Year: 2018

The Fourth of July will be a little different tomorrow at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, Calif. Instead of fireworks, 500 Intel Shooting Star drones will take to the sky to perform an aerial routine in honor of the holiday and the base’s 75th anniversary.

These are the same drones that preformed at Disney World, the Super Bowl and the Olympics.

One person controls the fleet of drones thanks to a sophisticated control platform that pre-plans the route of each drone. Intel engineers told me that the system can control an unlimited amount of drones. In the version I saw, the drones used GPS to stay in place and the drones lacked any collision detection sensors.

It’s an impressive show of technology. I was in attendance for the first show at Disney World and the drones are a wonderful alternative to fireworks. Sure, fireworks are a Fourth of July tradition, but they can’t do the things these drones can do, plus, because they’re much more quiet, more people can enjoy the show.

Facebook is becoming a marketplace for enterprise apps that help Group admins manage their communities.

To protect itself and its users in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook locked down the Groups API for building apps for Groups. These apps had to go through a human-reviewed approval process, and lost access to Group member lists, plus the names and profile pics of people who posted. Now, approved Groups apps are reemerging on Facebook, accessible to admins through a new in-Facebook Groups apps browser that gives the platform control over discoverability.

Facebook confirmed the new Groups apps browser after our inquiry, telling TechCrunch, “What you’re seeing today is related to changes we announced in April that require developers to go through an updated app review process in order to use the Groups API. As part of this, some developers who have gone through the review process are now able to access the Groups API.”

Facebook wouldn’t comment further, but this Help Center article details how Groups can now add apps. Matt Navarra first spotted the new Groups apps option and tipped us off. Previously, admins would have to find Group management tools outside of Facebook and then use their logged-in Facebook account to give the app permissions to access their Group’s data.

Groups are often a labor of love for admins, but generate tons of engagement for the social network. That’s why the company recently began testing Facebook subscription Groups that allow admins to charge a monthly fee. With the right set of approved partners, the platform offers Group admins some of the capabilities usually reserved for big brands and businesses that pay for enterprise tools to manage their online presences.

Becoming a gateway to enterprise tool sets could make Facebook Groups more engaging, generating more time on site and ad views from users. This also positions Facebook as a natural home for ad campaigns promoting different enterprise tools. And one day, Facebook could potentially try to act more formally as a Groups App Store and try to take a cut of software-as-a-service subscription fees the tool makers charge.

Facebook can’t build every tool that admins might need, so in 2010 it launched the Groups API to enlist some outside help. Moderating comments, gathering analytics and posting pre-composed content were some of the popular capabilities of Facebook Groups apps. But in April, it halted use of the API, announcing that “there is information about people and conversations in groups that we want to make sure is better protected. Going forward, all third-party apps using the Groups API will need approval from Facebook and an admin to ensure they benefit the group.”

Now apps that have received the necessary approval are appearing in this Groups apps browser. It’s available to admins through their Group Settings page. The apps browser lets them pick from a selection of tools like Buffer and Sendible for scheduling posts to their Group, and others for handling commerce messages.

Facebook is still trying to bar the windows of its platform, ensuring there are no more easy ways to slurp up massive amounts of sensitive user data. Yesterday it shut down more APIs and standalone apps in what appears to be an attempt to streamline the platform so there are fewer points of risk and more staff to concentrate on safeguarding the most popular and powerful parts of its developer offering.

The Cambridge Analytica scandal has subsided to some degree, with Facebook’s share price recovering and user growth maintaining at standard levels. However, a new report from The Washington Post says the FBI, FTC and SEC will be investigating Facebook, Cambridge Analytica and the social network’s executives’ testimony to Congress. Facebook surely wants to get back to concentrating on product, not politics, but must take it slow and steady. There are too many eyes on it to move fast or break anything.

Tech CEOs and founders are disrupting everything from travel to food, to space, to sleep. Now it’s time to disrupt a process that so many of us have relied on to get where we are today: immigration. According to a study by the National Foundation for American Policy, immigrants have founded more than half of U.S. startup companies that are valued at more than one billion dollars.

With all that is happening around us, now is the time for entrepreneurs to use their playbook for disrupting markets and apply it to immigration as a space — not for a financial upside, but for a more social, human upside.

