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.
Ford Announces New CEO, Who Formerly Headed its Mobility Initiatives (May 22, 2017)
It might seem odd at first glance that I’m covering an auto industry leadership change, but it’s news that’s very much in keeping with the “Tech Disrupts Transportation” narrative here on the site, and the nature of both the troubles that prompted the move and the move itself are reflective of that trend too. Mark Fields, who has been CEO for the last three years, is being replaced by Jim Hackett, who has been running Ford Smart Mobility. Although this New York Times piece and others this morning are focusing on the fact that FSM and therefore Hackett has owned Ford’s autonomous driving initiatives, that’s only part of its remit, and that’s worth noting. It also owns in-car connectivity, mobility itself (which is the industry term for ride sharing and other new ownership and other business models for cars), and data and analytics, among other things. In other words, with the exception of electrification, it has owned essentially all of what’s next in the automotive industry. That Fields would have put all that in a separate division is perhaps the biggest sign that he underestimated how central these changes would be to the future of the company, and it also makes sense to put the guy who’s been running all that in charge of the company at this point. Hackett will need to bring these initiatives to the forefront of what Ford does, along with electrification, where it’s moved more slowly than other car companies, if he’s to help turn Ford around. But he’s taking over at a really tough time in both the company’s history and the US automotive industry.
Uber’s Relationship with Pittsburgh Worsens (May 22, 2017)
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Weekly Narrative Video – Streaming is Saving Music (May 19, 2017)
This week’s Narrative Video is on the Streaming is Saving Music narrative. This narrative was in the news several times this week, with Spotify’s 2016 financials leaking, news that SiriusXM is debating a bid for Pandora, and Rhapsody’s announcement that it’s making layoffs and replacing its CEO. The reality is that streaming music is doing wonders for the music labels, but the streaming services themselves continue to struggle. And it’s worth noting that it’s paid subscription streaming specifically that’s really giving the industry a boost. The video talks through these topics and other trends in the industry, reality-checking the prevailing narrative. Subscribers can see the video on the Streaming is Saving Music page. If you’re not yet a subscriber, you can sign up for a 30-day free trial here, and you’ll get access to this video, past videos, all the latest commentary on the site, and lots more besides.
Images Leak of New Microsoft Surface Pro (May 19, 2017)
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92% of US iPhone Users Plan to Buy Another (May 19, 2017)
We’ve seen some of these stats before, and they bounce around a little from survey to survey, but it’s always good as a reminder of just what makes the iPhone installed base so valuable: the combination of very high loyalty to the platform and the ability to sell a variety of other devices and services to iPhone users. This Morgan Stanley survey released this week says that 92% of current iPhone owners plan to stick with the iPhone when they buy their next smartphone, among the highest levels MS has seen, while Samsung comes second at 77% and other Android vendors score considerably lower. That means that even if smartphone upgrade cycles are lengthening, nearly all of the 100 million or so US iPhone users will eventually buy another, many of them likely this fall with what’s expected to be a big upgrade. With iPhones roughly two thirds of Apple revenue, that’s already tremendously important to its future prospects, but the other key part of this is that those iPhone buyers are likely to buy apps and content from the App and iTunes stores, subscribe to Apple Music, iCloud storage, and so on, and also buy other Apple devices like Watches, iPads and Macs. One of the challenges Apple faces, conversely, is that this loyalty rate isn’t as high in every country, with China one notable exception. Though I’ve only seen one survey referenced on this topic, and I’n not convinced the absolute numbers are right, it certainly seems to be the case that iPhone loyalty has been lower in China recently, with at least some iPhone owners shifting down to a cheaper Android phone from rising stars Oppo and Vivo. If Apple can turn that trend around with this fall’s phones, of course, that could lead to a massive rebound in growth in China.
