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The Kindle turned 15 this month. It’s been a strange ride for Amazon’s first hardware device. CEO Andy Jassy gave the e-reader a rare bit of love in last year’s shareholder letter, noting:

Our first foray into devices was the Kindle, released in 2007. It was not the most sophisticated industrial design (it was creamy white in color and the corners were uncomfortable for some people to hold), but revolutionary because it offered customers the ability to download any of over 90,000 books (now millions) in 60 seconds—and we got better and faster at building attractive designs.

In the context of the letter, the device is simply a prelude. It’s the first step into a world that would include tablets, an army of smart home products, wearables and one ill-fated smartphone. It’s kind of perfect, really, for a product line that conquered the world and then took a backseat to the rest of Amazon’s offerings.

Before the September Kindle Scribe announcement, the line hadn’t received a SKU since the 2016 arrival of the premium Oasis. Sure, there have been refreshes over the years, but not even those have arrived with any sort of regularity. Prior to the long-awaited Paperwhite update that brought USB-C to the line roughly this time last year, Amazon hadn’t announced a single device refresh since summer 2019.

Can you blame them? For starters, people keep their readers around for a long time. The batteries last forever, and they’re rarely subject to the same sort of daily abuse as our smartphones. Even more importantly, while Amazon’s isn’t the only game in town exactly, it sure feels like it sometimes. Sony, the one-time maker of very good readers, tapped out for good in 2014. Barnes & Noble — while not out of the Nook business entirely — seems to only exist to drop a minor refresh every few years, so don’t forget about it entirely.

Here in North America, Kobo presents the closest thing to actual competition for Amazon’s e-reader dominance. The Canadian-founded, Japanese-owned firm makes good readers that can hold their own against the Kindle, but Amazon utterly dominates the marketshare here in the States. Granted, these numbers are old (from 2018), but this study puts Amazon at a >80% marketshare in the U.S. If the iPhone commanded that much of the market, do you really think Apple would be falling over itself to present a major update each year?

But Amazon’s September device event brought two surprises. First, the entire thing was far more subdued than past years, with fewer products being announced. Of course, Amazon’s not alone in slowing down its product inventory ahead of uncertain times, and subsequent layoffs in the company’s devices division seem to point to that trend maintaining for the foreseeable future.

Second, we got a new Kindle. Not an update to an existing Kindle, mind. A genuinely new product — and really, an entirely new product category for the line. For the duration of the Kindle’s life, it’s been a content consumption machine. It’s a place to read what other people have written. And while it’s understandable that the company dropped the physical keyboard found in its earliest iterations, the E Ink touch screen has been more miss than hit when it comes to typing.

The Scribe adds a seemingly simple feature that users have no doubt been requesting for the better part of a decade: pen-based writing. I spoke with the company ahead of the official announcement, and here’s where I landed with regards to why it took so long to implement:

The company says the fact that it didn’t launch a Kindle with this functionality earlier isn’t for lack of trying. Rather, it was important it get the tech right, while maintaining key features like front lighting and the line-wide 300 ppi display (compared to 226 on the reMarkable 2). Given the $90 price bump over the previously most expensive Kindle (Oasis), it certainly makes sense that the company would want to maintain those line-wide features. Amazon says it worked with E Ink Holdings (EIH) on the display, which it then customized to hit those specs.

I will say, e-book reader owners are a forgiving bunch. Lags and refreshes come with the territory on e-ink devices. There’s a lot of stuff users wouldn’t put up with in other products, partly because they’re aware of the benefits of the technology (clearer/easier on the eyes, wildly good battery life) and partly because, well, it’s the only game in town. Whether you go Kindle or Kobo, you’re effectively working with the same basic technology.

Writing lag, on the other hand, is a different beast entirely. It’s the sort of thing that makes you want to huck your expensive new piece of plastic and glass across the room in a fit of rage — barring that, if the experience is bad enough, you’ll probably try it a few times before giving it up all together.