• Turning a Problem Into an Opportunity

One of the most important lessons you learn as an entrepreneur is outlining the problem you are trying to solve and turning it into an opportunity.

Economists generally agree that immigration has net positive effects on both the sending and receiving countries. Contrary to popular belief, immigration doesn’t increase crime rates or take jobs awayfrom native workers. In fact, according to The Silicon Valley Competitiveness and Innovation Project Report, almost every major tech hub has more foreign-born workers than domestic ones.

Before solving a problem, we have to agree on the facts. Research shows that people in many western countries greatly overestimate the number of immigrants — in this case, Muslim immigrants — coming into their country. Misinformation makes it difficult to pursue effective solutions.

Source: The Guardian

There’s an opportunity to educate ourselves and instead highlight the economic and innovation opportunity that immigration offers. Immigrants provide access to more talent, more diverse thinking, and more creativity.

Dr. Adrian Furnham, a professor of psychology at University College London who studies immigrants and entrepreneurship said, “What I’ve found is that immigrants not only have the qualities that help any entrepreneurs succeed—including aggressiveness and creative thinking—but they get a big boost because many of the skills they picked up coping with a new world are transferable to the entrepreneurial world.”

• Rebranding the Word “Immigrant”

Another important step in an entrepreneur’s playbook relates to changing perceptions. Airbnb, for example, had to challenge people’s assumption that opening their home to strangers was a dangerous and risky endeavor. Now, facilitating these types of interactions is an act of hospitality and the beginning of a friendship.

More and more recently, the word “immigrant” has become a bad word. We have the responsibility to rebrand it to mean maker not taker. Look at Hamdi Ulukaya, the Turkish immigrant who created the Chobani yogurt empire. He employs 3,000+ people and has given them ten percent of the shares in the company.

When people research the word “immigrant” online, they need to find Ulukaya’s story. They need to find images of successful, eloquent, and positive entrepreneurs and leaders. That’s why it’s so important to speak as immigrants. To tell the story of how we came here and the challenges we’ve had to overcome. It’s tempting to try to blend in, but we have to infuse the word “immigration” with more positive visuals.

The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG) established the Center for New North Carolinians (CNNC), with the aim of supporting refugees and immigrants living in the local community. CNNC piloted a STEM club program for female refugees and immigrants using littleBits’ electronic building blocks. Photos from the CNNC STEM Club, courtesy of littleBits

• Taking [Commercial] Risks

In January 2017 when the Trump Administration’s travel ban was first implemented, littleBits posted a billboard in Times Square that said in English and Arabic: “We Invent the World We Want to Live In.” We wanted people to associate Arabic script with a positive, inclusive message. It was the first time I decided to speak to my background as an Arab and Muslim immigrant. The public response, the impact on our team culture, and the feeling of having stood up for what’s right made me bolder about using my platform to speak out.

That’s why, when the debate around immigration rose up again in response to family separation at the border, I knew I had to say something.

At littleBits, being from “another” place is a reality; we are a company built on diversity. We have close to 20 languages in the office, a multitude of religions, and about 20 percent of us have visas or green cards or were born in other countries. I myself know firsthand the struggle that immigrants face, I’ve had to flee my country of Lebanon three times for my own safety

So, last week I joined leaders from Facebook, Twitter, AirBnB, and Microsoft and I made my voice heard. I announced a donation program and wrote a blog post which opened with: “We at littleBits strive to separate politics from our work. But when something touches human rights, it is no longer about politics. It becomes about justice.”

And you know what? Like most things in America today, the reaction we received was polarizing. Some people said that speaking out was an “admirable move” and that it was clear we were focused on “making a big difference.” On the other hand, 27% of respondents explicitly told us they would be less likely to purchase littleBits products as a result of us speaking out. One loyal customer told us they would now “actively discourage” their children from buying or using our products. Another said they would “throw [their] Bits in the trash.”

And yet, I stand by our statement.

The business risks involved with speaking out are real. But to me, putting a flag in the ground is always worth it. One email, one blog post, one donation at a time, I protect the diversity of my team, my company, and the country in which I reside. History will judge us if we quietly allow our government to strip us of the diversity and innovation that make America so amazing.

