Month: August 2016

A Rough Week for Twitter Communications ⇥ buzzfeed.com

Alex Kantrowitz, reporting for Buzzfeed on Sunday:

Natalie Kerris, who joined Twitter as its VP of communications in February, is leaving the company, BuzzFeed News has learned. Leslie Berland, Twitter’s chief marketing officer, will lead both marketing and communications in a combined role.

BuzzFeed News confirmed the departure with a Twitter spokesperson. “During her time leading communications at Twitter, Natalie helped us share the Twitter story with the world. We are grateful for her energy and enthusiasm and the impact she’s had, even in this short time,” said the spokesperson. “We wish her all the best.”

Kurt Wagner, reporting for Recode on Thursday:

Twitter is losing another key member of its communications team. Jim Prosser, the company’s head of corporate and policy communications, is leaving Twitter for SoFi at the end of the week.

Prosser is taking over as VP of Communications and Policy at SoFi, a five-year-old loan and financing startup in San Francisco.

Alexandra Valasek, head of Consumer Communications at Twitter, today:

It’s been an incredible 4 years, @Twitter! (I never stopped smiling). So very excited to join the team at @Uber

As far as I can tell, Twitter’s communications team is already pretty small. A LinkedIn search shows a team of about 173 people, though most of those are spread around the world for local communications purposes, and the results start to become irrelevant on the fifth page. I counted a couple dozen currently working in San Francisco in Communications positions. Losing three high-ranking staff members in a single week can’t be a good sign.

Don’t Mention the Games ⇥ adweek.com

The Olympic Games begin today in Rio, but if you’re thinking about tweeting about it from a business account in the United States, you should know that the USOC is cracking down on such flagrant misuses of Olympic intellectual property such as mentioning the Games at all. Christine Birkner, AdWeek:

While individuals, news media and official sponsors are generally free to post about the games and athletes during the Olympics, other businesses and brands are essentially locked out from anything close to a direct discussion.

Summarizing its many brand restrictions, which you can see detailed below, the USOC warns businesses: “Do not create social media posts that are Olympic themed, that feature Olympic trademarks, that contain Games imagery or congratulate Olympic performance unless you are an official sponsor as specified in the Social Media Section.”

The list of brand restrictions includes prohibitions on using the names of Olympic cities, hashtags associated with Olympic trademarks — the list is long — posting results from any Olympic event, or retweeting officially-sanctioned Olympic posts. Seems a little harsh, doesn’t it?

A Minimum Expectation of Privacy ⇥ nytimes.com

The New York Times editorial board in March of this year:

Under the proposal by the chairman, Tom Wheeler, cable and phone companies would be allowed to use personal data for things like billing and pitching more expensive versions of services that customers are already using. Customers could opt out of marketing for other services provided by their broadband companies. And the companies would have to get permission from their customers before they could do more with the data, like selling it to advertisers. Another rule would require companies to protect the data and notify customers, the commission and law enforcement agencies if the information was stolen.

These are similar to the protections the commission has long imposed on phone companies. Those rules have worked so well that most Americans do not worry that Verizon or T-Mobile is listening to their conversations or using call records to market products and services. People should have similar privacy protections when they use cable or phone lines to get on the Internet.

As far as I’m concerned, this policy is a no-brainer.

Amicus Curiæ of Designers Submits a Brief in Favour of Apple (PDF) ⇥ images.apple.com

Speaking of copying and Samsung, an amicus curiæ of over a hundred designers of all stripes have submitted a brief arguing in favour of Apple in their long-running legal battle. This is a link to a PDF copy of a legal document, but it’s a surprisingly breezy read. Among the signatories: Raymond Riley of Microsoft, Calvin Klein, Norman Foster, Alexander Wang, former Apple industrial designer Robert Brunner, and — naturally — Dieter Rams.

