Month: September 2020

The controversial push to force Chinese tech unicorn ByteDance to divest part or all of its smash-hit TikTok social media service to a US-based company could be in doubt after a report today indicated that China’s government may oppose the transaction. According to reporting by Reuters, the Chinese government may prefer TikTok to simply shutter its U.S. operations instead of allowing it to be sold to an American company.

The potential divestment of TikTok is not a regular business transaction. Instead, the deal is being demanded by the U.S. government, as President Donald Trump directs foreign and economic policymaking via executive fiat. Leaning on his own fabled business acumen, the American premier has also demanded that his government receive a portion of any final sale price. It is not clear if that concept is legal.

As the U.S. and China spar around the globe for both economic and political supremacy, the deal is a flashpoint between the countries with a muddle of companies stuck in the middle. ByteDance is in the mix, along with Microsoft, Walmart and other companies to a lesser degree, like Oracle. The Trump administration has set a mid-September timeline for a deal being struck, though as the month burns away it is not clear if that timeline could be met.

The United States is not alone in taking steps to curb Chinese influence inside its borders, as the TikTok sale comes after India banned the app, along with dozens of other China-based applications.

The deal is also under pressure from a changing regulatory environment in China, with the country’s autocratic leadership changing its export rules to possibly include elements of TikTok that could limit a transaction, and perhaps scuttle its sale.

For ByteDance, the situation is a nightmare. For lead-suitor Microsoft, the transaction is a shotgun marriage that it might not be entirely enthused about. For the Trump administration, it’s an attempt at a power play. And for China’s increasingly authoritarian government, the deal could feel like submission. So, if the deal does manage to come together it will be more surprise than eventuality.

Source: Tech Crunch

Toucan has developed a Chrome browser extension designed for anyone who wants to learn a new language but hasn’t found the motivation or the time.

Once installed, the extension scans the text of any (English-language) website you’re visiting and will automatically translate some of the words into the language that you’re trying to learn. If you mouse over the word, you’ll see original English word. Think of it as a browser-based version of language flashcards.

The startup was founded by CEO Taylor Nieman, CTO Shaun Merritt and CPO Brandon Dietz. Today, it’s announcing that it has raised $3 million in seed funding led by GSV Ventures, with participation from Amplifyher Ventures, Wonder Ventures, Golden Ventures, Halogen Ventures, Vitalize Ventures and strategic angel investors.

Nieman’s past roles include business development roles at Headspace (where Dietz was a senior product manager), startup studio Science and car leasing startup Fair.com (where Merritt was an iOS developer). She told me that one thing she learned from across all those experiences is “habit formation — how hard it actually to do anything that steals people’s time.”

Dietz made a similar point, arguing that while language learning software like Rosetta Stone and Duolingo has had its share of success, “It’s just such a high ask to get people to change their behavior and go to this one website,” particularly on a daily basis.

So Toucan is designed to help users learn a new language (it currently supports Spanish, French, Italian, German and Portuguese) while they browse the web as they normally would, without having to change their behavior.

Image Credits: Toucan

Nieman said the extension can be used to solidify and expand your vocabulary as you take digital or in-person classes. Or if you’re not taking classes, you can still use Toucan on its own, and it can help you achieve (as Dietz put it) “that magic moment of realizing you know a few words in other people’s languages.”

To ensure accuracy, the company works with teams of translators, including college professors and students, while also employing natural language processing to understand the context in which words are appearing. Users can also report words that are incorrectly translated.

And Toucan is experimenting with fun ways to promote itself, including the ability to “own” a word, so that for a week, your name appears anytime a word is translated by Toucan. In fact, the Toucan team has gifted me the word “writer,” — but since ownership is currently free, I guess it’s not a bribe?

Eventually, the company could charge people and businesses to own (a.k.a. sponsor) certain words. In addition, users can sign up for a premium subscription that gives them access to additional vocabulary. Dietz suggested that Toucan will continue exploring different business models, but he said the team is committed to “accessible” education and will keep “a large chunk” of the offering free.

Looking ahead, Toucan is planning to add new languages and to launch browser extensions for Firefox and Safari. And eventually, Nieman said the startup could apply the same approach to other subjects, “history or science or math or general knowledge.”

Source: Tech Crunch

There are just a few days until we kick off five days of Disrupt 2020. (September 14-18). It’s time to dig in, dig deep and do whatever it takes to discover hidden opportunities. Disrupt is a vehicle for success for all who are playing the startup game. Buy your pass and drive it like you stole it.