I’ve been pleasantly surprised on that front. I admit my expectations were lowered by more than a decade of using e-ink screens, but the Scribe provides a good note-taking experience. In fact, there’s a lot present here that will come as a pleasant surprise for anyone who has not updated their e-reader in a few years. While the experience continues to remain distinct from that of a standard tablet, Amazon has added little touches here and there to drag the product line kicking and screaming into 2022.

This starts with the design. The Scribe borrows a number of key elements from the Oasis. It’s amazing how much a flush glass display contributes to the overall premium feel. Also, like the Oasis, one of the side bezels is considerably larger than the other, presumably so you have a place to rest your hand while holding it that doesn’t trigger the touch display. Unlike the Oasis, however, there are no physical page-turn buttons on the surface, which feels like a missed opportunity.

At 10.2-inches, this is the largest Kindle display by a considerable margin. Keep in mind, there was a relative statis in screen sizes for much of the product’s existence. The Kindle started off as a 6-inch device and the entry level model has stayed there for a decade and a half, as though the company had found a kind of platonic e-reader ideal.

There have been derivations from the number, of course. The Kindle Oasis 2 pushed the screen to seven inches, and the latest Paperwhite isn’t far behind at 6.8 inches. But to get anywhere near the Scribe’s size, we’re going to have to travel back in time even further to the DX. Introduced in 2009, the short-lived product is a bit of an anomaly on the Kindle flowchart. With a 9.7-inch display, the device found the company stepping outside the Kindle’s core book reading functionality.

The pitch largely revolved around PDFs and newspapers. 2009 was a time when it seemed there might still be a viable market for people who really wanted to read broadsheets in something close to their original form. The viability of that market aside, the truth is the technology just wasn’t ready. As frustrating as e-ink can be today, dealing with images was a nightmare then, both in terms of resolution (everything felt like one of those WSJ stipple drawings) and refresh times. A full-page refresh for every fraction of an inch an image was moved is my version of walking to school uphill both ways in the snow.

Also, much like smartphone space, larger screens required larger device footprints than they do today. The Scribe is a large screen reader that doesn’t feel like a brick. I mean, I certainly can’t carry it around in a pocket the way I can other Kindles, but I don’t feel silly reading on it during a long train ride. At 433 grams, it’s a touch lighter than the 10.2-inch iPad (487 grams). The dimensions are similar, as well, with a different, reading-focused, aspect ratio. The Scribe is 9.0 x 7.7 x 0.22 to the iPad’s 9.8 x 6.8 x 0.29.

The 9.7-inch Kindle DX, on the other hand, measured in at 10.4 x 7.2 x 0.4 inches, with a weight of 535 grams. Perhaps the DX was simply a product ahead of its time. It was an idea for which the hardware simply wasn’t quite ready. Newspaper purists (well, not purist enough to still want a Kindle) may have been an evolutionary dead end, but plenty of folks — especially those with vision impairments — could have benefited from a larger screen.

Certainly, the larger screen makes a lot of sense on a product like the Scribe that’s designed specifically for handwriting and drawings. It does fill that long dormant gap of a truly large-screen Kindle, but the $340 starting price is almost certainly going to be a stumbling block for many. The former highest-end Kindle — the Oasis — has a starting MSRP of $250, and as I type this, Amazon has it marked down to $165.

Some of the Kindle’s most premium design elements have become a foundational piece for the Scribe. The rear of the device is all metal — almost a, dare I say, iPad-like design. There are small rubber feet in each of the device’s four corners to keep it from sliding around on a desk. It’s full flat back there — without the sunken design you find on the back of the Oasis. I imagine this is due, in part, to the fact that the Scribe is a two-hander, when it comes to reading. It’s a fairly large and reasonably heavy device that feels much more like a tablet than any devoted e-reader I’ve ever used in the past.

On the right side is the device’s single physical button. A single short press will wake up the device or put it to sleep. A longer press will pop up a dialogue box asking if you want to turn the screen off (for further battery saving) or restart it. There’s no option to power it off entirely. To the button’s right is the USB-C port.

