Author: azeeadmin

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here.

Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for August 23, 2021. We’ve got a simply lovely bunch of news items for you below, but before we get into the mix, do note that Pfizer’s vaccine has been fully approved. Which is great news! And in other great news, the agenda is out for our October SaaS event. Which is going to kick maximum backside. See you there! — Alex

The TechCrunch Top 3

• Would you like to go to space? Well, if you are a small satellite heading for low-Earth orbit, good news! Virgin Orbit is raising a bunch of money in a SPAC-led combination that will at once take it public and provide it with a huge grip of cash. You are familiar with Virgin Galactic, its sister company that takes humans for a joyride. Orbit uses a similar launch technique to put more hardware in space.
• The global crypto race is on: U.S. fintech companies are working to provide domestic users with the option of buying crypto using their service. And now PayPal is taking its efforts international, with plans to allow U.K. folks to buy cryptocurrency through its service. There is going to be a rush for local providers of crypto services to expand to new shores to both avoid ceding potential global market share and stay relevant.
• Is this why investors are falling out of love with insurtech? TechCrunch has been on the insurtech beat for a while now, trying to figure out why a bunch of formerly hot insurtech startups that went public in the last year have seen their valuations decline once they began to float. We may have figured it out.

Startups/VC

• Do you want to turn that coupon into a donation? Givz hopes so. The startup provides an API that allows companies to offer coupons that are, in fact, donations to charity. As Mary Ann Azevedo wrote, an “example of a company using Givz can be found in Tervis, which offered customers” a $15 charity donation if they spent $50 at its store. The startup just closed $3 million.
• Shelf.io raises huge $52M Series B: Even in 2021, a $50 million Series B stands out. But what makes Shelf interesting isn’t really its new round’s size, but the fact that it posted 4x ARR growth from July 2020 to July 2021. That’s quick. The company sells software that ingests a company’s knowledge base, offering suggestions to workers like customer support reps about what to say and when.
• How are customers really using your API? That’s the question that Moesif wants to answer, and it just raised $12 million to keep up its efforts. We’ve noted at TechCrunch that many startups are swapping from SaaS to API-delivered software services. Which is well and good, but doesn’t always supply the most limpid way of monitoring customer usage and usage patterns. Perhaps Moesif will make it easier to bill for overages?
• SoftBank looks to Africa: After flying into the Latin American startup market and making noise, SoftBank’s Vision Fund franchise just made a huge bet in Africa, leading a $400 million round into fintech company OPay. Our own Tage Kene-Okafor writes that “the company’s mobile money and payment arm” is its most successful effort to date.
• From the latest YC batch, Revery: This startup — Revery.ai, formally — wants to apply computer vision and artificial intelligence to e-commerce to provide a better online dressing room experience, TechCrunch reports. We’ve heard of similar efforts in the past, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t room in the world of online shopping for a few players.
• Expect to hear more from YC companies as demo day looms in our calendars.

Zūm CEO Ritu Narayan explains why equity and accessibility works for mobility services

Ritu Narayan founded Zūm with her two brothers in 2016 to disrupt student transportation, a space that hasn’t seen much innovation since pupils began finding their way to and from little red schoolhouses.

Since then, Zūm has inked partnerships with school districts around the country to create more efficient routes and reduce vehicle emissions.

By 2025, Narayan says her company will have 10,000 electric school buses and plans to put the fleet into service to generate power and feed it back to the grid.

To learn more about the company’s development, its immediate plans for the future and how the pandemic impacted operations, read on.

(Extra Crunch is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.)

Big Tech Inc.

• TikTok invests in AR: Social phenom TikTok wants to follow Snap and Facebook into the AR studio game. The company just “launched a new creative toolset called TikTok Effect Studio, currently in private beta testing, which will allow its own developer community to build AR effects for TikTok’s short-form video app,” TechCrunch reports. “How do you do, fellow kids?” but in AR? Brands are going to love this.
• Because our Big Tech section was smaller than usual today, here’s one more from the startup beat: Future tech exits have a lot to live up to.

TechCrunch Experts: Growth Marketing

Image Credits: SEAN GLADWELL (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

Are you all caught up on last week’s coverage of growth marketing? If not, read it here.

TechCrunch wants you to recommend growth marketers who have expertise in SEO, social, content writing and more! If you’re a growth marketer, pass this survey along to your clients; we’d like to hear about why they loved working with you.

Community

Image Credits: Simon and Schuster

Join Danny Crichton tomorrow Tuesday August 24, at 3 p.m. PDT/6 p.m. EDT for a Twitter Spaces interview with Eric Dean Wilson, author of, “After Cooling: On Freon, Global Warming, and the Terrible Cost of Comfort.”

