks off with a couple of US wireless stories – Verizon Wireless reintroducing unlimited plans, and T-Mobile reporting its results. Next up, we discuss Apple joining the Wireless Power Consortium, and what it might mean. And lastly, we discuss Facebook’s announcement that it’s working on an app for TV boxes like the Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV.

Our Question of the Week is “Who is investing in original video content and why?” The topic has been in the news this week with Apple showing off trailers for two new original series that will be part of Apple Music, and YouTube star PewDiePie being dropped from its original content lineup after making some anti-semitic videos. We discuss who’s investing in this area, why, and what they’re spending, as well as whether it will all be worth it.

Our Weekly Pick is a musician recommended by Aaron.

As usual, you’ll find some links to related content as well as other ways to listen to the podcast 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 have a dedicated Podcast Twitter handle at @BDPcast.

As ever, you can also find the podcast on iTunes, in the Overcast app, or your own favorite podcast app. Here is the RSS feed for the podcast if you want to add it manually to your app of choice.

Show notes:

Here are some useful links relating to this week’s episode:

Please leave us a comment or get in touch via Twitter to give us feedback. We’d love to hear from you. Also, we’d love it if you would leave a review of the podcast on iTunes.

Episode 79 – Apple Employee Departures, Q4 2016 Earnings Preview Part 2

This week, our News Roundup features three topics: the conclusion and announcement of the findings of Samsung’s Note7 investigation; Samsung and LG’s earnings for Q4 2016; and Snap’s various preparations and signs of increasing maturity ahead of an IPO.

Our Question of the Week is “Are the recent departures from Apple a sign of trouble?” Aaron talks us through some of the recent departures across several parts of Apple’s business, talks about possible explanations, provides some historical context with a discussion of earlier departures, and draws some conclusions about the significance of the current round. We also talk particularly about the Apple-Tesla poaching war.

Our third segment is part 2 of our preview of Q4 2016 earnings season, with a brief discussion of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Twitter and what they’re likely to report in the next couple of weeks.

Lastly, our Weekly Pick is a book recommendation from Jan.

As usual, you’ll find some links to related content as well as other ways to listen to the podcast 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 have a dedicated Podcast Twitter handle at @BDPcast.

As ever, you can also find the podcast on iTunes, in the Overcast app, or your own favorite podcast app. Here is the RSS feed for the podcast if you want to add it manually to your app of choice.

Show notes:

Here are some useful links relating to this week’s episode:

  • News Roundup:
  • Question of the Week:
    • Article on the effects of Apple’s privacy stance
    • Article on Matt Casebolt’s departure to Tesla
    • Article on Tesla’s PR hire from Apple
    • Article on the Tesla-Apple poaching war
    • MacRumors interview with Chris Lattner
    • Article on Apple hiring Dropcam founder Greg Duffy
  • Jan’s Weekly Pick was Go Like Hell, by AJ Baime (Amazon affiliate link), which recounts the Ford-Ferrari rivalry in racing in the 1960s.

Please leave us a comment or get in touch via Twitter to give us feedback. We’d love to hear from you. Also, we’d love it if you would leave a review of the podcast on iTunes.

Episode 76 – 2017 Predictions and 2016 Predictions Review

This episode is all about predictions. First off, we review the predictions we made a year ago for 2016, including a raft of Apple-related predictions as well as some other company-specific ones and then some industry level forecasts. But most of the episode, from about 15 minutes onward, we focus on predictions for the year ahead. We again start with some company-specific predictions, concerning Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, Uber, and Snapchat. But we also include some industry-level predictions again. As last year, the predictions are a mix of those where we feel we’re on solid ground, and those where we’re sticking our necks out a bit. This will be our last episode until sometime in the New Year, so happy holidays!

As usual, you’ll find some links to related content as well as other ways to listen to the podcast 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 have a dedicated Podcast Twitter handle at @BDPcast.

As ever, you can also find the podcast on iTunes, in the Overcast app, or your own favorite podcast app. Here is the RSS feed for the podcast if you want to add it manually to your app of choice.

Show notes:

Here are some useful links relating to this week’s episode:

Please leave us a comment or get in touch via Twitter to give us feedback. We’d love to hear from you. Also, we’d love it if you would leave a review of the podcast on iTunes.

Episode 71 – Samsung buys Harman, MacBook Pro Review and Apple Design

This week’s episode is back to our usual format, with a News Roundup to kick things off, a Question of the Week, and a third segment, followed by a Weekly Pick.

Our News Roundup covers three stories: firstly, Snap (nee Snapchat) released its Spectacles hardware and reportedly confidentially filed IPO documents with the SEC; secondly, Twitter introduced some muting options to help combat abuse and harassment, while also kicking several figures from the “alt-right” movement off the service’; and thirdly, the fake news story we discussed last week continued to evolve this week with Facebook and Google both making news.

Our Question of the Week is “What are the implications of Samsung buying Harman International?” Aaron did some research this week into this acquisition and its implications, and answers questions about what exactly Samsung is buying, what Harman’s connected car business does, and how the two companies might bring their assets together, and lastly how this is likely to impact consumers and the broader tech industry. (We also weigh in on the idea that Apple should have bought Harman instead).

Our third segment combines a couple of Apple-related items: Jan shares a summary of his MacBook Pro review from earlier this week, and we also discuss the new coffee table book Apple launched this week about its design.

We wrap up with our Weekly Pick, which this week is a movie recommended by Jan.

As usual, you’ll find some links to related content as well as other ways to listen to the podcast 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 have a dedicated Podcast Twitter handle at @BDPcast.

As ever, you can also find the podcast on iTunes, in the Overcast app, or your own favorite podcast app. Here is the RSS feed for the podcast if you want to add it manually to your app of choice.

Show notes:

Here are some useful links relating to this week’s episode:

Please leave us a comment or get in touch via Twitter to give us feedback. We’d love to hear from you. Also, we’d love it if you would leave a review of the podcast on iTunes.

Episode 64 – Demystifying Snapchat, Consumer Tech in Enterprise

Our News Roundup this week covers BlackBerry’s announcement that it will stop making its own hardware; Twitter’s announcement that the creation of Moments is now open to everyone, in addition to the ongoing rumors of a Twitter acquisition; and Elon Musk’s plans to colonize Mars in the coming decades through his SpaceX company.

Our Question of the Week is “What is Snapchat?” We’ve discussed Spotify once or twice before on the podcast, but this is a deeper dive than we’ve done before, and seeks to address this question from at least a couple of angles, namely Snapchat as an app, and Snapchat (now Snap Inc.) as a company. We discuss how Spotify actually works, and how its features have evolved over time. But we also talk about the company’s evolving conception of itself, and the way its founders have described the app and the company since its launch five years ago. And of course we do all this in the context of the launch of Snap’s Spectacles over the weekend.

Our third segment is a discussion of a series of related moves by what are ostensibly consumer technology companies into the enterprise. We talk about Apple’s new partnership with Deloitte around business process transformation, as well as Facebook at Work, which is expected to be released more broadly next week, and why these companies seem to feel the pull to participate in the business world.

Our Weekly Pick is a series of books recommended by Aaron.

As usual, you’ll find some links to related content as well as other ways to listen to the podcast 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 have a dedicated Podcast Twitter handle at @BDPcast.

As ever, you can also find the podcast on iTunes, in the Overcast app, or your own favorite podcast app. Here is the RSS feed for the podcast if you want to add it manually to your app of choice.

Show notes:

Here are some useful links relating to this week’s episode:

Please leave us a comment or get in touch via Twitter to give us feedback. We’d love to hear from you. Also, we’d love it if you would leave a review of the podcast on iTunes.