Courier raises $10.1M Series A to help developers integrate multi-channel notifications

Courier is an API platform with a no-code twist that helps developers add multi-channel user notifications to their applications. The company today announced that it has raised a $10.1 million Series A funding round led by Bessemer Venture Partners. Matrix Partners, Twilio and Slack Fund also participated in this round.

Previously, the company raised a $2.3 million seed round led by Matrix Partners, with participation from Y Combinator. That round, which closed in April 2019, was previously unreported. Bessemer Venture Partners’ Byron Deeter and Matrix Partners’ Patrick Malatack, the previous VP of Product at Twilio, will join Courier’s Board of Directors.

“While at Twilio, I saw developers wrestling with integrating multiple channels together into a single experience,” says Malatack in today’s announcement. “Courier’s vision of a single platform for connecting and managing multiple channels really compliments the channel explosion I was seeing customers struggle with.”

Image Credits: Courier

Courier founder and CEO Troy Goode previously led an engineering group at marketing automation firm Eloqua, which was acquired by Oracle in 2012, and as the CTO and Head of Product at logistics software provider Winmore. Eloqua is clearly where he drew his inspiration for Courier from, though, which he built out during his time at Y Combinator.

“And one of the things that I noticed and became very frustrated by was that with Eloqua, Marketo, HubSpot, there were a ton of different tools for marketing teams to use to communicate with prospects and our leads,” Goode told me. “But as soon as somebody became a customer, as soon as somebody became a user, we weren’t using those platforms. All of a sudden, we were manually plugging in infrastructure level systems like SendGrid and Twilio.”

Twilio launches SendGrid Ads and new cross-channel messaging API

The idea behind Courier is to provide development teams with a one-stop service for all their notification and communication infrastructure needs without having to build it from scratch. As Goode noted, large companies like Airbnb and LinkedIn can afford to build and maintain these systems to send out transactional emails to their users, often with teams that have dozens of engineers on them. Small teams can build less sophisticated solutions, but there’s really no need for every company to reinvent the wheel.

Today, Courier integrates with the likes of Slack, Microsoft Teams, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, SendGrid, Postmark, Mailgun, MessageBird, Twilio and Nexmo, among others.

One thing that makes the service stand out is that it offers both a no-code system for users to build their massaging flows and templates, as well as the APIs for developers to integrate these into their applications. That means anybody within a company can, for example, build rules to route messages through specific channels and providers based on their needs, on top of managing the content and the branding of the messages that are being sent.

Image Credits: Courier

“You’ve got this broad array of potential providers,” Good said. “And what you need to do is figure out, okay, which provider am I going to use? And sometimes, especially at large organizations, the answer is multiple providers. And or email, you might need a backup email service in case your primary goes down, or you need to warm up an IP pool for SMS. You might have different providers per geography for both deliverability and price reasons. That’s really hard stuff to build yourself.”

But in addition, different recipients also have different preferences, too, and while users can build rules around that today, the company is looking at how to automate this process over time so that it can, for example, automatically ping users on the channel where they are most likely to respond (or purchase something) at a given time of the day.

Goode noted that it may be hard to convert big businesses to move to its platform given that they have already invested a lot into their own systems. But like Stripe, which faced a similar problem given that most potential users weren’t waiting to rip out their existing payment infrastructure, he believes that partnering with companies early and having patience will pay off in the long run.

Twilio closes acquisition of email specialist SendGrid in all-stock deal now worth $3B

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Here’s what’s happening today on day 1 of Disrupt 2020

Welcome to Day One of Disrupt 2020, our biggest Disrupt ever! Over the next five days (cue Star Trek theme), you’ll explore strange new technology, seek out new opportunities and new collaborations. You’ll boldly immerse yourself with the global startup community. There’s still time to register if you haven’t picked up your pass to attend. Just head to our ticket page and sign up!

Day one, right. Here’s a snapshot of what you can expect today at Disrupt — speakers, breakout sessions, events and interesting people. It’s by no means a comprehensive list. For that, refer to our action-packed agenda. Note: unless otherwise stated, all times are PST.

Are you ready to Disrupt?

Don’t forget to have fun over the next five days. Download the Trivia Royale app (Google Play) (App Store) and start playing TechCrunch Trivia. Whoever ranks number one on the leaderboard at 1 p.m. (PST) on September 18 receives a TC Swag Bag mailed to their location.

