Dozen Worthy Reads đ° (No. 168)
This week : Bitclout, Spotify Greenroom, Law as code, Amazon blocks FLOC, Roku's ambition, Growth in the open web, Facebook's advisory board, EU's software problem and more ...
Hi All,
I hope you all are doing well and welcome to Dozen Worthy Reads. A newsletter where I talk about the most interesting things about tech that I read the past couple of weeks or write about tech happenings. You can sign up here or just read on âŠ
The Power of BitClout
If Social Media is all about how much a person is worth Bitclout is onto something. Democratized ownership of the individual is a key starting point to unlock creator economies though this comes with its own creepy factor! The Dark, Democratizing Power of the Social-Media Stock Market
Bring on the Clubhouse competitors
Spotify launches Greenroom its own Clubhouse competitor. As I wrote in Clubhouse : The newest (audio) unicorn kid on the block and followed up Is audio a feature or a full product? It is going to be very hard for a company to survive (ie make $) with just audio.Â
Law as Code
One of the first blogs from Joshua Browser (DoNotPay) on law as code. Legal fees and headaches keep people from not suing or being pissed off about that security deposit or unpaid refund but this would put power back in the hands of (small) consumers. This of course has unintended consequences on overburdened small claims court but this also opens up the possibility that companies wonât try underhand stuff. Law As Code: A Legal System Shaped By Software - Future
Amazon block(s) FLoCÂ
Amazon (unsurprisingly) blocks Chrome FLoC. Amazon doesnât really care too much about FLoC since they donât depend too much on it. One by one, more open pieces of the web close up with First party data becoming more important. BigTech doing big tech things ...
Rokuâs content ambition
Interesting read on how Anthony Wood and Roku are thinking about content. Now that the device is well seeded/respected, content next. If this article from Variety is to be believed Roku has been able to, in the first two weeks, have more active accounts stream a âRoku originalâ than Quibi in the 9 months of its lifetime. Is Roku trying to have its cake and eat it too? Being a horizontal company following a vertical strategy could be disastrous : How Roku used the Netflix playbook to rule streaming video
Duck Duck Gooooooooo announces $100M in investment
I will admit that I have been a DuckDuckGo users for some years now and the results are not as good. But just the fact that companies like Neeva are now getting funded is a sign of things to come in the Web 3.0 world. Brave just last week announced that they are offering offering users the first independent privacy search/browser alternative to big tech  built on top of a completely independent index, and doesnât track users, their searches, or their clicks. So exciting!Â
Facebookâs advisory board has .. teeth?
As I wrote in Does the Facebook Oversight Board have teeth?The oversight board wants to have more control over product strategy. I guess Facebook seeking advisory opinion shows two things 1) They have someone to point the finger at and 2) Facebook thinks the advisory board can actually help. Time will tell if its the former or latter
A quick read to put into perspective why Europe has trouble with making software (and mostly consumer software). This is an interesting point but now with VCâs funding companies outside of Silicon Valley and they start to get decacorn status this should change. Is it a mindset change though? I mean look at India where, when I was growing up, this would have been a dream. Forget building technology, we didnât have access to tech!Â
Great reads from around the webÂ
NFX/Tony Fadell : 6 Product Frameworks From the Inventor of the iPod, iPhone & Nest
Product Thinking : The Power of Product Thinking - Future
On last weekâs antitrust decision : Why Did Congress Just Vote to Break Up Big Tech?
Nilay Patel interviews Satya Nadella on Windows 11 and a bunch of other topics :Â Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on the business of Windows. Ben Thompson also covered the Windows 11 strategy here
Nilay Patel interviews Jack Conte. Key takeaways are creators need a home; a place to call their own, and want to own their audience. The lack of commissions are not enough : Patreon CEO Jack Conte on why creators canât depend on platforms
Is Windows now truly open? Microsoft Opens Windows, But Reverts to Old Competitive Playbook. I donât think I agree with this. Having app stores ensures exactly that!Â
Thank you for reading. Stay safe, be well! If you enjoyed reading this please consider sharing with a friend or two (or sign up here if you came across this or were forwarded this)