With the big three — Amazon, Microsoft and Google — reporting earnings this week, we learned that the cloud infrastructure market topped $57 billion for the quarter, up $11 billion over the same period last year.

That adds up to 24% growth, according to data from Synergy Research. It might not be the growth we are used to seeing from this market, but at a time of economic instability, it continues to perform remarkably well.

Still, it is a step back from the days when we saw growth steadily in the 30s. It’s even down from last quarter when the market grew 29%. So it’s fair to say that growth is slowing in an area that’s seen explosive expansion over the last several years.

Synergy chief analyst John Dinsdale attributed this slowdown to several factors. First of all, there’s the law of large numbers, which states that as a market size increases, growth decreases. When you combine that with a strong dollar affecting earnings outside the U.S. and a shrinking market in China, it is having an impact.

“It is a strong testament to the benefits of cloud computing that despite two major obstacles to growth, the worldwide market still expanded by 24% from last year. Had exchange rates remained stable and had the Chinese market remained on a more normal path, then the growth rate percentage would have been well into the thirties,” Dinsdale said in a statement.

The other news here is that of the big three, Google Cloud was the only one to gain share, up a tick to 11%, as the work that CEO Thomas Kurian is doing to build the business continues to pay dividends. Meanwhile, Amazon held steady as the market leader at 34%, good for around $19 billion for the quarter, with Microsoft in second at 21% with revenue of almost $12 billion. Google’s 11% came in at around $6 billion.

But that doesn’t tell the whole story as Amazon’s cloud growth slowed to 27.5% in the quarter, down from 33% growth the prior quarter.

As the chart below showing third-quarter data back to 2017 illustrates, the market has grown in leaps and bounds over the five-year period, from just over $10 billion to almost $60 billion.

Image Credits: Synergy Research

It’s also worth noting that only Google beat analysts’ expectations for cloud revenue, while both AWS and Microsoft came up short of their predictions. The usual caveats apply here around numbers matching publicly reported amounts. Synergy counts public platform, infrastructure and hosted private cloud services in its numbers. Total revenue reported by individual companies may also include other elements, which Synergy doesn’t count.

The fact is that in spite of economic headwinds, the market remains surprisingly strong, and while companies may be looking for places to cut, as we wrote back in June, it’s not that easy to reduce cloud spending because it’s fundamental to most businesses these days. Most companies born in the cloud aren’t going to suddenly build a data center, and those in the midst of shifting to the cloud need to keep moving workloads because of all the benefits the cloud brings around business agility.

Companies looking to cut spending can and should be looking for waste, but regardless, the cloud market will likely continue to produce decent numbers, even if the economics force down overall revenue and slow growth in the short term.

We usually include Canalys data as a means of comparison in these reports, but the data was not available yet at the time we published. As soon as Canalys publishes its data, we will update the article.

As overall cloud infrastructure market growth dips to 24%, AWS reports slowdown by Ron Miller originally published on TechCrunch

A Google regulatory filing appears to have confirmed rumors in recent months that the European Union’s competition division is looking into how it operates its smartphone app store, the Play Store.

However TechCrunch understands that no formal EU investigation into the Play Store has been opened at this stage.

The SEC Form 10-Q, filed by Google’s parent Alphabet (and spotted earlier by Reuters), does make mention of “formal” investigations being opened into Google Play’s “business practices” back in May 2022 — by both the European Commission and the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

Thing is, the Commission’s procedure on opening a formal competition investigation is to make a public announcement — so the lack of that standard piece of regulatory disclosure suggests any EU investigation is at a more preliminary stage than Google’s citation might imply.

The UK antitrust regulator’s probe of Google Play is undoubtedly a formal investigation — having been publicly communicated by the CMA back in June — when it said it would probe Google’s rules governing apps’ access to listing on its Play Store, looking at conditions it sets for how users can make in-app payments for certain digital products.

While, back in August, Politico reported that the Commission had sent questionnaires probing Play Store billing terms and developer fees — citing two people close to the matter. And potentially suggesting an investigation was underway. Although the EU’s executive declined to comment on its report.

A Commission spokeswoman also declined to comment when we asked about the “formal investigation” mentioned in Google’s filing (at the time of writing Google had also not responded to requests about it).

But we understand there is no “formal” EU probe into Play as yet — at least not how the EU itself understands the word.

This may be because the EU’s competition division is still be evaluating responses to enquiries made so far — and/or assessing whether there are grounds for concern.

Alternatively, it might have decided it does not have concerns about how Google operates the Play Store. Although developer complaints about app store commissions levied by Google (and Apple) — via the 30% cut that’s typically applied to in-app purchases (a 15% lower rate can initially apply) — haven’t diminished. If anything, complaints have been getting louder — including as a result of moves by the tech giants to expand the types of sales that incur their tax. So lack of competition concern here seems unlikely.

Last year, the Commission also charged Apple with an antitrust breach related to the mandatory use of its in-app purchase mechanism imposed on music streaming app developers (specifically) and restrictions on developers preventing them from informing users of alternative, cheaper payment options.

So app store T&Cs are certainly on the EU’s radar.

More than that: The EU has recently passed legislation that aims, among various proactive provisions, to regulate the fairness of app store conditions. So the existence of that incoming ex ante competition regime seems the most likely explanation for why there’s no formal EU investigation of Google Play today.

Where Google is concerned, the Commission has already chalked up several major antitrust enforcements against its business over the last five+ years — with decisions against Google Shopping, Android, AdSense; as well as an ongoing investigation into Google’s adtech stack (plus another looking at an ad arrangement between Google and Facebook). 

Another consideration here is that EU lawmakers have had a very busy year hammering out consensus on a number of major pieces of digital regulation — including the aforementioned ex ante competition reform (aka, the Digital Markets Act; DMA) which will cast the Commission in a centralized enforcement role overseeing so-called Internet “gatekeepers”.

That incoming regime is requiring the Commission to rapidly spin up new divisions to oversee DMA compliance and enforcement — so the EU may be feeling a little stretched on the resources front. But — more importantly — it may also be trying to keep its powder dry.

Essentially, the Commission may want to see if the DMA itself can do the job of sorting out app developer gripes — since the regulation has a number of provisions geared towards app stores specifically, including a prohibition on gatekeepers imposing “general conditions, including pricing conditions, that would be unfair or lead to unjustified differentiation [on business users]”, for example.

The regulation is due to start applying from Spring 2023 so a fresh competition investigation into Google’s app store at this stage could risk duplicating or complicating the enforcement of conditions already baked into EU law. (Although the process of designating gatekeepers and core platform services will need to come before any enforcement — so the real DMA action may not happen before 2024).

For its part, Google denies any antitrust wrongdoing, anywhere in the world its business practices are being investigated.

In the section of its filing rounding up antitrust investigations targeting its business, it writes: “We believe these complaints are without merit and will defend ourselves vigorously.”

Its filing also reveals that it intends to seek to appeal to the EU’s highest court after its attempt to overturn the EU’s Android decision was rejected last month. (The CJEU will only hear appeals on a matter of law so it remains to be seen what Google will try to argue.)

Privacy Sandbox

Also today, the UK’s CMA has released its second report on ongoing monitoring of commitments made by Google as it develops a new adtech stack to replace tracking cookies (aka Privacy Sandbox).

The regulator said it had found Google to be complying with commitments given so far — and listed its current priorities as: Ensuring Google designs a robust testing framework for its proposed new tools and APIs; continuing to engage with market participants to understand concerns raised by them, challenging Google over its proposed approaches and exploring alternative designs for the Privacy Sandbox tools which might address these issues; and embedding a recently appointed independent technical expert (a company called S-RM) into the monitoring regime.

The CMA’s report also reveals that — along with the UK’s privacy watchdog, the ICO — it’s in discussions with Google about the design of user controls for when Privacy Sandbox reaches general availability in 2023.

So it will be interesting to see if the UK regulators are switched on enough to present the usual manipulative design tricks from being cynically baked into these future consent interfaces.

“Google has presented its current proposed user interfaces for controls relating to Topics, FLEDGE and ad measurement. Together with the ICO, we are continuing the dialogue with Google about this and what underlies current design decisions on the consent flow for opting in or out,” the CMA notes on that.

“A key feature of our final assessment of the Privacy Sandbox will be evaluating both the privacy impacts of the technologies themselves and how they compare with their performance against the Development and Implementation Criteria, including competition,” it goes on, adding: “We are continuing to work with the ICO on approaches to measuring and assessing the impacts of Google’s changes on data privacy.”

Google filing says EU’s antitrust division is investigating Play Store practices by Natasha Lomas originally published on TechCrunch

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy.

Global app spending reached $65 billion in the first half of 2022, up only slightly from the $64.4 billion during the same period in 2021, as hypergrowth fueled by the pandemic has slowed down. But overall, the app economy is continuing to grow, having produced a record number of downloads and consumer spending across both the iOS and Google Play stores combined in 2021, according to the latest year-end reports. Global spending across iOS and Google Play last year was $133 billion, and consumers downloaded 143.6 billion apps.

This Week in Apps offers a way to keep up with this fast-moving industry in one place with the latest from the world of apps, including news, updates, startup fundings, mergers and acquisitions, and much more.