TechCrunch Disrupt 2021

It’s almost that time when startup followers from around the world gather at our annual conference, Disrupt, which will be held virtually again this year. Join the community September 21-23 to expand your horizons and your network with founders and CEOs of Coinbase, Dapper Labs, GitLab, Canva and more. Attend for less than $100, or you can get a free Innovator Pass if you are one of the first 10 people to register with promo code DAILYCRUNCHFREE. But you’ll want to hurry — it’s first-come, first-served, and once they’re gone, they’re gone!

I took a long walk on Saturday. It’s become a routine during the pandemic, a chance to unwind after too many hours indoors, while seeing parts of the city that would otherwise be lost to subway rides in normal years. Saturday was more purpose-driven, heading to a newly opened Trader Joe’s before Henri unleashed itself on the Eastern Seaboard.

Taking respite from the early rain, I found a food court in Long Island City, ordered a shawarma and pulled the Galaxy Z Flip from my pocket. I unfolded the phone, popped the new Galaxy Buds in my ears and watched a baseball game on the MLB.TV app. The Flip really made sense in that moment, open in landscape mode at a 135-degree angle to keep the 6.7-inch screen upright. When the game ended (spoiler, it didn’t end well), I snapped the phone shut, stuck it in my pocket and went on my way.

It doesn’t always come with a piece of new technology, but sometimes you get lucky and have an experience where it just clicks. There were plenty of jokes about the long-ago death of the clamshell when the first Flip arrived. Those won’t be going away anytime soon, of course, but the phone also offered the first sense for many that maybe Samsung was heading in the right direction with its foldable ambitions.

Image Credits: Brian Heater

Setting aside the early flaws with the first Galaxy Fold (we’ve covered them ad nauseum elsewhere), the device is also unwieldy. While it’s true the foldable screen affords you the ability to carry around a screen that might otherwise be impossible, it’s a large device when folded, and the opportunities to unfold don’t readily present themselves. The Flip splits the difference nicely between screen size and portability. In terms of display size, it’s effectively a Galaxy Note that snaps in two and fits nicely in your pocket.

Most of the talk of Samsung mainstreaming foldables has centered on the Galaxy Z Fold — mostly from the company itself. Samsung has made a big to-do about positioning the Fold as its latest flagship — augmenting or, perhaps replacing, the Note in its lineup. The Fold 3 certainly blurs the lines with the addition of S Pen functionality, but the Flip is the much clearer bridge between Samsung’s existing flagships and the foldable future it envisions.

Mainstreaming foldables was always going to be a tricky proposition. Right out of the gate, they were hit with negative coverage over production issues and prices; $2,000 is a lot to pay for a product you essentially have to handle with kid gloves. You shouldn’t have to worry about accidentally damaging your daily driver through normal use. The Flip benefits from the mistakes of earlier fold generations, getting a more robust design and water resistance as a result.

Perhaps even more importantly, however, is pricing. The Galaxy Z Flip is Samsung’s first foldable under $1,000. Now, granted, it’s literally one penny under that threshold — a price point that puts it in line with expensive premium phones from the likes of Samsung and Apple. But in the world of foldables, that’s a really big win. The first couple of generations could — to some degree — survive on novelty alone.

Image Credits: Brian Heater

As more of these devices make their way into the world, utility supersedes novelty. But growing popularity also means scale — and, as a result, price drops. For the first time, buying a Samsung foldable is not the financial equivalent of buying two phones. That’s a much more significant threshold than the Galaxy Fold dropping $200 over its previous generation.

The company noted this week, that “in just 10 days since announcement pre-orders for the Galaxy Z Fold3 and Galaxy Z Flip3 have already surpassed total global Samsung foldables sales in all of 2021, also making it the strongest pre-order for Samsung foldables ever.” There are a lot of factors here, including a lower price, more robust design, the absence of a new Note and an aggressive push to get consumers to preorder. But it’s safe to say the line is, at the very least, trending the right way.

Expectedly, the company’s numbers don’t break down sales in terms of Fold versus Flip. Admittedly, the Fold is more fully featured, and 7.6 inches of screen is better than 6.7 inches of screen, when it comes, to, say, watching a full movie. But for most people in most instances, the Galaxy Flip is a better choice. I can say with no hesitation: The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip is the most mainstream foldable on the market.

If you’re not sold on the importance of foldables, such a statement understandably doesn’t mean much. But for a vast majority of people looking to make the leap to what is increasingly looking like a key part of the mobile future, the Flip is an obvious choice. And while it’s easy to make fun of the clamshell design as a relic of a bygone era, there’s a reason phones went that way in the first place. One assumes a big part of the reason they largely went away is that — until now — smartphones weren’t foldable.

