Important Note

Tech Narratives was a subscription website, which offered expert commentary on the day's top tech news from Jan Dawson, along with various other features, for $10/month. As of Monday October 16, 2017, it will no longer be updated. An archive of past content will remain available for the time being. I've written more about this change in the post immediately below, and also here.

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    Uber’s CEO Search is a Mess, in Part Because Kalanick Remains Involved (Jul 31, 2017)

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    Tesla Model 3 Debuts with No Product Reviews But No Shortage of Hype (Jul 31, 2017)

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    Spotify Has 60 Million Paid Subscribers (Jul 31, 2017)

    The Financial Times reports that Spotify has hit the 60 million paid subscriber milestone, a fact that has now been confirmed by the company’s press site, where it also says it has 140 million active users in total, suggesting 80 million free users. It had previously reported 50 million paid users in early March of this year, suggesting it took just under 5 months to add a million subscribers, while Apple Music added around half that over the same period. It’s been fascinating to watch Spotify’s growth accelerate in the aftermath of Apple’s launch of its competing service, as streaming takes off as the dominant form of music consumption and paid subscriptions generate the vast majority of streaming revenue. That’s indicative of Spotify’s success in both establishing itself as the de facto standard in the market and creating social features that help win new subscribers, and also at signing partnerships with wireless carriers and others who help promote discounted subscriptions. As Spotify’s financial results for last year show, its average revenue per paid subscriber has been dropping rapidly, something I suspect has continued this year. But it’s the paid business that’s profitable on a segment basis, while free streaming loses money, which is why I suggested in a piece for Variety last week that it ditch the free tier. I’m only partially serious about that – the free tier remains by far Spotify’s best marketing tool, but it also remains a point of contention with the music labels, among which Warner is the remaining holdout in signing a new long-term deal.

    via Financial Times


    Discovery to Acquire Scripps Networks for $14.6 Billion (Jul 31, 2017)

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    iPhone Design and Feature Details Show Up in HomePod Firmware (Jul 31, 2017)

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    Charter Says it Doesn’t Want to Buy Sprint (Jul 31, 2017)

    There were lots of reports over the weekend that Sprint and Charter were approaching a tie-up, just after the end of the exclusive negotiating period between the two and Comcast which began just over a month ago. However, Charter has now come out and said that it’s not interested in buying Sprint, which isn’t necessarily the deal being discussed, but is as close as Charter can get to saying it’s not interested in any deal, given that it has a fiduciary responsibility to keep the door to potential acquisition offers open. It’s been fascinating to watch this latest round of SoftBank-driven Sprint merger mania, because whereas last time Sprint was to merge with another player (T-Mobile), it was the US government that shot it down. This time around, the biggest barrier is a lack of willing partners. T-Mobile is certainly far less in need of the merger now than it arguably was several years ago, while the cable companies may well want to merge with a wireless industry, just not the weakest of the big four US providers. Sprint has the poorest network, the poorest financial performance, the lowest overall subscriber growth, and the least subscribers of any of the big four operators, making it the least attractive merger partner of the four, with T-Mobile much more enticing at this point. It’s still possible that SoftBank will try to buy Charter, and if the price is high enough that Charter’s management will feel they have to accept the offer, but it’s clear at this point that this will happen against their stated wishes, which will make any merger process that much more challenging than it would already have been.

    via WSJ


    Apple Removes VPN Apps from Chinese Version of App Store (Jul 31, 2017)

    Apple has removed VPN apps from the Chinese version of its App Store for iOS devices, in compliance with the Chinese government’s edict that VPNs have to be licensed to be able to operate. This is yet another example of the difficult line foreign tech companies have to walk in China, complying for the most part with local regulations, even those designed to enable censorship, while preserving freedom of speech in other markets around the world. This is a gray area that Apple hasn’t had to deal with as much as content-centric companies like Facebook and Google, both of which eventually exited China (one forced out, the other choosing to leave rather than submit to censorship requirements), but that’s been starting to change. In the past year and a half, we’ve seen some of Apple’s content offerings like iBooks, individual apps like the New York Times, and now categories such as VPNs blocked, while the government has also forced cloud service providers to work through local companies for data centers. As I’ve said before, so far Apple can simply say it’s complying with local laws and regulations as it does elsewhere, and that will provide some cover, although it hasn’t insulated it entirely from criticism over this latest move. This move in particular further reduces the ability of users with Chinese App Store accounts to get access to otherwise blocked news and information, but a recent crackdown on VPN use makes that challenging anyway. But so far the Chinese government hasn’t forced Apple to break any of its own cardinal rules, including protecting user privacy and security. If and when the Chinese government ever does cross that line, that will be the real test for Apple and could end up being very bad for its business in China. So far, thankfully, it hasn’t come to that. Also worth noting in this context: Russia has just passed legislation that bans the use of VPNs in the country, and although it’s a far less important market for Apple than China, the company will have to deal with some of the same issues there once the law kicks in this November.