Do you want This Week in Apps in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here: techcrunch.com/newsletters.

Top Stories

Epic Games and Match attempt to expand their antitrust lawsuits against Google

Image Credits: Alex Tai/SOPA Images/LightRocket / Getty Images

Epic Games and Match Group are looking to fortify their antitrust lawsuits against Google by adding new counts to their initial complaint, filed last year, which illustrate the lengths Google supposedly went to in order to dominate the Android app market. The companies, a week ago, filed a motion to amend their complaints in their cases against Google, which now allege that Google paid off business rivals not to start other app stores that would put them in competition with Google Play. This would be a direct violation of U.S. antitrust law known as the Sherman Act, the amended complaint states.

Epic Games and Match Group had originally detailed Google’s plans in a filing last year, where they detailed a Google program known as “Project Hug,” or later, the “Apps and Games Velocity Program.” This effort was focused on paying game developers hundreds of millions of dollars in incentives to keep their games on the Google Play Store, it had said.

Now, Epic Games and Match Group are looking to add to their complaint with two new allegations specifying how Google had either paid or otherwise induced its potential competitors to agree to not distribute apps on Android in competition with the Play Store, including through their own competing app stores. Google, it reads, had identified developers who were “most at risk … of attrition from Play” and then approached them with an offer of an agreement.

The complaint now deems this a “per se” violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act, which prohibits “every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations,” it says. (You can read the full story here on TechCrunch.)

Google Play revamp continues

Image Credits: Google

Google announced this week new features for its Play Store that are designed to put more of developers’ store listing assets “front and center.” The company says that on large-screened devices, like tablets, foldables and Chromebooks, the Play Store redesign will make better use of app screenshots, videos and descriptions directly in the Apps and Games Home. This will help Android users when they’re browsing for new apps and games to install, Google says.

It’s also adding the ability for developers to upload Chromebook-specific screenshots in the Play Console, to better portray the Chromebook experience. Developers can upload up to eight screenshots, in the recommended 16:9 screenshots for landscape, with dimensions of 1080-7690px. Google is updating its quality guidelines for tablets for consistency across large screens, as well, but notes that previous uploads won’t be impacted by the changes.

Google additionally published a set of content quality guidelines to help developers learn best practices about how to showcase apps on large screens.

The changes announced this week follow an earlier revamp of the Play Store that offered users the ability to filter search results by device, making it easier for them to discover and download apps for non-phone devices like smartwatches, TVs and cars, including through remote installs. The feature was timely, given Google’s recent debut of its first Pixel-branded smartwatch this month.

BeReal’s real traction

Gen Z social media app BeReal encourages its users to take a photo every day — a format designed to create a daily habit. But only a small number of the app’s users are currently doing so, new estimates from a third-party app intelligence firm indicate. According to research from Sensor Tower, BeReal is demonstrating significant traction across some metrics — it topped 53 million worldwide installs across the App Store and Google Play and has seen its monthly active users jump by 2,254% since January 2022, for example. But only 9% of its active Android installs are opening the app every day as of the third quarter of this year, the firm found.

Active users are a better indication of an app’s adoption than downloads, as many people will install an app out of curiosity to check it out, but then abandon the app if they don’t end up enjoying the experience.

On this front, BeReal is still trailing established social media giants, Sensor Tower says. Today, 9% of BeReal’s active installs on Android (users who downloaded the app and are actively using it) are now launching the app daily. That’s far behind Instagram and TikTok. Instagram leads this category with 39% of its active installs opening the app every day, while TikTok comes in second with 29%. This is followed by Facebook, Snapchat, YouTube and Twitter at 27%, 26%, 20% and 18%, respectively.

Image Credits: Sensor Tower

Of course, BeReal proponents point out that the app’s Android adoption is not at the same pace as iOS, as we said in our initial report. With many of its new installs being from young people in the U.S. — where iOS is preferred — this figure may not present a full picture of the app’s current usage. However, it’s a window into a company that’s media-averse, declining to speak to press on the record or share any of its metrics or growth, or even tout its funding. So for now, third-party data is what we have — and, if Android usage can be extrapolated to iOS, it shows that many of BeReal’s users aren’t necessarily everyday addicts. (Yet?)

Elsewhere, another mobile app data firm, 42matters, estimated BeReal’s MAUs on Android were only up by 633% this year, growing from 43,899 MAUs in January to 321,787 MAUs by August 2022. (You can read the full report here on TechCrunch.)

Weekly News

Platforms: Apple

Image Credits: Apple

• Apple launched “Ask Apple,” a new series for app developers that allows them to connect directly with Apple experts for questions about integrating the latest technologies, design, testing and more. The sessions will run from October 17-21 and will include one-on-ones and group Q&As across multiple languages and time zones. To participate, developers will need to be members of either the Apple Developer Program or Apple Developer Enterprise Program.
• Apple Entrepreneur Camp applications are open and will close on December 5, 2022. The camp supports underrepresented founders and developers and will offer three online cohorts for female, Black or Hispanic/Latinx founders starting in January 2023.
• Apple will add 5G support to the iPhone 12, 13 and 14 models in India through an iOS update by December, The Economic Times reported. India’s government is pushing handset makers, like Apple and Samsung, to expedite software upgrades on their phones to make them compatible with local 5G airwaves.
• Apple is planning to launch iPadOS 16.1 alongside new hardware including MacBook Pros and new iPads in late October, Bloomberg reported. The iPad software update is expected the week of October 24, the report claims.
• As part of Microsoft’s announcements at its Ignite conference this week, Apple will be bringing more of its services, including Apple Music and iCloud storage with the Photos app in Windows 11, to Microsoft’s platforms.
• Apple rolled out iOS 16.1 beta 5 and watchOS 9.1 beta 5 to developers and as public betas. It also launched iOS 16.0.3 with fixes for the slow camera launch or slowness in changing camera modes, low microphone volume in CarPlay calls, delayed call and app notifications and more.
• Apple owners are reporting their iPhone 14 and Apple Watch’s crash detection features are being triggered by riding roller coasters.

Platforms: Google

• Google said its newly launched Pixel Watch will get at least three years of Wear OS updates, including security updates.
• Google approved the Truth Social app on the Play Store after the company updated its moderation policies. The app, which was denied entry in August 2022, said it would agree to enforce some policies around posts inciting violence, in order to gain approval.

E-commerce

• TikTok is planning to build its own fulfillment centers in the U.S., Axios reported, citing jobs posts in an effort to scale its e-commerce strategy. The company earlier this year was said to be dropping its live e-commerce “Shop” venture in the U.S., after it failed to gain traction abroad.
• Chinese fast fashion retailer Shein has seen its valuation decline from $100 billion+ to $65-85 billion in recent months, FT reports.
• Shein parent company, Zoetop, meanwhile has to pay $1.9 million in a fine to New York for a 2018 data breach that impacted 39 million Shein users and 7 million Romwe accounts.

Fintech & Crypto

Image Credits: Apple

• Apple is partnering with Goldman Sachs to introduce high-yield savings accounts in the Wallet app for Apple Card holders. The accounts can be funded with Daily Cash (cashback) from card purchases or through linked bank account transfers. Support for the accounts will arrive with an iOS update in the “coming months.”
• Crypto.com Capital is backing a new effort called Magic Square that’s aiming to build an app store for web3 developers.
• Children’s financial app Greenlight introduced a suite of new family safety features, putting the app in closer competition with services like Life360. A new subscription, Greenlight Infinity, will include family location sharing, SOS and emergency alerts, crash detection with automatic 911 dispatch and more.
• Fintech app Betterment launched a new crypto offering that allows customers to choose from four themed, customizable portfolios of crypto assets.
• Samsung announced its Samsung Wallet will roll out to 13 more markets this year, including Bahrain, Denmark, Finland, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Norway, Oman, Qatar, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Vietnam and UAE. The wallet is already available in China, France, Germany, Italy, Korea, Spain, the U.K. and the U.S.

Social

• TikTok is expanding its set of third-party integrations with the launch of Profile Kit, which offers a way to embed videos on other sites. The first partner to adopt the new integration is Linktree.
• It also announced updates to its TikTok Creator Marketplace, including improved search, new recommendation tech, invite links, improved reporting and tools to anchor app store links or clickable links in comments. TikTok introduced Showtimes on TikTok for movie studios looking to promote films and connect users with ticketing partners, and a new campaign offering called Focused View, where brands only pay when users watch their ad for at least six seconds.
• TikTok plans to take action against exploitive begging on its app after a BBC investigation found Syrian refugees pleading for digital gifts from TikTok users.
• A U.K. report found that one-third of children between 8 and 17 with social media profiles were using fake ages to make them “adults” on the apps by signing up with fake birth dates.