If it’s reassurance you need, we’ve got you covered. Here are five more reasons to attend Disrupt 2020.

1. Hone essential founder skills at the Extra Crunch stage

Every early-stage startup founder needs to master a daunting slate of business skills. Truth be told, building a successful startup is a never-ending learning curve. Head to the Extra Crunch Stage for real-world tips from experts in marketing, business development and investing. They’ll cover topics like how to craft a pitch deck, how to raise your first dollars or how to iterate your product.

“I like Disrupt’s approach. It combines demos with educational components that help you learn new trends and tactics. It’s more like a tech summit.” — Daniel Lloreda, general partner at H20 Capital Innovation.

2. Insight from world-class speakers on the Disrupt stage

Disrupt features the best and brightest minds and makers. They span the tech, investment and entertainment industries to deliver their experience, advice and inspiration in one-on-one interviews and moderated panels discussions.

• CRISPR in the post-COVID Era: What has the global COVID-19 pandemic changed about the biotech industry in general, and CRISPR in particular? Dr. Jennifer Doudna, who co-discovered the revolutionary CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology, joins us to discuss the immediate and lasting implications of the novel coronavirus and transformations in genetic science.
• Cuckoo for CoCo: Conan O’Brien is one of the most recognizable faces on television. But his company, Team CoCo Digital, is hoping you recognize his voice just as much. With podcasting on the rise over the past few years, hear from O’Brien on what it takes to dominate the audio landscape.
• Startup Battlefield Pitch Competition: The OG of startup pitch competitions. Seen in HBO’s show, Silicon Valley. Launchpad for more than 900 companies including Vurb, Dropbox, GetAround, Mint, Yammer, Fitbit. Here are our international startup champions hitting the stage next week – which one do you think will go home with the ultimate bragging rights and $100k in cool equity-free cash?

3. Global coverage with programming convenient to your time zone

The virtual nature of Disrupt 2020 equals a global scope — and our biggest Disrupt ever. Anyone from anywhere can participate, and the event agenda includes time zone-friendly programming for attendees in Europe and Asia.

• Here’s what’s going on during European hours
• Here’s what you can expect during Asian time zones

4. Multiple ways to expand your social graph

Don’t underestimate the benefits that come from meeting people outside of your social graph. Inspiration and ideas cut across industries, and you never know who you’ll meet at Disrupt — and where those connections might lead. There will be plenty of ways to make those connections at Disrupt 2020. With curated meetings on CrunchMatch and randomized virtual meetings and chat functionality on Hopin you will not run out of opportunities to promote your business and meet your networking goals.

“Disrupt was a great place to look for potential partners beyond our blockchain world. We got to meet and collaborate with founders in complimentary technologies like IoT and AI. Building those relationships will help all of us provide customers with better solutions. It’s a win-win.” — Joel Neidig, founder of SIMBA Chain.

5. Different access levels, more affordable prices

We recently re-launched the Disrupt Digital Pass that gives you an entry-level look into Disrupt 2020. Just want to peruse Startup Alley or pop into some Breakout Sessions? This pass is for you and at $45 for a limited time it’s a steal. Or if you are looking for the full Disrupt 2020 experience, grab a Disrupt Digital Pro Pass where you’ll be able to get live and video-on-demand access to both stages, curated matchmaking with CrunchMatch plus a complementary Extra Crunch subscription (a $99 value).

Disrupt 2020 takes place September 14-18. Buy your pass today, dig deep and discover the people, tools and advice that can help your business thrive.

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Source: Tech Crunch

Verishop, the Los Angeles online retailer founded by former Snap executive Imran Khan, launched a little over a year ago to change the way people shopped online. Now the company is launching a new initiative called “Verified Shops” which looks to change the way that up-and-coming retail brands can sell their wares. 

As direct-to-consumer and upstart brands look for new ways to sell, they’re increasingly turning to online partners to grow their businesses. Chiefly, the concern is that some retailers have been overrun with counterfeit products or unauthorized sellers that undercut pricing and dilute the brand’s value with knock-off products, the company observed.

So Khan set out to change the selling experience for these new companies that want to have a better way to communicate with their potential customers… a way to really tell their story online.

“We started with the big brands,” Khan said. “[Now] we’re launching ‘Verified Shop’ where any DTC brands can sell on our platform. They have to get through an approval process and verify that you’re a real direct to consumer brand you can  sell on the platform.”

That pitch appealed to retailers like David Manshoory, the founder of the popular cosmetics brand, Alleyoop.