As entrepreneurs, we have a platform. Despite the potential costs, we must use this platform to put ourselves out there, to speak out the issues that matter to our country, our businesses, and ourselves. There may be financial downside and yes, it will be more difficult to quantify the human upside, but I for one am willing to take a gamble that net net, it will be a positive.

Sixteen months ago, I predicted 2017 would be “the best year for tech IPOs since the dot-com heyday almost two decades ago.” 

Well, that was not exactly what happened — though 2017 was a good year for IPOs compared to previous years. Despite strong public markets, where we saw the NASDAQ jump 28 percent and the Dow by 25 percent — there were 59 VC-backed IPOs, which was an improvement over the 41 we had in 2016 (2018 NVCA Yearbook) — last year was far from the torrent I expected. One key reason was concerns by private companies that public valuations might not give private investors a solid gain. At the same time, there was abundant private capital for those companies, so IPOs were not critical for raising capital.

Our Startup Battlefield pitch competition may be legendary, but it’s not the only throw-down going on at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2018 on September 5-7. This year, in honor of the largest Disrupt event ever, we’ve launched the Virtual Hackathon. Thousands of the best developers, coders and hackers will compete — from anywhere in the world — to build tech products that address and solve a range of challenges.

And we have even more contests, cash and prizes to share with you — more on that in a minute. Right now, you better sign up and get moving, because the deadline to submit your hacks is August 2.

Our team of judges will review every eligible project and assign each submission a score between 1-5. Score criteria include the idea quality, technical implementation and potential market impact.

The 100 highest-scoring teams will receive up to five Innovator Passes to attend TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2018. They can enjoy everything the show has to offer, including (for starters) Startup Alley, incredible speakers from four unique stages, Startup Battlefield, Q&A sessions and the TC After Party — the perfect place to network in a fun atmosphere.

The teams who make the top 30 will move on to compete in the semifinals at Disrupt SF, where they will demo their creation to a team of judges. Those judges will then select 10 teams to go on to the finals, where they will step onto The Next Stage and showcase their baby to an audience of thousands of Disrupt SF attendees.

Finally, one team will rise above the rest, win the $10,000 grand prize and become the first-ever TechCrunch Disrupt Virtual Hackathon champ.

OK, let’s get back to the bit about more contests, cash and prizes. You also can win some sweet cash from contests sponsored by BYTON, TomTom and Viond, plus Visa and HERE Mobility.

The Virtual Hackathon takes place at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2018 on September 5-7, but you have only until August 2 if you want your hack to be eligible. Don’t miss the fun and excitement. Sign up to participate in the Virtual Hackathon and start hacking today.

Postie, a new Los Angeles-based startup, has a vision for the future of advertising and marketing — and it’s direct mail.

Founded by some of the men responsible for the biggest hits in online marketing (like the Dollar Shave Club commercial that launched what became a billion dollar acquisition) think that its time to take technology where it’s never gone before — into targeted, direct mail campaigns using the best ad-targeting that money can buy.

Postie uses a combination of online data collection and an on-demand print and mail technology to give its customers turnaround times on print orders in as little as 24 hours and what the company boasts is the equivalent of online ad-targeting.

Using the service, customers can access demographic, interest and behavioral data of over 320 million people; can use retargeting to provide direct mail campaigns and integrates with existing customer relationship management tools.

The company was founded by Dave Fink and Jonathan Neddenriep, two former principals at the startup studio and early stage investor, Science. At the early stage investment firm Fink said he was responsible for marketing activities for companies including Dollar Shave Club, DogVacay, SpringRole, Wishbone, and Hello Society over the six years he worked at the company. Neddenriep, served as the chief technology officer for Science — a role he’s continuing at Postie.

Where once Fink focused on reaching the widest possible audience with a viral message that could cut through the noise of online advertising, the scale of his messaging is now much smaller even if the scope of the market he’s trying to capture remains just as vast.

“A highly targeted physical piece of mail, especially in today’s ephemeral world, elicits an emotional response that goes above and beyond what is possible online,” says Fink, in a statement. “It’s now possible to open up a whole new scalable media channel by leveraging the same data driven insights and quantitative approach as digital.”