Funding — it’s top-of-mind for everyone, especially in a tough economy. Head to the Extra Crunch Stage for How to Raise Money in a Dumpster Fire with Initialized Capital’s Garry Tan; YC’s Anu Hariharan; and GGV’s Hans Tung (9:05 a.m. – 9:45 a.m.).

Let the Startup Battlefield pitch competition begin! Don’t miss the first of four cohorts as they step onto the Disrupt Stage to compete for $100,000 (10:30 a.m. – 11:35 a.m.). Check the agenda and tune in to subsequent Startup Battlefield sessions — one scheduled on each day of the show.

Learn how to build a better pitch deck during the Pitch Deck Teardown. Top investors critique submitted pitches live on the Extra Crunch Stage (10:50 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.).

All startup experiences are not created equal. Join AptDeco’s Reham Fagiri; Squire’s Songe LaRon; and Y Combinator’s Michael Seibel on the Extra Crunch Stage for The Black Founder Experience: Tactical Advice for Underrepresented Entrepreneurs (11:45 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.).

Learn more about low code/no code and what it takes to turn it into a user-friendly service. Join Airtable’s Howie Liu on the Disrupt Stage for Building a Low-Code Unicorn (12:25 p.m. – 12:45 p.m.).

FOMO, the fear of missing out, can strike hard with so much great stuff going down. Don’t worry, though, we’ve got you covered over at the Disrupt Desk. The TC crew will be at the Disrupt Stage — for 25 minutes several times each day throughout the conference. Catch up on what you’ve missed from across the show and get a sneak peek at new technology, demos, news and more. Check the agenda for exact times and stop on by whenever you feel like hanging out with us.

That’s your Day One teaser, folks. Didn’t register for Disrupt? No need for regret — you can still buy a pass. Now, get out there and boldly go.

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Indian fantasy sports app Dream11’s parent firm raises $225M at over $2.5B valuation

Dream Sports, the parent firm of fantasy sports app Dream11, has secured $225 million in a new financing round as the Mumbai-headquartered firm builds what it calls an “end-to-end sports tech company” in the cricket-loving nation, which is also the world’s second largest internet market.

Tiger Global Management, TPG Tech Adjacencies (TTAD), ChrysCapital and Footpath Ventures financed $225 million in Dream Sports through primary and secondary investments, the 12-year-old Indian firm said.

The new round values Dream Sports at over $2.5 billion, two people familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. Dream11 has raised about $325 million to date.

Dream11 has cashed in on the popularity of cricket — a game that has attracted serious attention from several major firms, including Disney and Facebook. Dream11 explores the fantasy part of it, allowing gamers to pick their choice of best players for an upcoming match. They can win cash prizes depending on how their selected team performs.

This year, Dream11 is also the title sponsor for the 2020 season of the Indian Premier League cricket tournament, one of the most popular sporting events in the world. The startup won the rights, previously held by Chinese smartphone vendor Vivo, by bidding $30 million. Vivo had to abruptly back out of the sponsorship amid geo-political tension between the two nuclear-armed nations.

The new season of IPL kickstarts later this week after months of delay due to the coronavirus outbreak.

“The sports sector has high growth potential in India. There is a significant opportunity to enhance the fan experience and we are excited to partner with Dream Sports to leverage technology in ways that will deepen the connection between Indian fans and the sports they love,” said Akshay Tanna, managing director at TPG, in a statement.

In recent years, Dream Sports has expanded into additional categories such as merchandize. Harsh Jain, chief executive and co-founder of Dream Sports, claimed in a statement today that the startup had amassed more than 100 million users. (Dream11 app is not on the Google Play Store and the startup relies on people either using its mobile web or sideloading its Android app on to their phones.)

“As a homegrown Indian company, we are proud to continue adding value to our 10 crore Indian sports fans, investors, employees and the overall sports ecosystem in India. In the last two years, we have grown beyond fantasy sports to sports content, merchandise, streaming, experiences, and there is much more to come. Our vision is to ‘Make Sports Better’ for India and Indian fans through sports technology and innovation,” he added.

Avendus Capital was the financial advisor to Dream Sports on the transaction.

Dream11 isn’t the only firm building a niche in the fantasy sports space in India. Sequoia Capital India and Times Internet-backed Mobile Premier League is also a major player, which has expanded to traditional mobile games in recent months. Twitter-backed ShareChat also quietly began experimenting with fantasy sports earlier this year.

But fantasy sports is still facing some regulatory hurdles in parts of India. Several Indian states, including Assam, Odisha, Sikkim and Telangana, have banned fantasy sports betting.

