Author: azeeadmin

E-book and audiobook subscrition service Scribd has been actively embracing and experimenting with bundling over the past couple years, creating joint offers with The New York Times and with Spotify and Hulu.

Today it announced a slightly different take on the idea with Scribd Perks. These perks gives Scribd’s paying subscribers (the service costs $8.99 per month) access to a number of additional services at no extra change.

The initial lineup includes Pandora Plus (ad-free music and podcasts), TuneIn Premium (live sports, news, music and podcasts), Peak (brain training), CuriosityStream (documentaries and series), CONtv + Comics (movies and digital comics), FarFaria (illustrated children’s books that are read aloud) and MUBI (hand-picked films).

Many of these services are relatively niche — at least compared to Scribd’s previous bundling partners — but they all normally cost between $2.99 and $10.99 per month, so there are some real savings here. It’s an extra incentive for someone to sign up for Scribd, and for existing subscribers to stick around. Meanwhile, these partners presumably get new users and additional revenue.

In a statement, Scribd CEO Trip Adler said:

With millions of people around the world continuing to shelter in place, having access to different forms of enrichment is more important than ever before. We’re thrilled to be partnering with leading consumer brands to offer a more accessible way for consumers to easily stay informed, entertained, and connected. Scribd is designed to help people explore the world’s best content, and now, with the launch of our new Scribd Perks platform, there is even more premium content to discover.

Hims & Hers, the startup focused on providing access to elective treatments for things like hair loss, skin care, and erectile disfunction and online telemedicine services, is expanding its services to include a Spanish language option, the company said.

After Mexico, the U.S. has the second-largest Spanish speaking population in the world, with an estimated 41 million U.S. residents speaking Spanish at home. The population also prefers to receive healthcare information and frequent facilities that offer resources in Spanish.

Now, with a shortage looming in primary care physicians for rural areas and inner cities and a sky-high rate of Hispanics living without any form of healthcare coverage (roughly 15.1 percent, according to data provided by the company), Hims & Hers is pitching its telemedicine offering as an option.

“Language, cost, and location should not be barriers to receiving quality care, which is why we are launching a Spanish offering on our telemedicine platform,” the company said in a statement.

The company’s $39 primary care consultations at its Hims and its Hers websites will be in Spanish. That will include everything from communications like the patient intake form and instructions to prepare for an online consultation along with a connection to Spanish-speaking healthcare provider.

“The reason we created Hims & Hers was to break down barriers and provide more people with access to quality and convenient care,” the company’s co-founder and chief executive, Andrew Dudum, said in a statement. “As a telemedicine company, we recognize the need and understand the importance of serving the Spanish-speaking population. We hope those seeking access to care in Spanish find our platform to be a welcoming, inclusive, quality experience.”

In a new letter to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice, a group of Democrats in the Senate urge regulators to “closely monitor the negotiations” between Uber and Grubhub and to initiate an antitrust investigation if a rumored deal between the two companies comes to pass.

In a letter signed by Senators Amy Klobuchar, Patrick Leahy, Richard Blumenthal and Cory Booker, the lawmakers caution that a merger between Uber’s food delivery service Uber Eats and its competitor Grubhub would lead to “serious competition issues” and a market dominated by only two remaining players. They also called attention to the unique leverage food delivery companies have over gig workers and restaurants right now as those services see explosive growth from new users seeking to get food safely during the crisis.

“As our country grapples with the many health and safety challenges brought about by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, many consumers have turned to food delivery apps to order meals online, and many restaurants have come to rely on the business they get through these apps to stay afloat,” the group of lawmakers wrote.

Following a Wall Street Journal report on the potential merger last week, House antitrust subcommittee chair Rep. David Cicilline called it “a new low in pandemic profiteering.”

It’s been a rough couple months for BuzzFeed (and media in general), but the company is still releasing fun new features.

Today’s addition offers a new, more social take on the quizzes that the site is known for. Instead of taking a quiz on your own and then sharing the results on social media (or simply thinking to yourself, “That’s right, I am a total Samantha” and moving on with your life), you can now that quiz with friends.

With BuzzFeed Quiz Party, when you start a quiz, you’ll be given a link that you can share with anyone you want. Once everyone’s signed on, the actual quiz-taking isn’t dramatically different, but you’re all answering questions in parallel (little icons indicate how much progress everyone has made) and you receive your results together.