According to study from the Direct Marketing Association, direct mail campaigns rang up $46 billion from advertisers and companies in 2014, and Fink and his co-founder are hoping that number will climb.

They aren’t the only ones. Postie has raised $3.5 million in seed funding from the Los Angeles-based firms Bonfire Ventures and Crosscut Ventures to expand its business (maybe through direct marketing?).

Some Spotify users were so annoyed by the recent Drake promotion that they asked for and were granted refunds, according to a report from Billboard. The streaming service had heavily promoted the artist’s latest album, “Scorpion,” even using his image on playlists that didn’t even contain his music, like “Massive Dance Hits,” “Best of British” and “Happy Pop Hits,” for example.

The promotion, dubbed “Scorpion SZN,” was first-ever global artist takeover of Spotify’s service and the first time an artist took over multiple Spotify playlists on the same day.

While it’s not uncommon for artists to receive promotion on Spotify, some felt that the Drake promotion had gone too far – the album and Drake’s image were everywhere in sections like Browse and Playlists.

One Reddit user shared how they were able to obtain a refund from customer service, and that post soon went viral. The screenshot of their chat with the support rep has, to date, been viewed nearly 12,000 times. That transcript doesn’t indicate any official policy on Spotify’s part here, but was instead the efforts of a customer service rep helping retaining an individual’s business.

However, a few other people then tried similar tactics, and were also able to get refunds, they said.

Spotify isn’t officially commenting on the pushback from users, but Billboard claims the number of refunds were minimal.

It’s clear that the streaming service noticed the complaints, however, as it was responding to users on Twitter to clarify that things would soon be back to normal.

While Spotify has never refunded customers unhappy over a promotion – the larger news here is not the financial loss of those refunds, or even that they happened at all, but rather the damage this has done to Spotify’s reputation.

For those who complained, the problem wasn’t just that they weren’t Drake fans (though that’s obviously a part of it), but rather that they felt they were viewing advertisements when they were paying for a Premium, ad-free version of Spotify’s service.

In addition, a heavy-handed promotional effort like this flies up against Spotify’s desire to position itself as a service that’s personalized to its subscribers’ musical tastes.

With Drake showing up all over Spotify playlists and recommendations, the overall effect was one of discounting users’ own interests – those who complained were likely not Drake fans or perhaps not even heavy listeners of hip-hop in general. As a result, they felt like Spotify was trying to push them to listen to music they didn’t like.

Though Drake is a hugely popular artist, there may not be an artist out there who could withstand a promotion like this. It’s just too much. After all, there’s a fine line between being excited about an album release and promoting it, and shoving something in people’s faces. Spotify crossed that line.

Billboard noted that some people had even compared this to the Apple/iTunes scandal when the company gave away U2’s “Songs of Innocence” back in 2014 by downloading it without consent to users’ iTunes libraries. But it’s not quite as bad as that. The issue was not one of stealthily downloading content to your device, which is far more of a violation.

That said, the user outrage feels similar: I don’t like this music, why are your forcing it on me?

Spotify’s original intention was to promote Drake’s album and the artist in a more playful way. It put Drake on the cover of its biggest Rap, R&B, Pop and Mood playlists, including RapCaviar, Beast Mode, Are & Be, Summer Party, Today’s Top Hits,  Morning Commute and others.

In those cases where Drake’s image was used on the playlist but not his music, the idea was that it would showcase the artist’s personality. But these efforts clearly fell flat. Users were confused as to why Drake was appearing on playlists that didn’t make sense – like those featuring a different genre of music.

From a sheer numbers standpoint, meanwhile, Spotify’s promotional efforts were successful.

The album broke the U.S. one-week streaming record for an album in three days, Billboard also reported, and the album was being streamed over 10 million times per hour the weekend of its release, Spotify said. The album is estimated to reach over 700 million streams in the U.S. by the end of the tracking week on July 5th. 

Not everyone thought the promotion was that big of a deal.

Some people said that while they noticed the suggestions, they just bypassed them and listened to their own music as usual. But even then, some sympathized with those who complained that this felt like an advertisement on what’s supposed to be an ad-free service.