Image Credits: Brian Heater

Samsung gets the design language right here. The Flip 3 is easily the company’s best-looking foldable to date. The dual-color shell is striking. The company sent along a cream color, which I’m not particularly fond of, but the green, lavender and even plain black or white are quite striking. It pairs well with the strip of black that houses the exterior display, which has been bumped from 1.1 to 1.9 inches. It doesn’t sound like a lot, sure, but that’s a healthy increase on a screen this size.

Of course, you’re losing the full exterior screen functionality you get on the Fold. The Flip’s display is effectively a quick-glance secondary screen for notifications. Pull it out, and it shows you the time, date and how much battery you’ve got left. Swipe right and you’ll see your notifications.

Swipe left and you get an alarm or timer, with the option of adding more widgets to the screen, including weather, media playback (effectively audio play/pause) and Samsung Health Metrics. It’s a small list, but one that will no doubt increase if more people pick up the Flip. Swipe down for some quick settings and Swipe up for Samsung Pause.

In a time when many of us are trying to make a concerted effort to minimize our phone use, I appreciate the dichotomy between the two screens. It’s a much clearer line in the sand than the one separating the Fold’s 6.2- and 7.6-inch screens. Phone closed = checking my notifications. Phone open = engagement. When the time comes to open the phone, the Flip is a much easier proposition than the phones. I haven’t quite mastered the art of the one-handed open just yet, but it’s much easier to execute on the fly than the Fold, which is effectively like opening a book. The biggest downside to the form factor in terms of speed is there’s no quick way to fire off a photo.

Image Credits: Brian Heater

Taking photos is far more deliberate, requiring one to open the phone to see the internal view finder. You can, however, snap off some selfies by double-pressing the power button, with the small front-facing screen doubling as a small viewfinder. Swiping to the left toggles between still, while swiping up and down changes the level of zoom. It’s a bit awkward and clunky, but the pair of 12-megapixel cameras (wide and ultra-wide) will get you a much better selfie than most pinhole cameras (including the Flip’s 10 megapixel lens).

Like the Fold, the rear cameras (which are also the front-facing cameras, depending on how you look at it) are largely unchanged since the Flip 2. A dual-camera system can feel almost antiquated in 2021, but for most intents and purposes, they do the trick, coupled with Samsung’s many years of camera software experience. The 22:9 aspect ratio means more than a quarter of the screen is occupied by the controls out of necessity.

[gallery ids="2192880,2192883,2192882,2192881,2192879,2192874,2192873,2192872,2192871,2192870"]

The aspect ratio in general merits comment. It’s, like, really, really tall when open. It’s a nice amount of real estate to have when, say, scrolling through Gmail or Twitter. But when watching video, you’ll often encounter pillarboxing — letterboxing on the sides of the screen. The video world simply isn’t ready for 22:9, and quite frankly, it probably won’t ever be.

And then, of course, there’s the seam. It’s right there in the center of the lovely 2640 x 1080, 425 ppi screen. And barring some unforeseen breakthrough in foldable tech, I frankly don’t see it disappearing any time soon. I understand why that might be a deal breaker, though I’ve largely gotten used to it after spending time with these devices.

Like the Fold, the Flip runs on the Snapdragon 888 processor. Predictably, the lower cost comes with less in the way of RAM and storage, at 8 and 128GB on the Flip, to the Fold’s 12 and 256GB. Another $150 will upgrade the storage 256GB here. While Samsung mostly hasn’t skimped much on the internals, the 3,300 mAh battery does fall short.

Battery life is an issue with the Fold and an even bigger problem on the Flip — in fact, it’s the biggest complaint here. Moderate to heavy use is going to require getting near a charging cable before the day is over. Maybe not a huge deal in these pandemic days, but something to consider as we re-enter the world. Certainly long, unplugged plane rides are out of the question.

Image Credits: Brian Heater

Again, I can totally sympathize with that being a deal breaker. You pay $1,000 for a phone, you want a battery that’s going to get you through a day of use, worry-free. And certainly it’s something for Samsung to focus on in gen four.

As it stands, the Galaxy Z Flip 3 has the benefit of previous generations, with a stronger aluminum frame, improved screen protector and IPX8 water resistance (no dust resistance rating, for reasons outlined in the Fold review). It’s not a perfect phone, but it’s a strong sign of how far Samsung’s foldables have come in three generations, coupled with a sub-$1,000 price point.