“It doesn’t help matters either that the fantasy sports business’ attempts at legitimacy involve trying to be seen as video games — a cursory glance at a speakers’ panel for any Indian video game developer event is evidence of this — rather than riding on its own merits,” said Rishi Alwani, a long-time analyst of Indian gaming market and publisher of news outlet the Mako Reactor, in an earlier interview with TechCrunch.

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What to expect from Apple’s hardware event

{rss:content:encoded} What to expect from Apple’s hardware event https://ift.tt/2DZA99r https://ift.tt/3mijsHD September 14, 2020 at 05:40PM

If this was a normal year, we would be settling in for an iPhone event right about now. This is, however, very much not a normal year. And while we are, in fact, getting an Apple hardware event tomorrow at 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET, it’s looking entirely possible — even likely — that we won’t be getting much face time with the iPhone 12.

If the handset even makes an appearance at all. After all, Apple’s been pretty upfront about the months or so delay of its long-awaited 5G handset (shareholders, you know), owing at least in part to some supply chain issues. It follows, then, that the company is planning another event in the not so distant future.

Apple’s next event is September 15

As we’ve seen from Samsung, the move toward virtual events during the pandemic seems to have made companies a bit bolder about holding more events, without the the obligation of travel. What we can expect this time, however, are some refreshes to a couple of other Apple tent-pole products — namely, the Apple Watch and an old iPad favorite. There are a handful of other possibilities, as well, including service bundles and some additions to the AirPods line.

Let’s start with the best bets.

Apple Watch

Image Credits: Brian Heater

The “Time Flies” slogan is the clearest indication that we’re getting some Watch news. Again, in most years, we’d simply be able to look at the calendar. But this isn’t most years. A healthy combination of rumors, leaks and some of the new features from the latest version of watchOS give us a pretty healthy picture of what we’re in store for at tomorrow’s big event.

The Apple Watch Series 6 is likely to be the centerpiece of the show. One of the biggest pieces of news from the new model is actually a feature loss. The latest version of Apple’s ultra-popular wearable is expected to drop Force Touch, as support for the feature is out on watchOS 7. Such a move could help slim down the watch — or even more likely/hopefully leave room for more battery.

With the addition of sleep features in the new version of the OS, it behooves the company to find ways to make the device last longer on a charge, so users can wear it to bed. There are already some on-board power-saving features to track while the wearer sleeps, but a bigger battery would make a big difference — and help the company stay competitive on that front.

Otherwise, the device is set to continue Apple’s focus on health tracking improvements. That’s long been a key to the Watch’s success — and the success of wrist-worn devices, generally. Among the expected features is the addition of SpO2 tracking. The Apple Watch would be far from the first smartwatch to track blood oxygen levels, but the feature would come at a time when home tracking of health vitals feels all the more important.

Rumors also point to the addition of a low-cost model — specifically a new Watch designed to replace the Series 3, which has stuck around at $199. The product would answer the fair bit of demand for lower-priced smartwatches. That’s particularly the case during COVID-19, as users are looking for a reasonably priced entry into health tracking. That said, it seems likely that the lower-cost product won’t be nearly as sophisticated.

iPad

Image Credits: Apple

It seems likely there’s an iPad on the menu for tomorrow, too. The top candidate is the iPad Air, which saw its last refresh in March 2019. Rumors point to a significant reduction in bezels and a power button with Touch ID moved to the top of the device. Other features for the iPad Air 4 include a 10.8-inch display and Apple finally swapping the Lightning port for USB-C.

Misc

All of those operating systems announced back at WWDC (iOS, macOS, watchOS, TVOS) should be coming out of beta any week now. This could be the event — though, again, with the possible addition of an iPhone event, we can’t say for sure. The company is also rumored to be launching “Apple One,” an offering that would bundle in some of its key subscription services, including Apple TV+ and Music. Additional bundles could feature Arcade and News+, along with additional iCloud storage.

Some additional longstanding rumors include AirTags, the company’s Tile-like device tracker that plays nicely with its Find My application. The hardware offering would make it easier to locate lost objects in a fashion similar to Find My iPhone. New AirPods could be on the docket as well. AirPods 3, AirPods Pro 2 and the long-awaited over-ear AirPods Studio all seem like reasonable possibilities.