Image Credits: Meta

• Meta said videos from its VR space Horizon Worlds can now be shared to Instagram Reels. It also filed to dismiss the FTC complaint over its acquisition of VR fitness company, Within.
• Instagram expanded its AI-powered age verification program to India and Brazil, which, combined have around 400 million MAUs on the app. The verification program, which began testing in the U.S. earlier this year, runs video selfies through an AI system. Privacy advocates warn the California Age-Appropriate Design Code will lead to more invasive age verification practices like this.
• Twitter is now asking users to enter their birthdates to view sensitive content in its app, unless they have already done so and are over 18. The feature has no apparent built-in controls to prevent children lying about their age.
• Twitter is also developing a feature that would allow users to control who can @ mention them.
• Search-driven advertising has helped Pinterest stock rise 34% from its two-year low in mid-June, Bloomberg reported. This outpaces Meta and Snap, down 22% and 12%, respectively.
• Snapchat rolled out its parental controls to users in India through the new in-app Family Center. The launch follows the U.S. debut a couple of months ago, and allows parents to see who their teens are friends with and messaging on the app without being able to read the content of those messages.
• TechCrunch’s Rita Liao analyzes the potential challenges for Elon Musk’s super app plans: Elon Musk’s X app for ‘everything’ might be a non-starter in the U.S.

Messaging

• Signal announced it will soon be removing SMS support for Android users, explaining that it wants to simplify the experience for users instead of continuing to support two different messaging types in the app.
• A report by Rest of World looked into the issues around spam on WhatsApp in India, where users are complaining about receiving too much spam from brands, some of which are using WhatsApp’s own business tools.
• WhatsApp is beta testing a feature that allows users to put 1,024 friends into a single group chat.
• China’s internet censors have suspended thousands of WeChat accounts and removed posts following a protest in Beijing against “dictator and traitor Xi Jinping,” FT reported.

Streaming & Entertainment

• Netflix announced its ad-supported plan will go live next month. The $6.99 per month subscription will arrive in 12 markets to start, initially with Canada and Mexico on November 1 then the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Australia, Japan, Korea and Brazil on November 3, followed by Spain on November 10.

• ByteDance is reportedly planning to expand its Resso streaming music service in more than a dozen global markets outside the U.S. and integrate it into the TikTok mobile app.
• YouTube announced the launch of “YouTube handles,” a way for creators to identify their channel using the @username format across channel pages, video descriptions, comments and Shorts. The handles will be rolled out gradually, becoming available first to creators with larger subscriber bases, but will ultimately be offered to everyone on YouTube.

• NBCU and Meta are partnering to bring VR experiences, including those from the Peacock app and shows like The Office, to its Quest headsets.
• Streaming media company Roku launched a new Roku Smart Home mobile app to support its expanded product line that now includes smart home devices like security cameras, video doorbells, smart lights and voice-enabled smart plugs. The devices are available at Roku.com and Walmart.com. A camera subscription service is also offered.
• Apple-owned Shazam updated its iOS app to offer users new wallpapers for the iPhone and Apple Watch. The app now includes an “Exclusive Downloads” section where users can customize their iPhone or watch with wallpapers from favorite artists.

Gaming

• Harry Potter-themed mobile games have generated a combined $1 billion in player spending globally to date, a report from Sensor Tower indicates. The game with the highest revenue is “Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery” from Jam City, which has earned more than $400 million since its April 2018 launch.
• A Newzoo gaming report on the habits of Gen Z users found that 70% of Gen Z are interested in socializing in in-game worlds beyond gameplay and 1 in 2 Gen Alpha and Gen Z users are spending money on games, compared with 42% of the total online population.
• Apple’s Music app launched on Xbox One, Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X. The app is a free download from the Microsoft Store.
• In the wake of Stadia’s demise, Google’s new gaming-focused Chromebooks from Acer, Asus and Lenovo will support cloud gaming services like Nvidia GeForce Now, Microsoft Xbox Cloud Gaming and Amazon Luna.
• Meta said its Quest Store has generated $1.5 billion in total revenue to date and that more than one-third of its 400 titles have grossed more than $1 million in sales; 33 titles surpassed $10 million in gross revenue. It also announced the game Among Us will head the Quest 2 platform on November 10.

Health & Fitness

• Diet and health coaching app Noom laid off 10% of its workforce, or around 500 people, mostly from its coaching team. The company was valued at $3.7 billion in May 2021.

Productivity

• Google Meet added automatic meeting transcriptions and said its companion mode will now work on mobile devices. Also, users with AI-powered cameras from Huddly and Logitech can now use adaptive framing.
• Google Docs to soon allow users to embed other apps into docs, including those from Asana, Miro, Figma and Tableau.
• Microsoft announced a number of new apps and features at its Ignite conference, including a Teams Premium subscription, which includes customized avatars and AI features like Intelligent Recap for meetings; a new app called Places aimed at helping companies address hybrid work challenges; and plans to integrate DALL-E 2 with its new Microsoft Designer app and Image Creator tool.

Utilities

• Google’s keyboard app Gboard updated with support for Android tablet layout, which includes easier-to-type on keys and an overall taller keyboard.
• Samsung and Google partnered to allow Samsung’s SmartThings app users to onboard Matter-enabled devices even if they’re set up in Google Home and vice versa.

Reading & News

• Instapaper rolled out an update, version 8.2 on iOS, that introduced in-article search, text justification and several other design updates. Among the changes, users can now manually add a link from the side menu by tapping on the + icon instead of worrying about clipboard detection prompts — useful, considering iOS has cracked down on apps reading users’ clipboards with an initially buggy security feature.

Security & Privacy

• Google rolled out support for signing in with passkeys — a new way to sign in on the web and in apps without using passwords — on Android and Chrome to beta testers. The feature is expected to launch more broadly later this year.
• Security researchers discovered that many apps associated with Apple services on iOS 16 send data that bypass users’ VPN connections.

Funding and M&A

Real estate investing app Fintor raised $6.2 million at an $80 million valuation in an extension round from existing investors including Public.com, Hustle Fund, 500 Global, VU Ventures, Graphene Ventures and angel investors such as Manny Khoshbin, Andy Madadian, Cindy Bi and Marcus Ridgway. The app allows non-accredited investors to invest in real estate.

Teen banking app Step borrowed $300 million in debt financing led by Triplepoint Capital and Evolve Bank & Trust. To date, the company has raised $500 million in equity and debt. Last year, Step raised a Series C equity round from investors including Coatue, Stripe and angels such as Charli D’Amelio and Jared Leto. The app will also now expand into crypto.

Paris-based Homa, which offers an SDK to indie mobile game studios, raised $100 million in Series B funding, led by Quadrille Capital and Headline. The SDK offers tools for tracking metrics in order to improve session and retention times, along with other A/B testing tools.

Cairo-based fintech app Telda raised $20 million in seed funding led by Sequoia Capital and Global Founders Capital, with Block also participating. The app offers money management, payments and offers a Mastercard-powered card. The company has onboarded 25,000 users and has a waitlist of 110,000.

London-based GoHenry, a digital banking app aimed at kids, raised £49 million+ ($55 million) in Series B funding. The company said 2021 revenue grew 55% year-over-year to £30.5 million, with losses up 20x year-over-year. The startup claims to have 2 million users.

Lego parent company Kirkbi is acquiring the U.S. edtech company Brainpop, which makes short educational videos for kids, for $875 million. Brainpop’s videos, available online and through its apps, reached around 25 million children per year across two-thirds of U.S. school districts.

Downloads

Yonder

Image Credits: Naver

Naver, the parent company behind Webtoon and Wattpad reading apps reaching a combined 200 million monthly users, has launched a new app called Yonder, a serialized fiction platform. The app aims to attract both those who are already avid consumers of serialized fiction as well as those new to the space but looking for a more premium experience without ads or distractions.

At launch, Yonder will include hundreds of titles and exclusives from authors like romance author Ivy Smoak (The Hunted Series), bestsellers P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast (House of Night) and fantasy author Ruby Dixon, along with titles from publishers including Blackstone Publishing, Aetheon, Sterling and Stone, Portal Books and Wraithmarked. Unlike Naver’s Wattpad and Webtoon app, where anyone can contribute, Yonder’s stories are curated.

To monetize, the app will offer users the ability to explore and read several chapters for free, then unlock the rest of the story using virtual coins purchased in-app. The app will be available on Android and soon, iOS.

This Week in Apps: Play Store revamp, Google antitrust suit updates, BeReal’s real traction by Sarah Perez originally published on TechCrunch

Members of the European Parliament have lodged complaints against three tech giants, Amazon, Google and Meta, with the EU’s Transparency Register — aka, the oversight process that’s intended to track lobbying activity aimed at the bloc’s lawmakers — accusing the trio of breaching the lobbying transparency rules by using smaller front organizations to press their interests opaquely.

The complaints, which were reported earlier by Politico and Bloomberg, also take aim at a series of tech industry associations and lobby groups — including a number whose names imply they represent the interests of startups and small businesses — that the MEPs allege have been involved in a Big Tech astroturfing operation targeted at two major pieces of EU digital regulation, the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA), per documents we’ve reviewed.

Tech trade association the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), online ad industry body the IAB Europe, and SME and startup lobby groups Allied for Startups, SME Connect and the Connected Commerce Council (3C) are also named in the astroturfing complaints — which have been filed by three social-democrat lawmakers: Paul Tang, René Rapsi and Christel Schaldemose.

The MEPs are calling for the accused tech giants’ access to the European Parliament to be revoked if their complaints are upheld. We understand nine complaints have been filed in total (two targeting Google).

While the DSA and the DMA have both now been adopted, the EU lawmakers remain concerned about the impact on future digital policymaking if non-transparent Big Tech policy influenceOps are not rooted out.

