Caryn Marooney is the latest in a series of high-profile departures from Facebook’s communications department at a time when the company is perpetually under siege.
Source: Wired
An investigation by Consumer Reports may force electric scooter businesses to double back on safety measures.
The magazine found electric scooters caused 1,545 injuries in the U.S. since late 2017, according to data collected from 110 hospitals and five public agencies in 47 cities where Bird or Lime, the leading tech-enabled scooter-sharing platforms, operate.
The news comes shortly after UCLA published a study finding that 249 people required medical care following scooter accidents, with one-third of that group arriving at the hospital in an ambulance.
“These injuries can be severe,” Tarak Trivedi, an emergency physician at UCLA and the study’s lead author, told CNET. “These aren’t just minor cuts and scrapes. These are legit fractures.”
Despite commentary from scooter CEOs suggesting otherwise, safety doesn’t seem to be a priority for businesses in the space. Given the nature of the industry, taking a ride on an e-scooter or a dockless bike without a helmet is the norm. That, coupled with failed hardware, irresponsible riding practices and access to scooters in the evening, has unsurprisingly led to several accidents and even casualties. Just this past weekend, the city of Austin reported a pedestrian riding a Lime scooter died after being struck by an Uber driver. The Lime scooter rider was traveling the wrong way down an interstate.
Lime, Bird and other leading scooter providers do provide free helmets to riders and don’t encourage poor scooter etiquette, but ensuring riders actually carry helmets or don’t do stupid things like travel the wrong way down a busy road is impossible.
With a fresh $310 million in Series D funding for Lime, announced today, it will be interesting to see how the company ramps up safety efforts.
Source: TechCrunch
Are you looking for a great deal on Apple’s 12-inch 2017 MacBook? If you’re hunting down a great thin-and-light notebook, both B&H and Amazon are offering the lightest laptops in Apple’s lineup for $300 off.
The post Snatch up Apple’s latest and lightest 12-inch MacBook for $300 off appeared first on Digital Trends.
Source: Digital trends
With the support deadline approaching, Microsoft has announced its pricing for businesses and enterprises which want to pay up and still run Windows 7 and stay secure with the latest security updates after 2020.
The post Here’s what it will cost to stay on Windows 7 when extended support ends in 2020 appeared first on Digital Trends.
Source: Digital trends
Welcome to the Age of Kidfluencers. It’s not as weird as you think.
Source: Wired
Going digital could make the 2020 census more inclusive and efficient, but experts fear the Census Bureau is also opening itself up to new risks.
Source: Wired
These purported “press photos” certainly look like the real deal.
Source: CNET
Tesla’s Elon Musk tweeted that the Model 3 is now technically available for under $35,000, but as the saying goes, your mileage may vary.
Source: CNET
Today’s news that the (failing?) New York Times reported net income of $55.2 million, after losses a year earlier — and that its digital business raked in $709 million — is just one indicator that some of the nation’s oldest media properties are finally crossing the bridge into the 21st century.
The Times managed to turn a profit while employing 1,600 journalists — an all-time high. Fourth-quarter digital advertising revenue increased 22.8 percent, while print advertising revenue decreased 10.2 percent. Digital advertising revenue was $103.4 million, or 53.9 percent of total advertising revenues, compared with $84.2 million, or 46.1 percent, in the fourth quarter of 2017, according to the company.
Add those numbers to a newly robust Washington Post, a consistently profitable New Yorker, and the erection of paywalls at sites across the vast reaches of the internet point to a very simple lesson learned — people will pay for quality reporting, videos, personal writing, and exclusive information.
Given the excitement around subscriptions, it may seem surprising that TechCrunch isn’t doing something in this area… yet.
Some of this is driven by a newly relevant news cycle that has seen American audiences wake up to the day-to-day decisions that are reshaping the country from the halls of power in Congress and the White House .
“Our appeal to subscribers — and to the world’s leading advertisers — depends more than anything on the quality of our journalism,” said the Times’ chief executive, Mark Thompson, in a statement. “That is why we have increased, rather than cut back, our investment in our newsroom and opinion departments. We want to accelerate our digital growth further, so in 2019, we will direct fresh investment into journalism, product and marketing.”
For some in the word salad business, the news comes a bit too late. Compare the fortunes of these hundred-year-old companies with the newer darlings of the media world and it becomes even more starkly clear how ad-driven businesses were eviscerated by social media.
Layoffs at BuzzFeed, Vice Media, and our own parent company Verizon Media Group especially point to the failings of the “new” media model. The Times actually covered this at some length, but it’s worth repeating.
At two other new media properties; Vox Media Group (a division of Comcast NBC Universal) and Axios, a new subscription newsletter business; it’s a combination
Owning an audience through exclusive information or distribution is a much better way to get to profitability then giving away the store to get eyeballs.
Even network television and movie studios are coming around to the subscription model as the salvation of their business. Ad revenues are declining and subscription services like Netflix and Spotify have already taken huge bites out of the cash cows of the broader entertainment industry. What do studios and networks have left but subscription, subscription, subscription? It’s why CBS launched its exclusive service, why Disney is launching theirs, and how Amazon, Netflix and (even) Hulu have managed to become ascendant.
With a subscriber base, it’s easier for media businesses to sell sponsorships to particular companies or brands that want the influence. With subscriptions, a core readership gets to support the investigative work of a group of journalists and support (and join) a community.
The eyeball business was a classic contrivance of first generation internet businesses — and it largely didn’t work then either.
Now the question remains whether this resurgence can also revivify the moribund prospects of local media. The Times and its marquee media brethren have a national scope and an amazing reach — or command a monopoly in large cities. What’s needed is the resurrection of a vibrant local news scene that can actually make money. Let’s see if the Times’ model shows the way… again.
Source: TechCrunch
It’s not all talk.
Source: CNET