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TikTok hits 100M users in Europe as the clock ticks on its US business

TikTok may or may not be making a deal for its US operations, which the US government says it will shut down over national security concerns come September 20th if its Chinese ownership is not resolved. But something that the US narrative has not really addressed is that the company is still growing like a weed in other markets. Today, TikTok announced that it had hit the 100 million month active user milestone in Europe, where it has officially launched in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and Spain.

“We’ve been humbled to see how Europe has embraced TikTok during the time we’ve been here,” said Rich Waterworth, the company’s head of Europe, in a blog post today. He also added that the Creator Fund for Europe, launched earlier this month with TikTok committing to pay out €250 million over the next three years to professional “creators” trying to make money producing video content for the app, has seen more than 40% of all eligible creators enrolling.

Notably, TikTok is putting this news out less than one month after it said it had reached 100 million users in the US.

The news comes at an interesting time for the company in other ways too.

It points to a kind of scale in the region that stands to become even more important for TikTok’s owner ByteDance, and specifically as a counter-balance to its future prospects in its biggest two markets. ByteDance is not only facing some tough times ahead in the US, but it’s also weathering some significant storms in its second-largest market, India, where the app has been banned and seems currently to have no prospective buyers or champions to get it out of that predicament.

Currently in the US, the company seems to have three options: the US might be shut down altogether; or TikTok sells the business to another company in whole or part and relinquishes making money or using US creators and audience to fuel its viral video machine; or ByteDance somehow manages to take the Trump administration to court and win to keep things operating as is or with some modifications.

All three are very painful in their own ways, making the growth and potential in Europe even more notable.

TikTok has been trying to take a “business as usual” approach to things despite all of this. In recent weeks, it has launched a number of new features both for consumers and for marketers in the US and elsewhere.

They have included an expansion of its marketing tools, to expand the variety and size of advertisers who use the platform to promote their brands. And new features like Stitch, which gives a way for users to sample content from other videos and then  “quoting” and sharing among users on the platform, adding in new ways to post more, and to create more viral videos.

The numbers also underscore an early thought experiment: What would TikTok life be like without input from the US market?

So far, it’s fair to say that the US TikTok explosion has been a major part of the global TikTok explosion. It has produced not just the biggest audience, but the app’s biggest stars. And if you take Facebook or any other social app as a benchmark, the US would stand to become TikTok’s biggest market for advertisers and revenues over time, too.

Still, it’s very notable that the 100 million milestone in Europe was put out today of all days. In the last 24 hours, we’ve seen conflicting reports about a possible buyer — Oracle — finally nearing a deal; as well as a separate report that the Chinese government is ready to shut down the whole process.

Putting out the European numbers so close timing-wise — less than three weeks apart — to posting about 100 million users in the US could be ByteDance’s way of saying that it might just have the last dance after all.

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Airtable raises $185M and launches new low-code and automation features

The spreadsheet-centric database and no-code platform Airtable today announced that it has raised a $185 million Series D funding round, putting the company at a $2.585 billion post-money valuation.

Thrive Capital led the round, with additional funding by existing investors Benchmark, Coatue, Caffeinated Capital and CRV, as well as new investor D1 Capital. With this, Airtable, which says it now has 200,000 companies using its service, has raised a total of about $350 million. Current customers include Netflix, HBO, Condé Nast Entertainment, TIME, City of Los Angeles, MIT Media Lab and IBM.

In addition, the company is also launching one of its largest feature updates today, which start to execute on the company’s overall platform vision that goes beyond its current no-code capabilities and bring more low-code features, as well new automation (think IFTTT for Airtable) and data management tools to the service.

As Airtable founder and CEO Howie Liu told me, a number of investors approached the company since it raised its Series C round in 2018, in part because the market clearly realized the potential size of the low-code/no-code market.

“I think there’s this increasing market recognition that the space is real, and the spaces is very large […],” he told me. “While we didn’t strictly need the funding, it allowed us to continue to invest aggressively into furthering our platform, vision and really executing aggressively, […] without having to worry about, ‘well, what happens with COVID?’ There’s a lot of uncertainty, right? And I think even today there’s still a lot of uncertainty about what the next year will bear.”

Airtable’s Howie Liu to join us at Disrupt 2020

The company started opening the round a couple of months after the first shelter in place orders in California and for most investors, this was a purely digital process.

Liu has always been open about the fact that he wants to build this company for the long haul — especially after he sold his last company to Salesforce at an early stage. As a founder, that likely means he is trying to keep his stake in the company high, even as Airtable continues to raise more money. He argues, though, that more so than the legal and structural controls, being aligned with his investors is what matters most.