For years, it felt like Amazon might never move on from micro-USB. I keep the cable around exclusively for my Kindle Oasis. It’s nice knowing I can charge the Scribe with the same cord I use for practically (ahem, iPhone) everything these days. The Scribe ships with a USB-A to USB-C cable, rather than straight USB-C. Not sure if that says more about Amazon or their perceived userbase for the product, but again, one of the big selling points with the new port is that you likely already have a couple of those cables already lying around.

Many of the recent improvements arrive on the software side. If you’ve got a mobile device handy, you can use it for quick setup. Sign into the Kindle app on mobile, click “Amazon Device Simple Setup” and “Set up with your phone” on the device, and you’ll be up and running with a synced library in a minute or two.

I’m a longtime Calibre user. In recent years, Kindle Oasis+Calibre has been an ideal e-reader experience. The app is good for a number of different things, but the topline feature (for me, at least), is the ability to convert ePub files to a Kindle format and send them directly to the reader. It’s long been the best workaround for Amazon’s walled garden approach to selling books. Earlier this year, however, the company finally added support for ePub, the default e-book format outside of the Kindleverse.

Add to that some big improvements to features like Send-to-Kindle and the company’s taken a big dent out of what made Calibre a great third-party app for many users. There are still reasons to use the service, of course, including an off-device method for organizing your files, but Amazon’s dramatically improved the experience for people who want to purchase books outside of the Kindle store.

For years, the entire Send-to-Kindle experience was lacking. Getting files onto and off of the device was a much bigger chore than it had any right to be. In its current iteration, Send-to-Kindle web is one of those things that feels like it should have been there from the outset. Open a browser, sign in and you can drop files directly into the interface. After a few minutes, Kindles connected to that account (and Wi-Fi) will sync, with the file appearing in their library. It’s not magic, exactly, but after so many years of what felt like pointless complexity, it kind of feels like it.

Streamlining Send-to-Kindle is particularly important, given that the ability to take notes on the device is central to the Scribe experience. It’s a way to send a PDF or other document directly to the device for markup. To get them off the device, tap Share and from there you can either do a “quick send” to the email associated with your Kindle account or manually enter another address. After a couple of minutes, the recipient will receive an email with the subject line, “Someone sent you a notebook from their Kindle.” Click Download and it will surface a version of the file hosted on AWS.

The other primary use for handwriting is taking notes in the book reading experience. If you’re someone who likes to make copious annotations, it could be a handy feature. While reading on Scribe, a small menu pops up in the left margin. Tapping on this lets you leave notes in specific spots within the text. There’s certainly potential value there for students and researchers who don’t want to juggle between devices to take notes.

The Scribe ships with a basic pen that magnetically snaps to the side of the device for safe keeping. Upgrading to the premium pen will add another $30 to the base price (this is the review unit Amazon sent along). The basic and premium pens can also be purchased on their own for $30 and $60, respectively, but keep in mind, the Scribe is the only Kindle they currently work with.

The premium pen adds a devoted button to switch between pen and highlighter functionality — I found myself accidentally triggering it from time to time, so that takes a bit of getting used to. It also has a built-in eraser on the top. Flip the pen over and apply some pressure against the screen to depress it and it will remove your marks (after a slight refresh delay). The pen is a passive stylus and doesn’t require any charging — so that’s one less thing to worry about.

The writing experience is solid for a first-gen product like this. There isn’t enough notable latency to truly be annoying. The pen against screen has a nice tactile sensation to it, along with a built-in sound that almost approximates pencil on paper. You can choose between five line thicknesses — though fair warning, the thinner the line gets, the clearer the pixelation becomes on the display.

The experience is good enough for note taking and even basic doodling, but it’s not going to replace a Wacom — or even iPad — any time soon for serious artists. That said, I can certainly see dropping this in a backpack to replace a coffee shop sketchbook or even getting some roughs down on the page before really drawing in earnest. The addition of drawing adds an exciting new dimension to the 15-year-old line. For now, it’s not necessary for most users, but it will be interesting to watch it develop over future generations.