The device is likely to be second fiddle as the company continues to push the Fold as its flagship foldable. But for most people looking to enter the world of foldable phones, the Flip is the easy choice.

Elon Musk’s Starlink project, which aims to provide global broadband connectivity via a constellation of satellites, has shipped 100,000 terminals to customers.

100k terminals shipped!https://t.co/Q1VvqVmJ2i

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 23, 2021

It’s a jaw-dropping pace for the capital-intensive service, which began satellite launches in November 2019 and opened its $99/month beta program for select customers around a year later. Since that period, SpaceX has launched over 1,700 satellites to date and – in addition to the 100,000 shipped terminals – has received over half a million additional orders for the service.

In some ways, it’s no surprise that SpaceX has managed to accelerate its Starlink service so quickly, as the company launches the satellites itself on the Falcon 9 rocket. Such vertical integration is a key strategy of the space company, now the highest-valued in the world.

Many of Starlink’s beta customers live in remote or rural areas, where access to conventional broadband is limited or non-existent. Customers pay a $499 upfront cost for the service, which covers a starter kit to get them off the ground: a user terminal (which SpaceX lovingly refers to as ‘Dishy McFlatface’), wifi router, power supply, cables and a mounting tripod.

Image Credits: Starlink (opens in a new window)

But while Starlink’s rapid growth reflects an aggressive strategy, it’s just the beginning for the project, if SpaceX has anything to say about it. The company ultimately wants to launch around 30,000 Starlink satellites into orbit, and expand its user pool to millions of customers. In an application for the next generation Starlink system, submitted to the Federal Communication Commission on August 18, SpaceX proposed two separate configurations for the constellation, one of them that would use its next-gen Starship heavy-lift rocket.

That constellation would top out at 29,988 satellites in total; SpaceX also proposed an alternate configuration using its Falcon 9 rocket. But the obvious advantage of Starship is its massive size payload capacity.

“SpaceX has found ways to leverage the advanced capabilities of its new launch vehicle, Starship, that has increased capability to deliver more mass to orbit quickly and efficiently and, combined with reuse capability of the upper stage, launch more often,” the company said in the amended application.

Rocket Lab is one step closer to going to Mars with NASA’s approval of the company’s Photon spacecraft for an upcoming science mission. If all continues according to plan the two craft will launch in 2024 and arrive on the Red Planet 11 months later to study its magnetosphere.

The mission is known as the Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers, or ESCAPADE (hats off to whoever worked that one out), and was proposed for a small satellite science program back in 2019, eventually being chosen as a finalist. UC Berkeley researchers are the main force behind the science part.

These satellites have to be less than 180 kilograms (about 400 pounds) and must perform standalone science missions, part of a new program aiming at more lightweight, shorter lead missions that can be performed with strong commercial industry collaboration. A few concepts have been baking since the original announcement of the program, and ESCAPADE just passed Key Decision Point C, meaning it’s ready to go from concept to reality.

This particular mission is actually a pair of satellites, a perk that no doubt contributed to its successful selection. Rocket Lab’s whole intention with the Photon program is to provide a more or less turnkey design for various space operations, from orbital work to interplanetary science missions like this one.

Interestingly, Rocket Lab won’t actually be launching the mission aboard one of its Electron rockets — the satellites will be aboard a “NASA-provided commercial launch vehicle,” which leaves it up to them. Perhaps by that time the company will be in the running for the contract, but for now Rocket Lab is only building the spacecraft, including most of the non-scientific onboard components: navigation, orientation, propulsion, etc.

ESCAPADE is an innovative mission that demonstrates that advanced interplanetary science is now within reach for a fraction of traditional costs, and we’re proud to make it possible with Photon. We are delighted to receive the green light from NASA to proceed to flight,” said Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck in the company’s announcement of the milestone.

Rocket Lab is already under contract to lift a CubeSat to cislunar orbit for Artemis purposes, and has locked in a deal with Varda Space Industries to build that company’s spacecraft, for launch in 2023 and 2024.

Less than a year after raising its $6 million seed funding round, Tel Aviv and Sunnyvale-based startup Build.security is being acquired by Elastic. Financial terms of the deal are not being publicly disclosed at this time. The deal is expected to close in Elastic’s Q2 FY22, ending Oct. 31, 2021.

In an email to TechCrunch, Ash Kulkarni, chief product officer at Elastic, said that once the acquisition closes, the build.security technical team will continue as a unit in the Elastic Security organization. Kulkarni added that the acquisition will also become the foundation for a growing Elastic presence in Israel, with Amit Kanfer, co-founder and CEO of build.security set to become the site lead for the region.

