Digital comics startup Madefire is shutting down

R.I.P. Madefire, a startup that recruited high-profile artists to reinvent comics for new formats and platforms.

An announcement on the Madefire website states the company entered into “an assignment of benefit for creditors” (explained as “a state-level insolvency proceeding similar to bankruptcy”) earlier this month, which was then reported this morning in The Beat. As a result, no new books will be published, users will not be able to purchase any additional books and they’re also encouraged to download all their purchased content before the end of the month.

This news affects other apps built with Madefire’s technology. The Archie comics app has shut down as well, with the publisher writing, “We realize this comes as a surprise and we are making every effort to do right by our loyal customer base,” specifically by offering readers a free one-month subscription to Comixology Unlimited. (Amazon acquired digital comics platform Comixology in 2014, launching an Unlimited subscription service two years later.)

Madefire first launched in 2012, back when publishers were experimenting with formats like motion comics. The company described its titles as “motion books,” combining the animation and effects of motion comics with a more traditional reading experience.

“Motion comics are a passive experience, a watching experience that is tantamount to bad animation – it’s like watching a movie,” co-founder and CEO Ben Wolstenholme said at the time. “Motion Books is a reading experience, actively controlled by the reader – it’s like reading a book. Our goal is to be the best reading experience developed for the iPad.”

Perhaps the most impressive thing about the company was the artists it had enlisted before launch, including Dave Gibbons and Bill Sienkiewicz.

More recently, Madefire announced partnerships with other tech platforms, including Snapchat and troubled augmented reality company Magic Leap.

According to Crunchbase, Madefire had raised $16.4 million in funding from investors including True Ventures, Plus Capital, Kevin Spacey (yes, that Kevin Spacey) and Drake, but The Beat reports that the total was “even more than that.”

Digital comics startup Madefire launches its first virtual reality app

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MoviePass co-founder’s PreShow Interactive raises $3M to expand into gaming

PreShow Interactive is giving gamers a new way to earn in-game currency in exchange for watching ads — a concept that’s become familiar in mobile games but hasn’t really made much headway on PCs or consoles.

The startup is led by MoviePass’ founding CEO Stacy Spikes. When I spoke to Spikes about PreShow two years ago, he was beta testing an app that provided users with free movie tickets in exchange for watching ads. But obviously, theatrical moviegoing has taken a big hit in the past year.

Spikes told me yesterday that he’d always hoped to bring the PreShow concept to four categories — theatrical movies, gaming, subscription streaming and video on demand — but the pandemic forced the startup to shift focus more quickly than expected and explore what a gaming experience might look like.

The current plans is to launch a new PreShow Interactive app this summer, where viewers can connect their in-game accounts and identify how much virtual currency they want to earn. Then they watch a package of ads and PreShow will automatically transfer the currency to their account — in other words, it’s buying the currency for them.

Users will have to download a separate app to watch the ads and get the benefits, but Spikes said this is actually better than trying to integrate advertising or branded content into the game itself, which can be a slow process for the developer and the advertiser, while also being distracting for the players. And this means PreShow Interactive should able to support 20,000 games at launch, across PCs, consoles and virtual reality.

Image Credits: PreShow Interactive

“We just didn’t see the purpose of spending the time on integrations when it’s not really necessary,” he added. “Our deal is only with the consumer for their time. We’re saying, ‘This is your time. It has value.‘”

One of the key elements to Preshow’s approach is technology that can detect when the viewer is actually looking at their phone screen — the ads will stop playing if you turn away. This has been criticized as “creepy surveillance tech,” but Spikes claimed that early PreShow users have embraced it. He also argued that it’s more transparent than the data collection and targeting currently driving online advertising.

“We used to think data was the new oil, but now our feeling is that permission and engagement and attention is the new oil,” he said.

In addition to revealing its new strategy, PreShow is announcing that it has raised $3 million in seed funding led by Harlem Capital, with participation Canaan Partners, Wavemaker Partners, Front Row Fund, ROC Fund, BK Fulton and Monroe Harris.

And to be clear, Spikes said PreShow isn’t abandoning theatrical movies. He said that the PreShow app will eventually offer both movie and gaming deals “under one roof,” but brands aren’t currently eager to advertise to moviegoers.

“We’re ready to go when the marketplace is ready to go,” he said.

MoviePass co-founder’s new startup PreShow gives you free movie tickets for watching ads

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Smartphone shipments jumped 27% globally in Q1

More good news from a smartphone market currently rebounding from the far reaching impacts of the pandemic. New numbers from Canalys put global shipments for Q1 2021 at 27% above where they were the same time last year.