At 300 DPI, the Scribe sports the same pixel density as the rest of the line. It’s great for reading and does a good job rendering black and white images. The system is actually a really great size and shape for reading comics. You’ll obviously lose something important if they were published in color, but for manga and a lot of independent press (see: early Love & Rockets pages above), reading PDFs are actually a pretty good experience. Refresh rates have dramatically improved over the years, though you’ll still run into some imperfections like ghosts of images after you’ve turned the page.

For reading text, however, you still can’t beat e-ink. It’s the easiest on the eyes and battery life. I quite enjoyed the larger page format, as well, though the device’s size means it’s a bit tough to read while lying down. Rather than holding it above my head, I found myself mostly reading on my side while in bed. If you’re purely looking for a casual reading device, again, the Scribe is overkill.

If the Scribe feels fully formed for a first-generation device, it’s because it was built on generations of Kindle iterations before it. The front light, for example, is great. The Scribe has 35 LEDs to the Oasis’s 25, presumably due to the larger size. Earlier generations had issues with uniformity, but Amazon has much improved on that front. Using a Kindle in 2022 makes you wonder how you got by before the advent of features like the auto adjusting light and warm light for before bed.

Interestingly, the Scribe and entry-level Kindle are the only two current devices in the line that aren’t IPX8 waterproof. My guess is you’ll probably get by okay without it 99+% of the time, but it’s curious to see the feature skipped in only the least and most expensive entries. There’s also no cellular option for the Scribe (again, interesting, given that it’s the default on the Oasis). It’s one of those things that’s nice to have (especially on the road), but you can get on perfectly well without.

As ever, there’s a web browser on board, and as ever, the Kindle is a less than ideal way to surf the web. Adding to the usual input, latency and formatting issues, it seemed to have difficulty rending basic language, as seen above.

Bluetooth, on the other hand, is now standard across devices. Pairing headphones with the Kindle is basically the same process as on a mobile device. There are some nice accessibility options there, with the availability of text to speech. You can also use the Kindle to listen to Audible downloads, though I’m still having trouble thinking of too many scenarios in which it makes more sense to listen to an audio book with a Kindle device versus the Audible app on a smartphone (though I admit that I rarely listen to audio books at all).

As with other Kindle, battery is listed in weeks, rather than hours or days. That’s thanks in large part to the e-ink display. Due to the new content creation element, there are additional storage options. The Scribe comes in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB flavors. Only the 16GB version is available with the basic pen at the moment. The 32GB version will run you $390, while the 64GB is $420, meaning the top-end unit (with the default premium pen) is another $80 over the base price.

The leather cover is quite nice — and honestly, a cover of some kind is necessary if you’re going to be tossing this thing in a book bag. That will run you another $99. In addition to protecting the screen and back from scratches, the pen loop at the bottom is more secure than the magnetic connection. The cover can also be flipped back to serve as a stand, propping up the Scribe at a slight angle designed for writing/drawing.

It’s exciting seeing the Kindle take on an entirely new dimension after all these years, but for a majority of users, the price premium over the rest of the line is probably not commensurate with the value add. It’s also $40 over the starting price for the reMarkable 2 — though you don’t have buy into a monthly subscription fee here, and you also get a lot of existing Kindle ecosystem functionality.

For most people in most scenarios, the Scribe is going to be overkill, but it’s nice seeing Amazon explore new territory with a product line that is too often overlooked.

Amazon Kindle Scribe review by Brian Heater originally published on TechCrunch

DoorDash is laying off 1,250 people in an effort to rein in costs, the company’s CEO Tony Xu said in a message to employees on Wednesday. Xu’s message notes that the pandemic presented unprecedented opportunities to serve merchants and consumers, and as a result, DoorDash sped up hiring to catch up with growth. Xu says although most of the company’s investments are paying off, it did not properly manage team growth.

“Most of our investments are paying off, and while we’ve always been disciplined in how we have managed our business and operational metrics, we were not as rigorous as we should have been in managing our team growth,” Xu wrote. “That’s on me. As a result, operating expenses grew quickly.”

Xu says that given how quickly DoorDash hired, if the company did not address its operating expenses, they would continue to outgrow sales growth. He went on to note that DoorDash’s business is more resilient than other e-commerce companies.