Build.security is focused on security policy management for applications. A core element of the company’s technology approach is the Open Policy Agent (OPA) open source project, which is part of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), which is also home to Kubernetes. OPA was originally started by startup Styra, which itself has raised $40 million in funding to help build out policy management and authorization technology. Part of OPA is the Rego query language which is used to structure security and authorization configuration policies.

“We see policy as a fundamental cornerstone of security,” Kulkarni said. “OPA and Rego provide an open, standards-based way to define, manage, and enforce policies everywhere.”

Kulkarni noted that security policy technology is complementary to Elastic’s efforts in security and observability. He added that Elastic sees potential for using OPA and the technology that build.security has built on top of OPA to power deployment time, and in the future, build-time security for cloud-native environments. 

YL Venture partner John Brennan who helped to lead the seed round of build.security sees the acquisition as being a good fit for both companies, as they are both creating solutions for developers that are based on open source technologies.

“This move by a market leader like Elastic validates the need for transformation in the authorization space,” Brennan said. “This partnership will accelerate build.security’s shift left vision of efficiently embedding access protection from the start, rather than trying to bolt it on after the fact or, worse, ignoring it completely.”

Elastic is known for its Elastic Stack, which provides Elasticsearch search capability, Logstash log monitoring and Kibana data visualization. In recent years the company has expanded into the security space, acquiring Endgame Security in 2019 for $234 million. On Aug. 3, Elastic announced its Limitless XDR capabilities which brings together endpoint security with security information and event management (SIEM).

With its new acquisition, Kulkarni said the goal is to go even deeper into security moving toward cloud security enforcement. He explained that after the acquisition closes and as the technology is integrated, users will be able to leverage the Elastic Stack to visualize and manage compliance policies and policy decisions at scale. An initial use-case for the build.security technology will be developing a Kubernetes security and compliance product based on OPA.

Enterprise startups have several viable exit strategies: Some will go public, but most successful outcomes will be via acquisition, often by one of the highly acquisitive large competitors like Salesforce, Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle, SAP, Adobe or Cisco.

From rivals to “spin-ins,” Cisco has a particularly rich history of buying its way to global success. It has remained quite active, acquiring more than 30 startups over the last four years for a total of 229 over the life of the company. The most recent was Epsagon earlier this month, with five more in its most recent quarter (Q4 FY2021): Slido, Sedona Systems, Kenna Security, Involvio and Socio. It even announced three of them in the same week.

What’s the secret sauce? How it is going faster than ever? For startups that encounter a company like Cisco, what do you need to know if you have talks that go places with it? We spoke to the company CFO, senior vice president of corporate development, and the general manager and executive vice president of security and collaboration to help us understand how all of the pieces fit together, why they acquire so many companies and what startups can learn from their process.

Cisco, as you would expect, has developed a rigorous methodology over the years to identify startups that could fit its vision. That involves product, of course, but also team and price, all coming together to make a successful deal. From targeting to negotiating to closing to incorporating the company into the corporate fold, a startup can expect a well-tested process.

Even with all this experience, chances are it won’t work perfectly every time. But since Cisco started doing M&A nine years into its history with the purchase of LAN switcher Crescendo Communications in 1993 — leading to its massive switching business today — the approach clearly works well enough that they keep doing it.

It starts with cash

If you want to be an acquisitive company, chances are you have a fair amount of cash on hand. That is certainly the case with Cisco, which currently has more than $24.5 billion in cash and equivalents, albeit down from $46 billion in 2017.

CFO Scott Herren says that the company’s cash position gives it the flexibility to make strategic acquisitions when it sees opportunities.

“We generate free cash flow net of our capex in round numbers in the $14 billion a year range, so it’s a fair amount of free cash flow. The dividend consumes about $6 billion a year,” Herren said. “We do share buybacks to offset our equity grant programs, but that still leaves us with a fair amount of cash that we generate year on year.”

He sees acquisitions as a way to drive top-line company growth while helping to push the company’s overall strategic goals. “As I think about where our acquisition strategy fits into the overall company strategy, it’s really finding the innovation we need and finding the companies that fit nicely and that marry to our strategy,” he said.

“And then let’s talk about the deal … and does it make sense or is there a … seller price point that we can meet and is it clearly something that I think will continue to be a core part of our strategy as a company in terms of finding innovation and driving top-line growth there,” he said.

The company says examples of acquisitions that both drove innovation and top-line growth include Duo Security in 2018, ThousandEyes in 2020 and Acacia Communications this year. Each offers some component that helps drive Cisco’s strategy — security, observability and next-generation internet infrastructure — while contributing to growth. Indeed, one of the big reasons for all these acquisitions could be about maintaining growth.

