🛒 Live e-commerce isn't taking off
TikTok, Amazon, Meta and YouTube all want users to buy stuff while watching live video and people just don't want to do it.
👋 Welcome to FWIW by David Tvrdon, your weekly tech, media & audio digest.
In this edition
In Europe and US we apparently don’t want live shopping
The Musk-Twitter deal is likely heading for court
HBO Max seems to be the top streaming service right now
Europeans and Americans simply don’t want to follow Chinese shopping trends
The Financial Times published two interesting stories this week which shine a light on how the ascendence of live e-commerce seemed to crash in Europe and is not faring well in the USA.
First, it was the story that TikTok abandoned e-commerce expansion in Europe and US. It was its live e-commerce initiative, the social media platform’s foray into QVC-style shopping through what the company called “TikTok Shop”.
As FT notes, livestream commerce is seen as the future of shopping by social media platforms. Everyone points to the quickly growing sales in China and many want to be the first to crack the trend (Meta, YouTube…).
TikTok dropped its expansion plans after the UK project failed to meet targets and influencers dropped out of the scheme.
Also, a Financial Times investigation last month revealed there had been a mass staff exodus from the company’s e-commerce team in London, who complained of an aggressive working culture enforced by the company’s Chinese leadership.
So, that certainly didn’t help, but I wonder whether without the mismanagement things would have taken off (personally, I don’t think so, we might be in the same situation with live e-commerce as the West was a couple of years back when we were wondering why QR codes are so popular in China and nobody wants to use them over here).
The second FT story looked at Amazon’s hopes regarding live e-commerce:
Amazon’s goal is to establish itself as the main destination for live online shopping, ahead of competing efforts from YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, but also a host of smaller start-ups backed by prominent venture capital firms, such as Andreessen Horowitz-backed WhatNot.
Each of these groups are betting that western consumers will adopt live ecommerce with the same enthusiasm as has occurred in China, where sales generated through livestreams are projected to surpass $400bn this year.
This represents about 15 per cent of all ecommerce sales in the country — up from 3.5 per cent just three years ago, according to Insider Intelligence, the research group. The model has proved lucrative for TikTok parent ByteDance — sales on Chinese sister app Douyin more than tripled year on year, selling more than 10bn products.
Again, looking at the live shopping data from the US, in 2022 it will represent only $20bn of the overall US e-commerce market which is only 2.2%.
Amazon needs an additional revenue source as sales fell 3.4% in the last quarter to $51bn and it will keep pushing it through its Amazon Live platform.
The problem is, when you ask analysts, they aren’t able to explain whether western shoppers are behind the curve on live commerce — or simply not interested.
TECH
🤦♂️ Elon Musk notified Twitter he is terminating deal. Musk’s lawyer claimed Twitter failed to comply with its obligations in the merger agreement. Twitter’s board chair Bret Taylor said the company is still committed to closing the deal at the agreed-upon price and plans to pursue legal action to enforce the agreement. [CNBC]
👏 The European Parliament approved wo big tech regulations - the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the Digital Services Act (DSA). The DMA lays out obligations and punishments for digital service "gatekeepers" who break the law's rules for promoting competition. It requires interoperability between messaging platforms and mandates that large platforms let users select a browser, search engine and personal voice assistant of their choice. The DSA puts more responsibility on large platforms to police and take down illegal content, with fines if they fail to comply. [Axios]
🙌 The EU agreed on new crypto rules, including measures guarding against market abuse and requiring crypto firms to disclose environmental impacts of their assets. The European parliament’s markets in crypto assets (MiCA) law is expected to come into force at the end of 2023. The UK and US, two significant crypto centres, have yet to approve similar rules. [The Guardian]
🤗 Amazon agrees to drop Prime cancellation ‘dark patterns’ in Europe. The announcement came after scrutiny from EU regulators. [TechCrunch]
📲 The best cheap phones for almost every budget, according to Wired.