The industry was hit early and hit hard by Covid-19. The first quarter saw company running into serious supply chain issues as the pandemic first hit China and parts of Asia where most manufacturing occurs. Following that, demand began to slow, as fewer people were interested in buying mobile devices, coupled with broader economic and job impacts.

Image Credits: Canalys

Samsung continued to lead the way globally, with 76.5 million, up from 59.6 million, representing a 28% jump, year-over-year. In all, the company controls around 22% of global shipments (same as a year prior).

In second place, Apple represented the biggest jump of the quarter, with a 41% increase from 37.1 million to 52.4 million. That no doubt owes substantially to the big upgrades that arrived toward to the end of last year. Huawei’s struggles, meanwhile, have knocked the company out of the top five.

“Xiaomi is in pole position to be the new Huawei,” said Canalys’ Ben Stanton said in a release. “Its competitors offer superior channel margin, but Xiaomi’s sheer volume actually gives distributors a better opportunity to make money than rival brands. But the race is not over. Oppo and Vivo are hot on its heels, and are positioning in the mid-range in many regions to box Xiaomi in at the low end.”

The study also notes that LG’s exit from the category should mix things up a bit, as well, particularly in the Americas region, which accounted for 80% of the company’s sales last year.

Apple sales bounce back in China as Huawei loses smartphone crown

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Vivid Money raises $73 million to build a European financial super app

German startup Vivid Money has raised a new $73 million Series B funding round (€60 million) led by Greenoaks with existing investor Ribbit Capital also participating. Following today’s funding round, Vivid Money has reached a valuation of $436 million (€360 million).

Vivid Money could be considered as a Revolut competitor designed specifically for the Eurozone. Built on top of Solarisbank for the banking infrastructure, the company lets you send, receive, spend, invest and save money in different ways.

When you create an account, you get a German IBAN that starts with DE as well as a metal card. There are no card details on the card itself — everything is available in the app instead. Like other fintech startups, Vivid Money lets you control your card from the app — you can lock it and unlock it, add it to Google Pay and Apple Pay, etc.

After that, you can top up your account and hold dozens of different currencies. When you pay with your card abroad, the startup applies a small mark-up on the current exchange rate — you should get a better exchange rate than what you usually get with a regular bank.

In addition to this fairly standard feature set, Vivid Money offers stock trading with fractional shares. You can invest in stocks and ETFs and there’s no commission. Similarly, you can buy, hold and share cryptocurrencies from the app. The startup has partnered with CM Equity AG for those features.

The company also has a cashback program and a premium subscription for €9.90 per month. Paid users get higher limits on free cash withdrawals, the ability to create a virtual card, support for additional currencies and better cashback rewards.

Finally, users can create sub-accounts called pockets. You can move money around from one pocket to another and add other users to your pockets. Each pocket has its own IBAN, which means that you can pay for certain bills with a separate pocket. You can also associate your card with a specific pocket for upcoming purchases.

Vivid Money has managed to add a ton of features in no time. It now has a ton of money on its bank account. Now let’s see if it can attract a significant user base to compete with other, well-established European fintech players.

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Daily Crunch: Uber adds vaccine booking

Uber unveils half a dozen new features, Samsung announces a new flagship laptop and Zomato files to go public. This is your Daily Crunch for April 28, 2021.

The big story: Uber adds vaccine booking

Uber announced a half dozen new features today, including the ability to make a vaccine appointment at Walgreens and then reserve a ride to get there.

Other additions include a valet service to drop off rental cars, reserved rides at airports and the ability to pick up food during a ride. In an interview, CPO Sundeep Jain suggested that these features are part of the company’s key focus for the past year, namely “helping users ‘go’ and helping users ‘get.’”

The tech giants

Here’s Samsung’s new flagship laptop series, the Galaxy Book Pro — These Windows machines continue the company’s push to blur some of the productivity lines between its Galaxy PC and mobile offerings.

Facebook hides posts calling for PM Modi’s resignation in India — Facebook temporarily hid all posts with the hashtag “ResignModi” in India, although a spokesperson said those posts have now been restored.

Netflix launches its shuffle feature, now called ‘Play Something,’ to users worldwide — This should make it easier to find something to watch when you can’t make a decision on your own.

Startups, funding and venture capital

Alchemy raises $80M at a $505M valuation to be the ‘AWS for blockchain’ — The company describes itself as the backend technology behind the blockchain industry.

MessageBird acquires SparkPost for $600M using $800M Series C extension — The acquisition enables MessageBird to get a stronger foothold in the U.S. market.

Splitwise raises $20M Series A to help everyone in the world divvy expenses — Splitwise aims to reduce the stress and awkwardness that money puts on relationships of all sorts.

Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch

Zomato juice: Indian unicorn’s proposed IPO could drive regional startup liquidity — Zomato’s debut could lead to a liquidity rush in India.

Dear Sophie: What’s the latest on DACA? — The latest edition of “Dear Sophie,” the advice column that answers immigration-related questions about working at technology companies.

Fund managers can leverage ESG-related data to generate insights — Apex Group’s Georges Archibald argues that environmental, social and governance insights can yield treasure in the form of alternative data.

(Extra Crunch is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.)

Everything else

CES will return to Las Vegas in 2022 — Per a press release, roughly 1,000 companies have committed to returning.

India’s entrepreneurs and investors are mobilizing to help the nation fight COVID-19, and you can too — For a week straight, India has reported more than 300,000 daily new infections, about half of all the cases across the globe.

Porsche makes its case for an all-electric Taycan wagon — The Porsche Taycan 4 Cross Turismo offers a blend of practicality with a whole lot of power and speed for under $100,000.

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 3pm Pacific, you can subscribe here.

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Teen banking service Step raises $100M Series C, announces Steph Curry’s investment

Step, the digital banking service aimed at teens and endorsed by TikTok star Charli D’Amelio, announced this morning the close of a $100 million round of Series C funding after growing to over 1.5 million users just six months after launch. The new round, led by General Catalyst, comes shortly after Step’s $50 million Series B, announced at the end of last year after the startup hit half a million users in only two months post-launch.

The new round also includes participation from Step’s existing investors, Coatue, Stripe, Charli D’Amelio, The Chainsmokers, Will Smith and Jeffrey Katzenberg, and brings on newcomer Franklin Templeton, signaling a plan to move into investments is on the horizon. It also includes actor and musician Jared Leto. Step is also formally announcing NBA All-Star Stephen Curry as an investor, which had not previously been disclosed, as well as former Square executives, Sarah Friar, Jacqueline Reses and Gokul Rajaram.

As a result of the fundraise, Kyle Doherty of General Catalyst is joining Step’s board. To date, Step has raised over $175 million.

Image Credits: Step

According to CEO CJ MacDonald, Step hasn’t yet spent the money from its Series B yet, but believes the additional funds can help the startup to grow more quickly.

“We’ve signed up more than a million and a half accounts in the first six months. We’re signing up 10,000 accounts-plus a day, and there’s just a lot of things that we want to do to bring this to millions and millions of households to help educate the next generation be smarter with money,” he says. At the time of the Series B, for comparison, Step said it was adding round 7,000 to 10,000 accounts per day.

“Honestly we don’t need the capital,” MacDonald added. “It’s just we think speed to market is really key and we think we can accelerate our growth and invest in infrastructure.”

The company is also planning to hire across operations, engineering, product, and design, to double its now 65-person team over the next year.

Step today competes in a crowded market of mobile banking services aimed at a younger demographic, but it’s one of very few that targets teenagers ages 13 to 18. Through Step’s app, teens gain access to an FDIC-insured bank account without fees and a secured Visa card that helps them to establish credit before they turn 18. The app also offers Venmo-like functionality for sending money to friends.

Image Credits: Step

Step’s growth so far has benefitted from a combination of factors including word-of-mouth, use of social media, and its popular referral program, which has paid out a few dollars per new sign-up. Step has also leveraged its partnerships with social media influencers like D’Amelio and Josh Richards as well as celebs like Step investor Justin Timberlake.

The company believes the Curry announcement may also help to raise awareness about the banking app. As a father of three, if Curry talks about introducing Step to his own children, people will take notice.

While the additional funds are focused on driving growth, Step is also thinking about its future as its existing users begin to age up. The company plans to enter into the credit and lending market, as well as introduce investments at some point in the future. The Franklin Templeton investment could be useful here, MacDonald notes.

“Franklin [Templeton is] obviously, one of the largest financial institutions in the world. And, as we start thinking about investments and the journey of the customer, to have a great brand like Franklin Templeton that’s invested in this round — I think it’s just a testament to where they see the world going,” he says.

Step’s fundraise falls on the same day that competitor Current and Greenlight, both who focus on families, also raised new rounds.

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ZenGo raises $20 million for its secure crypto wallet app

ZenGo, a mobile app to manage your cryptocurrencies, has raised a $20 million Series A funding round led by Insight Partners. ZenGo is a non-custodial wallet, which means that the company doesn’t manage your crypto assets for you — you remain in control.

Other investors include Distributed Global and Austin Rief Ventures. Existing investors Benson Oak, Samsung Next, Elron, Collider Ventures, FJ Labs and others also participated in today’s funding round.