Playing the match game

Cisco is at its core still a networking equipment company, but it has been looking to expand its markets and diversify outside its core networking roots for years by moving into areas like communications and security. Consider that along the way it has spent billions on companies like WebEx, which it bought in 2007 for $3.2 billion, or AppDynamics, which it bought in 2017 for $3.7 billion just before it was going to IPO. It has also made more modest purchases (by comparison at least), such as MindMeld for $125 million and countless deals that were too small to require them to report the purchase price.

Derek Idemoto, SVP for corporate development and Cisco investments, has been with the company for 100 of those acquisitions and has been involved in helping scout companies of interest. His team begins the process of identifying possible targets and where they fall within a number of categories, such as whether it allows them to enter new markets (as WebEx did), extend their markets (as with Duo Security), or acqui-hire top technical talent and get some cool tech, as they did when they purchased BabbleLabs last year.

OnlyFans’ decision to ban sexually explicit content is reigniting an important and overlooked conversation around tech companies, content guidelines and sex work. However, the implications of this discussion go beyond just one platform and one marginalized group.

It’s indicative of a broken ecosystem for content creators where platforms have outsized control over the ways in which creators are allowed to share content and engage with their followers and fans. In response, creators are decentralizing, broadening their reach to multiple platforms and taking their audiences with them.

In doing so, creators also have the opportunity to define what rights they want to be built into these platforms.

History repeats itself

Creators being shut out of the individual platforms is nothing new. Many are comparing OnlyFans’ policy change to Tumblr’s move to ban adult content in 2018. This has been an ongoing issue for YouTube as well — several communities, including a group of LGBTQ YouTubers, have accused the platform of targeting them with their demonetization algorithm.

Many of these platforms, including OnlyFans, point to their payment partners’ policies as a barrier to allowing certain forms of content. One of the earliest major controversies we saw in this arena was when PayPal banned WikiLeaks in 2010.

While each of these events have drawn the ire of creators and their followers, it’s indicative of an ecosystemwide problem, not necessarily an indictment of the platforms themselves.

After all, these platforms have provided the opportunity for creators to build an audience and engage with their fans. But these platforms have also had to put policies in place to shield themselves from regulatory and reputational risk.

That doesn’t mean that that all guidelines and policies are bad — they play a role to foster and govern a positive and safe community with thoughtful guidelines — but it should not come at the cost of harming and de-platforming the creators who fuel these platforms with content and engagement. The core of the issue is that creators are beholden to individual platforms, always vulnerable to changing policies and forced to navigate the painful migration of their audiences and monetization from platform to platform.

And, at the end of the day, it takes away from their ability to create meaningful content, engage with their communities and earn a reliable living.

As creators have lost more and more control to platforms over time, some have begun exploring alternative options that allow independent and direct monetization from their audience in a distributed way.

Decentralizing, monetizing

The direct-to-fan monetization model is already displacing the traditional ad-based, platform-dictated model that creators relied on for years. During my time at Patreon, I saw how putting control and ownership in the hands of creators builds a more sustainable, fair and vibrant creator economy. Substack has given writers a similarly powerful financial tool, and over the past few years, there has been an ever-growing number of companies that serve creators.

The challenge is that many of these companies rely on the existing systems that hamstrung the platforms of the past, and have business models that require take rates and revenue shares. In many ways, the creator economy needs new infrastructure and business models to build the next phase of creator and fan interaction.

With the right application, crypto can help rewrite the playbook of how creators monetize, engage with their fans and partner with platforms. Its peer-to-peer structure reflects the direct-to-fan relationship and allows creators to own the financial relationship with their audience instead of relying on tech giants or payment partners as middlemen. Beyond that, crypto allows creators to maintain ownership and control over their brands and intellectual property.

Additionally, many crypto projects allow participants to have a voice in the value proposition, strategic direction, operational functions and economic structures of the project via DAOs or governance tokens. In this way, creators can join projects and set the direction in a way that aligns with how they want to engage with their communities.

Creators are especially positioned to benefit from community-governed projects given their ability to motivate and engage their own communities. We are in the early phases of crypto adoption, and creators have a huge opportunity to shape the future of this paradigm shift. With social tokens, creators can mint their own cryptocurrencies that allow for a shared economy that creators and fans can grow together and use to transact directly across different platforms.

NFTs are another category that have exploded in popularity this year, but the industry is just scratching the surface of the utility that they will have. Creators and crypto projects are figuring out ways to make NFTs go beyond collectibles; NFTs provide an engaging and functional digital tool for creators to give their fans their time (through video calls or AMAs) or access to other exclusive benefits.

