👷🏽♂️ What is Microsoft building?
News from MS Build developer conference
👋 Welcome to FWIW by David Tvrdon, your weekly tech, media & audio digest.
In this edition
Microsoft Build 2022
TikTok subscriptions, YouTube Shorts ads
7 fun, fact-filled podcasts
Microsoft wants everyone to build things online and is developing the tools for each stack
Since Satya Nadella took over as CEO, he has been busy remaking the company once known mostly for having an operating system that everyone complained about but we all used it at some point.
In his opening keynote, Nadella laid out 10 technologies Microsoft is pushing to become “a powerful platform for developers to help build what’s next”.
Probably no other big tech company is so focused on building the tools for creators as the Redmond tech giant. And not only that, Microsoft wants to become (and might be well on its way to being) a leading corporate platform for companies with all the tools you need to run it: communications, development, cloud, office tools…
Each year, I watch the opening keynote for the Build conference and I can see how Nadella is better and better articulating his vision for the future of the company.
OK, let me pick two interesting things Nadella showed.
First, it’s the low-code/no-code technology Microsoft has been developing for some time now. One the demos shows a non-programmer taking a photo of her sketch drawing of an app. The photo is then transformed with a few clicks into an actual app. Pretty impressive if it works as advertised. See the video below.
Second, you can take a project from apps not developed by Microsoft like Figma and connect/integrate them into Office 365.
Nadella also explains the concept of the Live Share feature to Microsoft Teams which feels very similar to what Google has done across its WorkSpace environment that you can create a shared call over a document or a presentation and work on it together.
Once considered lost and without taste (a Jobs quote), Microsoft is very much at the forefront of building the next thing. And even if it doesn’t it could be that the next big platform will be built using MS tools.
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Here is the 44-minute opening keynote if you want to hear Nadella say the same thing but a little bit longer:
TECH
🇪🇺 Which European startups are still hiring? Gaming layoffs in the US and funding slowdown in Europe, but there are still startups looking to grow. Bolt is hiring for over 900 roles. Fintech giant Revolut has 250 positions open currently. Trade Republic , a Berlin-headquartered shares trading app, is hiring. And many many others. [Sifted.eu]
🤦♂️ OK, this is hilarious: Apple’s repair kit weighs 36 kg. Apple launched its Self-Service Repair program, letting US customers fix broken screens, batteries, and cameras on the latest iPhones using Apple’s own parts and tools for the first time ever. Apple did not want the right-to-repair legislation to pass. I guess, this is them saying, OK, we comply, but let’s see who will want to use this. Oh, almost forgot, there is a $1,200 deposit. [The Verge]
🚙 Inside the design of Zoox, Amazon’s quirky, self-driving car. The Zoox car is smaller than a BMW i3, and completely symmetrical front to back, allowing it to take passengers forward or in reverse without even turning around. Large automatic doors slide open on each side of the vehicle so it’s as easy to enter as a sun room, while two bench seats face each other inside, like in a wagon. [Fast Company]
🎨 Google Research announced Imagen, an AI text-to-image generator rivaling OpenAI's DALL-E 2. You can check out some of Imagen-generated images here. [TechCrunch]
🔍 Google is rolling out a new way to use Google Lens on the desktop in your Chrome browser. You will be able to do things like translating an image’s text, identifying an object in an image or getting the original source from an image. [TechCrunch]
MEDIA
🎧 The Condensed History of Lofi Girl. Started by the 22-year-old French creator Dimitri in 2017 on YouTube, the brand had become huge. Now, it has its own record label with dozens of artists, over 10 million YouTube subscribers, a Discord server with over 680,000 members, and a Spotify playlist with over 6.4 million followers. [The Publish Press]