What makes ZenGo different from other wallet apps is that the company is trying to build something that is more secure than your average crypto wallet while remaining simple to use and understand. It competes with other non-custodial wallets, such as Coinbase Wallet (not Coinbase.com), Argent, etc.

In particular, ZenGo is based on multiparty computation (MPC). When you first create your wallet, ZenGo generates multiple secrets that are stored and encrypted in different ways. It means that the company can’t access your tokens directly and you can recover your wallet if you lose your phone.

Other crypto companies focused on infrastructure and enterprise clients have also opted for MPC as their security model. Fireblocks, a company that has recently raised $133 million, is one example.

But ZenGo is building a consumer app. In 2020, the company has processed over $100 million in crypto transactions from 100,000 users. ZenGo has reached the same milestone in the first three months of 2021 and added another 100,000 users.

You can browse DeFi projects through ZenGo and access savings pools. The startup takes a cut on these investments.

With today’s funding round, ZenGo plans to expand with the same philosophy in mind. You can expect support for more chains and assets, more partnerships and options to buy cryptocurrencies and convert them to fiat money, etc.

The company recently announced plans to launch a debit card. This way, users will be able to convert their crypto assets and then spend them wherever Visa cards are accepted. In other words, ZenGo is building a crypto super app with a focus on security.

Image Credits: ZenGo

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Mobile bank Current raises $220 million Series D, triples valuation to $2.2B

U.S.-based challenger bank Current, which has now grown to nearly 3 million users, announced this morning it has raised a $220 million round of Series D funding, led by new investor Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). The funding swiftly follows Current’s $131 million Series C at the end of last year, at which point the company had doubled its user base over just six months to over 2 million users.

As a result of the new roud, the fintech company has roughly tripled its valuation in five months’ time to $2.2 billion.

Other participants in the round include returning investors Tiger Global Management, TQ Ventures (the fund managed by media executive Scooter Braun), Avenir, Sapphire Ventures, Foundation Capital, Wellington Management and EXPA. David George, who led the round with a16z, will become a Current board member.

Current began its life as a teen debit card controlled by parents, but later expanded to offer personal checking accounts powered by the same underlying banking technology. Like a range of modern-day “neobanks,” or digital banks, the Current app offers a baseline of standard features like free overdrafts, no minimum balance requirements, faster direct deposits, instant spending notifications, banking insights, free ATMs, check deposits using your phone’s camera and more. It also last year launched a points rewards program in an effort to better differentiate its service from the growing number of competitors and became one of the first banks to transfer the early round of stimulus payments during the pandemic.

These days, Current is partnering with creators, like the recently announced MrBeast (aka Jimmy Donaldson), who said last week on his YouTube channel that he will personally send $1 to every 100,000 people who sign up using his Creator code. MrBeast is also an investor.

Like other fintechs in its same space, Current has benefitted from the younger generation’s adoption of mobile banking apps instead of larger, traditional banks, who they feel don’t serve their interests. Its average customer age is 27, for example. Digital banks can keep costs down by not having to pay for the overhead of brick-and-mortar locations, allowing them to roll out benefits like reduced or zero account fees and other consumer-friendly protections.

Current today continues to offer teen banking, in a challenger to mobile banking app Step, which has also leveraged social media influencers to get the word out with a younger demographic. But Step today is appealing to the 13 to 18-year old crowd directly, offering banking services and a secured card. Current, meanwhile, targets its service to the parents.

Its teen account costs $36 per year, while personal checking is available both as a free and premium ($4.99/mo) service. The company in the past has said its primary focus is the over 130 million Americans who live paycheck to paycheck.

Current says the new funds will be used to grow the company and its member base as it expands it range of banking products. One key area of new investment will be cryptocurrency, it says.

“This new generation of customers doesn’t want to bank in physical branches,” said a16z’s David George, in a statement. “We believe there will be a shift in the next 10 years to mobile and consumer-focused banking services powered by innovation in technology, and with Current’s exceptional growth over the past year, they’ve clearly demonstrated they’re at the forefront of this trend. Their product is among the best in the market, and they have proven an ability to reach customers who previously were unserved or underserved by traditional banks,” he said.

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DoorDash announces new pricing for restaurants, with commissions as low as 15%

DoorDash is announcing new pricing plans for the restaurants who use the platform for pickups and deliveries.

Before this, the company did not offer standardized pricing across restaurants. However, the question of how high delivery app fees might go (and how parsimonious the payments might be for restaurants as a result) prompted DoorDash to publish a long blog post about its fee structure last fall.

In fact, Oregon and Washington have passed caps on delivery fees, while lawmakers in California, New York and Texas have proposed similar caps. On a call with reporters to discuss the new pricing, DoorDash COO Christopher Payne denied that the company changed its pricing to appease lawmakers.