“I think actually, what’s more important in my view, is having philosophical alignment and expectations alignment with the investors,” he said. “Because I don’t want to be in a position where it comes down to a legal right or structural debate over the future of the company. That almost feels to me like the last resort where it’s already gotten to a place where things are ugly. I’d much rather be in a position where all the investors around the table, whether they have legal say or not, are fully aligned with what we’re trying to do with this business.”

Just as important as the new funding though, are the various new features the company is launching today. Maybe the most important of these is Airtable Apps. Previously, Airtable users could use pre-built blocks to add maps, Gantt charts and other features to their tables. But while being a no-code service surely helped Airtable’s users get started, there’s always an inevitable point where the pre-built functionality just isn’t enough and users need more custom tools (Liu calls this an escape valve). So with Airtable Apps, more sophisticated users can now build additional functionality in JavaScript — and if they choose to do so, they can then share those new capabilities with other users in the new Airtable Marketplace.

Image Credits: Airtable

“You may or may not need an escape valve and obviously, we’ve gotten this far with 200,000 organizations using Airtable without that kind of escape valve,” he noted. “But I think that we open up a lot more use cases when you can say, well, Airtable by itself is 99% there, but that last 1% is make or break. You need it. And then, just having that outlet and making it much more leveraged to build that use case on Airtable with 1% effort, rather than building the full-stack application as a custom built application is all the difference.”

Image Credits: Airtable

The other major new feature is Airtable Automations. With this, you can build custom, automated workflows to generate reports or perform other repetitive steps. You can do a lot of that through the service’s graphical interface or use JavaScript to build you own custom flows and integrations, too. For now, this feature is available for free, but the team is looking into how to charge for it over time, given that these automated flows may become costly if you run them often.

The last new feature is Airtable Sync. With this, teams can more easily share data across an organization, while also providing controls for who can see what. “The goal is to enable people who built software with Airtable to make that software interconnected and to be able to share a source of truth table between different instances of our tables,” Liu explained.

Image Credits: Airtable

Airtable, maker of a coding platform for non-techies, raises $100M at a $1.1B valuation

Airtable CEO Howie Liu on the continued importance of getting a ‘unicorn’ valuation

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YouTube hit with UK class action style suit seeking $3BN+ for ‘unlawful’ use of kids’ data

Another class action style lawsuit has been lodged against a tech giant in the UK alleging violations of privacy and seeking major damages. The latest representative action, filed against Google-owned YouTube, accuses the platform of routinely breaking UK and European data protection laws by unlawfully targeting up to five million under-13-year-olds with addictive programming and harvests their data for advertisers.

UK and EU law contain specific protections for children’s data, limiting the age at which minors can legally consent to their data being processed — in the case of the UK’s Data Protection Act to aged 13.

The suit is being brought by international law firm Hausfeld and Foxglove, a tech justice non-profit, which says they’re seeking damages from YouTube of more than £2.5BN (~$3.2BN).

Per the firms, it’s the first such representative litigation brought against a tech giant on behalf of children and among the largest such cases to date. (Last month a similar class style action was filed against Oracle in the UK alleging breaches of Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) related to cookie tracking.)

If the case succeeds, they say millions of British households whose kids watch YouTube may be owed “hundreds of pounds” in damages.

Duncan McCann, a researcher on the digital economy and father of three children all under 13 who watch YouTube and have their data collected and ads targeted at them by Google, is serving as representative claimant in the case.

Commenting in a statement, McCann said: “My kids love YouTube, and I want them to be able to use it. But it isn’t ‘free’ — we’re paying for it with our private lives and our kids’ mental health. I try to be relatively conscious of what’s happening with my kids’ data online but even so it’s just impossible to combat Google’s lure and influence, which comes from its surveillance power. There’s a massive power imbalance between us and them, and it needs to be fixed.”

“The [YouTube] website has no user practical age requirements and makes no adequate attempt to limit usage by youngsters,” notes Hausfeld in a press release about the lawsuit.

While a Foxglove release about the suit points to YouTube pitch materials intended for toy makers Mattel and Hasbro (and made public via an earlier FTC suit against Google) — in which it says the platform described itself as “the new Saturday morning cartoons”, “the number one website visited regularly by kids”, “today’s leader in reaching children age 6-11 against top TV channels”, and “unanimously voted as the favorite website of kids 2-12”.