The MEPs’ complaints follow a report back in April, compiled by civil society groups Corporate Europe Observatory and Global Witness using freedom of information requests, that revealed how a raft of tech giants sought to influence the two major EU digital policy files — spending big on pushing self-interested amendments to the (then) draft regulations.

Some of this Big Tech lobbying activity included injecting detailed suggestions into late-stage closed-door policy discussions between EU institutions — presenting lawmakers with suggested wording for amendments aimed at watering down provisions that directly threaten their interests — such as in areas like tracking-based advertising. (In the event, the DSA and DMA were passed with some restrictions on tracking-based advertising, though not the outright ban a number of MEPs had been pushing for.)

The complaints also cite a Medium post by Georg Riekeles — a Brussels-based director of the European Policy Centre think tank (which lists a few tech giants as members itself) and a former EU official himself — who warned this summer that: “As the EU debated the DSA and DMA package, front groups and other forms of hidden lobbying were swarming. I dare say never before had Brussels seen efforts at such a scale and with such brazenness. Many of practices deployed are not only totally out of line with the established code of conduct in interest representation but also with the most basic ethical and behavioural principles in society.”

“As public scrutiny and research uncovered in the case of ‘Big Tobacco’, outsized vested interests create ecosystems of thought and influence to manipulate civil society and policymakers,” Riekeles’ blog post went on. “At this point, Big Tech’s interference strategies need to be systematically monitored, and actions taken to counter them. The EU’s capacity to act in defence of fundamental interests starts with the independence and transparency of EU institutions but requires also a wider societal ecosystem of tech control.”

Systematic monitoring of Big Tech lobbying is exactly what the EU lacks, the MEPs’ complaints suggest, as transparency rules that are intended to spotlight corporate lobbying are being systematically circumvented by the use of a sprawling network of third parties funded by (or otherwise press-ganged into alignment with) well-resourced tech giants in order to project their interests by making their talking points resemble a grassroots lobbying campaign, rather than what is actually behind the effort: Gigantic self-interest.

Such astroturfing tactics very obviously erode accountability and subvert democracy — enabling the corporate interests with the deepest pockets and greatest market power to build the most potent influence operations, by expanding the reach and interconnectedness of their third party networks through which they can channel and amplify their lobbying firepower while keeping their own brand name ‘clean’ at a safe distance.

A couple of lobby campaigns cited in the complaints — one called ‘Targeting Startups‘ (which is now busy taking aim at a fresh EU digital policy proposal, the Data Act); and a second called the ‘Coalition for Digital Ads of SMEs‘, which ostensibly promoted small business interests in tracking-based advertising — are shown in one of the documents as not themselves registered in the EU transparency register but having a long list of backers/funders; some of which are in the transparency register (including some entities that list Big Tech entities as their members/backers), while others are not, so their funding sources are not declared.

“You can only get an access badge for EU institutions [as a lobbyist] if you are registered [in the transparency register]. But as Google, Amazon and Meta are in the register they have agreed to abide by the codes of conduct. And the codes demand all registrees to not obstruct the register itself as well. So having another organization lobbying on their behalf is obstructing,” Tang told us, explaining how transparency concerns arise from this interlinked mesh of declared and non-declared interests lobbying EU policymakers.

“What we are dealing with here is all kinds of branch organizations / national organizations / EU lobby organizations etc, that are actively promoting the narrative coming from Big Tech — and the only thing we know is that someone called the 3C contacts us and if we look them up in the transparency register they are not connected to anyone,” he added.

TechCrunch contacted the three tech firms named in the MEPs’ complaints for comment.

At the time of writing, Meta had not responded. But Amazon and Google denied any breach of the EU lobbying rules.

Here are their statements:

A Google spokesperson: “Transparency and openness are important values for Google in how it engages with the EU Institutions. For several years we have included extensive information on our lobbying activities in the transparency register. We are committed to transparent engagement and declare our sponsorship and partnerships with various organisations in a comprehensive list on the register’s website. Our partnership with the Connected Commerce Council is clearly and transparently listed on our declaration.”

An Amazon spokesperson: “In the EU, Amazon has not asked the Connected Commerce Council to lobby on the DMA, DSA or any other European legislation. Amazon does not work with the Connected Commerce Council in Europe.”

Amazon did confirm it works with 3C in the US — where the association’s website lists both Amazon and Google as “corporate partners”, and goes on to claim the pair “invest in supporting small businesses and provide several free and low-cost digital tools that help small business leaders run and grow their business” — but the ecommerce giant’s response essentially rejects the notion that any of its activity with 3C in the US trickles across to the EU arm of the same organization. (Its spokesman declined to comment on our questions about that.)

We also contacted the five industry groups referenced in the MEPs’ complaint.

Four had responded at press time and they also denied any wrongdoing — with several flagging their listings in the transparency register as if the existence of a listing is itself a badge of compliance.

Allied for Startups’ Inés Moreno-Alonso said: “Allied for Startups is proud to be a member supported organisation made up of over 40 not for profit independent startup associations who represent entrepreneurs and innovation globally. Our policy priorities are defined in our mandate, which is voted on annually by all of these members and is clearly laid out in our bylaws. We have been listed in the transparency register since 2015 and fully comply with EU lobbying rules.”

While 3C’s executive director, Rob Retzlaff, told us it was investigated earlier this year by the register — but said the procedure closed in June without sanction.

“We received an inquiry from the Transparency Register in March 2022, we responded, and as of June 2, 2022, the case was closed, and our filing is accurate and to the satisfaction of the Transparency Register,” he said.

The 3C lobby group’s listing in the EU transparency register lists it as a US non-profit trade and business organization, with an address in Washington DC — and a claimed “single goal… to promote small businesses’ access to essential digital technologies and tools”.

No members are listed for 3C’s European operation, nor any memberships of any other organizations, but its listing states that its estimated annual costs attributable to activities covered by the register to be between €100k-€199k. And the listing also states that, as of 5/1/22, it is “no longer advocating with respect to EU policy” — a timing that shows the lobby operation wrapping up shortly after political agreements on the detail of the DMA and DSA had been secured, the latter by late April.

CCIA Europe and the IAB Europe also denied that expressing some public support for the aforementioned Targeting Startups campaign constituted any kind of EU transparency rule violation.

A CCIA Europe spokesperson told us:

“CCIA Europe values transparency and adheres to the code of conduct that regulates the EU policy making process. CCIA has been a voluntary signatory to the EU Transparency Register since its launch more than a decade ago.

As is common practice for any Brussels-based industry association, CCIA Europe is regularly approached to co-sign joint letters or statements, usually together with dozens of other stakeholders.

CCIA’s involvement with Targeting Startups has been limited to a few joint statements that included many signatories. At no point was CCIA involved in the internal workings of Targeting Startups, nor have we ever supported them financially.”

NB: The CCIA Europe lists Amazon, Google and Meta (among other tech giants) on its member page.

The IAB Europe also sent us this statement:

“IAB Europe joined some of the publicly communicated actions within a ‘Targeting Startups’ coalition, but the suggestion that IAB Europe would pretend to represent anyone other than its own members is absurd. We would need to see the purported complaints to comment further.”

The IAB Europe also lists the Big Tech trio — Amazon, Google and Meta — in its more sprawling member directory. So its straw-man line that it “would pretend to represent anyone other than its own members” is, in this context, certainly absurd.

Update: SME Connect has also responded to our request for comment. In a statement it told us:

“In SME Connect we believe in collaborative efforts and evidence based policy making and will continue representing views of SME’s in the EU policy debates. 

We are organised as a network which brings together over 27 organizations across Europe and gives them a platform to engage issues in Brussels. This includes Friends of SMEs which allow supportive large companies to come together and engage with SME Connect members. 

SME Connect is registered in EU Transparency Register.

Coalition for Digital Ads of SMEs (CDA) has been established by 14 organizations that represent a common position on the topic of digital advertisement. CDA has always been transparent about being part of SME Connect.”

In recent years, the EU has emerged as the global center of digital policymaking as regional lawmakers have managed to achieve some form of consensus on a flurry of major regulations — at a time when their lawmaking counterparts over the pond (and in the UK) have, all-too-often, been thwarted by domestic disagreement or other political distractions on how to regulate the Internet.

That means that Brussels has become a major target for Big Tech lobbying, with a report last year finding hundreds of companies, groups and business associations shelling out a total of €97M (~$115M) annually to try to influence EU institutions — with ten tech giants accounting for a third of that (declared) spend (a list led by Google and Facebook/Meta).

However, as that report pointed out, astroturfing tactics indicate that Big Tech’s real lobbying budget is far greater than that as funds are distributed and deployed to scores of less known third parties that tech giants have links to. So robust investigation of tech giants’ long-reach influence networks does look like essential work for upholding democratic accountability.

Big Tech and industry lobby groups accused in EU transparency complaints by Natasha Lomas originally published on TechCrunch

While Meta is trying to convince consumers to strap on its VR headsets to enter the metaverse, Google continues to experiment with a different sort of false reality: its holographic video chat project known as Project Starline. Announced last year, Project Starline is a video-calling booth that uses 3D imagery, high-resolution cameras, custom depth sensor sensors and a breakthrough light field display to create a lifelike experience for callers on both sides of the screen — and all without a required headset. Now, Google says it’s expanding its real-world tests with an early access program that will see Starline used in the offices of various enterprise partners, including Salesforce, WeWork, T-Mobile and Hackensack Meridian Health. 

