el producto#159 👉 2020 Product Management trends, Uber bidding tests, Apple gym scheme pilot, Disney+ expansion, Google’s approach to growth & more.
el producto #159
Welcome to a new edition of el producto.
🎰 The week in figures
$100B: Tesla’s market cap passes $100B, making it the world’s second most valuable car company; the firm is now placed ahead of Volkswagen which has a market cap of ~$99.6B; Toyota has a valuation of $231.6B.
$350M: Uber sells its food delivery operation in India to local competitor Zomato; the all-stock deal gives Uber a ~10% stake in Zomato; as part of the agreement, Uber Eats will shutdown in the country and redirect all business to Zomato; the deal is worth ~$350M; Uber Eats staff are not moving over; Uber Eats ranked 3 in local market share behind Swiggy and Zomato.
$249M: Niantic says public events for its walking games, like Pokémon Go, drove $249M in tourism spending last year; the company hosted 77 live events in 32 countries in 2019, drawing ~2.7M players from 60 countries.
$126M: Europe’s regulators have imposed $126M in fines for GDPR violations; France’s $55M fine against Google is the largest so far; Britain, Germany, and the Netherlands have led in data-breach notifications.
55M: Amazon Music now claims 55M users globally, compared to Apple Music’s 60M (as of June); Amazon charges Prime members $10 per month for its Music Unlimited product; also offers an ad-supported tier since late 2019.
6M: Wikipedia now hosts more than 6M English-language articles; English is the platform’s most popular language followed by German (2.3M articles), and French (2.1M); English articles see an average of 255M daily visitors.
200: TripAdvisor is laying off ~200 staff; the firm had 3.8k employees at the end of last September; the report notes TripAdvisor is facing increased competition from Google.
66%: Amazon has padded its Prime Video library with amateur and questionable content to inflate the number of titles it offers, The Wall Street Journal reports; Amazon claims the largest selection of streaming content with ~65k titles; 66% of those titles are user uploads, which include instructional clips and conspiracy videos.
📰 What’s going on
Uber begins testing a bidding feature that lets drivers set their own fares; CA drivers who serve airports in Sacramento and Palm Springs will be able to bid for jobs, setting their rate at as much as x5 the fare Uber suggests; riders will then be matched with the driver offering the lowest rate; Uber says it will look at feedback before deciding whether to roll the scheme out wider.
Apple launches a gym partnership scheme; known as Apple Watch Connected, the program comprises exercise incentives, GymKit connectivity, and more; Apple is working with Orangetheory, Basecamp, YMCA, and Crunch Fitness at launch.
Apple to launch a 6.7-inch iPhone that’s 10 percent thinner than the iPhone 11 Pro Max, according to supply chain sources; the company plans a 5.4-inch model and two 6.1-inch devices; all 2020 models will feature OLED displays and Face ID; the largest will have a triple-lens rear camera.
Google launches three experimental Android apps targeting reduced phone usage; Activity Bubbles creates a dynamic wallpaper; every time the user unlocks the device, a new bubble appears in the background and grows according to usage time; Screen Stopwatch displays a cumulative timer for phone usage; Envelope asks the user to print out a sleeve that blocks most phone functions.
Google to adjust desktop Search redesign that made ads less distinguishable from content links; in response to user criticism, the company said the intent was to align the desktop look with mobile Search; Google plans to experiment with visual changes for desktop Search over the coming weeks.
Google’s Dataset Search exits beta; the tool allows the scientific community to search open datasets provided by universities, government agencies, and others; Dataset Search has added new features including more filtering options and support for mobile web.
Amazon researchers detail an AI-powered system for automated movie dubbing; the speech-to-speech pipeline aligns dubbed audio with the original, and can adjust word duration to better match actors’ mouths; also reproduces original emotion; the system automatically adds reverberation and background sounds.
Amazon is developing checkout terminals that let users authorize payments with a handprint; plans are at an early stage, but Amazon intends to offer the tech to brick-and-mortar retailers; the system will be powered by AWS; Amazon has previously filed a patent for palm-recognition tech.
Microsoft is rolling out SDKs and emulators for dual-screen apps; the company released the SDK for its Surface Duo Android phone in preview on Jan 22, and plans to release the preview SDK for Windows 10x dual-screen devices in coming weeks; plans to release the Hyper-V dual-screen emulator on Feb 11.
Instagram removes the button for its standalone video app IGTV from the Instagram home page; IGTV has garnered ~7M total downloads (1.1M in the US) since its June 2018 launch; compares to TikTok’s 1.15B global downloads and 80.5M US downloads during the same period.
Twitter begins rolling out emoji reactions within Direct Messages; similar to Apple’s iMessage, users can add select emojis to specific chats; available via desktop web and mobile.
Samsung plans to launch an AirDrop-like feature for Galaxy smartphones; known as Quick Share, it will let users send photos, videos, and other files to nearby compatible devices; unlike AirDrop, Quick Share passes files along via the cloud; expected to launch alongside Samsung Galaxy S20 on Feb 11.
Spotify is in early talks to acquire digital entertainment network The Ringer; the company represents 30 podcasts covering sports, tech, and pop culture; Spotify spent $400M last year acquiring podcast companies.
Disney announces its Disney+ streaming service will launch in Western Europe on March 24, a week earlier than originally planned; it will be available in the UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, and Italy; it will roll out to more European countries later this year; the service will cost £6/€7 per month, or £60/€70 per year.
UK-based Busuu acquires fellow language-learning firm Verbling; terms undisclosed; Verbling provides one-to-one video tutoring, offering lessons in more than 50 languages.
Tencent begins testing a media-sharing feed within its WeChat messaging app; currently available to select accounts, the feature lets users share photos and short videos with followers; WeChat previously rolled out a Snapchat-like feature in 2018, but it has not proven popular.
Netherlands-based TomTom announces deal enabling Huawei to use the former’s maps and related services in mobile apps; Huawei had to find alternatives to Google services after replacing Android with a custom OS due to the US blacklisting the Chinese company; TomTom sold its telematics business last year and is moving away from hardware to focus on maps.
💵 Q4 financials
Netflix ($148B market cap) Q4 beats: $5.47B revenue, up 31 %YoY; added 8.76M subscribers globally (net), surpassing internal forecasts and analyst expectations; +420k paid subscribers in the US, short of guidance for 600k.
👩🏾💻 Good reads
Google’s approach: how to grow to 100 million users. Product School talks about the three main stages of product: ideation, iteration, and growth.
The engineer’s guide to career growth, by ex-Facebook and ex-Stripe Raylene Yung.
Shifting platform and ecosystem dynamics. A thoughtful piece on how every business should envision and model various types of ecosystems, consider playing multiple roles, make governance and collaboration a priority and most importantly, rehearse multiple possible scenarios as ecosystems emerge.
6 Product Management trends in 2020, by Productboard:
PMs are now strategic leaders within an organization
The demand for senior-level PMs outpaces the demand for junior-level PMs
Organizations start to seek Chief Product Officers
Product-led growth and growth product managers are all the rage
Teams begin to understand the importance of transparency in product management
PMs are no longer left behind when it comes to tools and resources
How Airbnb drives users’ actions with their landing page design — a UX analysis.
The state of Mobile in 2020, by AppAnnie.
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Have a great weekend.
Angel
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el producto is a curated selection of Tech&Product happenings within the last few days from a curious and frequently skeptical Product Owner’s perspective.
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el producto 2020 - elproducto.eu