Reached for comment, a YouTube spokesperson sent us this statement: “We don’t comment on pending litigation. YouTube is not for children under the age of 13. We launched the YouTube Kids app as a dedicated destination for kids and are always working to better protect kids and families on YouTube.”

The tech giant maintains that YouTube is not for under 13s — pointing to the existence of YouTube Kids, a dedicated kids’ app it launched in 2015 to offer what it called a “safer and easier” space for children to discover “family-focused content”, to back up the claim.

Although the company has never claimed that no children under 13 use YouTube. And last year the FTC agreed a $170M settlement with Google to end an investigation by the regulator and the New York Attorney General into alleged collection of children’s personal information by YouTube without the consent of their parents.

The rise in class action style lawsuits being filed in the UK seeking damages for breaches of data protection law follow a notable appeals court decision, just under a year ago, also against Google.

In that case the appeals court unblocked a class-action style lawsuit against the tech giant related to bypassing iOS privacy settings to track iPhone users.

In the US, Google paid $22.5M to the FTC back in 2012 to settle the same charge, and later paid a smaller sum to settle a number of US class action lawsuits. The UK case, meanwhile, continues.

While Europe has historically strong data protection laws, there has been — and still is — a lack of robust regulatory enforcement which is leaving a gap that litigation funders are increasingly willing to plug.

In the UK the challenge for those seeking damages for large scale violations is there’s no direct equivalent to a US class action. But last year’s appeals court ruling in the Safari bypass case has opened the door to representative actions.

The court also said damages could be sought for a breach of the law without needing to prove pecuniary loss or distress, establishing a route to redress for consumers that’s now being tested by several cases.

from Social – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/eA8V8J YouTube hit with UK class action style suit seeking $3BN+ for ‘unlawful’ use of kids’ data Natasha Lomas https://ift.tt/3mhgyCV
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Facebook introduces a co-viewing experience in Messenger, ‘Watch Together’

Facebook today is rolling out a new feature that will allow friends and family to watch videos together over Messenger. The feature, called “Watch Together,” works with all Facebook Watch video content, including its original programs, user uploads, creator content, live streams, and soon, music videos. At launch, the co-watching experience can be used by up to 8 people in a Messenger video chat on mobile, or by up to 50 people in Messenger Rooms.

The COVID-19 pandemic has encouraged a number of streaming services — including Hulu, Plex and Amazon Video — adopt similar co-viewing features, or at the very least, unofficially permit third-party apps that enable co-watching, like Netflix Party.

However, Facebook didn’t just jump on this bandwagon. It actually announced its plans to develop a co-viewing experience for Messenger at its F8 developer conference two years ago. And the product has been in development ever since.

Image Credits: Facebook

To roll out something like co-viewing across Messenger is a significant technical challenge. The service hooks into the Facebook Watch CDN (content distribution network), to pull the videos into Messenger. It also then developed a system that allows for tight synchronization between the various users’ streams of the same video. That, too, can be difficult, as someone in a rural area may have slower bandwidth speeds than someone in an urban metro, but the service has to make sure they’re seeing the same part of the video at the same time.

Image Credits: Facebook

To use the feature, users have to first be in a Messenger video call or a Messenger Room — it can’t be kicked off from the Facebook Watch tab or anywhere else. From Messenger, they’re able to start a co-watching session by selecting the new option from a drawer that pulls up from the bottom of the screen. Initially, this feature is only available on iOS and Android mobile devices, Facebook says.

From the interface that appears, users can then browse or search to find something to watch together. Facebook Watch content is organized into categories like “TV & Movies,” “Watched” (your recently watched content), “Uploaded” (your own videos), and “Suggested.”

While users can’t create playlists or queues, all participants can help choose videos. That is, there’s not one person directing the experience for others. Everyone can also stop, pause, jump forward or back in the videos, too.

Though many may use the feature for a sort of lean-back co-watching experience, it has other potential. For example, a group could get together to watch a fitness video and workout together.

Though official music videos recently became available on Facebook Watch, thanks to Facebook’s new deal with record labels, they’re not immediately available in this co-viewing experience. However, Facebook says that they’ll be added in the next few weeks, initially in the U.S., India and Thailand to start. Each market will also feature localized content under the “TV & Movies” section, too.

The feature will begin rolling out globally across iOS and Android, but Facebook intends to have web support ready in a matter of weeks, and other platforms, like desktop, will follow.