The Audacity of Copying Well ⇥ stratechery.com

Instagram announced on Monday that they had blatantly copied Snapchat’s “Stories” feature. It’s called Instagram Stories, because they’re clever like that, and Ben Thompson is actually rather impressed:

Still, cloning isn’t enough. The fact features don’t offer useful differentiation does not remove the need for differentiation: the key is figuring out what else can be leveraged. Google, for example, may have largely copied the iPhone’s UI, but the key to Android’s success was the search company’s ability to leverage their advertising-based business model to offer it for free. On the hardware side Samsung leveraged their manufacturing might and long-established distribution channels to dominate the otherwise undifferentiated Android market, at least for a time. And, in perhaps the most famous example of this strategy, Microsoft embraced web standards with Internet Explorer, extended their browser’s capabilities with features like ActiveX, eventually extinguishing the threat when Netscape couldn’t keep up.

This is why it is so fascinating that Facebook is leveraging Instagram in this way. For all of Snapchat’s explosive growth, Instagram is still more than double the size, with far more penetration across multiple demographics and international users. Rather than launch a “Stories” app without the network that is the most fundamental feature of any app built on sharing, Facebook is leveraging one of their most valuable assets: Instagram’s 500 million users.

Unlike Google leveraging their massive user base to try to compete with Facebook, Instagram didn’t try to get clever with their Snapchat clone. It is shockingly — brazenly — similar. And, in a perverse way, that’s probably one of the main reasons it seems to be working so far.

Update: As though Thompson’s argument wasn’t abundantly clear, Instagram just sent out an email newsletter announcing Stories. One of the headings in the email? “Your Friends Are Already There”.

Comcast Exploring Plans to Sell Customers’ Web Browsing Data to Advertisers ⇥ washingtonpost.com

Following in the footsteps of AT&T’s deceptively-named “Internet Preferences” program, Comcast also wants the right to sell customers’ web browsing data to advertisers. And they’re arguing this at the same time as the FCC is exploring new privacy regulations.

Francis Buono of Comcast, in a regulatory filing concerning an FCC meeting this Monday:

First, we expressed our agreement with the Federal Trade Commission’s (“FTC’s”) comments in this proceeding that the FCC should adopt a sensitivity-based approach to consent. Under such an approach, opt-in consent would be required only with respect to the use or disclosure of sensitive information (financial, health, and children’s information, Social Security numbers, and precise geolocation information), while the use and disclosure of non-sensitive information would be subject to opt-out consent in most instances and implied consent for an ISP to market its products and services to its customers.

While Comcast is generally correct in asserting that data disclosures for marketing purposes are generally opt-out, an ISP should be treated separately. Brian Fung of the Washington Post:

Consumer groups who oppose Comcast have said that Internet providers have a unique vantage point over everything an Internet user does online. For example, Netflix’s intelligence about its users is largely limited to what customers do on its own platform, with little visibility into how those same people watch videos on Hulu or Amazon. […] Internet providers, however, can detect when a subscriber visits all three sites.

The assumption that consumers would generally agree to their personal information being used for marketing purposes without their consent is fundamentally flawed. If provided a choice, most people would probably decline to opt into their data being used for targeted marketing.

Comcast and AT&T know this, which is why they’re offering deep discounts to incentivize subscribers’ consent. Or, to put it another way, Comcast is planning to charge customers extra — and AT&T is currently doing so — to continue to have basic privacy protections on the web.

Update: For comparison, note this Information Week article published in 2002:

Comcast Corp. last week bowed to pressure and agreed to stop recording the IP addresses of its high-speed Internet customers. Some say Comcast could have sidestepped the issue altogether had it been more up front with customers.

The controversy began after a customer noticed his Internet query was being redirected to another Web page. He correctly concluded that Comcast was logging customers’ activity and spread the word. At issue was Comcast’s installation of caching technology in its network six weeks ago to optimize performance by determining which Web pages customers visit the most and then caching them for faster response times.

Comcast is using Inktomi Corp.’s caching technology. When set at the default configuration–which was the case at Comcast–the system logs customers’ IP addresses and the IP addresses and URLs of the Web pages they visit, then purges the data within 36 hours. Customers’ IP addresses were never matched with names or other personal information, Comcast executives say.

Yahoo Is Investigating a Possible Leak of 200M Accounts ⇥ motherboard.vice.com

Joseph Cox, Vice:

On Monday, the hacker known as Peace, who has previously sold dumps of Myspace and LinkedIn, listed supposed credentials of Yahoo users on The Real Deal marketplace. Peace told Motherboard that he has been trading the data privately for some time, but only now decided to sell it openly.

