Greetings! After our slightly longer pause, the open tabs have almost been dealt with. Scary to see how many don’t feel that important 2 months after ‘release’. But I thought you may want to get lost in these tidbits.
It’s a busy Tech Basement this week
So, will you be saying goodbye to WhatsApp, now they've updated their Privacy policy to sell-sell-sell your data? However, it seems the changes they announced are not that different from the terms they had. Their head of policy a-typically went onto Twitter to correct a few things (see below) and the main change is mainly regarding interactions you have with businesses, ie. customer service and/or commerce (in the future).
2/5 It has been incorrectly reported that WhatsApp's latest Terms of Service and Privacy Policy update requires users in the European Region to agree to the sharing of data with Facebook for ads purposes in order to continue using the service. This is false.According to Ars Technica, "there will be no change in how WhatsApp shares data with Facebook for non-business chats and account data."
I guess Facebook trying to deepen its relationship with businesses beyond advertising to customer service is also why it bought Kustomer for a billion dollars.
Regardless of this complex and murky situation, I've been slowly moving to Signal anyway. Find me there instead of on WhatsApp.
For all the Facebook bashing, will you also stop using your Apple devices (I have a feeling quite a few of you will have at least one) after reading this?
Or do you go for a cheap, counterfeit Apple X instead? This Vice journalist disassembled a Chinese 100$ iPhone and checked both the software and the hardware. Scary and intriguing at the same time.
Equally intriguing and scary (and equally Vice) is this investigation on how the US army buys location data from smart phone apps dealing with storm tracking, Muslim dating,...
In the Economy Room
✈️✈️ In 1994, at its origins, Amazon apparently included this line into their business strategy: "no stock, no shipping, no warehouses". I’ve often used this pivot in lectures about the need for agility, sometimes even in long-term strategic plans. Opportunities do come and things change. But now Amazon have bought their own planes. And who could have predicted that now Amazon is launching Amazon Pharmacy (in the US).
Insightful. This American toy-producer openly shares the numbers on their earnings from selling through Amazon. TLDR: it's much less than expected, but at much higher volumes than I expected. His attention for details makes this a top read for me: it's basically Excel sheets with stories. Yummy.
When business models collide: Google vs the Media. Apparently, the French media lobby has agreed a deal with Google to have them pay 150 million euros, because the Google model has taken away advertising money, while relying on media content for free. 🤝 or 💪?
The Cash Economy. A study from late last year showed the decline as a payment system, particularly in previously cash heavy countries like Thailand, Spain,... But note the graph about the attitude of people towards a cashless world. Very interesting to see more western democracies being much more negative towards this idea.
Nice personal story from Ian Rogers, who swapped a job as Chief Digital Officer at LVMH (Louis Vuitton etc) for a UX job at cryptowallet company Ledger. As he says: 'I got a feeling'.
The e-sports economy. Shanghai is planning for a new 900m dollar stadium, not for football or athletics, but for e-sports. 🛋️🛋️
Random ZTTZ
Turns out that in 2020 the total weight of ‘stuff us humans made’ became bigger than the total weight of all biomass. 🏋️♀️🏋️♀️
🏁 End note: 1 thing I’ll be doing this week
I'm dusting off my blockchain presentations. The questions are coming in again. Oh wait, the crypto market is booming. #NoCorrelation
Zag To The Zig #47 :: Amazon pills, Chinese iPhone and from handbags to crypto
Wow. What a collection of cool stories. Gerrie for CTO!