via CNET
★ Uber is Charging Dynamic Prices for Rides, Widening Gap with Driver Payments (May 19, 2017)
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Big TV Networks Trash Google and Facebook While Aping Their Techniques (May 19, 2017)
I’ve been watching the news from the recent TV upfronts and waiting for the definitive article that summarizes what’s been said and done, and while I’m not convinced this is it, it does a good job of characterizing the basic trends at issue. The two big underlying trends are the continuing decline of live linear viewing of traditional TV and the massive growth of online advertising, which could be presumed to have put an enormous dent in TV ad spending but actually haven’t. However, the TV companies still see online advertising platforms as a big threat, and spent an unusual amount of time during the upfronts trashing Facebook and Google (though mostly not by name) while talking up their own massive reach. At the same time, though, these companies are increasingly mimicking the very same things that make Facebook and Google’s ad platforms attractive: detailed targeting of ads and tracking of what happens after viewers see them. At the same time, the TV networks seem somewhat lost on the content side, rebooting old shows and formats, latching onto new gimmicks like live musicals, and generally showing a lack of imagination in protecting and rejuvenating their brands. Meanwhile, the strongest audiences on traditional TV are live sports fans and older generations watching procedural franchises like CSI and NCIS. And of course the big online platforms are investing in lots of both traditional sports content and some new formats of their own. Therefore, though each side would like to paint itself as providing unique value, the two are increasing converging on a similar set of content and ad capabilities, while the audience continues to shift from traditional linear TV to a host of online and streaming alternatives, which will inevitably pull ad dollars that way too.
via LA Times
Uber Threatens to Fire Levandowski if He Doesn’t Comply with Court Orders (May 19, 2017)
The judge in the Uber-Waymo case has told Uber in no uncertain terms that it has to do all it can to get its employee, Anthony Levandowski, to comply with the court’s orders in terms of handing over documents and disclosing other information relevant to the case. As such, given his continued unwillingness to cooperate, Uber has officially threatened to fire him – something it certainly doesn’t want to do – and his lawyers are now fighting back. Levandowski has throughout this process invoked his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination, but that in turn has made it harder for Uber to defend itself, because much of the most relevant information has been held back by Levandowski. At this point, it feels like both Uber and Levandowski are coming off badly around this whole situation, given that it seems very clear that Uber was working with Levandowski before he left Waymo, and Levandowski clearly feels he has something to hide. I very much doubt Levandowski will actually be fired, but it’s remarkable that he continues to resist these clear orders from the judge even as his job is at stake. Meanwhile, both parties – Levandowski and his employer – seem remarkably willing to throw each other under the bus, which says something both about the stakes here and the prevailing culture at the company.
via WSJ
Facebook Signs Deal for 1500 Exclusive and 5500 Total Hours of Live E-Sports Video (May 19, 2017)
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Facebook to Stream 20 MLB Games on Friday Nights in 2017/8 Season (May 18, 2017)
Twitter already has a deal with Major League Baseball to stream some games, and now it appears Facebook has a similar arrangement. The latter will broadcast 20 Friday-night games throughout the season. Given other recent deals for major sports, including Twitter’s last year for Thursday night NFL games, that might sound like a lot, but of course there are 30 teams in the MLB, each of which plays 162 regular season games, which means that including the postseason there are nearly 2500 games in total each year, so Facebook will air less than 1% of the total. And I’m guessing Friday night games have among the lowest viewership of any games, so this feels like a low-risk proposition for MLB and an experiment at best for Facebook. For viewers, too, the chances that Facebook will be showing the one game your team is playing in any given Friday night will be slim. But this feels like a good step for Facebook as it both scales up its live broadcast offerings and feels out what the audiences will be like for sports on Facebook.
via FT
Uber Launches Uber Freight for Truckers (May 18, 2017)
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SiriusXM Talking to Pandora about an Acquisition (May 18, 2017)
Pandora, which has long been one of the most popular online music services in the US but has also long struggled to turn a profit based on that popularity, is apparently in talks with SiriusXM about an acquisition. By contrast, as I wrote in a column for Variety a few months ago, the latter is one of the big success stories in the subscription content world, which I suspect mostly flies under the radar because it delivers through satellites rather than the Internet. What the two have in common, of course, is radio, though neither provides the traditional FM or AM variety. SXM already has a limited online version of its service, while Pandora has recently been branching out into on-demand music, but there’s probably quite a bit more that could be done by bringing the two sets of assets and their respective audiences together. The fact that Rhapsody today announced job cuts and the departure of its CEO is indicative of just how challenging being a second-tier player in the music streaming business can be. And in reality the second tier encompasses essentially everyone but Spotify and Apple, while even Spotify seems to be heading in the wrong direction financially.