👋 SNL is losing some of its biggest stars. Kate McKinnon, Pete Davidson, Kyle Mooney and Aidy Bryant starred in their last season finale of Saturday Night Live. The four have started all in SNL between 2012 and 2014. I started regularly watching SNL at that time, so I had feelings this weekend as well. [NYT]
📺 Reasons for optimism about Warner Bros. Discovery. Ben Thompson is pretty optimistic about the company’s future. A compelling analysis of why, despite an inferior streaming platform, the content mix that CEO David Zaslav put together should work in attracting many millions of users and subscribers. [Stratechery]
😲 TikTok launched LIVE creator subscriptions. Similar to the offerings from rival streaming sites, the new service will offer subscribers a range of perks including subscriber-only chat, custom emotes, badges and more. Pricing for these streams has yet to be announced, but some creators have shared that it’s “comparable” to Twitch’s pricing ($4.99, and a 30%-50% cut). [TechCrunch]
🤔 Google begins rolling out ads in YouTube Shorts globally. There won’t be a direct revenue share from these ads at this time. YouTube plans to continue rewarding creators and artists monthly via the YouTube Shorts Fund while they develop a long-term model for creator monetization in Shorts. [TechCrunch]
🤓 How to rethink the future of news. BBC's Ros Atkins lays out some advice, for journalists and organisations alike, that has helped him along the years. [Reuters Institute]
🤩 Discord has become a platform for musicians and their fans to build communities. Originally launched as a messaging app for gamers, the platform has become an intimate place for artists and fans to connect and build community. Some of the more interactive elements of Discord feed into the increasing gamification of fandom, where rewards are issued so people will keep dwelling in and expanding on the universe of the artist. [Pitchfork]
FROM THE FIX
1️⃣ Understanding why readers don’t pay for news and strategies used by publishers to convince them
2️⃣ Recalling 25 years of news in Spanish
3️⃣ Why should your newsroom do more nonprofit projects (preferably sustainable ones)
4️⃣ “Building a path to audience loyalty”: Why publishers need to focus on increasing engaged time
[ 📬 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
😎 Missed this last week: Apple announced Apple Podcasts Delegated Delivery, a new feature planned to launch in fall that will allow creators to upload, manage, and distribute their premium audio through participating third-party hosting providers. Once authorized, creators can simply use the dashboard offered by their participating hosting provider to publish new free and premium episodes. Initial hosting providers suporting Delegated Delivery: Acast, ART19, Blubrry, Buzzsprout, Libsyn, Omny Studio, RSS.com. [Apple]
🧐 7 fun, fact-filled podcasts will teach you something new. Stuff You Should Know, Curiosity Daily, TED Radio Hour, Good job, Brain!, Discovery, Smart People, I Should Have Known. [Fast Company]
😳 Spotify confirmed it is slowly bringing back political ads for candidates, political parties, PACs and elected officials in the US. Spotify stopped hosting political ads on its services in early 2020, citing a lack of “robustness” in its systems, ahead of what turned out to be the ugliest US election in recent history. It only affected the US because it is the only country where the company has sold political ads previously. The streamer will only host ads from known political entities, and it won’t accept ads from the much broader bucket of issue-related groups. The ads will also only run on Spotify’s podcast network for now, not its free music-streaming network. [Protocol]
😵 Spotify had a problem with programatic ads. Spotify added advertising banners to many podcasts on for Wild Turkey, a bourbon whiskey. Not great. [Podnews]
🤗 A new survey from Germany says 95% listeners accept podcast advertising as a way to monetise their favourite shows and 22% have purchased a podcast subscription so far. The vast majority of German podcast listeners tend to find new shows to listen to via social media. [Podnews]
❓ Poll: Have you returned to the office yet?
🙌 Thanks. I used HandyPolls to create this poll (instructions).
Last poll results: Will Elon Musk abandon his Twitter deal? 51% think he just wants a better price, 35% think he wants out and 14% he is committed to the deal.
🙏 And big thanks to Celine Bijleveld who helped me edit this newsletter. You can follow her on Substack here.