Spotify collaborates with artists on promotions – the details of Drake’s takeover weren’t dictated. (In fact, it’s not even the biggest promotion from a financial investment standpoint.) So Spotify will likely chalk this up to a learning experience that may help it craft better promotions in the future that don’t involve as much overreach.

Facebook announced this morning that the London-based team at Bloomsbury AI will be joining the company.

My colleague Steve O’Hear broke the news about the acquisition, reporting that Facebook would deploy the team and technology to assist in its efforts to fight fake news and address other content issues.

In fact, Bloomsbury AI co-founder and Head of Research Sebastian Riedel also co-founded Factmata, a startup that purports to have developed tools to help brands combat fake news.

Facebook doesn’t quite put it that way in the announcement post. Instead, it says the team’s “expertise will strengthen Facebook’s efforts in natural language processing research, and help us further understand natural language and its applications” — but it certainly seems possible that those applications could include detecting misinformation and other problematic content.

While financial terms were not disclosed, we reported that Facebook is paying between $23 and $30 million. Bloomsbury AI is an alumnus of Entrepreneur First, and it was also backed by Fly.VC, Seedcamp, IQ Capital, UCL Technology Fund and the U.K. taxpayer-funded London Co-investment Fund.

At the end of last November, Google announced that Diane Bryant, who at the time was on a leave of absence from her position as the head of Intel’s data center group, would become Google Cloud’s new COO. This was a major coup for Google, but it wasn’t meant to last. After only seven months on the job, Bryant has left Google Cloud, as Business Insider first reported today.

“We can confirm that Diane Bryant is no longer with Google. We are grateful for the contributions she made while at Google and we wish her the best in her next pursuit,” a Google spokesperson told us when we reached out for comment.

The reasons for Bryant’s departure are currently unclear. It’s no secret that Intel is looking for a new CEO and Bryant would fit the bill. Intel also famously likes to recruit insiders as its leaders, though I would be surprised if the company’s board had already decided on a replacement. Bryant spent more than 25 years at Intel and her hire at Google looked like it would be a good match, especially given that Google’s position behind Amazon and Microsoft in the cloud wars means that it needs all the executive talent it can get.

When Bryant was hired, Google Cloud CEO Diane Greene noted that “Diane’s strategic acumen, technical knowledge and client focus will prove invaluable as we accelerate the scale and reach of Google Cloud.” According to the most recent analyst reports, Google Cloud’s market share has ticked up a bit — and its revenue has increased at the same time — but Google remains a distant third in the competition and it doesn’t look like that’s changing anytime soon.

Health insurance startup Alan has launched a new product called Alan Map in France. It’s a dead simple way to find GPs, dentists, ophthalmologists and more around you.

You first type your address and the name of a doctor or the type of doctors you’re looking for. There’s a big map front and center with dots representing doctors around you.

If you click on a dot or a name in the right column, you can learn more about this doctor. Alan Map currently lists the name, address, phone number, opening hours and average price. You can also find out if you can see this doctor without booking an appointment, and if they accept national healthcare cards.

This is already so much better than searching through a directory. But Alan doesn’t plan to stop there. The company will soon launch an integration with MonDocteur so that you can book an appointment from Alan Map directly. MonDocteur is one of the leading healthcare scheduling services in France with Doctolib.

But compared to Doctolib and MonDocteur, Alan Map doesn’t stop at doctors that use their own scheduling systems. Alan has partnered with the official health directory from France’s national healthcare system. You’ll find over 245,000 health professionals on Alan Map, with pricing information for nearly half of them.

The main advantage compared to Ameli.fr is that it looks much better and it’s much easier to find what you’re looking for. Design can be important, even for health products. It can be the main difference between an obscure directory on an official website and a useful map.

Eventually, Alan plans to add more data to its mapping product. For instance, as Alan is a health insurance startup, the company knows how much users are paying when they visit a specific doctor. You could anonymize and leverage this data to get exact pricing information.

Alan Map is a free product. It’s a good way to promote the company’s health insurance product and get inbound traffic. For instance, it should give an SEO boost and you might see Alan in your Google search results.

As for Alan users, they can find a doctor and know how much they’ll get back from the national healthcare system and from Alan. This way, there’s no surprise when you get reimbursed.