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.
Google Upgrades Feed, its Google Now Replacement (Jul 19, 2017)
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Samsung Launches Bixby to All in the US Three Months After Galaxy S8 Launch (Jul 19, 2017)
When the Samsung Galaxy S8 devices were preparing to launch, some were caught off guard by the fact that the English language version of its Bixby voice interface wouldn’t be available when it went on sale. Later, Bixby was released as a limited public beta in the US, and today it’s going to be available as an update to all US owners of the devices, roughly three months after the devices went on sale. At launch, Samsung faced a conundrum: ship a version that wasn’t ready and risk people’s first experiences with Bixby putting them off for life, or delay one of the headline features of the phone for several months, and in the end it plumped for the latter. That was smart, and there seems to have been little backlash about the delay from users (perhaps suggesting they mostly don’t care about it). Reviews based on the early beta release suggested there were some big issues and bugs, but the Journal piece linked here is more positive about it. The big issue remains Samsung’s framing of Bixby as an interface rather than an assistant, after years of smartphone users being trained to see the two as essentially synonymous. But Bixby is definitely not a broad assistant: it can’t answer questions about the world (or in many cases your slice of it), but is very good at controlling device functions and settings, at least within Samsung’s own apps. My brief testing suggests Bixby still pretty glitchy, even in the setup process. The list of third party apps offering Bixby integration hasn’t got much longer since my testing of the device at Samsung’s launch event, and that will be another key challenge here: an assistant that only works for some apps but not others ends up not being very assistive: consistency is the key, something that other assistants have demonstrated through their inconsistency too. If users do adopt Bixby for the things it can do, it’s likely they’ll do so alongside the Google Assistant, which can handle most of the rest, but I could also see many users giving up on Bixby and using just Google’s tool as the one voice interface most likely to help them get things done on their phone. Relatedly, there are reports today that Samsung won’t in fact be making a Bixby voice speaker, something it was reported to be working on earlier, and which I had said made little sense in the context of Bixby as an interface rather than an assistant.
via WSJ
Apple Appoints Senior Engineer as First MD of Greater China (Jul 19, 2017)
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Facebook Confirms News Subscriptions Coming in October (Jul 19, 2017)
Campbell Brown, the former news anchor Facebook appointed as head of News Partnerships in January, has finally confirmed what’s been rumored for some time now, namely that Facebook is readying a subscription product for newspapers. It sounds like it will adopt the familiar though not universal approach of allowing readers to access ten articles before having to pay for a subscription to a given publication, though it’s not clear that the ten articles will include those readers read separately in their browsers, so that will be a key point for papers to nail down before signing up. Another will be payments and how those will work, since Facebook still doesn’t have credit card details from the vast majority of its users. Since some publications don’t allow any free articles before the paywall kicks in, this won’t be a perfect or universal solution, but on paper should neutralize one of the big criticisms of Facebook’s gobbling up of news consumption. However, given that this has been in the works for some time, and the largest publications will be aware of that, the recent PR push by the News Media Alliance against both Facebook and Google suggests that it certainly won’t assuage all their concerns. Update: also today, Facebook announced analytics for Instant Articles with support from Nielsen, to allow publishers to compare results from their IA and web-based versions. The lack of comparable analytics has been another bugbear for the news organizations using IA, so this should check another box in resolving those concerns, at least on paper.
via TheStreet
Daily Podcast Episode 16 – July 18, 2017 (Jul 18, 2017)
The daily podcast episode for July 18 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.
Cable Network Owners Discovery and Scripps in Merger Talks (Jul 18, 2017)
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that two cable network owners, Discovery Communications and Scripps Networks, are discussing a merger, though there seems no guarantee that a deal will actually get done. The two are among the mid-tier cable network owners in the US, similar sized domestically while Discovery has a significant international business too. Combined, they would be the size of HBO domestically, and the size of Viacom including the international business. Each company has several networks which reach the vast majority of US households by being in the basic cable tier, but Scripps also has several less widely distributed networks, and the biggest thing they have in common is their focus on non-fiction, non-sports content, an important slice of overall content consumption but missing arguably the most popular dramas, comedies, and sports content that most people consume a great deal of. There have been recent talks about sports-free pay TV packages involving Discovery, though not Scripps. The reality is that the cable network business is only going to become more challenging in the coming years as subscriber numbers and ratings continue to drop in the face of cord cutting, cord shaving, and shifting consumption patterns driven by online video services like Netflix. Joining forces would boost scale and negotiating power and therefore help somewhat, but even the combined company would be dwarfed by the industry giants like Time Warner, Disney, and 21st Century Fox in the cable network business alone. I could see some standalone streaming services coming out of all this too, especially for non-sports fans, but I don’t see any of this solving the underlying problems cable network owners face today or in the future.