“This is not designed in response to legislation,” Payne said. “It’s designed in response to listening to restauranteurs and learning what they need.”

DoorDash now offers three plans to restaurants: DoorDash Basic, where restaurants only pay a 15% commission on deliveries, which shifts “a higher portion of the delivery cost to the customer” and supports a smaller delivery area; DoorDash Plus, where restaurants pay 25% to be part of DoorDash’s DashPass subscription program and get increased visibility in the DoorDash app; and DoorDash Premier, where restaurants pay 30% in exchange for the lowest customers fees, the largest delivery area and a growth guarantee of at least 20 orders per month across pickup, delivery and DoorDash-owned Caviar.

DoorDash acquires salad-making robotics startup, Chowbotics

Across all plans, DoorDash says it will now charge only a 6% commission on pickup orders.

The company’s announcement includes statements from restaurant owners who are adopting the new plans. For example, here’s Sherry Copeland, owner of Jai Meals in Plano, Texas:

Jai Meals operates out of a local mall, so delivery has been an important part of how I have made up for lost income over the past year of dine-in closures. Despite this, my previous commission didn’t work for my business; it was hard to absorb that high of a cost, especially when delivery became a large percentage of my orders. With the Basic plan, I can offer delivery to customers, who increasingly enjoy the convenience delivery provides, but at a cost that is more aligned with my products, my goals and my customers’ needs.

Payne said these plans will become available to all restaurants on DoorDash today, although it may take up to five days for the new pricing to fully take effect.  He added that DoorDash has been testing these plans over the past few months and that “we believe this will have negligible impact — no impact, really — on our economics, nor on Dasher earnings.”

DoorDash files to go public

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Daily Crunch: iOS 14.5 brings privacy changes and more

Apple’s latest software upgrade brings a big change, Roku accuses Google of anti-competitive behavior and Brex raises a big funding round. This is your Daily Crunch for April 26, 2021.

The big story: iOS 14.5 brings privacy changes and more

Apple released the latest version of its mobile operating system today, which includes the much-discussed App Tracking Transparency feature, allowing users to control which apps are sharing their data with third parties for ad-targeting purposes.

Other new features include Watch unlocking (which could help users avoid the annoying “I can’t unlock my phone with my masked face!” phenomenon), new emojis and more.

The tech giants

Roku alleges Google is using its monopoly power in YouTube TV carriage negotiations — Roku is alerting its customers that they may lose access to the YouTube TV channel on its platform after negotiations with Google went south.

Lyft sells self-driving unit to Toyota’s Woven Planet for $550M — Under the acquisition agreement, Lyft’s so-called Level 5 division will be folded into Woven Planet Holdings.

Apple commits to 20,000 US jobs, new North Carolina campus — Apple this morning announced a sweeping plan to invest north of $430 billion over the next five years.

Startups, funding and venture capital

Brex raises $425M at a $7.4B valuation, as the corporate spend war rages on — The company has also put together a new service called Brex Premium that costs $49 per month.

Founded by Australia’s national science agency, Main Sequence launches $250M AUD deep tech fund —  Main Sequence’s second fund will look at issues including healthcare accessibility, increasing the world’s food supply, industrial productivity and space.

Mighty Networks raises $50M to build a creator economy for the masses — The company is led by Gina Bianchini, the co-founder and former CEO of Ning.

Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch

Founders who don’t properly vet VCs set up both parties for failure — Due diligence isn’t a one-way street, and founders must do their homework to make sure they’re not jumping into deals with VCs who are only paying lip service to their value-add.

How Brex more than doubled its valuation in a year — An interview with CEO Henrique Dubugras about that giant funding round.

There is no cybersecurity skills gap, but CISOs must think creatively — Netskope’s Lamont Orange doesn’t buy the idea that millions of cybersecurity jobs are going unfilled because there aren’t enough qualified candidates.

(Extra Crunch is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.)

Everything else

How one founder partnered with NASA to make tires puncture-proof and more sustainable — This week’s episode of Found features The SMART Tire Company co-founder and CEO Earl Cole.

What the MasterClass effect means for edtech — MasterClass copycats are raising plenty of funding.

Hear about building AVs under Amazon from Zoox CTO Jesse Levinson at TC Sessions: Mobility 2021 — We’ll hear more about Zoox’s mission to develop and deploy autonomous passenger vehicles.

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 3pm Pacific, you can subscribe here.

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Dating app S’More bets on celebrity content with S’More TV

Dating startup S’More has launched a new feature called S’More TV, which CEO Adam Cohen-Aslatei said could give users new ways to talk to each other. It also bringing the startup closer to his goal of becoming not just a dating app, but “a lifestyle brand.”