Google will begin installing Project Starline prototypes in select partner offices for regular testing starting later this year, it noted.

Until now, the 3D calling booths were found in Google’s offices in the U.S. where employees were able to test them for things like meetings, employee onboarding sessions, and more. The company had also invited more than 100 enterprise partners in areas like media, healthcare and retail to demo the technology in its offices and offer their feedback about the experience.

With the launch of the new early access program, those partners will be able to test the calling booths in their own offices, providing Google with valuable feedback and insights about how such a technology would be used in the real world and what sort of challenges it may face.

Those who have been able to test Project Starline have described the experience as being incredibly realistic and an impressive technology, even in its early phases.

But there have been questions about to what extent Starline would ever exist beyond being a very cool tech demo, versus a technology that would eventually become a part of office workers’ — much less consumers’ — everyday lives. It’s unclear if Google has a plan to actually commercialize the tech, what these calling booths would cost businesses to either purchase and maintain, and whether or not there’s enough demand for the technology in a world where Zoom and Google Meet are considered “good enough” solutions for virtual meetings. (Plus, they can support more than the one-on-one conversations Starline offers.)

In addition, Project Starline’s long-term status at Google has been unknown as the project was wrapped up into a reorg a year ago that saw Google relocating its various AR and VR technologies, along with its internal R&D group known as Area 120, into a new “Labs” team. This September, Google then slashed the number of projects in Area 120 by half — an indication that it may not see these sorts of experiments as priorities in the current economic environment. Even some Googlers were not sure how Project Starline was still around, given the situation.

Still, Starline’s tech is an interesting bet on a different kind of “virtual” reality — one where people aren’t represented with gaming-like avatars, but rather as their real selves. Instead of developing tech that uses cameras to track eye and face movements to make avatars more realistic, as Meta is now doing, or figuring out how to add legs to your in-VR body, Google is working to present a person as they are — and without the additional encumbrance of having to wear something on your head.

Meanwhile, as more businesses are trying to figure out the hybrid future of work model, technology like Starline could bridge the gap between in-person meetings and the less-idea 2D video chat experience we have today.

Partners like WeWork and Salesforce spoke of their interest in trying out the tech, which they believe could help make connections between people more meaningful.

“In today’s digital-first world, companies need to provide the technology and tools to help employees be more productive and effective at work,” Andy White, SVP of Business Technology at Salesforce, said in a statement. “At Salesforce, we’re constantly exploring new ways to deliver incredible experiences to our employees and customers around the world. Project Starline has the potential to drive deeper connections between people by bridging in-person and virtual experiences.”

Google says it will share more about what it learns from its early access program next year.

Google’s 3D video calling booths, Project Starline, will now be tested in the real world by Sarah Perez originally published on TechCrunch

Epic Games and Match Group are looking to fortify their antitrust lawsuits against Google by adding new counts to their initial complaint, filed last year, which illustrate the lengths Google supposedly went to in order to dominate the Android app market. The companies on Friday filed a motion to amend their complaints in their cases against Google, which now allege that Google paid off business rivals not to start other app stores that would put them in competition with Google Play. This would be a direct violation of U.S. antitrust law known as the Sherman Act, the amended complaint states.

Epic Games and Match Group had originally detailed Google’s plans in a filing last year, where they detailed a Google program known as “Project Hug,” or later, the “Apps and Games Velocity Program.” This effort was focused on paying game developers hundreds of millions of dollars in incentives to keep their games on the Google Play Store, it had said.

The program itself had arrived following Epic Games’release of Fortnite outside Google Play in 2018, where it bypassed Google’s marketplace fees. (The game later returned to Google Play in April 2020 until being removed for allowing users to bypass Google’s fees when making in-app purchases.) Google, at the time, had been concerned that Epic may choose to partner with an OEM like Samsung for a preinstall deal. It also worried that other companies might follow Epic’s lead, leading a new wave of alternative Android app stores.

The project had been said to involve helping the developers with additional promotions, resources and investments, and was deemed a success as Google signed deals with many of Project Hug’s targets, including Activision Blizzard.

Now, Epic Games and Match Group are looking to add to their complaint with two new allegations specifying how Google had either paid or otherwise induced its potential competitors to agree to not distribute apps on Android in competition with the Play Store, including through their own competing app stores. Google, it says, had identified developers who were “most at risk…of attrition from Play” and then approached them with an offer of an agreement.

The complaint now deems this a “per se” violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act, which prohibits “every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations,” it says.

Essentially, what this means is that the acts the companies are accusing Google of are so harmful to competition that they are almost always illegal, and that no defense or justification on Google’s part should be allowed. Typically, per se violations include “plain agreements among competing businesses to fix prices, divide markets or rig bids,” the FTC explains.

Google, of course, has a different take on the matter.

The company last July filed a counterclaim against Match, saying the dating app giant is trying to use its services for free. Google says now that Epic had known about these agreements since the filing of its amended complaint in July 2021 and now wants to add new allegations without attaching or citing new evidence. It also claims that programs like “Project Hug” are a sign of healthy competition between platforms and app stores, not antitrust violations.

“Epic and Match are adding more inaccurate claims to their failing lawsuits and we’re looking forward to setting the record straight in court,” a Google spokesperson said, in a statement. “The program on which Epic and Match base their claims simply provides incentives for developers to give benefits and early access to Google Play users when they release new or updated content; it does not prevent developers from creating competing app stores, as they allege. In fact, the program is proof that Google Play competes fairly with numerous rivals for developers, who have a number of choices for operating systems and app stores,” they added.

Epic Games and Match look to expand their antitrust claims against Google by Sarah Perez originally published on TechCrunch

Meetings — nobody wants them but everybody has them. So for those times when you’re in a meeting but mostly just surfing the web, it’s nice to have a transcript to make sure you didn’t miss that one important nugget of information that actually pertains to your job. Google knows this, so the company today announced that it is bringing automatic meeting transcriptions to its Meet video conferencing service.

Until now, you needed a third-party service like Otter to record and transcribe your call for you. Now it’s a built-in service. The new feature is now available for meetings in English, with support for French, German, Spanish and Portuguese coming in 2023.

Microsoft Teams, of course, started offering a similar feature for meetings in English more than a year ago. Given Google’s experience with other speech-to-text services like its Assistant or the Android Recorder app, it’s a bit odd that it took this long to add this to Meet, but better late than never.

Google’s overall implementation is still a bit basic, too. The feature will dump the transcript in Google Docs and for now, that’s it. Google noted, though, that having transcripts will also allow it to offer analytics and other features based on these recordings, but for now, it’s not launching any of those.

In addition to transcripts, Google also today announced that Meet’s companion mode now works on mobile and that users with AI-powered cameras from Huddly and Logitech can now use adaptive framing so that the speaker is always positioned nicely within a frame.

Google Chat, Google’s Slack competitor, is also getting a few new features that you may remember from Slack, including custom emojis, one-way broadcast spaces to blast information to the entire team or company without having to worry about inept comments and inline threaded conversations. Basically, Google is trying to catch up with Slack and reminding people that Chat exists.

Google Meet gets automatic meeting transcriptions by Frederic Lardinois originally published on TechCrunch

Google today announced its plans for a major expansion of its physical Google Cloud infrastructure. The company plans to launch new Google Cloud regions in six new countries: Austria, Czech Republic, Greece, Norway, South Africa and Sweden. That’s on top of the regions in Milan, Paris, Madrid, Columbus and Dallas the company already announced and plans to bring online in 2023.

With these six new regions, Google Cloud’s footprint will expand to 41 regions. And maybe that’s no surprise. As more countries (and regions) get serious about data sovereignty, all of the major cloud providers will have to offer local regions in order to be competitive — and the software tools and controls to ensure that data stays in those regions, too. And while Google Cloud was notoriously slow to expand beyond its first core regions at first, the company has invested heavily in new data centers and the infrastructure to connect them in recent years.

Google Cloud expands to six more countries by Frederic Lardinois originally published on TechCrunch

Google Workspace, the company’s set of productivity tools most recently known as G Suite, is getting a major update at the company’s Cloud Next conference this week. This includes quite a few customer-facing features, but maybe even more importantly, Google is using this occasion to open up Workspace with new integrations and developer tools that expand the overall Workspace ecosystem well beyond the walls of Google’s own services.

It’s worth noting that Google already allowed for some integrations before. You’re likely familiar with add-one in Gmail, for example. But now Google argues that it is taking its “biggest steps yet in making Google Workspace the most open and extensible platform for users,” as the company described it in its press materials.

One of the ways it is doing that is by opening up its smart chips — those links to other documents, people and other information (and their respective pop-ups when you hover over those links) you can add by typing “@” in a Google Doc — to third-party vendors. With today’s launch, Google partnered with the likes of AODocs, Atlassian, Asana, Figma, Miro and Tableau, all of which are already building integrations.

Image Credits: Google

Also new are a set of APIs for both Chat and Meet that will allow third-party developers to add functions like starting meetings or initiating meetings from their apps. Asana and LumApps are the launch partners here. These new APIs, as well as all of the other ones mentioned below, will become available in early 2023.

