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Uutiset 🗞️

Apple julkisti Tap to Pay -palvelun.

Tästä huhuttiin jo viime viikolla, mutta nyt se on virallista: iPhoneja voi käyttää jatkossa maksupäätteinä luottokorteille ja mobiilimaksamisuissa, sillä Apple julkisti Tap to Pay -palvelunsa iOS:lle. Yhtiö myös nimesi ensimmäisenä kumppaninaan Stripen, jonka myötä myös Shopify-kauppiaat jotka käyttävät Shop Pay -maksupalvelua, pystyvät nyt ottamaan maksuja vastaan iPhoneilla. Applelta:

Apple today announced plans to introduce Tap to Pay on iPhone. The new capability will empower millions of merchants across the US, from small businesses to large retailers, to use their iPhone to seamlessly and securely accept Apple Pay, contactless credit and debit cards, and other digital wallets through a simple tap to their iPhone — no additional hardware or payment terminal needed. Tap to Pay on iPhone will be available for payment platforms and app developers to integrate into their iOS apps and offer as a payment option to their business customers. Stripe will be the first payment platform to offer Tap to Pay on iPhone to their business customers, including the Shopify Point of Sale app this spring. Additional payment platforms and apps will follow later this year.

Pelotonin toimitusjohtaja siirtyy syrjään

Tästäkin huhuttiin viime viikolla: Pelotonin toimitusjohtaja John Foley siirtyy pois toimitusjohtajan virastaan ja siirtyy operoivaksi hallituksen puheenjohtajaksi. Peloton ilmoitti samalla, että se aikoo irtisanoa 2800 työntekijää ja peruuttaa suunnitelmansa rakentaa uusi tuotantotehdas Yhdysvaltojen Ohioon. Foleyn korvaa toimitusjohtajana Spotifyn ja Netflixin entinen CFO Barry McCarthy. Wall Street Journalilta (WSJ):

Peloton Interactive Inc. is replacing its chief executive and cutting 2,800 jobs after a slowdown in demand caused the once-hot bike maker’s value to plummet.

Peloton co-founder John Foley, who has led the company for its entire 10-year existence, is stepping down as CEO and will become executive chairman. Barry McCarthy, the former chief financial officer of Spotify Technology SA and Netflix Inc., will become CEO and president and join Peloton’s board.

The New York company lowered its revenue forecasts and said it would cut roughly 20% of its corporate positions to help cope with widening losses. The cuts won’t affect Peloton’s instructor roster or content.

Peloton shares rose 25% to close Tuesday at $37.27 after the company confirmed The Wall Street Journal’s earlier report on the leadership moves and other changes.

Starlink menetti 40 satelliittia magneettiselle myrskylle

Mainitaan vielä että ilmeisesti 40 uutta Starlinkin satelliittia on rikkoutunut ilmakehässä tapahtuneen magneettisen myrskyn seurauksena. Satelliitit palaavat piakkoin maan ilmakehään jossa ne tuhoutuvat. Yhtiö kertoi asiasta blogissaan.

Unfortunately, the satellites deployed on Thursday were significantly impacted by a geomagnetic storm on Friday. These storms cause the atmosphere to warm and atmospheric density at our low deployment altitudes to increase. In fact, onboard GPS suggests the escalation speed and severity of the storm caused atmospheric drag to increase up to 50 percent higher than during previous launches. The Starlink team commanded the satellites into a safe-mode where they would fly edge-on (like a sheet of paper) to minimize drag—to effectively “take cover from the storm”—and continued to work closely with the Space Force’s 18th Space Control Squadron and LeoLabs to provide updates on the satellites based on ground radars.

Preliminary analysis show the increased drag at the low altitudes prevented the satellites from leaving safe-mode to begin orbit raising maneuvers, and up to 40 of the satellites will reenter or already have reentered the Earth’s atmosphere. The deorbiting satellites pose zero collision risk with other satellites and by design demise upon atmospheric reentry—meaning no orbital debris is created and no satellite parts hit the ground. This unique situation demonstrates the great lengths the Starlink team has gone to ensure the system is on the leading edge of on-orbit debris mitigation.

Suosittelut 🕵️

Ben Thompson analysoi digimainonnan nykytilaa

Ben Thompson julkaisi Stratecheryssä hyvän analysiin nettimainonnan nykytilasta. Vaikka pitkään on ajateltu, että Facebook ja Google dominoivat nettimainontaa, on viime viikolla käynyt selväksi se, että Facebookin asema mainosalustana on paljon heikompi kuin Googlen ja, että Amazonin mainosliiketoiminta on valtavaa. Alla pitkä ote siitä, miten se on myös tietystä tarkastelukulmasta, terveemmällä pohjalla kuin Facebookin mainostoiminta:

Those numbers pale in comparison to what I guess we might call the Amazon Advertising IPO, given that the company broke out its advertising for the first time this quarter, revealing $9.7 billion in revenue, a 32% increase year-over-year (Amazon did not break out the unit’s profitability). While that is still a fraction of Google’s $61.2 billion last quarter, or Facebook’s $32.6 billion, it is a larger fraction than you might expect, and several multiples of Snap’s $1.3 billion in revenue. Indeed, given the fact that Amazon is closer in revenue to Facebook than Facebook is to Google it seems fair to characterize the advertising market as dominated not by a big two but a big three.

Amazon’s advertising business has three big advantages relative to Facebook’s.

1. Search advertising is the best and most profitable form of advertising. This goes back to the point I made above: the more certain you are that you are showing advertising to a receptive customer, the more advertisers are willing to bid for that ad slot, and text in a search box will always be more accurate than the best targeting.

2. Amazon faces no data restrictions. That noted, Amazon also has data on its users, and it is free to collect as much of it as it likes, and leverage it however it wishes when it comes to selling ads. This is because all of Amazon’s data collection, ad targeting, and conversion happen on the same platform — Amazon.com, or the Amazon app. ATT only restricts third party data sharing, which means it doesn’t affect Amazon at all.

3. Amazon benefits from ATT spillover. That is not to say that ATT didn’t have an effect on Amazon: I noted above that Snap’s business did better than expected in part because its business wasn’t dominated by direct advertising to the extent that Facebook’s was, and that more advertising money flowed into other types of advertising. This almost certainly made a difference for Amazon as well: one of the most affected areas of Facebook advertising was e-commerce; if you are an e-commerce seller whose Shopify store powered-by Facebook ads was suddenly under-performing thanks to ATT, then the natural response is to shift products and advertising spend to Amazon.

Nopeet 🚀

• (Maksumuuri) NYT:llä juttu siitä, miten entistä pienemmät puolijohteet aiheuttavat harmaita hiuksia mm. datakeskusten operoijille.

• Olen suhteellisen innoissani Pixarin Lightyear -elokuvasta.

• John Gruberilta analyysiä Applen App Store -riidasta Alankomaissa.

• lol.

• Netflixin ja Amazonin osuus Oscar-ehdokkuuksista väheni viime vuoteen verrattuna.

• Metan markkina-arvon laskeminen vähentää sääntelijöiden painetta sitä kohtaan.

• (Maksumuuri) USA:n oikeusvirasto takavarikoi huijareilta 3,6 miljardin dollarin edestä bitcoineja.