Creators are just beginning to discover the power that crypto provides. As the user experience of crypto-based platforms continues to become more intuitive, crypto will become ubiquitous. Before that point, creators should think about what rights they need (and can demand) from the decentralized services they use.

A creators’ bill of rights

Be it within crypto or not, creators finally have the leverage to determine their rights. While I believe that creators should be the ones leading this conversation, here are a few jumping off points:

• Ability to move freely across platforms: Reliance on individual platforms is at the heart of many of the issues that creators face. By allowing creators to take their fans with them wherever they go, many of the problems we’ve seen even with direct-to-fan monetization can be solved.
• Direct financial relationships between creators and fans: At the heart of the OnlyFans matter is creators’ inability to own their financial relationships with fans. Even if direct financial relationships aren’t feasible on every platform, creators should have options to own those relationships and dictate their own terms.
• Creator-led decision-making: Historically, platforms have given creators minimal control over platformwide decisions and policies. Creators should have direct input and even be able to vote on various platformwide measures.
• Quality over quantity: Platforms and their algorithms are structured to reward quantity and force creators down a path of burnout and hyperspeed content creation. Both creators and fans are looking for a more deep and engaging interaction and incentivizing this behavior will ensure a more vibrant and sustainable creator ecosystem.
• Low (or zero) take rates: Big tech platforms take nearly 100% of revenue from creators. Creators (and their fans) should be earning the majority of platform revenue.
• Equity access or revenue sharing: Big tech platforms have built empires on the labor of creators. Instead of dictating ad revenue payout to creators, decentralized platforms should allow creators to have true “skin in the game” by being able to own a piece of the pie outright or benefit from the overall growth of the ecosystem. This alignment of interests will be a major shift from the capital-labor split we see today.
• Transparency and consultation: Creators should have full view into what they can or can’t do and a seat at the table as policies are being created and adapted. Platforms’ content moderation decisions and the algorithms behind demonetization are often opaque, broadly applied and decided without consulting the creators they will impact. They should also have visibility into the size of the overall revenue pie and their share.
• Ability for reform and rehabilitation: We are all human, and there might be moments that a creator knowingly or unknowingly goes outside of the guidelines set by a platform. Creating a space for creators to rehabilitate their content will create a more trusting and collaborative relationship between creators and platforms.

We’ll leave it to creators to dictate their terms — they’ve been cut out of this conversation for far too long. That said, I’m confident that Rally and many other key participants in the Web 3.0 ecosystem would be open to supporting this effort to create an environment that works for creators and their fans.

Instagram is ditching the “swipe-up” link in Instagram Stories starting on August 30. The popular feature has historically allowed businesses and high-profile creators a way to direct their Story’s viewers to a website where they could learn more about a product, read an article, sign-up for a service, or do anything else the creator wanted to promote. In place of the “swipe up” call-to-action, Instagram users who previously had access to the feature will instead be able to use the new Link Sticker, the company says.

This sticker had been in testing starting in June with a small handful of users, the company said. But on August 30, it will begin to roll out more broadly.

App researcher Jane Manchun Wong first noticed the announcement which warned creators of the plan to shut down swipe-up links.

Instagram says it will begin to convert those who currently have access to the swipe-up link to the Link Sticker starting on August 30, 2021. This will include businesses and creators who are either verified or who have met the threshold for follower count. (While Instagram doesn’t publicly comment on this count, it’s widely reported to be at least 10,000 followers.)

The new Link Sticker has a couple of key advantages over the older “swipe-up” link.

For starters, it offers greater creator control over their Stories.

Like polls, questions and location stickers, the Link Sticker lets creators toggle between different styles, resize the sticker, and then place it anywhere on the Story for maximum engagement. In addition, viewers will now be able to react and reply to posts that have the Link Sticker attached, just like any other Story. Before, that sort of feedback wasn’t possible on posts with the swipe-up link, Instagram noted.

While there isn’t a change to who will gain access to the Link Sticker for now, Instagram says it’s evaluating whether or not to expand link access to more accounts in the future. The decision to expand access is one that has to be made carefully, however, as it could impact the app’s integrity and safety. For instance, if Link Sticker were to be adopted by bad actors, it could be used to spread misinformation or post spam. The shift to the Link Sticker is the first step in making it possible to broaden access to link sharing in Stories, if Instagram chooses to go that route.

Overall, the move away from a gesture to sticker is more in line with Instagram’s current creative direction, where interactive features are added to posts in the form of stickers. The new Link Sticker will join others already available in the app, including stickers for donations, music, and polls.