Also new is a Meet add-on SDK that will allow developers to integrate their apps right into Meet. Figma, for example, will allow teams to collaborate on designs this way and FigJam is bringing its collaborative whiteboard to Meet through this.

For those who want to build their own integrations, Google is launching a new integration with AppSheet so that anyone can use Google no-code tool to build integrations with Google Chat.

Image Credits: Google

Google opens up Workspace with new integrations and APIs by Frederic Lardinois originally published on TechCrunch

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy.

Global app spending reached $65 billion in the first half of 2022, up only slightly from the $64.4 billion during the same period in 2021, as hypergrowth fueled by the pandemic has slowed down. But overall, the app economy is continuing to grow, having produced a record number of downloads and consumer spending across both the iOS and Google Play stores combined in 2021, according to the latest year-end reports. Global spending across iOS and Google Play last year was $133 billion, and consumers downloaded 143.6 billion apps.

This Week in Apps offers a way to keep up with this fast-moving industry in one place with the latest from the world of apps, including news, updates, startup fundings, mergers and acquisitions, and much more.

Do you want This Week in Apps in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here: techcrunch.com/newsletters.

Elon Musk is buying Twitter…again…maybe

Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch

Elon Musk delivered another week of Twitter deal drama. After initially trying to worm out of the now-overpriced deal, the Tesla and SpaceX exec this week decided he would go through with the purchase after all. It was speculated that Musk may have seen the writing on the wall, and realized this legal battle was one he couldn’t win. (After all, he can’t simultaneously claim he wants to fix the Twitter bot problem by buying the network and then claim that there are just too darned many bots here — and that Twitter is lying about them, when in fact, its SEC filings indicate otherwise. Right?!)

But it had also come to light that Twitter had been given the go-ahead by the judge to proceed with a probe that would allow it to seek out information as to whether the Twitter whistleblower Peiter “Mudge” Zatko had contacted Musk’s lawyers before he tried to exit the deal.

It seems that Twitter’s discovery had uncovered an anonymous email claiming to be a former Twitter exec involved with Twitter’s Trust & Safety team that had been sent to Musk’s attorney on May 6. And Twitter wanted to find out if the legal team or Musk followed up to determine the sender’s identity. A judge agreed Twitter could dig in — and this was just before Musk changed his mind to move forward with the purchase. So perhaps it was this deep dive into more files and communications that Musk wanted to avoid? Maybe he didn’t want to be asked about this under oath?

In any event, Musk said the deal was on and Twitter’s stock jumped over 22% on the news. But the matter wasn’t immediately resolved.

As it turned out, Musk and Twitter hadn’t reached an agreement to end their litigation, and neither party had filed anything to stop the court case from proceeding. So the judge alerted them that the trial was still on and would start on October 17, 2022, as planned. But!… Twitter wasn’t ready to take Musk at his word about this sudden change of heart. The judge, however, agreed to give Musk’s team until October 28, 2022 — the date Musk’s team said they could close by — to see if the transaction goes through. If not, the parties will be given November 2022 trial dates, the judge said.

Now the deal is hinging on the “receipt of the proceeds of the debt financing,” Bloomberg reported. Morgan Stanley and half a dozen banks underwrote the debt financing for the deal, and given the market conditions, they may find it more difficult to find buyers for the bonds and loans — possibly taking a loss on portions of the package, the report said. But they’re not likely to back out or find a legal means of doing so. Which means…Elon is buying Twitter again. We think!

Go ahead, edit Your tweets

Image Credits: Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch

And if that wasn’t enough Twitter news for the week, then there’s this other small tidbit: Twitter’s Edit button has arrived.

The long-requested feature has now rolled out to Twitter Blue’s U.S. subscribers, in addition to subscribers in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The feature allows users to edit their tweets for up to 30 minutes after posting — something that could help users clarify or correct a mistake in their tweet, fix a small typo or add hashtags, among other things. The edits are logged and visible to the public to prevent abuse. Additionally, Twitter said users can only edit their tweets five times within the 30-minute period, which is also meant to cut down the feature’s abuse.

But many are still concerned that bad actors will find a way to take advantage of the addition to edit tweeting in misleading ways. Plus, it comes at a time when user demand for an edit button may have been quelled, given that Twitter last year introduced an “Undo Tweet” feature for its subscribers. This lets users quickly fix a typo after they post — likely cutting down on one of the major use cases for an Edit button. With “Undo Tweet,” users can delay their tweets for up to a minute, giving them time to re-read posts and fix errors, if needed.

The edit feature was also one of Musk’s big ideas for fixing Twitter, we should point out. Shortly after taking a board seat at Twitter (remember when that was the big Twitter news?!), he polled his 80.5 million followers to ask if they wanted an edit button — either a tease of the planned announcement or a desire to look like he was already taking action at Twitter. A day later, Twitter announced an edit button was actually in the works after years of saying the opposite. But Twitter denied it was Musk’s idea.

While the edit option is now live, its impact may be limited. The majority of Twitter’s users are not paying for a subscription to Twitter Blue at this time, and it’s unclear that this feature’s addition — however much they had clamored for it — will change that.

Google gets serious about wearables

Image Credits: Google

The other big news this week in the mobile realm took place at Google’s annual hardware event. While the event focused on Google’s new line of Pixel devices, including the Pixel 7, Pixel 7 Pro and Pixel Watch, it’s the latter that may be of more interest to app developers as it signaled Google’s intention to get serious about its wearable strategy. While Google had competed in this space with Android Wear and Wear OS, the new Pixel Watch is the company’s first smartwatch.

The device differentiates itself from the Wear OS-powered watches from other brands, like Samsung, with a unique look and feel. It’s smaller, rounded and looks more like a premium device. This is an interesting entry point, given that Apple’s new high-end watch, the Apple Watch Ultra, has gone in the opposite direction — with a hefty, oversized version that can look ridiculous on smaller wrists. The Pixel Watch won’t have that problem.

Google had signaled its interest in wearables long before now, with its $2.1 billion Fitbit deal, $40 million acquisition of Fossil IP and Samsung partnership. Fitbit’s health-tracking features make the new Pixel Watch a more serious competitor to Apple, with additions like heart rate monitoring, ECG/AFib detection, sleep detection and more. But Google is also considering the wider app ecosystem alongside its hardware investment. The company also recently revamped Google Play to make it easier for users to search and filter for non-smartphone apps, including those for smartwatches and tablets — another area Google plans to take more seriously.

At the event, Google teased its upcoming Pixel tablet, to be released next year, which will continue the Pixel line to a bigger screen. It also plans to offer a clever charging speaker dock that will allow consumers to use their tablet as they would any other smart display or smart screen in their home.

Separately, Google also announced a series of updates to Google Assistant alongside the Pixel 7 launch, which will see the smart assistant improving its abilities in areas like voice typing, navigating businesses’ phone menus, voice message transcription and more. One of the better improvements here is the Google Duplex-powered “Direct My Call” service which will now display a business’s phone tree options on the smartphone’s screen when you call, so you can just tap the button you need instead of listening to all the choices.

Instagram’s ad load increase

Image Credits: LIONEL BONAVENTURE/AFP / Getty Images

Meanwhile, Meta this week began exploring a way to stem its advertising revenue losses.

Following another quarter that saw marketers pull back on their ad spending, Meta announced it’s increasing its ad load on Instagram with the launch of two new ad slots. The company said it will now allow advertisers to run ads on the Explore home page and in profile feeds and will debut a new ad format for Facebook Reels.

The Explore home refers to the page people land on when they first tap on Instagram’s Explore tab. Here, users can browse a page of suggested and trending content, or tap on buttons at the top of the screen to dive into various trends. Historically, Instagram had only placed ads on Explore within the Explore feed — that is, when a person taps on a post and scrolls. But now, it’s expanding to the Explore home page itself, as it says it sees users spending meaningful time there, Instagram told TechCrunch. This is already rolling out globally.

It will also insert ads in the profile feed which is the feed that appears when a user visits another person’s profile on the app and then taps on one of their posts and scrolls. And in Facebook Reels, it’s adding “post-loop” ads — four- to 10-second skippable ads and standalone video ads that play after a Reel has ended before the Reel resumes and loops again.

These additional ad units serve to boost the company’s ability to pull in revenue at a time when Meta has been seeing declining ad sales. It also follows Meta’s report of its first-ever quarterly revenue decline in Q2, which came shortly after its first decline in daily active users. While its revenue dropped only 1% in Q2, from $29.07 billion in the second quarter of 2021 to $28.82 billion in Q2 2022, Meta has worried investors with its troubling Q3 forecast. The company said it saw third-quarter revenue potentially declining between 2% and 11% year-over-year to somewhere in the range of $26 billion to $28.5 billion.