via CNBC
★ Spotify’s Losses Widen, Revenue Per Paying User Drops in 2016 (May 18, 2017)
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★ EU Fines Facebook 110m Euros Over Misleading WhatsApp Deal Info (May 18, 2017)
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Facebook Takes Further Action to Suppress Clickbait Articles in Feed (May 18, 2017)
Facebook is taking additional steps to lower the ranking of clickbait articles in the News Feed, something it began explicitly targeting last year. In the past, it’s used a combination of signals including the ratio of reads to shares to determine whether an article over-promises and under-delivers, and down-ranking sites and domains which persistently post clickbait. But it’s now examining the actual content of the headline for both withholding information and exaggeration and lowering the ranking for those pieces which exhibit these characteristics. On the one hand, this is a good thing: less of this content in Facebook means we’re all more likely to read worthwhile stories that actually tell us something useful or meaningful. But on the other hand, this stuff has always existed and no-one has ever attempted to regulate it in the way Facebook now is. Unlike fake news, which has the power to sway elections and have other significant negative real-world impacts, clickbait has far less real-world impact. And if people continue to click on those headlines, it suggests they’re interested in reading the contents whether or not the headlines are misleading or manipulative. The stuff wouldn’t be shared by users on Facebook or show up in the News Feed in the first place if it wasn’t popular, which means Facebook is making value judgments here which not all of its users would agree with. As with Google’s frequent tweaking of its search algorithms to suppress sites with behaviors it disapproves of, I always feel this is dangerous territory.
Amazon Updates 7″ Tablet, Lowers Price on 8″ Version (May 18, 2017)
The tablet market continues to be one of the most interesting in consumer electronics. Having grown faster than any other previous new category, it’s been in decline now for several years, with almost all players seeing declines in sales. Amazon’s chunk of the market has always focused on smaller, cheaper tablets, partly a reflection of its inability to compete in premium hardware but also reflective of a broader strategy of selling devices at or below cost to stimulate investment in its ecosystem. It’s now refreshing its 7″ tablet, its cheapest and most popular version, and also lowering the price on its slightly higher end 8″ version, a sign that it’s still very interested in the category. That’s interesting at a time when Apple has said its sub-9.7″ tablets are the only segment of its iPad business that’s declining, and when it’s reported to be considering phasing the smaller iPad mini out altogether. What we’re seeing in some ways is an increasing bifurcation of the market between larger premium tablets used by adults for work and other more sophisticated tasks and smaller cheaper tablets used mostly for video watching and to a greater extent by kids.
via Bloomberg
Apple and Tencent in Battle over In-App Purchase Requirement for Tipping (May 18, 2017)
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Google Launches Vertical Jobs Search Feature (May 17, 2017)
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★ Google Announces Standalone VR Headsets, Samsung Daydream Partnership (May 17, 2017)
Though Google spent much of its I/O keynote talking about apps and features like Photos and the Assistant, it did devote a few minutes to the topic of AR and VR, which will have a second deeper-dive keynote of their own tomorrow. On the VR side, the key announcement is that Google is extending the Daydream platform beyond mobile VR to standalone headsets, which in the first instance will be built by partners Lenovo and HTC and supported with chips from Qualcomm. Daydream so far has been limited by the fact that the biggest Android smartphone vendor has its own competing platform, so the news that Samsung’s Galaxy S8 phones will support Daydream through a software update in the summer is a big deal. My guess is that Samsung will still favor its own Gear VR system with its usual bundling and discounting deals, but the fact that Daydream View and other compatible headsets will now work with Samsung devices should increase its appeal. Daydream’s system is better than Samsung’s in a number of ways, though the recent Gear VR update closes the gap a bit, so the playing field should be a leveled a little going forward. Also worth noting are a couple of AR announcements, including a new “Tango phone” to support Google’s indoor mapping technology, and VPS, an indoor equivalent of GPS which will enable precise directions within large stores and the like. Neither of those feels remotely mass market yet, which means Google’s AR efforts are far more marginal than the phone-based efforts from Facebook and Snapchat (and likely soon Apple too). Interestingly, VR head Clay Bavor outlined his vision for the space in a blog post today too, and it’s remarkably similar to Microsoft’s in that it envisions a continuum or spectrum that includes both VR and AR, though Bavor’s favored term is immersive computing rather than mixed reality and he’s less pejorative about the VR and AR terms everyone is already using.
via Google
Google Photos Hits 500m MAUs, Adds Sharing And AI Features, Photo Books (May 17, 2017)
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