“Right now we don’t work with any other ecommerce retailers,” said Manshoory. “Verishop was the first online only retail partners, because they’ve got a really large audience of customers that are in our demographic.”

The year-old cosmetics brand went with Verishop because the number of retailers and types of sellers on the platform “seemed very curated”, according to Manshoory. “There are brands in there that we recognized and respected.”

The revenue share program that Verishop has created for the newer, smaller consumer brands that join the platform is also straightforward, Manshoory said. Brands in the Verified Shops channel only pay when they make a sale  and it’s just 10 percent to 15 percent, depending on the category, according to the company. 

“Because they’re not buying inventory upfront they take a lower cut… which was a reason why i was attracted to it,” said the cosmetics company founder. “We can get started right off the bat once the integration is up… we have full control over our store.”

Verishop also managed to win over other online direct-to-consumer darlings like Greats (which was recenty acquired by Steve Madden), Dagne Dover, Athletic Propulsion Labs, Judy, and The Ridge.

“Ecommerce still starts in 1990,” said Khan of the traditional shopping experience. “It’s a search-based experience that’s phenomenal if you know what you’re looking for.” However, as brands proliferate and consumers look to identify with particular brands and brand stories more closely, the question becomes how to find those new companies that are selling the types of products that resonate with particular shoppers.

It’s the question that Verishop has set out to solve and the company is hoping that Verified Shops can be the onramp for the newest consumer brands to reach a millennial audience. Think of it as an online mall where a curated shopping ecosystem exists for each brand to develop its own digital storefront and tell its own story.

“Right now we sell fashion and home and beauty, but longterm why can’t you buy a car?” Khan asked. “It’s this virtual mall or virtual shopping strip that you can walk through and discover and learn and hang out. We let the brands tell the story and let the consumers discover the stories.”

Unlike other attempts to create a front end digital storefront experience for brands, Khan said that Verishop is differentiated by its focus on a backend ecommerce infrastructure and logistics capabilities that other virtual malls can’t match.

Brands can apply to appear on Verishop and once they’re selected as verified shops they’ll have the chance to tap into a customer base that’s mostly comprised of Gen Z and millennial shoppers.

Source: Tech Crunch

Ahead of the U.S. presidential election, Google says it’s taken a number of steps to improve the quality of information that it highlights across its various search and news products.

Google executives outlined these changes at an online press event today, as well as in a blog post. The biggest change seems to be in its policies around Autocomplete, the feature where Google suggests a search based on what you’ve typed so far.

The company says that it will now remove any Autocomplete predictions that seem to endorse or oppose a candidate or a political party, or that make a claim about voting or the electoral process. That would mean eliminating predictions like “you can vote by phone,” “you can’t vote by phone” or anything suggesting that you donate to a party or candidate.

At the same time, Google emphasized that this only applies to Autocomplete. Users will still be able to search for information around voting or candidates — you just won’t see those queries automatically, and it should become much harder for a candidate or party to use Autocomplete to drive users to make a desirable search.

David Graff, Google’s senior director of global policy and standards, said this is merely an extension of the company’s existing policies, and “not so much a completely new policy or philosophical approach.”

He added, “We’re acutely aware that with this upcoming election … people have strong opinions and given the backdrop of COVID, there’s a lot of questions about voting information and how that might play out against the backdrop of the pandemic.”

Graff also described this as a “conservative” approach, one in which some innocuous suggestions will probably be eliminated so that Google doesn’t risk allowing misinformation around the election from sneaking in.

Pandu Nayak, who heads Google’s search quality team, also said this policy will leave the vast majority of Autocomplete suggestions “completely untouched.”

“They get an outsized discussion around them, of course, but they’re actually a very small fraction of Autocompletes,” he said.

The other changes and progress that Google is highlighting today include the formation of an Intelligence Desk, a team of analysts that monitors the news and identifies “potential information threats”; the fact that Google can now identify breaking news moments in just a few minutes, compared to 40 minutes a few years ago; new programs designed to prevent vandalism on Wikipedia from sneaking onto the Knowledge Graph panels that appear alongside search results; and fact check labels in Google Images.

Source: Tech Crunch

With touring ground to a halt for the foreseeable future, 2020 has become the most difficult year for musicians in recent memory. One’s ability to survive on music depends on a variety of factors, of course, including things like audience, reach and how their fans access their output.

The world of recorded music has been a mixed bag throughout the pandemic. New industry figures from the Recording Industry Association of America out this week show that revenue for recorded music is actually up for the first half of 2020, owing, unsurprisingly, to the growth of music streaming.