Weekly News

Platforms: Apple

• iOS 16.1 beta testers were disappointed to find out that the “Adaptive Transparency” toggle that appeared in their AirPods settings was actually a bug, and not a promise of bringing the feature to older AirPods models. Apple confirmed this by removing the setting in the new beta release.
• Meanwhile, another feature in the latest iOS 16.1 beta shows Apple tweaking the design of the Dynamic Island to include a light gray border around the outside of the feature when it’s activated on a darker background or wallpaper.
• Apple seeded iOS 16.1, tvOS 16.1 beta 4 and iPadOS 16.1 beta 5 for developers, as well as the tenth developer beta of macOS Ventura.
• Apple named new vice presidents for its Maps, Services and Silicon teams, Bloomberg reported. Twenty-year Apple veteran Max Muller will become a VP overseeing Maps. Payam Mirrashidi is a new VP of engineering in Services. And Johny Srouji, Charlie Zhai and Fabian Klas are becoming VPs in the Silicon group. The appointments follow the firing of VP of Procurement Tony Blevins over sexist comments he made in a TikTok video.
• App developers who applied for a share of Apple’s $100 million App Store class action settlement, which saw the creation of the Small App Developer Assistance Fund, have been alerted that the distribution of their payments should occur before the end of October.

Platforms: Google

Image Credits: Google

• Google’s anticipated iOS 16 Lock Screen widgets have begun to arrive. The launches arrived starting last week with updates to the Chrome and Drive apps, and this week saw new widgets appear for its Gmail and Google News apps, as well. Still on its way are Search and Maps widgets. Google hasn’t explained why Calendar is not included, however.

E-commerce and Food Delivery

• DoorDash announced a new service, Drinks with DoorDash, that allows users to order food from one place and drinks from another — like a nearby liquor, convenience or grocery store. (Yep, dashers are going to love this.)
• In the same week, Grubhub and Gopuff partnered on grocery and alcohol delivery, allowing Grubhub customers to shop thousands of products from moe than 500 Gopuff locations via the membership program, Grubhub+.
• Recelery, a pantry tracker app and online marketplace for select food items, relaunched this past weekend to tweak a number of its features. It expanded the limit of pictures that users can post, introduced new markers to show the specific date when an item was added and now allows users to sell up to 25 items at a time.

Augmented Reality

Image Credits: Snap

• Snapchat is embracing Halloween via AR. Starting October 11, the app will roll out an AR shopping experience that allows users to virtually try on and buy costumes of some of their favorite TV and movie characters, including those from “Hocus Pocus,” “Squid Game,” “Stranger Things,” “Power Rangers,” “Transformers,” “The Office,” “Harry Potter” and others.
• Lucky Charms upgraded its cereal box with an AR game built using Niantic’s 8th Wall platform.

Fintech

• Sen. Warren’s office released a report that said fraud and scams are taking place on P2P payments app Zelle, but banks are refusing to refund customers for 53% of the defrauded funds.
• Venmo rolled out Charity Profiles in the app that allows charitable organizations to raise funds directly if they’ve already received confirmed charity status from Venmo parent PayPal.
• Investing app Stash, which raised $125 million from investors in a Series G round last year, announced it’s adding crypto to the set of products it offers its 2 million users.

Social

• TikTok added a handful of editing tools that will allow users to adjust clips, sounds, images and text in new ways. The additions include tools to stack, trim, split and speed up and slow down clips, plus others for cutting, trimming and setting the durations for sounds used in videos. Others focus on text placement and images, including a new Photo Mode feature for sharing a carousel of images that automatically display one after another.

Image Credits: TikTok

• ByteDance reported its revenue grew to $61.7 billion in 2021, but operating losses reached $7.15 billion due to investments in growth, a report to staff said, per The WSJ.
• Pinterest partnered with Headspace to offer creators a free six-month subscription in 20 countries worldwide, making it the first platform to provide such an offering, it said.
• A new lawsuit in California, filed by the Social Media Victims Law Center, targets companies Meta, Snap, Discord and Roblox for making platforms that contain features designed to encourage addiction to “the detriment of their minor users.” It brings up mental health issues, including suicide attempts, which it alleges are linked to use of these platforms.
• Twitter rolled out a new feature that lets users post images, videos and GIFs in a single tweet. It also expanded its experimental Status feature, for tagging tweets with moods and activities, to more of its users.
• Reddit began testing a new live chat feature in a chat tab in its app. Users who have access to the test will see three options to filter chats: live chats, Messages and requests — or they can view “All” chats.
• Facebook introduced new tools that allow users to customize their feeds by telling the app which posts they want to see more or less of, from across their friends, groups and other post recommendations. The feature will also be tested with Reels.
• Meta settled a lawsuit with BrandTotal and Unimania, companies engaging in scraping operations of Facebook and Instagram data. The settlements terms weren’t disclosed, but in addition to agreeing to stop the practice, Meta said the companies agreed to pay a “significant sum.”

Messaging

• WhatsApp for iOS expanded its feature called “View Once,” which lets users send photos and videos that disappear after they’re opened for the first time, similar to Snapchat. The feature first launched last year and will now work with screenshots and screen recordings, too.
• Even Signal is copying Stories now. The feature is now in beta and the Stories will disappear after 24 hours.

Dating

Image Credits: Tinder

• Tinder rolled out a new feature to help its users get ready to vote in the U.S. midterms. The dating app maker partnered with BallotReady to launch an Election Center within the app’s Explore section where users can register to vote, find their polling stations and access breakdowns of their local ballot measures.
• Bumble is testing a speed-dating feature that allows users to chat before matching, similar to Tinder’s own Fast Chats feature. The feature is live in the U.K. already.
• A Wired investigation found there were an increasing number of fake profiles of men on the Match-owned Hinge dating app. The profiles appear to be using AI-generated images and oddly written profile text that indicates English isn’t their first language. In chatting with the profiles, the reporter discovered they weren’t bots, but rather scammers hiding behind the fake accounts.

Streaming & Entertainment

• Apple Music announced a new milestone of reaching 100 million songs — a 100,000x increase since the debut of the original iPod some 21 years ago. To celebrate, Apple launched a new Apple Music Today series that will pick a new song every day and dive into its history.
• YouTube has been experimenting with asking some users to purchase a Premium subscription in order to watch videos in 4K resolution, currently a free feature.

Reading & News

• Facebook killed its Substack competitor, Bulletin, the newsletter service launched last year. Bulletin writers will earn subscription revenue until the platform’s closure in 2023, but will then need to migrate subscribers to another sevice.
• Substack launched its Reader app on Android, which allows users to access all their Substack subscriptions in one place alongside their RSS feeds.

Image Credits: Substack

Productivity

• Readdle launched a new version of its email app Spark, for desktop and mobile devices, which now offers subscription-based email management. The app, reviewed here by The Verge, organizes emails into bundles like newsletters and notifications, and elevates emails from real people. The app includes a bevy of other features, like focus schedules, thread muting, a gatekeeper function (to permit or deny access to your inbox) and more.

Utilities

• Alongside its new Nest Doorbell and faster Wi-Fi router, Google launched a redesigned version of its Home app for Android. The redesigned app arrived in parallel with the release of the Matter 1.0 standard, and includes faster Matter pairing and other new customization options to personalize the app to end users.

Government & Policy

• Russia fined TikTok 3 million rubles (around $51,000) for violating its anti-LGBTQ laws. Russia claims TikTok failed to delete content it called propaganda. It also fined Twitch for hosting an interview with a Ukrainian political figure, which it said contained fake information.

Security & Privacy

• Meta’s security team disclosed it had identified more than 400 malicious apps posing as photo editing tools, games, utilities, lifestyle apps, VPNs and more that were actually malware. The apps would prompt users to enter their Facebook login credentials to use the app, but this information was then stolen, allowing scammers to gain access to the user’s Facebook account and any other account that used the same username/password combo. Meta said it’s not able to determine how many people fell for this scam, but identified at least 1 million potentially impacted users.

Funding and M&A

Montana-based onX, the maker of navigation apps for hunting, hiking, off-roading and other outdoor activities, raised an $87.4 million Series B led by Summit Partners.

Spotify said it’s acquiring Dublin, Ireland-based content moderation tech company Kinzen, to aid with its global content moderation efforts. Deal terms were undisclosed. Kinzen, a Spotify partner since 2020, uses a combination of ML and human expertise to alert and flag dangerous misinformation and harmful content — something the streamer is facing more issues with as it invests heavily into podcasting and other forms of audio. Joe Rogan, for example, created a headache for Spotify when he spread COVID-19 vaccine-related misinfo on his show.

Duolingo acquired its first startup, a Detroit-based animation studio, Gunner, that created art for the company and others, including Amazon, Dropbox, Spotify and Google. Deal terms weren’t disclosed.

An anonymous social app for college kids, Fizz, announced its raise of $4.5 million in seed funding, led by entrepreneur and investor Rakesh Mathur, who also joined the Stanford student-founded startup as its CEO. Lightspeed, Octane and other angels also invested in the app that claims to have deep penetration on college campuses.

South Korean search giant Naver announced plans to acquire the secondhand apparel marketplace Poshmark for $1.2 billion in cash. The deal values publicly traded Poshmark at $17.90, or a 15% premium over the closing price at the time of the announcement.

Mobile banking app Jiko raised $40 million in Series B funding in a round led by Red River West, bringing the company’s total raise to date to $87.7 million. The app has evolved from a consumer-focused model to B2B, and now gives companies low-cost access to short-term treasury bills.