“I did not take this decision lightly,” Xu wrote. “We have and will continue to reduce our non-headcount operating expenses, but that alone wouldn’t close the gap. This hard reality ultimately led me to make this painful decision to reduce our team size.”

Employees who are laid off will receive 13 weeks of compensation, along with one four-week lump-sum severance payment. Xu’s memo also says impacted workers will receive their February 2023 stock vest. For visa-sponsored workers, the termination date will be March 1, 2023. Xu says this decision will give them additional time to find a new job.

DoorDash joins a growing list of companies that have recently reduced their workforce, such as Meta, Amazon, Twitter and Lyft. Hiring in the tech industry significantly increased during the pandemic and has seen a harsh comedown as companies admit they grew expenses too rapidly for the current climate.

DoorDash lays off 1,250 employees to rein in operating expenses by Aisha Malik originally published on TechCrunch

Airbnb really wants you to Airbnb an apartment. So its latest step is to find renters a place, which they can also list on the travel booking platform.

Today, the company introduced a new program called ‘Airbnb-friendly apartments’ in the US. It allows renters to find an apartment in more than 25 markets — including Austin, Houston, Phoenix, Jacksonville, Los Angeles, Miami San Diego, Sacramento, and Tampa — where they can Airbnb a spare room, or the whole apartment while they’re away.

At the launch, the company partnered with local building owners to list 175 “Airbnb-friendly” apartments across different regions. Renters can head to the company’s dedicated site for the program and hunt for properties in a specific location. Once you select an apartment, you can use an earnings calculator that estimates how much you can earn from listing the place on Airbnb.

You can directly contact the building manager from Airbnb’s site to schedule a tour of the property. On the program FAQ, Airbnb specifies that it doesn’t own any of these properties. It also mentions that renters will have to follow local laws and building rules about putting their place on Airbnb, along with the company’s own community guidelines. Rental and lease agreements are handled directly between landlords and renters, however, with Airbnb staying removed from that part of the process.

Airbnb claimed that in a recent poll conducted by the company — results of which are not public — three-quarters of “US adults support allowing renters to share their apartments on a short-term basis.” The company has presumably struck up a partnership with property owners to allow renters to list their properties on a platform and earn some money from the arrangement. However, Airbnb didn’t disclose specifics of its partnership arrangements.

“Traditionally, renters have been excluded from sharing their homes part-time because of strict lease terms. We think this program will help more renters benefit from Hosting on Airbnb to earn extra money to help cover the rising cost of living,” the company said in an email response.

The travel booking company — which already has more than 4 million hosts on its service — wants to build a vast network of hosts on the platform. Earlier this month, it released new tools for hosts including a guided setup with a super host and better coverage for damages. At that time, CEO Brian Chesky told TechCrunch that he doesn’t want to “get to a supply-constrained era” when it comes to hosts. The Airbnb-friendly apartment program is another way for the company to have more listings on its platform.

Airbnb is helping find renters an apartment so they can Airbnb it by Ivan Mehta originally published on TechCrunch

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, Black, Latina, and Native American women represent approximately 16 percent of the total US population, but make up only 4 percent of students obtaining bachelor’s degrees in computing. On this trend, women of color receiving computing degrees will not double until 2052 — by which time they would be an even smaller proportion of all graduates. And out of this data emerges the fact that Native American women are the least likely to benefit from the wealth and opportunity of the tech industry, and of those obtaining computing degrees, only 0.1% of them are Native women.

So it’s perhaps appropriate that over this past weekend, a new nonprofit community organization comprising of a large network of Native Americans in tech has had a big boost.

Natives Rising has now received grant funding to support and grow the number of Native American women graduating college with computing degrees, as well as provide a path towards entrepreneurship.

The grant was from the Reboot Representation Tech Coalition, a group of 21 tech companies which aims to double the number of Black, Latina, and Native American women receiving computing degrees by 2025, by making philanthropic investments in relevant programs.

Natives Rising now aims to recruit Native women to join the tech industry, plus provide scholarships, mentors, education, and workplace opportunities.