via WSJ
Twitter is Still Mishandling Abuse and Harassment Reports (Jul 18, 2017)
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Chinese Censors Now Block Images in Unencrypted Messaging Apps in Flight (Jul 18, 2017)
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Fitbit CEO Talks up Forthcoming Smartwatch (Jul 18, 2017)
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Sizmek to Acquire Fellow Ad Tech Company Rocket Fuel for $125.5 Million (Jul 18, 2017)
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Amazon’s Meal Prep Service Has Already Quietly Launched (Jul 18, 2017)
It turns out that the Amazon meal prep service suggested by a recently filed trademark application has already launched quietly in some areas, including Seattle. Just as I suggested in my piece yesterday, it seems the service is being offered as a feature of the Amazon Fresh grocery shopping service, and is dubbed Amazon Meal Kits. Just as Amazon’s recently launched clothing box service Prime Wardrobe ditches the subscription element common with competing services, so the Meal Kits are one-off purchases rather than a subscription, which lowers the barriers to trying it out. The product is a box of ingredients with instructions on how to prepare a meal, and GeekWire managed to find a customer who’d used the service and enjoyed it. With the fairly low profile MealKits have for now, it’s not likely to have an immediate impact on competitors like BlueApron, but as it ramps up and starts to be promoted more heavily, it will start to gain significant share in this market where it’s available.
via GeekWire
Google Glass Relaunched as Enterprise and Industrial Product (Jul 18, 2017)
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Google Loses Another Fiber CEO, After Five Months on the Job (Jul 18, 2017)
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Daily Podcast Episode 15 – July 17, 2017 (Jul 17, 2017)
The daily podcast episode for July 17 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.
Microsoft Planning to Make Changes in Response to Backlash Against Skype Changes (Jul 17, 2017)
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★ Netflix Q2 Earnings: Later House of Cards Launch Drives Strong Sub Growth (Jul 17, 2017)
Netflix today kicked off the Q2 earnings season with the first official earnings from a company that I cover, and reported stronger than expected subscriber growth off the back of a House of Cards season launch that was pushed back from Q1. Netflix was way off on its sub growth forecast, and though it surprised on the upside this time around that hasn’t always been the case in several recent guidance misses. Even though Netflix didn’t mention it this quarter, the delayed HoC launch screwed around with lots of year on year comparisons both this quarter and last, since Q1 is usually by far its strongest quarter for subscriber adds and Q2 is usually the low point of the year. Taking a step back, though, Netflix continues on its recent tear, with international growth the major driver, and profits domestically continuing to grow nicely off the back of last year’s price increases. Importantly, Netflix is now projecting that the international business will be profitable on a contribution basis for 2017 as a whole, which will be another major milestone after total non-US subs surpassed US streaming subs for the first time in Q2. The cash flow drain continues to be rapid, with an average of over half a billion dollars per quarter in negative free cash flow over the past year, and over $2 billion in cash content costs in Q2, and $8 billion over the past year, relative to the $6 billion Netflix protected for 2017 on a P&L basis (see this Variety piece I wrote last month for why cash and P&L spending are so different). For now, the subscriber and associated revenue growth are keeping Netflix out ahead of its content spending, but Netflix absolutely has to continue to grow at close to the current rate if it’s to continue to finance massive original content costs and grow profits at the same time.
This is a good time to remind you about the Jackdaw Research Quarterly Decks Service I also offer, which provides slide decks and videos on roughly a dozen major tech companies including Netflix each quarter during earnings season. Tech Narratives subscribers get a 50% discount, so let me know if you’re interested and I’ll send you a coupon code. The Q2 Netflix deck is available now, and will be updated in a few days when the 10-Q is out with more data. You’ll find some of the charts in this Twitter thread from earlier.
via Netflix
Amazon Shows Signs of Readying Meal Prep and Messaging Services (Jul 17, 2017)
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Microsoft’s Windows 10 Starting to Reach End of Support on Some PCs (Jul 17, 2017)
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Amazon’s Video Direct Program Starting to Generate Meaningful Revenue for Creators (Jul 17, 2017)
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HTC Inadvertently Shows Some Users Ads in its On-Screen Keyboard (Jul 17, 2017)
Users of some of HTC’s devices, apparently mostly the HTC 10, are seeing ads popping up above the on-screen keyboard. Apparently, the issue was created by the company which provides the keyboard on a white-label basis to HTC (and apparently quite a few other Android manufacturers) and which offers a version with ads as well. Though it’s not directly HTC’s fault (or its intention to show ads, contrary to what some seem to have assumed), it’s definitely a sign of poor quality control that something like this could have slipped through the cracks. And it’s also indicative of a broader issue, which is Android vendors installing and setting as default alternatives to the default features and apps on their devices, even when those features and apps add very little value for the user (and in some cases, such as this, actively detract from it). Google’s own default keyboard on Android is fine, and avoiding it for the sake of having something custom does very little to help users while exposing HTC to risks like this mishap.
via Engadget