Dozen Worthy Reads 📰 (No. 170)
This week : Short form audio, creator relationships, customers as owners, social food, ad's privacy/FLOC, China and the internet, Facebook+Creators?, Biden on Tech, CCP and Tech, NSO mess 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 …
The next big social network trend? Short Form audio
As a format I’ve personally never liked or been bullish on audio as a format but short form audio definitely seems interesting but once again with long form audio I don’t think it's a product but a mere feature. For example Twitter has voice tweets now and implementing this feature won't be hard for anyone in Big Tech. So what is going to make all these startups successful? I imagine a few use cases such as news bites or specific topics you want to follow as options. The format is a delivery mechanism and I think serving a vertical content type is a better strategy than counting on “short form” audio as a magical bullet to people who have the attention span of a housefly (such as me!)
The Blurred Lines of Parasocial Relationships - Cybernaut
This was an extremely interesting read on the disappearing line between friends and followers; I can’t help but think, though isn’t this a financial transaction at the end of it especially as a fan? Historically “creators” such as musicians and actors were not accessible but now there are many platforms that allow you to interact with a fan. 100 True fans becomes a reality and after all we are mimetic - we want to be like the people we look up to.
Customers as Owners
Making your best customers own your company is a great strategy though not a new one; in the past lots of FMCG companies have used a similar strategy where you’d get exclusive products/discounts if you owned a company’s share. I recall Vadilal, an Indian company used to this (and probably still so). The latest of course is Robinhood - you use the product so here is your chance to buy Robinhood shares on Robinhood!
Creator economy for .. food
As Marie Dollé writes in Social Meets Food these deeper social verticals are interesting. First you went to Facebook for everything - news, food, friends, family, and fake news too! The next revolution is social (and not just food) is deeper and more engaging experiences. Connect and build an actual relationship. I consider this to be an unbundling of relationships - whereas in the past every piece of content showed up in the same format, the new breed of companies are differentiating not on quantity but quantity. Different apps for different purposes without the adverse noise that existing social media adds
The future of ads privacy
Great read that talks about the current ecosystem and emerging on device trackers such as FLoC and how difficult the task of making these work actually is. Antonio García Martínez argues that FLoC is actually good, which i am not sure I agree with
China’s Internet
China has the most sophisticated blocking operation with the Great Chinese Firewall and this report talks about the blocked domains. Every day there is a new report of something being blocked in more and more countries leading to a very split internet. From a tech perspective the opportunity is HUGE for local investments. It would also be interesting to see such a report for Russia and India as those governments realize that American tech spins out of control. With such governments requiring a local presence, Big Tech is starting to resemble manufacturing where they are not above the local rules (be it might as they might be bad for the citizens)
China's Great Firewall is blocking around 311k domains, 41k by accident
Facebook and Creators
Should a creator trust Facebook or YouTube or any controlled social platform? At the top of the funnel these are great discovery mechanisms that allow unknown people to be discovered but at a cost to the creator since creators are fungible; but is that really true? Creators should ask themselves and their audiences the product question as the product - How would you feel if you could no longer see me (the creator) on Social Media. The ones who will feel pain are your superfans. So then the question really is how do you identify your superfans and take them off platform so that YOU as a creator can build a relationship with them v/s using Big Tech as a mediator/middleman : Facebook Wants to Court Creators. It Could Be a Tough Sell.
Biden on Tech
President Biden, a couple of weeks ago announced a LONG executive order with a list of pro-competitive and pro-consumer policy changes across a variety of industries, tech, of course, included! For tech independent repair is one of the biggest possibilities; now it remains to be seen how much the FTC can do.
China’s next crackdown
China goes deeper into their crackdown on Chinese tech companies, especially the larger ones. Didi is one of the companies that could have an unprecedented impact from this crackdown. The broader message is clear - and this is just making an example out of Didi - If you want to run a company in China then the CCP sets the rules. After a couple of decades of hands off, the CCP is realizing that Big China Tech is bigger than them. So then what does this impact? Do more companies get incorporated because now it's possible to compete or does this mean that entrepreneurs will go to more friendly countries (not the US anymore?) In the short run this is a great opportunity for up and coming tech hubs to create entrepreneur friendly policies and get a seat at the proverbial tech table
NSO mess
While the NSO vehemently denies involvement with contradictory statements - NSO did not help with this leak, we know that for sure but we do not store or track anything? These two statements are on complete opposite ends of the spectrum. You can’t claim innocence if you are not 100% sure something did or did not happen. As with any kind of tech it can be used for good and bad purposes. These are not unintended consequences! I mean seriously how naive does NSO have to be? I think this is definitely not the last of it and we’ll see more details emerge but I think we’ll never really know the exact truth. Kim Zetter covers the emerging story very well here.
MS Office in China
Great read on how Microsoft thought about their strategy in China. The core being Gates was OK with China pirating MS Word. The more word users and docs resulted in a “word” skill with a piracy crackdown many years later. Lots of software companies use a similar strategy with college students. Students use the software, start jobs, and bring the software into their companies. However MSFT was outed by WPS (Kingsoft) by being first to the Android market. Strategy choices! MSFT paid a Strategy Tax by focusing on Windows as the main operating system that they’d focus on! Furthermore, the basic version being free takes away the issue of “pirating”
I’ll admit here that I had never heard of WPS and had to look it up :( Chinese Software Wars: Microsoft Office vs Kingsoft's Word Perfect
Kickstarting supply in a Labor Marketplace
As I wrote in Labor Markets : 2021 and Beyond we’re going to see more and more vertical plays and this article from Lenny Rachitsky talks about ways to build up the supply side for a labor market. Growth hacks, if you will, for labor markets!
Great reads from around the web
David Perell on Saving the Liberal Arts. This is a long read but makes the case for Liberal Arts
Security and Privacy, even if broken for one single person is a huge issue : A case against security nihilism – A Few Thoughts on Cryptographic Engineering
On Startups and Focus : Focus: The One Thing Every Startup Needs
Trillion-Dollar Leadership: An Inside Look at Jeff Bezos & Eric Schmidt NFX
How spreadsheets were a game changer. The article is from 1984 but the principles apply even today!
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)