BuzzFeed CTO Peter Wang (who joined the company earlier this year) told me that the pandemic and related stay-at-home orders seem to be increasing interest in quizzes; traffic was already up — doubling year-over-year in January — before tripling YOY in March, and then continuing to grow since then.

Wang also suggested that Quiz Party ties into a broader theme of building more social experiences on BuzzFeed and “driving real-world actions beyond consumption … and give the world something fun and joyful.”

For this initial set of quizzes, Wang said BuzzFeed took popular solo quizzes and redid them for groups, but it will continue to expand the Quiz Party library. In the future, the company could also introduce sponsorships and enliven the social experience by adding things like music and chat, he said.

Virgin Orbit has been preparing for this moment for years, but it’s now officially ready to launch its small satellite delivery vehicle to orbit for the first time. This key demonstration mission, taking off from Mojave Air and Space Port in California, will replicate the actual operational launch experience that Virgin Orbit hopes to provide its customers going forward.

The company is targeting Sunday May 24 at 10 AM PT (1 PM ET) for this historic launch, with a four-hour window on the day during which the actual take-off could occur. The mission will include flying its modified Boeing 747 carrier craft with its LauncherOne to that vehicles launch altitude, where it’ll detach from the 747 and use its own rocket engines to make the rest of the trip to space. There’s a backup opportunity on Monday, should weather interfere.

Virgin Orbit’s approach differs from traditional vertical rocket launches, and use of the carrier aircraft means it can take off from traditional runways. The LauncherOne rocket is a two-stage expendable launch vehicle that can carry around 660 lbs or 1,100 lbs to orbit, depending on the orbit required. That puts it at more payload capacity than Rocket Lab’s Electron, but less than SpaceX’s Falcon 9.

The concept behind Virgin Orbit’s approach is designed to reduce costs to make small satellite launches more affordable. Estimates put launch costs at around $12 million per flight, which is a considerable savings vs. traditional launch costs and even the price of SpaceX missions.

Virgin Orbit has been performing a number of tests and flights to ready for this final full demonstration mission, including a captive carry test last month. If all goes well with this demo mission, the company could begin launching for commercial clients as early as July.

Tesla has officially dismissed a lawsuit filed earlier this month against Alameda County that sought to force the reopening of its factory in Fremont, California.

The dismissal, which was granted Wednesday, closes the loop on a battle between Tesla CEO Elon Musk and county health and law enforcement officials. The lawsuit filed May 9, hours after Musk threatened to sue and move operations out of state, sought injunctive and declaratory relief against Alameda County. Reuters was the first to report the dismissal.

The lawsuit was filed after Tesla’s plans to resume production at the Fremont factory were thwarted by the county’s decision to extend a stay-at-home order issued to curb the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by coronavirus.

Musk had based the reopening on new guidance issued by California Gov. Gavin Newsom that allows manufacturers to resume operations. However, the governor’s guidance included a warning that local governments could keep more restrictive rules in place. Alameda County, along with several other Bay Area counties and cities, extended the stay-at-home orders through the end of May. The orders were revised and did ease some of the restrictions. However, it did not lift the order for manufacturing.

After several days of Twitter rants and negotiations with the county, Tesla was allowed to begin to reopen its factory as long as it adhered to approved safety measures.

WarnerMedia announced today that director Zack Snyder’s version of “Justice League” will be released on HBO Max in 2021.

Snyder is the only credited director on the 2017 superhero film, but he left the film during post-production, after his daughter’s suicide, with “Avengers” director Joss Whedon stepping in to write and shoot new material.

The resulting film received mixed reviews and underperformed at the box office, leading to corporate shakeups at DC Entertainment and pushing the studio to focus standalone films, rather than big crossovers.

At the same time, #ReleaseTheSnyderCut has become a popular hashtag on social media, with many of the movie’s stars joining in, so WarnerMedia is finally responding. It’s also probably happy to find a fresh source of already-filmed content for HBO Max while COVID-19 has forced a pause on film and TV production. (The HBO-and-more streaming service launches next week.)

It’s not clear what form the release will take — according to The Hollywood Reporter, it might be a single film of nearly four hours, or it might be broken up into six chapters. And apparently the estimated cost is somewhere between $20 and $30 million.