The videos on S’More TV may be familiar to people who follow the company on Instagram, where Cohen-Aslatei has hosted dating-related interviews with celebrities like WWE stars Chelsea Green and Leah Van Dale, models Nichole Holmes and Sarah Miller and Mary Fitzgerald of “Selling Sunset.” Now, however, these videos are getting a home in the S’More app itself.

Cohen-Aslatei said this wasn’t the initial plan when he started filming videos for S’More Live, but eventually he and his team decided to do more with their “nearly 50 hours of exclusive celebrity content,” seeing them as “the first organic way to have content not related to a dating profile” in the app. He suggested that this isn’t just giving users another reason to open the app, but also a crucial conversation starter.

After all, anyone who’s had to start a conversation in a dating app will probably remember moments when you’ve struggled to come up with something better than “Hey” or “How’s it going?” — and S’More presents unique challenges on that front, since the app blurs all user photos until you’ve had some real interaction. So Cohen-Aslatei said these videos can spur a more natural conversation, allowing users to “really talk about topics that they care about.”

Image Credits: S’More

The S’More app now includes prompts directing users to watch S’More TV, where anyone can watch and comment on the videos. If you post a particularly scintillating comment, that may help to attract potential matches, and it will give them an easy starting point for the conversation.

In fact, Cohen-Aslatei claimed that since releasing S’More TV in beta testing, the app has seen Day One retention (the number of users who open the app one day after installation) increase by 15% to the “mid-60s,” while time in the app has doubled.

He also said S’More Live is quickly approaching its 100th episode, but you won’t see all of those episodes on the app right away. Instead, the company will be adding 15 new videos to the S’More app each month.

In addition, S’More has launched a new feature called cover photos. This is basically the one exception to the blurred photos rule (although it sounds like even this photo is subtly warped), allowing users to showcase a single image of their friends, their life or their personality even before they start a conversation.

Extra Crunch members get unlimited access to 12M stock images for $99 per year

‘Anti-superficial’ dating app S’More raises $2.1M

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Apple’s App Tracking Transparency feature has arrived — here’s what you need to know

iOS 14.5 — the latest version of Apple’s mobile operating system — is launching today, and with it comes a much-discussed new privacy feature called App Tracking Transparency.

The feature was first announced nearly a year ago, although the company delayed the launch to give developers more time to prepare. Since then, support for the feature has already gone live in iOS and some apps have already adopted it (for example, I’ve seen tracking requests from Duolingo and Venmo), but now Apple says it will actually start enforcing the new rules.

That means iPhone owners will start seeing many more privacy prompts as they continue using their regular apps, each one asking for permission to “track your activity across other companies’ apps and websites.” Every app that requests tracking permission will also show up in a Tracking menu within your broader iOS Privacy settings, allowing you to toggle tracking on and off any time — for individual apps, or for all of them.

What does turning tracking on or off actually do? If you say no to tracking, the app will no longer be able to use Apple’s IDFA identifier to share data about your activity with data brokers and other third parties for ad-targeting purposes. It also means the app can no longer use other identifiers (like hashed email addresses) to track you, although it may be more challenging for Apple to actually enforce that part of the policy.

Image Credits: Apple

There’s been intense debate around App Tracking Transparency in the lead up to its launch. The pro-ATT side is pretty easy to explain: There’s a tremendous amount of personal information and activity that’s being collected about consumers without their consent (as Apple outlined in a report called A Day in the Life of Your Data), and this gives us a simple way to control that sharing.

However, Facebook has argued that by dealing a serious blow to ad targeting, Apple is also hurting small businesses that depend on targeting to affordable, effective ad campaigns.

The social network even took out ads in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post declaring that it’s “standing up to Apple for small businesses everywhere.” (The Electronic Frontier Foundation dismissed the campaign as “a laughable attempt from Facebook to distract you from its poor track record of anticompetitive behavior and privacy issues as it tries to derail pro-privacy changes from Apple that are bad for Facebook’s business.”)

Others have suggested that these changes could do “existential” damage to some developers and advertisers, while also benefiting Apple’s bottom line.

The full impact will depend, in part, on how many people choose to opt out of tracking. It’s hard to imagine many normal iPhone owners saying yes when these prompts start to appear — especially since developers are not allowed to restrict any features based on who opts into or out of tracking. However mobile attribution company AppsFlyer says that early data suggests that opt-in rates could be as high as 39%.