 

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Facebook introduces a co-viewing experience in Messenger, ‘Watch Together’

{rss:content:encoded} Facebook introduces a co-viewing experience in Messenger, ‘Watch Together’ https://ift.tt/2GVI5cV https://ift.tt/3bTuePS September 14, 2020 at 02:00PM

Facebook today is rolling out a new feature that will allow friends and family to watch videos together over Messenger. The feature, called “Watch Together,” works with all Facebook Watch video content, including its original programs, user uploads, creator content, live streams, and soon, music videos. At launch, the co-watching experience can be used by up to 8 people in a Messenger video chat on mobile, or by up to 50 people in Messenger Rooms.

The COVID-19 pandemic has encouraged a number of streaming services — including Hulu, Plex and Amazon Video — adopt similar co-viewing features, or at the very least, unofficially permit third-party apps that enable co-watching, like Netflix Party.

However, Facebook didn’t just jump on this bandwagon. It actually announced its plans to develop a co-viewing experience for Messenger at its F8 developer conference two years ago. And the product has been in development ever since.

Image Credits: Facebook

To roll out something like co-viewing across Messenger is a significant technical challenge. The service hooks into the Facebook Watch CDN (content distribution network), to pull the videos into Messenger. It also then developed a system that allows for tight synchronization between the various users’ streams of the same video. That, too, can be difficult, as someone in a rural area may have slower bandwidth speeds than someone in an urban metro, but the service has to make sure they’re seeing the same part of the video at the same time.

Image Credits: Facebook

To use the feature, users have to first be in a Messenger video call or a Messenger Room — it can’t be kicked off from the Facebook Watch tab or anywhere else. From Messenger, they’re able to start a co-watching session by selecting the new option from a drawer that pulls up from the bottom of the screen. Initially, this feature is only available on iOS and Android mobile devices, Facebook says.

From the interface that appears, users can then browse or search to find something to watch together. Facebook Watch content is organized into categories like “TV & Movies,” “Watched” (your recently watched content), “Uploaded” (your own videos), and “Suggested.”

While users can’t create playlists or queues, all participants can help choose videos. That is, there’s not one person directing the experience for others. Everyone can also stop, pause, jump forward or back in the videos, too.

Though many may use the feature for a sort of lean-back co-watching experience, it has other potential. For example, a group could get together to watch a fitness video and workout together.

Though official music videos recently became available on Facebook Watch, thanks to Facebook’s new deal with record labels, they’re not immediately available in this co-viewing experience. However, Facebook says that they’ll be added in the next few weeks, initially in the U.S., India and Thailand to start. Each market will also feature localized content under the “TV & Movies” section, too.

The feature will begin rolling out globally across iOS and Android, but Facebook intends to have web support ready in a matter of weeks, and other platforms, like desktop, will follow.

 

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TikTok hits 100M users in Europe as the clock ticks on its US business

{rss:content:encoded} TikTok hits 100M users in Europe as the clock ticks on its US business https://ift.tt/3keo1kh https://ift.tt/2ZDaET7 September 14, 2020 at 12:53PM

TikTok may or may not be making a deal for its US operations, which the US government says it will shut down over national security concerns come September 20th if its Chinese ownership is not resolved. But something that the US narrative has not really addressed is that the company is still growing like a weed in other markets. Today, TikTok announced that it had hit the 100 million month active user milestone in Europe, where it has officially launched in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and Spain.

“We’ve been humbled to see how Europe has embraced TikTok during the time we’ve been here,” said Rich Waterworth, the company’s head of Europe, in a blog post today. He also added that the Creator Fund for Europe, launched earlier this month with TikTok committing to pay out €250 million over the next three years to professional “creators” trying to make money producing video content for the app, has seen more than 40% of all eligible creators enrolling.

Notably, TikTok is putting this news out less than one month after it said it had reached 100 million users in the US.

The news comes at an interesting time for the company in other ways too.

It points to a kind of scale in the region that stands to become even more important for TikTok’s owner ByteDance, and specifically as a counter-balance to its future prospects in its biggest two markets. ByteDance is not only facing some tough times ahead in the US, but it’s also weathering some significant storms in its second-largest market, India, where the app has been banned and seems currently to have no prospective buyers or champions to get it out of that predicament.

Currently in the US, the company seems to have three options: the US might be shut down altogether; or TikTok sells the business to another company in whole or part and relinquishes making money or using US creators and audience to fuel its viral video machine; or ByteDance somehow manages to take the Trump administration to court and win to keep things operating as is or with some modifications.