With vastly more people stuck inside seeking novel methods of entertainment, paid subscriptions (Spotify, Apple Music, et al.) are up 24% year-over-year. Revenues on streaming music are up 12% overall, hitting $2.4 billion for the first half of the year. The figured has been hampered by an overall drop in ad sales that certainly isn’t limited to the music industry. That has had a sizable impact on services like YouTube, Vevo and Spotify’s free tier.

Physical sales of CDs and vinyl took a massive hit to an already rocky foundation, down 23% for that time period. Streaming now makes up 85% of all revenue in the U.S., with physical sales only commanding 7% — just slightly higher than the 6% made by digital downloads. It’s a troubling figure, given the difficulty many more independent artists have faced in monetizing streaming.

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek faced backlash from the industry for comments surrounding streaming revenue. “There is a narrative fallacy here, combined with the fact that, obviously, some artists that used to do well in the past may not do well in this future landscape, where you can’t record music once every three to four years and think that’s going to be enough,” the executive said in a recent interview.

The comments came as many musicians have struggled to keep their heads above water during a sustained touring hiatus. They also come as the streaming service has continued to pump money into acquisitions in an attempt to build out its podcasting presence.

Source: Tech Crunch

Two ride hailing drivers are taking India-based Ola to court in the Netherlands in another test case targeted at algorithmic management of gig workers.

The case, which is being supported by the App Drivers & Couriers Union (ADCU) union and others, is similar to one filed by drivers against Uber in July, also in a Netherlands court.

The drivers in both cases are asking for their personal data to be ported to their union’s data trust so it can be used for collective bargaining purposes. They say the companies haven’t provided all the requested data — and Uber, for example, has sought to suggest EU privacy rights prevent it from handing over more information.

Both cases reference European data access rights under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) — including protections for individuals who are subject to significant legal or equivalent effects as a result of wholly automated processing.

In the Ola challenge, the ADCU says the drivers received only partial data in response to requests for their information under GDPR — such as not receiving date-stamped GPS data.

Another complaint is the lack of ratings data at the trip level which they say Ola blocked — meaning they have no way to challenge unfair or discriminatory ratings.

The drivers argue “huge gaps” in the data provided reduces their ability to meaningfully analyse their own performance.

They also allege that Ola’s data protection policy suggests a high degree of driver surveillance and performance management at the same time as the company denies basic worker rights — as drivers are classified as self employed.

“Ola give tantalising detail on level of surveillance and control over workers. Fraud probability scores for drivers for example. Admit that performance factors go into dispatch decision,” an ADCU spokesperson told us.

Gig platforms in Europe have faced a number of legal challenges over the classification of workers as they have scaled in the region. These latest cases are interesting in how the plaintiffs are going after the platforms’ algorithmic management as a means of illustrating the degree of worker control.

In a press release announcing the suit, the ADCU points to a safety feature Ola introduced in London earlier this year known as ‘Guardian’ which the company says uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyze ‘millions of data points’ ‘in real time to automatically detect irregular trip activity’ — saying Ola has “provided no information on the driver personal data processed in such risk profiling despite disclosing that it calculates a ‘fraud probability score’ for each driver”.

The plaintiffs argue transparency that over such systems is essential — pointing to the potential for them to impact driver earnings. One of the drivers bringing the case reports having his pay docked after Ola’s algorithm deemed the trips ‘invalid’ (incorrectly, as he tells it).

When the driver tried to appeal, Ola told him the process is automated and has no manual intervention — asserting that the deductions were correct and could not be reversed.

Yet Article 22 of the GDPR affords EU data subjects the right to contest automated decision making with significant legal or similar effects on them — including the right to human review of a decision. So it’s another interesting test of the extent of legal protections provided by the regulation.

Commenting on the suit in a statement, Yaseen Aslam, president of ADCU said: “Ola could choose to use its technology for good to ensure drivers are well paid, protected and treated with dignity at work. Instead Ola has taken advantage of its position of platform power to exploit and impoverish its workforce. It’s time for drivers to take back control and build collective power. The first step is to demand access to their own data at work.”

We’ve reached out to Ola for comment on the challenge.

The plaintiffs say they will ask the district court in Amsterdam to make an order that Ola immediately comply with EU data protection law and be fined €2,000 for each day it does not do so.

They note that action has been taken in the Netherlands because Ola Netherlands BV, the corporate entity that controls the platform and driver data, is based in Amsterdam.

Source: Tech Crunch