“I want to thank HBO Max and Warner Brothers for this brave gesture of supporting artists and allowing their true visions to be realized,” Snyder said in a statement. “Also a special thank you to all of those involved in the SnyderCut movement for making this a reality.”

Personally, I’ve been a bit skeptical of the social media uproar, partly because I liked the existing version of “Justice League” just fine, despite its obvious flaws; partly because Snyder’s previous film “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice” was almost unwatchably bad; and partly because it’s become tediously predictable for indignant fans to demand a new version of a movie or TV show they didn’t like.

Still, it’s hard not to feel sympathetic for a director who just wants present his vision, particularly when the work was derailed by tragedy. And I can’t deny that I’m curious. So bring on the Snyder Cut.

This week Alexia Bonatsos of Dream Machine and Niko Bonatsos of General Catalyst swung by Extra Crunch Live to discuss where they are investing today and what the future might look like.

As expected, these seed and early-stage venture capitalists had a lot to say about their current investing cadence and what interests them in the world of edtech, Clubhouse and more. A big thanks to everyone who came out and submitted some great questions.

Going back through the chat today, a few sections jumped out. For this recap, I’ve gathered answers from the transcript regarding today’s fundraising climate, the future of AI and the possible impact of the downturn on VC-backed founder diversity.

And for everyone who couldn’t join us live, I’ve included the full video replay below. (You can get access here, if you need it.)

Today’s fundraising climate

Alexia:

It’s kind of a Rashomon; depending on whose perspective you’re getting the story, is just completely different.

Let’s see, are [VCs] being as active as they were in 2018? I’m gonna say no. I mean, look at your data, your data says no. But does that mean people [have] shut down the shop and are all in Montana? Also no, right?

We know that these kinds of “crisistunities” — and I’m not diminishing the crisis at all, it is very sad and very scary, and it’s something that I’m very privileged to be able to be experiencing from inside my apartment and not from outside within an emergency room or a food bank or any other place that it’s actually at the front lines, right?

Editor’s note: Andreessen Horowitz’s Crypto Startup School brought together 45 participants from around the U.S. and overseas in a seven-week course to learn how to build crypto companies. Andreessen Horowitz is partnering with TechCrunch to release the online version of the course over the next few weeks. 

In week two of a16z’s Crypto Startup School, three company-builders provide real-world advice on using the qualities of crypto to create new business models and networks.

Coinbase founder and CEO Brian Armstrong walks us through “Setting Up and Scaling a Crypto Company,” explaining how crypto can help startups raise money, acquire customers and build a global profile. The issuing of tokens, for example, can align the incentives of early users and reinforce network effects, helping solve the “cold-start” problem that can derail many startups.

Armstrong also outlines the disadvantages of crypto that entrepreneurs must watch out for, including regulatory uncertainty. On balance, he thinks crypto is where the internet was in the early days.

“In five or 10 years, pretty much every startup that gets created, it’s going to use the internet, it’s going to use AI and it’s also going to use some form of cryptocurrency somewhere in that product.”

In the next lecture, Balaji Srinivasan, an angel investor and co-founder of multiple companies, including Earn.com and Counsyl, gives an overview of “Applications: Today & 2025.”

Srinivasan starts off by tracing the history of crypto from Bitcoin and Ethereum to the present. He highlights the crypto applications that have already gotten traction — infrastructure providers such as exchanges, wallets and miners; decentralized finance (DeFi) apps; and stablecoins that eliminate the volatility of early cryptocurrencies — and looks ahead to the ones that are likely to emerge in the next five years. These include personal tokenization, new financial instruments, decentralized autonomous organizations and gaming.

Finally, Forte co-founder and CEO Josh Williams does a deep dive on “Opportunities for Crypto and Gaming.” Williams explains that blockchain technology could have an even bigger impact on gaming than the internet because it’s not just connecting people, but potentially changing business models by aligning the incentives of developers and players. It can do this by allowing players to truly own the assets in games and verify their provenance, and by enabling developers to code rich incentive systems and rewards into games.

By incorporating these mechanisms, Williams believes, an already exploding gaming industry will grow and create multi-billion-dollar marketplaces within games that will truly benefit players and developers.