All three are very painful in their own ways, making the growth and potential in Europe even more notable.

TikTok has been trying to take a “business as usual” approach to things despite all of this. In recent weeks, it has launched a number of new features both for consumers and for marketers in the US and elsewhere.

They have included an expansion of its marketing tools, to expand the variety and size of advertisers who use the platform to promote their brands. And new features like Stitch, which gives a way for users to sample content from other videos and then  “quoting” and sharing among users on the platform, adding in new ways to post more, and to create more viral videos.

The numbers also underscore an early thought experiment: What would TikTok life be like without input from the US market?

So far, it’s fair to say that the US TikTok explosion has been a major part of the global TikTok explosion. It has produced not just the biggest audience, but the app’s biggest stars. And if you take Facebook or any other social app as a benchmark, the US would stand to become TikTok’s biggest market for advertisers and revenues over time, too.

Still, it’s very notable that the 100 million milestone in Europe was put out today of all days. In the last 24 hours, we’ve seen conflicting reports about a possible buyer — Oracle — finally nearing a deal; as well as a separate report that the Chinese government is ready to shut down the whole process.

Putting out the European numbers so close timing-wise — less than three weeks apart — to posting about 100 million users in the US could be ByteDance’s way of saying that it might just have the last dance after all.

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Samsung is holding yet another Unpacked Event on September 23

{rss:content:encoded} Samsung is holding yet another Unpacked Event on September 23 https://ift.tt/2Roy9Le https://ift.tt/3khoWki September 14, 2020 at 02:00AM

One thing I’ll say for in-person events: they compelled companies to cram in a lot of news. After all, if you’re going to ask an auditorium full of people to travel from around the country — or world — you want to give them a lot of bang for their buck.

Samsung did manage that with its Galaxy Note event in early August. We got a new phone, new earbuds, new watch, new tablet and a preview of an upcoming foldable. A couple of weeks ago, the company devoted an entire second event to the new Fold. And now here we are, a couple of weeks later, staring down yet another event.

Samsung’s new Galaxy Fold arrives September 18 for $2,000

The September 23 event will likely focus on the Galaxy S20 Fan Edition that’s been floating around in leaks for a few months now, the way Samsung devices tend to. I’m not saying there won’t be a bunch of other news at the event as well, but the Fold event lowered my expectations a bit with regard to what the company deems worthy of a standalone event in 2020, versus, say, issuing a press release or something.

Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra review

Anyway, the so-called “Fan Edition” finds the company picking up a long-abandoned trend of issuing lower-cost alternatives to flagship devices (notably, a refurbished version of the Note 7).

Here it seems to be a lower-priced take on Samsung’s primary flagship, the Galaxy S20. From the sound of it, the device is essentially a rebranding of its “Lite” line — the latest take on an already confusing approach to its budget flagship offerings.

We’ll find out more September 23 at 7 a.m. PT/10 a.m. ET.

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Tune in today at 12pm PDT for an essential Disrupt 2020 Sneak Peak

Are you ready to experience a Disrupt event like no other? Thousands of attendees from around the world, an all-star lineup of tech icons, movers, shakers and unicorn makers. Opportunities around every corner just waiting to be discovered. Are we amped up at the thought of what will transpire over the next five days? Heck yeah!

Okay, we’re switching to decaf. Our point (and we do have one) is that before our very own Matthew Panzarino officially welcomes you to Disrupt 2020 tomorrow morning, we’re inviting you to a pre-show today — the Disrupt Sneak Peek — with Disrupt host and Managing Editor, Jordan Crook.

Today, Sunday September 13, from 12 p.m.-12:30 p.m. (PT), Jordan will show you how to access the different virtual platforms we’ll use throughout the show. Plus, you’ll get a look at the companies competing in the Startup Battlefield, learn more about the TC10 and hear about some of the incredible speakers we have on tap.

It’s a quick but essential overview of what to expect over the course of Disrupt. And who knows? We might even trot out a few surprise guests (spoiler alert: we will).

Come to the Disrupt Sneak Peek today from 12 p.m.-12:30 p.m. (PT), get a handle on the virtual platforms and get pumped up about five days of sharing connection, collaboration and education with the global early-stage startup community.

Any last-minute decision makers out there? You can still buy a Disrupt pass right here but be quick because prices increase tonight!

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J Tune in today at 12pm PDT for an essential Disrupt 2020 Sneak Peak https://ift.tt/3isAoJg

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