Apple shares more details about its imminent App Tracking Transparency feature

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176981 https://techcrunch.com/2021/04/26/apples-app-tracking-transparency-feature-has-arrived-heres-what-you-need-to-know/
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Facebook introduces a new miniplayer that streams Spotify within the Facebook app

Facebook announced last week an expanded partnership with streaming music service Spotify that would bring a new way to listen to music or podcasts directly within Facebook’s app, which it called Project Boombox. Today, the companies are rolling out this integration via a new “miniplayer” experience that will allow Facebook users to stream from Spotify through the Facebook app on iOS or Android. The feature will be available to both free Spotify users and Premium subscribers.

The miniplayer itself is an extension of the social sharing option already supported within Spotify’s app. Now, when Spotify users are listening to content they want to share to Facebook, they’ll be able to tap the existing “Share” menu (the three dot-menu at the upper right of the screen) and then tap either “Facebook” or “Facebook News Feed.”

When a user posts an individual track or podcast episode to Facebook through this sharing feature, the post will now display in a new miniplayer that allows other people who come across their post to also play the content as they continue to scroll, or reshare it. (Cue MySpace vibes!)

Spotify’s paid subscribers will be able to access full playback, the company says. Free users, meanwhile, will be able to hear the full shared track, not a clip . But afterwards, they’ll continue to listen to ad-supported content on Shuffle mode, just as they would in Spotify’s own app.

One important thing to note here about all this works is that the integration allows the music or podcast content to actually play from within the Spotify app. When a user presses play on the miniplayer, an app switch takes place so the user can log into Spotify. The miniplayer activates and controls the launch and playback in the Spotify app — which is how the playback is able continue even as the user scrolls on Facebook or if they minimize the Facebook app altogether.

This setup means users will need to have the Spotify mobile app installed on their phone and a Spotify account for the miniplayer to work. For first-time Spotify users, they’ll have to sign up for a free account in order to listen to the music shared via the miniplayer.

Spotify notes that it’s not possible to sign up for a paid account through the mini-player experience itself, so there’s no revenue share with Facebook on new subscriptions. (Users have to download the Spotify app and sign up for Paid accounts from there if they want to upgrade.)

The partnership allows Spotify to leverage Facebook’s reach to gain distribution and to drive both sign-ups and repeat usage of its app just as the Covid bump to subscriber growth may be wearing off. However, it’s still responsible for the royalties paid on streams, just as it was before, the company told TechCrunch, because its app is the one actually doing the streaming. It’s also fully in charge of the music catalog and audio ads that play alongside the content.

For Facebook, this deal means it now has a valuable tool to keep users spending time on its site — a metric that has been declining over the years, reports have indicated.

Spotify and Facebook have a long history of working together on music efforts. Facebook back in 2011 had been planning an update that would allow music subscription users to engage with music directly on Facebook, much like this. But those plans were later dialed back, possibly over music rights’ or technical issues. Spotify had also been one of the first media partners on Facebook’s ticker, which would show you in real-time what friends were up to on Facebook and other services. And Spotify had once offered Facebook Login as the default for its mobile app. Today, as it has for years, Spotify users on the desktop can see what their Facebook friends are streaming on its app, thanks to social networking integrations.

The timing for this renewed and extended partnership is interesting. Now, both Facebook and Spotify have a mutual enemy with Apple, whose privacy-focused changes are impacting Facebook’s ad business and whose investments in Apple Music and Podcasts are a threat to Spotify. As Facebook’s own music efforts in more recent years have shifted towards partnership efforts — like music video integrations enabled by music label agreements — it makes sense that it would turn to a partner like Spotify to power a new streaming feature that supports Facebook’s broader efforts around monetizable tools and services aimed at the creator economy.

The miniplayer feature had been tested in non-U.S. markets, Mexico and Thailand, ahead of its broader global launch today.

In addition to the U.S., the integration is fully rolling out to users in Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, South Africa, Thailand, and Uruguay.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176981 https://techcrunch.com/2021/04/26/facebook-introduces-a-new-miniplayer-that-streams-spotify-within-the-facebook-app/
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Engineered earworms on TikTok aren’t that far off from disinfo campaigns

Ever since I read this Bloomberg story about how songs are engineered to go viral on TikTok, I’ve had one thought in my head – if you can call it that – it’s more of a noise, or impression: 

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Yes, it’s the sound of internally screaming. Just when I thought I understood how deeply social media algorithms have hijacked our desires, tastes and preferences – WHAM! Another jab straight to the nose. I have to admit, I was blindsided by this one. It knocked me out.

Now, I understand that I work for a website called TechCrunch, emphasis on the tech, but if this story doesn’t make you feel at least a teensy bit like a Luddite, well, I don’t know what to tell you. You’re probably like that character in the Matrix, Cypher, who wants to be plugged in.