    via TechCrunch


    Daily Podcast Episode 24 – July 28, 2017 (Jul 28, 2017)

    The daily podcast episode for July 28 is up now on SoundCloud and should be syncing shortly to iTunes, Overcast, and other podcast apps. As usual, the podcast spends about one minute on each of the items covered on the site today, and also points to a few other items in the news today which I didn’t cover but which are nonetheless interesting. You can find today’s episode on SoundCloud and all episodes on iTunes, Overcast, and so on. The additional items covered are below:


    Baidu Q2 Results Rebound Significantly From Recent Weakness (Jul 28, 2017)

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    Facebook Adds New Features to Messenger for Businesses (Jul 28, 2017)

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    Netflix Takes Out $500m Line of Credit to Finance Content Binge (Jul 28, 2017)

    This may help explain why Netflix laid out its content economics in even more detail than usual in last week’s earnings material: it’s apparently taking out a further $500 million line of credit, with an option to extend that by an additional $250 million. The driver is clearly its rapidly growing investment in original content, which has to be paid for up front, in contrast to the existing content it licenses, which is paid for as it’s made available on the site. All of that means that shifting to original content pushes cash burn much earlier in the process and thereby dramatically increases Netflix’s negative free cash flow, something I explained in some detail in this Variety piece last month. As I’ve said before, there’s no real reason why this should be a concern for investors, as long as Netflix is able to keep up its rapid pace of revenue growth, which is currently more than enough to fund its content investments and justify its increased borrowing. But the company’s debt load continues to rise fairly rapidly and at some point it will need to ease off and see that free cash flow picture change to something more positive.

    via Variety


    Huawei Sees Decent but Slower Growth in H1, Preps Mate 10 Flagship (Jul 28, 2017)

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    Nokia Says it Received $2 Billion From A Recent Apple Patent Settlement (Jul 28, 2017)

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    iRobot CEO Backtracks on Roomba Data Sale Comments (Jul 28, 2017)

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    Microsoft Adds AI-Powered Search and Automation to Photos App in Windows (Jul 28, 2017)

    Microsoft is adding some clever AI-powered image recognition, search, and automation features to the latest version of its Windows Photos app. It doesn’t sound like there’s anything here that will exceed the functionality of existing apps from Google or Apple, but just achieving parity would be a big step forward for Microsoft, which has always been bafflingly slow in addressing people’s needs to manage their photo libraries. Given how many people must store their photos on Windows computers, this is something Microsoft should have addressed long ago. Nokia was another company that always emphasized photography and yet never gave people a great way to manage the pictures they took on their phones, so the fact that Microsoft didn’t jump on the opportunity when it acquired the devices business from Nokia was another odd omission. At any rate, Microsoft now seems to be taking some of these advanced consumer features more seriously, as evidenced by the fantastic video creation tools in the forthcoming version of Windows, and these Photos changes are another positive move in this direction. This is low-hanging fruit as Microsoft looks to burnish its consumer and creativity credentials.

    via Engadget


    Twitter is Beta Testing a $99/Month Subscription Ad Service for SMBs (Jul 28, 2017)

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    Daily Podcast Episode 23 – July 27, 2017 (Jul 27, 2017)

    The daily podcast episode for July 27 is up now on SoundCloud and should be syncing shortly to iTunes, Overcast, and other podcast apps. As usual, the podcast spends about one minute on each of the items covered on the site today, and also points to a few other items in the news today which I didn’t cover but which are nonetheless interesting. You can find today’s episode on SoundCloud and all episodes on iTunes, Overcast, and so on. The additional items covered are below:


    ★ Amazon Reports Strong Growth, Much Smaller Margins in Q2 (Jul 27, 2017)

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    Google Says it Plans to Train 10 Million Africans in Online Skills (Jul 27, 2017)

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    Procter & Gamble Says Slashed Digital Ad Spend by $140m, Saw Sales Rise Anyway (Jul 27, 2017)

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