Singapore-online shopping rewards app ShopBack raised $80 million more to extend its Series F round to more than $310 million. The new investor is the state investment giant’s late-stage fund, Temasek Holdings Pte. The company is now valued at nearly $1 billion.

Downloads

Neeva (European launch)

Image Credits: Neeva

An ad-free search engine, Neeva, launched to the U.S. last year is now heading to Europe — specifically, the U.K., France and Germany. The service promises a way to both search the web and private, personal accounts like Gmail or Dropbox from any device, without having to view ads or have user data compromised. It does this by offering a premium membership, which provides additional privacy tools and other benefits to paid subscribers.

The service is available on desktop via a Chrome extension and on iOS and Android via native mobile apps.

This week, TechCrunch’s Paul Sawers sat down with Neeva co-founder and CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy in London to get an update on the three-year-old company as it expands to new markets. (You can read that interview here and learn more about Neeva’s business.)

This Week in Apps: Twitter gets an Edit button, Instagram increases ads, Google gets serious about wearables by Sarah Perez originally published on TechCrunch

Google’s anticipated iOS 16 Lock Screen widgets have now begun to arrive. Alongside the launch of Apple’s new mobile operating system, iOS 16, the search giant last month had teased its plans to support the iPhone’s newest feature that allows users to place widgets directly on their phone’s lock screen, offering information and easy access to favorite apps. Google said it would soon release widgets for a number of its top apps, including Search, Maps, Gmail and others.

Google’s set of iOS 16 widgets are now becoming available, following rollouts that began last week with updates to the Chrome and Drive apps.

With the latest set of app updates, Google users can add Lock Screen widgets for popular apps like Gmail and Google News, as well. However, the two most in-demand widget releases — Search and Maps — are still pending. And Google has yet to announce plans to launch a Google Calendar widget, for some reason, despite the fact that easy access to your daily schedule is one of the better use cases for iOS 16 Lock Screen widgets.

The new Gmail widget comes in all three sizes: circular, rectangular and inline. The first two are meant to be placed below the clock on the Lock Screen, while the inline widget appears above as a line of text.

In Gmail’s case, the inline widget will display a shortened date (like “Wed 7”) followed by the number of messages in your inbox. (In case you like to stress every time you look at your iPhone!) Meanwhile, the rectangular widget breaks down how many new messages are in each category — like Social, Updates or Promotions — which helps you to determine if the emails you’ve received are actually important. The smaller, circular widget just displays how many new messages you have.

Image Credits: Google

The newly added Google News widget brings short headlines to the Lock Screen as a rectangular widget. When tapped, you’ll be taken directly to the Google News mobile app to read the full story. This one can be a bit hard to read for those with poor eyesight as it may try to cram as many as four lines of text into the small space provided. While you can likely see that fine in the blown-up image below, viewing this on a phone screen is more difficult.

Image Credits: Google News widget

Drive and Chrome’s widgets arrived a few days ago. The former offers a rectangular widget for quick access to Drive’s “suggested files,” as well as two circular widgets to either search your files with a tap or access your Starred files.

Chrome’s widget offers a variety of options, including a circular widget that you can tap to launch Google Search within Chrome — a good workaround until the default Search widget arrives — and three others for launching incognito search, voice search and even Chrome’s “Dino Game” that typically appears on the desktop when you’re offline.

We anticipate the launch of the Search and Maps widgets soon. Search, similar to Chrome, will let you start a Google search from the Lock Screen, including a voice search. But we’re awaiting the Google Lens and Google Translate widgets that ship with this one. Lens, in particular, is where a lot of Google’s innovation today lies as it prepares to expand its multi-search experiences that combine both text and images for more advanced queries.

Maps, of course, will be useful to regular communters who want to see real-time traffic updates and estimated travel times to places like your office or home address.

Google hasn’t yet offered a time frame for its other widget releases, but given the cadence of these updates, they should be here soon.

Google begins rolling out its iOS 16 Lock Screen widgets by Sarah Perez originally published on TechCrunch

At its Search On event this afternoon, Google announced a number of shopping-related changes and new features across areas that include visual shopping, personalization and buying with the help of trusted reviews. The additions aim to help the company better attract online consumers to shop on Google, instead of starting their searches directly on Amazon — as has become the norm for many online shoppers today.

Of significant concern, Amazon has been steadily eating into Google’s core search advertising business over the years and is projected to capture 14.6% of the U.S. digital ad revenue market share by 2023, data from Insider Intelligence indicates. Google’s share meanwhile, is expected to drop to 24.1% by that time, down from the 31.6% share it had in 2019, the report said.

To combat this threat, Google has been investing heavily into its Google Shopping services, including by making listings free for merchants then integrating those free listings into Google Search results. Now, the search and ads giant has grown its shopping graph to 35 billion product listings — a figure that’s increased by nearly 10 billion over the past year, the company notes.

One of the new ways Google hopes to better compete is to make shopping on Google feel more fun for consumers than if they simply ran a product search on Amazon’s site.

On this front, the company is launching a new feature called “Shop the Look” in the U.S. which will be discoverable as part of the now more visual shopping experience on Google. This feature will position a shoppable display of products alongside lifestyle imagery, guides, and other tools in your search results. It can also be triggered by typing the word “shop” ahead of your query, like “shop bomber jackets,” for instance.

Image Credits: Google

To “shop the look,” users will be able to view the product they had searched for — like a jacket — along with other items that complete the outfit, which can also be shopped from the same tool, similar to features previously launched with Google Lens.

They’ll also be able to see trending products that are popular right now within the same category of the item they searched for from across different brands and designers. (Google defines trending as those products that meet a certain threshold for an increase in searches and user interactions over the past week, it says). These features will arrive in the U.S. this fall.

To make shopping listings themselves more compelling, Google will soon begin to pilot test a 3D shopping feature for shoes, to follow up on its existing support for 3D home goods — a change that Google claims delivered increased engagement. Users interacted with 3D images almost 50% more than static images, the company said.

Initially, the 3D imagery will be tested with a handful of retail partners to start before scaling up. To support this, the company developed a way to automate 3D asset creation. Via machine learning improvements, Google can now use just a handful of product photos to build the 3D image. This new model relies on a neural radiance field technology, a type of neural network also known as NeRF, which can create novel views of 3D scenes using 2D images, Google explains.

Initially, the pilot will include a handful of merchants like Van’s and Skechers, but Google expects to add more over time, including smaller sellers.

“While some merchants have this kind of 3D imagery available, for many others — especially the smaller merchants — creating these types of 3D assets can be really expensive and time-consuming,” said Lilian Rincon, Senior Director of Product for Shopping at Google. “We really think has the potential to change the game for small merchants and we’re excited to get it out,” she added.

Image Credits: Google

Another new feature is designed to help people make more complex shopping decisions that typically require a lot of research.

Typically, consumers will read a variety of sources to make a decision about a more high-value product, including product reviews, news, online articles, recommendation sites, customer reviews, and more. To simplify this process, Google has introduced a new “Buying Guide” which will aggregate the most helpful resources from across a range of trusted sources, including Google user reviews, articles, product reviews and more. This feature has launched in the U.S. but will expand to include more insight categories soon.

Image Credits: Google

In addition, Google will add a new tool called “Page Insights” to the Google app in the U.S. in the months ahead. This will allow consumers to learn more about the products on a website, including their pros and cons and star rating. They can also opt-in to receive price drop updates on the items they’re tracking.

However, one of the biggest changes coming to Google Shopping is the addition of opt-in personalization, arriving in the U.S. later this year.

While companies like Meta and Snap have struggled with the impact of Apple’s privacy changes (App Tracking Transparency) that allowed users to opt-out of tracking, limiting sites’ ability to show them personalized ads, Google’s response to the privacy crackdown is to allow consumers to directly choose to personalize their shopping experience with intentional clicks.

To do so, consumers can tap buttons to direct Google to remember the types of categories they want to shop — like “Women’s Department” instead of the “Men’s Department,” for example — or even tap to choose favorite brands to ensure those are highlighted in their future Google Shopping search results. The company says the idea was prompted by its user research, as consumers told the company they were frustrated with seeing irrelevant search results.

Google says the user is in control of these settings and can turn them on or off at any time.

“We’ve taken a lot of time to do this very carefully because we absolutely want to make sure that people feel like they’re in control…if you, at any point, don’t want to share this information with Google — if you want to turn it off…you can do that,” says Rincon.

Image Credits: Google

Google is also adding new shopping filters that appear on pages as you search for various products, which will now adapt to search trends. That is, you might see “wide leg” or “bootcut” appear when shopping for jeans right now, because those styles are currently popular across Google.com searches. These “dynamic filters” are live now available in the U.S., Japan, and India, and will arrive in more regions over time.

Finally, the Google mobile app will highlight suggested styles based on your past shopping searches and what others have been shopping for on Google. You can tap on these suggestions and see where to buy the products via Google Lens.

Image Credits: Google

Combined, Google believes these changes will help to make shopping on its platform easier and, in some cases, more fun for consumers. But the larger reality here is that Google needs to find a way to keep users from diverting their searches to other sites, like Amazon, as doing so impacts its ability to sell ads and its bottom line.

Google revamps shopping with 3D images, shoppable looks, buying guides, and more personalization by Sarah Perez originally published on TechCrunch