Is that harsh? I mean, companies are going to company, and partnerships with major record labels is a common sense move for a social media app all about honing the art of short, clever combinations of sound and video. And fair dues to the creators, many of them in college or high school, for jumping at the chance to make some money and get a little bit of fame.

But it’s probably not too harsh when you consider what else is possible when catchiness is weaponized. Here’s what we know: whether it’s internet memes or political slogans or Megan Thee Stallion’s Savage, what drives information dissemination is not the truthfulness of the content or the credibility of the speaker but 1) how easy it is to remember and 2) how quickly it sparks conversations. 

And would you look at that! Those are exactly the variables music producers optimize for today. What the Bloomberg story highlights, inadvertently or not, is how a #1 pop hit and a piece of political disinformation are not all that different, aesthetically. Everyone’s an entertainer.

Now read to the end of the Bloomberg story. Get to the part where it’s revealed that ByteDance (the Chinese company that owns TikTok), in response to threats of a U.S. ban on the app, recruited creators to orchestrate a seemingly grassroots lawsuit against the proposed ban. And I think: damn. Attention really is the most precious commodity in the world. And we’re just…giving it away.

(Cue the internal screams.)

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176981 https://techcrunch.com/2021/04/23/engineered-earworms-on-tiktok-arent-that-far-off-from-disinfo-campaigns/
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Google Fi turns 6 and gets a new unlimited plan

Google Fi, Google’s cell network, is turning six today and to celebrate, the team is launching a new pricing plan, dubbed “Simply Unlimited” starting at $60 per month for a single line (down to $30 per line for three lines or more). The new plan features unlimited calls and texts in the U.S., plus unlimited data and texting in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

Image Credits: Google

You may recall that Fi’s original promise was a single, affordable pay-as-you-go plan where you would pay a fixed price per month for the basic call and texting service and then pay an extra $10 per GB of data you used per billing cycle, capped at $80 per month. In 2019, Google then turned this into what is essentially an unlimited plan, dubbed Fi Unlimited, starting at $70 per month for a single line, with discounts for additional lines.

The new “Simply Unlimited” plan is a pared-down version of the original Unlimited plan, which is now called the Unlimited Plus plan (yeah, that’s a lot of names). Now, that plan has still a lot of extra features that power users aren’t likely willing to give up for a slightly lower price. In addition to everything in the new Simply Unlimited plan, this plan still features free international calls to more than 50 countries and international data in more than 200 destinations, plus full-speed hotspot tethering and 100 GB of Google One cloud storage.

The Flexible plan is also still an option, with its base fee of $20 per month for texting and calling for a single line (down to $17 per month for three lines) and $10 per GB of data, no matter whether you use if abroad or at home — or for hotspot tethering. Google says that’s the plan to choose if you’re mostly on WiFi — as most of us are right now.

Basically, if you’re not planning to use your phone outside of North America, the new Simply Unlimited plan looks like a good deal that, depending on your use case, compares favorably with similarly priced plans from other carriers — especially if international data is important to you.

Image Credits: Google

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176981 https://techcrunch.com/2021/04/22/google-fi-turns-6-and-gets-a-new-unlimited-plan/
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Samsung opens beta on Galaxy Upcycling to breathe new life into old phones

Samsung announced Galaxy Upcycling a few years back, but has largely been quiet on that front, aside from some stage time at CES back in January. Today the company announced that Upcycling at Home is being opened to beta today for users in the U.S., Korea and the U.K.

It’s a pretty novel program, in a world where consumers are encouraged to scrap their old devices every two to three years for something shiny and new. The program is designed to breathe new life into handsets that might otherwise be tossed in a landfill or stashed away in a drawer.

Image Credits: Samsung

“We are rethinking how we use existing resources, and we believe the key to upcycling is to enable solutions that transform old technology into something new by adding value,” VP Sung-Koo Kim said in a release tied to the news. “We are committed to integrating sustainable practices into our day-to-day lives, and through Galaxy Upcycling at Home, users can join our journey toward a more sustainable future.”

Specifically, the products can be revamped into smart home devices, like childcare and pet monitors.

The feature can be accessed within the SmartThings Labs feature found in Samsung’s SmartThings App. When enabled, the product can send alerts when things like a crying baby or barking dog are detected. The recorded sound will be sent as part of the alert. Another feature uses built-in sensors to turn on a room’s lights when things get dark. The service will optimize device battery so it can operate for an extended period while detecting these inputs.

Samsung’s upcycling program is designed to give new life to old tech

Giving EV batteries a second life for sustainability and profit

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176981 https://techcrunch.com/2021/04/21/samsung-opens-beta-on-galaxy-upcycling-to-breathe-new-life-into-old-phones/
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