🤭 Internal Facebook memo (from Chief Product Officer Chris Cox) warns company must be disciplined, prioritize ruthlessly. To make up for the effects of last year’s Apple privacy update, which decreased the company’s ability to target ads, Meta will invest in Instagram Reels, its TikTok competitor, as well as shopping and messaging features. [CNBC]
🛒 The best early Amazon Prime Day. It starts July 12th. [The Verge]
😮 Samsung became the first company to mass produce 3nm chips, beating TSMC. Compared with conventional 5-nanometre chips, the newly developed first-gen 3-nanometre process can reduce power consumption by up to 45%, improve performance by 23%, and reduce area by 16%. [Reuters]
📊 McKinsey's Digital Sentiment Survey in Europe was published. Despite some expected growth in offline activity following the end of COVID-19-related quarantines, digital adoption remains strong. [McKinsey]
👀 FBI and MI5 issue joint warning about Chinese espionage aimed at stealing intellectual property from Western tech companies. FBI director Christopher Wray and MI5 director-general Ken McCallum appeared together at MI5 headquarters in the U.K. to warn of espionage campaigns from Beijing. The event marked the first time that FBI and MI5 leaders have "shared a public platform." [Axios]
📉 For the first time in three years, start-up funding plunged 23% over the last three months. [NY Times]
🚙 Rivian confirmed that it’s on track to build 25,000 vehicles in 2022, in line with the lowered guidance it issued in March. Rivian delivered 4,467 of its electric trucks and SUVs to customers in the second quarter. [CNBC]
🚨 Apple announced a new feature for its upcoming iOS 16 release called Lockdown Mode to counter spyware threats. The feature was created for a small subset of users who are at high risk of government targeting. It is basically an alternate mode of iOS that heavily restricts the tools and services that spyware actors target to take control of victims' devices. [Wired]
⌚️ Apple Watch Series 8 will be able to tell you if you have a fever. [Bloomberg]
👅 Facebook's AI translator now works with 200 languages. Why is this significant? Meta has also partnered with the Wikimedia Foundation, which is using the technology to translate articles in 20 languages for which few or no machine-language resources exist. [Axios]
MEDIA
🎞 Instagram is testing a change that turns video posts into Reels. “We’re testing this feature as part of our efforts to simplify and improve the video experience on Instagram,” a spokesperson from Meta said in an email. Meaning all video is Reels, which I must admit makes sense to me, the current experience on Instagram is quite confusing. [TechCrunch]
📚 Behavioral Scientist’s summer book list 2022. Some good recommendations on the list. [Beavioral Scientist]
📺 The 15 best TV shows of 2022, so far. Barry (HBO Max), Better Call Saul (Netflix) and The Dropout (Disney+) are on the list, plus Pachinko (Apple TV+) and many others. [Vanity Fair]
🤦♂️ News startup Semafor invited Tucker Carlson to talk about “the future of journalism” and things did not go well. I didn’t know what the organisers expected, but this is just another example of how not to do it and it begs the question whether there is any way of having a healthy discussion with hyper-partisan personalities. [NiemanLab]
📊 Data shows frequency, content consumption predict churn rates. [INMA]
🎬 Ranking of the top video streaming services with HBO Max on the top. Vulture as come up with “a semi-scientific way of ranking where all the major streaming platforms”. The variables are: overall size, critical buzz, content production (originals), industry ranking and momentu. At no.2 is according to Vulture Disney+, Netflix follows, then Apple TV+. [Vulture]
🤔 How LinkedIn redesigned its flagship office for hybrid work. [WSJ Video]
🤓 How to limit password sharing for subscription products. This is a great overview of tactics for publishers, both bigger and smaller. For example, resetting of passwords and manual outreach signal to the subscriber you are onto them, and it should be the one of the first steps you do. [Toolkits]
FROM THE FIX
1️⃣ Ranking: Europe’s top 30 news publishers on TikTok
2️⃣ We launched The Fix Media Foundation: an open letter
3️⃣ How DOU built a tech media – and created the largest community of IT specialists in Ukraine
5️⃣ The Economist Group: Digital drives double-digit growth
[ 📬 Get The Fix newsletter delivered to your inbox every week with the latest insights, news, and analysis about the European media market. Sign up here > ]
AUDIO
🗣 How to easily turn all your articles into audio articles. I have been working on this article for a while, it might seem like a clickbait listicle, but I promise you, if you run a website, blog or any publication, read it and try any of the tools mentioned. It will pay off. [The Fix]
🎙 Podcast editing: A fundamental guide for creators. Two Spotify producers reveal how creators can combine technical and creative skills to gain podcast editing expertise. [Spotify for podcasters]
🎧 The new season of the Land of the Giants podcast will explore the inside story at Meta as it moves beyond Facebook. Vox Media Podcast Network’s award-winning narrative podcast promises to bring original reporting on Meta’s current challenges and the future it’s building. [Vox]
❓ Poll: What do you think of e-scooters?
Last poll results: Are you a fan of QR codes? 85% are, 9% are not and 6% don’t care.