[…]

According to a sample of the data, it contains usernames, hashed passwords (created with md5 algorithm), dates of birth, and in some cases back-up email addresses. The data is being sold for 3 bitcoins, or around $1,860, and supposedly contains 200 million records from “2012 most likely,” according to Peace. Until Yahoo confirms a breach, however, or the full dataset is released for verification, it is possible that the data is collated and repackaged from other major data leaks.

In mid-2012, the login details for around 450,000 Yahoo accounts were publicly leaked. It’s unclear how much overlap there is between this alleged stash of 200 million accounts and those. Even if all of those previously-leaked details were included, that’s still well under 1% of all of the accounts allegedly part of this leak. This year — or, well, decade — really isn’t treating Yahoo very well.

Apple Releases Its 2016 Corporate Diversity Stats ⇥ washingtonpost.com

Most of the improvements are 1–2 percentage points, compared to last year’s figures. A highlight from their report is that American workers now have total compensation equity across men, women, and minorities — I think that’s significant progress. But, while Apple is on the right path, they still have a long way to go to ensure better representation across their entire staff. The disparity is particularly noticeable at the executive level, which remains predominantly white (67%) and male (72%).

The Outline of Joshua Topolsky ⇥ wsj.com

Yesterday, Joshua Topolsky took the wraps off his new venture, the premise for which was outlined in an April 25 essay that Topolsky published on Medium:

So over time, we built up scale in digital to replace user value. We thought we could solve with numbers (the new, seemingly infinite numbers the internet and social media provides) what we couldn’t solve with attention. And with every new set of eyeballs (or clicks, or views) we added, we diminished the merit of what we made. And advertisers asked for more, because those eyes were worth less. And we made more. And it was less valuable.

The media industry now largely thinks its only working business model is to reach as many people as possible, and sell — usually programmatically, but sometimes not — as many advertisements against that audience as it can. If they tell you otherwise, they are lying.

They are also wrong, I believe, in the long run.

Enter: the Outline. Topolsky and Ryan Houlihan spoke about it at length on his podcast, Tomorrow, but if you don’t have nearly an hour to spare, Mike Shields of the Wall Street Journal summed it up in an article yesterday:

Mr. Topolsky is touting The Outline as something of the antidote to a rising crop of digital media brands that are reliant on social media distribution and, in his mind, are too focused on reaching massive user totals.

Instead, with The Outline, Mr. Topolsky said he is aiming to reach roughly 10 to 15 million users, most of whom come directly to his site. “This has to be a real brand,” he said. The site’s content will focus on three areas: power, as it relates to subjects like politics and business; culture; and the future. He said he’s aiming for a smart, influential readership.

The plan is to produce roughly 15 to 20 pieces of content a day, including text articles, more visual stories and video.

Despite the amount by which I loathe the phrases “real brand” and “pieces of content”, and how vague this mission statement is, I’m looking forward to seeing the results of Topolsky’s work. There are some really smart people — like Leah Finnegan and Adrianne Jeffries, to name two — who are setting the foundation for the Outline. This should be good; or, at the very least, worth keeping an eye on.

Glow App Exposed Women to Privacy Threats ⇥ consumerreports.org

Glow is a menstrual cycle and fertility tracking app. Jerry Beilinson, Consumer Reports:

Recently, Consumer Reports tested Glow for security and privacy features as part of a broader project, and found surprising vulnerabilities. One security flaw might have let someone with no hacking skills at all access a woman’s personal data. Other vulnerabilities would have allowed an attacker with rudimentary software tools to collect email addresses, change passwords, and access personal information from participants in Glow’s community forums, where people discuss their sex lives and health concerns.

We concluded that it would be easy for stalkers, online bullies, or identity thieves to use the information they gathered to harm Glow’s users. In July, we shared our concerns with Glow, Inc., the company that makes the app. The executive we spoke with was not aware of the potential vulnerabilities, and the company moved quickly to correct them.

