Clubhouse vs Twitter Spaces.
And Microsoft's Fiverr rival, 25x25 Initiative and your WhatsApp account.
 |
Good morning. Right Click brings you the hottest tech news in a simple 2-min email. (And no, this isn’t about which-smartphones-launched-latest.)
WhatsApp won't delete your account if you say no to their privacy policy. But it will make it useless: You can't send/receive messages or call someone. You can receive calls for a few weeks.
25% by 2025.
Many Big Tech companies have made very little progress when it comes to diversity. Over half of their employees are white and male.
Twitter's leadership, for example, is 61.8% male and 56% white.
To solve this problem, the Silicon Valley Leadership Group launched the 25×25 initiative. And it recently showed us the list of the companies included in this initiative. This list of 20 companies includes Facebook, Twitter and Zoom among others.
And what do they have to do? Make sure 25% of their leadership comes from people of underrepresented groups (people of colour and women). Or, boost the number of these underrepresented people to 25%. And the deadline? 2025.
Twitter Spaces vs Clubhouse.
— Backdrop: Clubhouse is an audio-only social app where a host interviews someone, while others listen to them live. It’s kinda like an internet-based conference call with up to 5k listeners. Clubhouse’s popularity has been rocketing. First, Elon Musk appeared on a show on the app, followed by Mark Zuckerberg.
Twitter’s making its own Clubhouse clone. It’s called Twitter Spaces and is in beta, iOS-exclusive. When someone you follow hosts a Twitter Space, their profile comes up in the space where fleets usually appear with a purple circle around it.
A new format: The unusual thing is the format. Audio-only conversations. The last social format that was so promising was when Snapchat launched Stories. And Instagram copied it followed by almost all social media apps. This means it’s not necessary that the Clubhouse will enjoy all the value this new format creates. Twitter’s already developing a clone. And 5 days after Mark Zuckerberg was interviewed in a Clubhouse room, this happened:
Twitter’s covering all creators: Clubhouse rooms are for people who already have a following. People like Elon Musk. They’re referred to as the upper class of their creator economy. For the middle class — people who are not as popular but their following is growing — Twitter acquired Revue, a newsletter-creation tool.
While we’re on it: Clubhouse has been downloaded about 4.7 million times to date since launch, according to Apptopia.
A lot of bitcoins or the environment. You can’t choose both, Tesla.
A while ago Tesla bought $1.5B worth of Bitcoin. And some more whiles ago Tesla aspired to be environment-friendly.
When Tesla bought a lot of bitcoin, prices went up. An all-time high. And more people started mining bitcoin. Which costs a lot of energy which in turn causes greenhouse gas emissions, thus polluting the atmosphere.
If bitcoin were a country, its annual electricity consumption would rank 30th in the world.
No Mo' Contractors.
Uber always says that Uber drivers don't work at Uber they just use Uber to get customers. And Uber does this so it doesn't have to give drivers sick pay and protection from unfair dismissal.
But UK's Supreme Court says no, no, no, Uber drivers and Uber workers. Uber has been fighting this lawsuit for like 5 years. And now it lost it. Now, this means every driver on Uber gets the same benefits as Uber employees.
What's Uber doing about it? Urging the EU to classify drivers as contractors but still give them some benefits of an employee. California passed a proposal like this earlier.
Apple is talking to many suppliers to get LiDAR sensors for its upcoming self-driving car. These lidar sensors, kind of, allow the car's self-driving system to see what's around. And that's why it's a key component.
Microsoft is building a Fiverr and Upwork rival integrated into LinkedIn. But why? Why not. A lot of freelancers use LinkedIn and a lot more people who hire those freelancers use LinkedIn. It’s like Twitter making newsletter tools and Clubhouse tools because a lot of people who write newsletters and host CH rooms use Twitter.
Go Read This.
— How Koo became India’s Hindu nationalist–approved Twitter alternative. (Rest Of World). This is an interview of Koo’s (the Indian Twitter alternative) founder Aprameya Radhakrishna.
He talks about how he initially built Koo for local language speakers and then added English when Twitter got into troubles in the US. And how despite so many right-leaning people on the app, the app and its founder are apolitical.
The interview took a weird turn at the end when the reporter asked him about the Farmer’s Protest:
So there will be government-regulated laws that would govern the speech on Koo?
“No, you’re randomly putting words in my mouth. I’m not enjoying this conversation. I’m an independent person; I’m apolitical. We want to unify India. Do you have a problem with me saying that? We’re not a government mouthpiece. We’re not a mouthpiece for any political party. We are apolitical.”
Tell me if you liked this one. Hit the ❤️ button.
~ Kunal Mishra.
| 2 |