Two tech geeks.

  • Alibaba explores direct sales model, no plans to replace Tmall

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    TechNode:

    Alibaba is not going to rebrand its B2C marketplace Tmall to Maoxiang, an anonymous executive at the company’s digital business unit told local media outlet Guancha on Feb. 19. The source partially confirmed a prior rumor that Alibaba is working on Maoxiang, a new online direct sales service adopting a model similar to rival JD’s, but says Maoxiang is just an “exploration project” within Tmall app.

    I don’t think Alibaba would rebrand Tmall. The Tmall brand is also tied to Alibaba’s smarthome, the Tmall Genie. The Tmall brand has established itself as a badge of trust and authenticity on Taobao.

    Alibaba has been pushing Tmall to rival JD in terms of providing ecommerce sold by good brands with quality customer support and after-sales service. They need a special D2C app or brand to compete with JD.

  • Google Search is Dying

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    Michael Tsai:

    I’ve noticed two separate things:

    • If I know the right Reddit or Stack Exchange to search, or if Amazon or Hacker News applies, I get much more useful results than searching Google (or any other general search engine). This avoids SEO spam issues and can surface posts that don’t seem to be accessible otherwise.
    • Google results, at least for me, are no longer trustworthy, in the sense that I always wonder whether something is missing. Sometimes it does a great job. But sometimes the page I want will not be in the results at all, whereas it’s at the top of the list in Bing.

    So, whereas I used to rely almost exclusively on Google, I now do site-specific searches where possible. Otherwise, I use Bing by default and Google as a backup.

    For me DuckDuckGo is the go to, but if I’m searching for coding topics, I would use Stack Overflow. I’ll have to try using Stack Exchange and Reddit more.

    This is a very interesting trend, especially how it is very similar in China. Due to the closed nature of manu platforms in China, Chinese users actually search in different apps for different topics. But a popular place for finding answers to certain questions would be Zhihu, the Chinese equivalent of Stack Exchange and Quora.

    Douban is very popular for movies, drams and books. I’ve personally found movie and drama ratings to be very accurate on Douban. This is similar to Rotten Tomatoes.

  • Privacy Sandbox on Android

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    Google:

    While we design, build and test these new solutions, we plan to support existing ads platform features for at least two years, and we intend to provide substantial notice ahead of any future changes.

    So it’s being built and tested. Android users will still be subjected to ads tracking for the next two years.

  • Spotify is acquiring two major podcast tech platforms

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    The Verge:

    Spotify is making more podcast acquisitions. The company announced today it’s acquiring both Chartable and Podsights — two of the most prominent podcast marketing and ad attribution companies. The deal price hasn’t been disclosed, but this marks the first major acquisition the company has made this year in a long line of audio purchases.

    We’ve seen how Spotify has been strengthening its position in the podcasting world.

    Spotify has been on a podcasting acquisition spree in recent years, spanning across advertising technology, audiobooks, and top creative talent. Last year, the company bought Whooshkaa, Podz, Findaway, and Locker Room to offer and promote more spoken audio content, which followed its purchase of the major podcast ad platform Megaphone in late 2020. At the same time, Spotify has been scooping up major talent and shows to run ads on, including Joe Rogan’s podcast, as well as Gimlet, Parcast, and The Ringer.

    While it is great that good content creators get to benefit from this, it is also important that podcasting remains an open ecosystem. Remember what Google did to RSS?

    Independent publishers and loyal readers have kept RSS feeds alive, but it is a shadow of how vibrant the ecosystem was. I hope RSS would recover and become used more widely as people start to move away from closed platforms. Likewise for podcasting.

  • 96% iOS users in the US opt out of tracking

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    Flurry:

    Until now, apps have been able to rely on Apple’s Identifier for Advertiser (IDFA) to track users for targeting and advertising purposes. With the launch of iOS 14.5 this week, mobile apps now have to ask users who have upgraded to iOS 14.5 for permission to gather tracking data. With opt-in rates expected to be low, this change is expected to create challenges for personalized advertising and attribution, impacting the $189 billion mobile advertising industry worldwide.

    The numbers so far is 96% opt-out in the US, 88% opt-out worldwide.

    I’m curious to know which countries have the highest opt-in rates.

  • Facebook and Instagram Ask Users to Enable App Tracking in Order to Keep Services Free

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    MacRumors:

    As a way to convince users to enable tracking across other apps and websites, Facebook is deploying the tactic of telling users that they must enable tracking as part of the App Tracking Transparency framework in iOS 14.5 if they want to help keep Facebook and Instagram “free of charge.”

    Are they threatening to charge people if they don’t allow Facebook to track them? Please do your friends a favour and remind them to opt out. If you know anyone who might be misled by this, especially the elderly and less tech-savvy, please take the time to help them out.

  • The Instagram ads Facebook won't show you

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    Signal:

    We created a multi-variant targeted ad designed to show you the personal data that Facebook collects about you and sells access to. The ad would simply display some of the information collected about the viewer which the advertising platform uses. Facebook was not into that idea.

    Maybe everyone should try Facebook’s advertising platform at least once so they can understand the kind of data that’s being collected about them.

  • Verizon sold Yahoo and AOL to private equity firm

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    NY Times:

    Yahoo and AOL, kings of the early internet, saw their fortunes decline as Silicon Valley raced ahead to create new digital platforms. Google replaced Yahoo. AOL was supplanted by cable giants. Now they will become the property of private equity. Verizon, their current owner, agreed to sell them to Apollo Global Management in a deal worth $5 billion, the companies announced Monday.

    John Gruber:

    In 2002, Yahoo had the chance to buy Google for $1 billion; they hesitated and walked away when the price went to $3 billion. (Same story says they nearly bought Facebook for $1 billion in 2006 and could’ve had it for $1.1 billion.)

    In January 2000, AOL acquired Time-Warner for $182 billion to form a mega media company then valued at $350 billion.

    What a decline.

  • Zoom Rooms Weekly Restart

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    Zoom:

    Zoom Rooms weekly system restart functionality will restart your computer weekly with the following conditions:

    • Between the hours of 2:00-4:00am based on local time on PC or Mac
    • When there is no meeting currently in progress in that room

    By default, the Zoom Rooms computer will restart on Saturday, but you can also select a day for the restart.

    Instead of trying to deal with the memory leaks, Zoom decides to just force you to restart your computer weekly.

  • Fiat Chrysler, Peugeot shareholders vote on merger

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    The Washington Post:

    The marriage of carmakers PSA Peugeot and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is built on the promise of cost-savings in the capital-hungry industry, but what remains to be seen is if it will be able to preserve jobs and heritage brands in a global market still suffering from the pandemic.

    This is a stark contrast to the Chinese market where new car companies and brands keep popping up.