This kind of thing is why last month’s introduction in Europe of a network security law is sorely needed in the United States. Glow reacted responsibly, and Consumer Reports did a good service by finding these faults, but it’s not enough. There’s no legal requirement for companies to disclose their security faults, nor are they mandated to test their apps or services prior to launch.

We’re now providing personal and sensitive information on a regular basis to apps and services. While it would be advisable for consumers to restrict the amount of data they’re providing and to be aware of the possible implications of a breach, users aren’t going to do that, nor should they be expected to. Their data can be transferred in unexpected ways, from the obviously illegal black hat hacker scenario, to a totally mundane corporate acquisition. Users’ data ought to be protected with far more concern than it currently is.

Google to Automatically Link to AMP Results When Available ⇥ theverge.com

Joshua Benton, reporting for Neiman Lab in October:

Google said it won’t prefer AMP pages over non-AMP pages in search… but reminded us hint-hint-nudge-nudge that page speed is already a factor in Google results, with faster pages getting preference. […]

Dieter Bohn, reporting for the Verge today:

Now, Google has announced that it plans to expand the delivery of AMP links beyond that carousel to all mobile search results. So when you search for a story and an article from an AMP publisher shows up in search results, clicking on that blue link will take you to the AMP version of the story instead of the traditional website. When a webpage has an AMP version available, it will be represented by a small lightning bolt next to the search result. (For now, Google is offering a “developer preview” of AMP pages within search results to collect feedback before it rolls out to all users later this year.)

AMP, you will recall, is Google’s proprietary fork of HTML that requires the inclusion of a 158 KB JavaScript file to “speed up” the webpage. By contrast, the very page you’re reading is well under 158 KB with everything, including the little sidebar ad and the lightweight analytics script I use.

By the way, in case you’re wondering — and I know you are — the linked Verge page is over 8 MB, took over six seconds to load its over 200 HTTP requests, and included 146 page errors. At the beginning of June, Nilay Patel told me that site performance would get “way better very soon”, but I’m not seeing it.

Update: Just for giggles, I tried loading up the AMP version of this article and, though it loaded in just half a second, its 100 HTTP requests transferred 5.39 MB of data, and created an infinite number of page errors — every second, three new ones are created, due to a bug in the ad script.

Over 100 Redesigned and More Diverse Emoji Coming With iOS 10 ⇥ apple.com

Apple PR:

More than one hundred new and redesigned emoji characters will be available to iPhone and iPad users this fall with iOS 10. This exciting update brings more gender options to existing characters, including new female athletes and professionals, adds beautiful redesigns of popular emoji, a new rainbow flag and more family options.

As emoji becomes an increasingly popular universal language, it’s good to see a more representative and inclusive set of options. Good on Apple and the entire Unicode consortium for building out a full array of choices.

Nothing gets people to upgrade to a new version of iOS more than an emoji update. I’m adjusting my totally spitballed and virtually baseless first-week adoption estimate of iOS 10 to 45%, up from 40%.

Update: Looks like the idea for the replacement of the pistol with the water gun originated with Neven Mrgan’s bug report earlier this year.

Boys Don’t Cry ⇥ nytimes.com

Ben Sisario and Joe Coscarelli, New York Times:

The long wait for a new Frank Ocean album may nearly be over.

Mr. Ocean, the innovative and enigmatic R&B singer, is set to release his next album, “Boys Don’t Cry,” on Friday through an exclusive deal with Apple Music, according to a person with knowledge of the release plans. The release is also expected to include a major video and a printed publication called Boys Don’t Cry that will be distributed at Apple stores.

As far as exclusives go, getting the next Frank Ocean album is about as good as it gets. Few records are as anticipated as “Boys Don’t Cry”.

The Most Popular Product of All Time ⇥ asymco.com

Horace Dediu gives some context to Apple’s billion iPhone announcement:

The iPhone is not only the best selling mobile phone but also the best selling music player, the best selling camera, the best selling video screen and the best selling computer of all time.

It is, quite simply, the best selling product of all time.

The scale of this singular product line is astonishing, both in sales and in manufacturing. I know Apple gets a lot of credit for their logistical prowess, but in many ways, I don’t think they get enough.