Cities like New York City, San Francisco and New Orleans are moving to enact COVID-19 vaccination requirements for indoor dining. So OpenTable, the online restaurant reservation service, is rolling out features to help restaurants streamline vaccination checks. Today, OpenTable announced a partnership with the biometric security company CLEAR, which allows users to create a digital vaccine card.

CLEAR built its company through a subscription service that expedites airport security by asking users to scan their eyes and face to verify their identity. But since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, CLEAR launched a free service called Health Pass that provides users with their proof of vaccination. OpenTable will roll out its integration with CLEAR’s Health Pass starting in September on OpenTable’s iOS and Android apps.

After you make a reservation at a restaurant with vaccine requirements, a banner for CLEAR will appear at the top of the confirmation page. When you click the banner, you can create a CLEAR digital vaccine card. Then, when it’s time to eat, you can pull up your digital vaccine card by clicking the CLEAR button on the reservations confirmation page. OpenTable says it will not store personal health information or vaccination card data.

CLEAR has a network of vaccine providers and pharmacies with which it can cross-check a user’s manually inputted vaccine information, or users can scan their Smart-QR code, which is provided to people vaccinated in New York, California, or at a Walmart. While those two options are digitally verified, CLEAR also allows users to upload their information from their physical CDC vaccination card, which is not as secure, since there’s no added layer of verification.

“CLEAR uses image recognition to recognize that a photo is of a CDC vaccine card, adding an additional layer of security against fraud. Throughout the process, CLEAR’s digital vaccine card is tied directly to a user’s verified identity, helping to deter fraud,” a representative from CLEAR told TechCrunch. To use the app, users must upload a government-issued ID and take a selfie to verify their identity.

These forms of digital verification might help protect against people who may be using fake vaccine cards or photos of other people’s cards, especially if restaurants aren’t cross-checking customers’ vaccine cards with their IDs. New York uses an app called Excelsior Pass, which allows users to verify their vaccination status with their health records, but Hawaii is the only other state that has implemented similar technology — such practices are banned in many states.

Earlier this month, OpenTable added features that allow restaurants to add “Proof of Vaccination” as a Safety Precaution on their restaurant profile page, and individual diners can “get verified” as having met requirements for entry at individual restaurants or restaurant groups. So, if you proved your vaccination status at your favorite taco spot one time, the next time you’re back, you won’t have to present your vaccine card again. This only applies to individual diners, not their entire party. OpenTable also recently added a direct message feature, which people can use to communicate with restaurants about changing dining restrictions. 

Intel has signed a deal with the Department of Defense to support a domestic commercial chip-building ecosystem. The chipmaker will lead the first phase of a program called Rapid Assured Microelectronics Prototypes – Commercial (RAMP-C), which aims to bolster the domestic semiconductor supply chain.

The chipmaker’s recently launched division, Intel Foundry Services, will lead the program.

As part of RAMP-C, Intel will partner with IBM, Cadence, Synopsys and others to establish a domestic commercial foundry ecosystem. Intel says the program was designed to create custom integrated circuits and commercial products required by the Department of Defense’s systems.

“The RAMP-C program will enable both commercial foundry customers and the Department of Defense to take advantage of Intel’s significant investments in leading-edge process technologies,” said Randhir Thakur, president of Intel Foundry Services, in a statement. “Along with our customers and ecosystem partners, including IBM, Cadence, Synopsys and others, we will help bolster the domestic semiconductor supply chain and ensure the United States maintains leadership in both R&D and advanced manufacturing.”

Intel recently announced that it plans to invest approximately $20 billion to build two new factories in Arizona, as it aims to become a major provider for domestic foundry customers. The company says the factories will support expanding requirements for its products.

The chipmaker’s partnership with the Department of Defense comes amid the ongoing global semiconductor shortage, which is due in part to the pandemic and its impact on the global supply chain. The company is among other tech and auto giants in continuous talks with the White House regarding possible solutions for the shortage. Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger met with Biden administration officials last month to discuss plans to build more chip factories and to appeal for subsidies.

In a new statement regarding RAMP-C, Gelsinger states that “one of the most profound lessons of the past year is the strategic importance of semiconductors, and the value to the United States of having a strong domestic semiconductor industry.”

“When we launched Intel Foundry Services earlier this year, we were excited to have the opportunity to make our capabilities available to a wider range of partners, including in the U.S. government, and it is great to see that potential being fulfilled through programs like RAMP-C,” Gelsinger added.

Gelsinger came on board as CEO in January with the aim to turn around the chipmaker and pursue new strategies for manufacturing and selling chips. A few months ago, Intel was rumoured to be in talks to buy chip manufacturer GlobalFoundries for $30 billion but there’s been no news since on that front.