In a statement Dwana Franklin-Davis, CEO, Reboot Representation said: “Building culturally relevant education and pathways can build bridges by showing Native American students how tech relates to their experiences. We’re proud to partner with Natives Rising to create vibrant, viable pathways in tech.”

Currently, only 3 percent on college-level programs get philanthropic funding whereas 66 percent is spent on K–12 programs, showing a wide gap where an untapped opportunity exists.

Natives Rising also runs the Natives Rising Founders Circle as an incubator for Native founders, especially founders interested in venture capital funding.

Danielle Forward, CEO, Co-Founder of Natives Rising added: “Native Americans are the most impoverished group in the US, a vestige of intergenerational, systematic disenfranchisement. They are also being hit the hardest by inflation right now, as a result. While the tech industry is slowing down on hiring, tech jobs remain one of the most economically empowering, in demand job opportunities of the future, especially for those who desire remote work.”

Prior to Natives Rising, Forward (Cloverdale Rancheria of Pomo Indians) was a Product Designer for 5 years at Meta. Co-founder and Chief Impact Officer Betsy Fore (Turtle Mountain Chippewa) joined after previously co-founding Wondermento and Tiny Organics. Hannah Cirelli (Quechan Tribe of Fort Yuma) joined as co-founder and Chief Community Officer, in addition to her current role in diversity at Uber.

Natives Rising is a nonprofit organization with Indigenous community members spanning over one hundred tribes. While focused on the US, the organization has developed an international following to economically empower Indigenous communities through tech careers and entrepreneurship.

Natives Rising wins backing to help Native Americans into tech and startups by Mike Butcher originally published on TechCrunch

Binance’s sprawling empire is about to get bigger as it eyes expansion in Japan. The world’s largest crypto trading platform has acquired 100% of Sakura Exchange BitCoin for an undisclosed amount, a registered crypto exchange in Japan, the company said Wednesday.

The announcement followed closely on the heels of Binance’s notice saying it had paused user registration in Japan. “As Binance constantly evaluates its product and service offerings to proactively comply with local regulations, new users in Japan will not be able to register with Binance.com.”

Binance has over the past year been pouring money and resources into global compliance after receiving a slew of warnings in several jurisdictions. In May, the exchange secured the regulatory greenlight to provide digital asset services in France, the first European country where it had gained such permission.

Buying an exchange regulated by the Japan Financial Services Agency has certainly smoothed Binance’s legal path into the country. As the platform’s Japan general manager Takeshi Chino said in a statement, “We will actively work with regulators to develop our combined exchange in a compliant way for local users.”

The Japanese government has shown strong interest in embracing blockchain technologies, attracting foreign startups to serve the world’s third-largest economy. In April, the Japanese government issued a white paper dubbing web3 “the new frontier of the digital economy.” That gave Belgium’s web3 low-code coding platform SettleMint the confidence to expand to Japan. New York-based Digital Asset, which specializes in building enterprise blockchain solutions, forged a strategic partnership with Japan’s financial conglomerate SBI Holdings in May.

Japan is still behind many of its Asian counterparts in crypto adoption. Blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis put it in 26th place in global crypto adoption in 2022, while Vietnam and the Philippines took the top two spots. Even China, where crypto trading is banned, still ranked 10th, a sign that regulations have fallen short of quelling people’s web3 enthusiasm.

But Chino showed optimism, arguing in his statement that “the Japanese market will play a key role in the future of cryptocurrency adoption.”

Aside from France and Japan, Binance has also obtained regulatory approvals or authorizations in Italy, Spain, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, New Zealand, Kazakhstan, Poland, Lithuania, and Cyprus.

Binance poised for Japan expansion after buying local exchange Sakura by Rita Liao originally published on TechCrunch

According to Corning in-house research, “84% of consumers across three of the largest smartphone markets – China, India, and the United States — cite durability as the number one purchasing consideration behind brand itself.”

I suspect that things like battery life and camera rank pretty highly, as well, but at the very least, it’s safe to say that durability should be — and probably is — high on the list as well. It’s something that was overlooked for too long on expensive flagships, though manufacturers have since come around. The nearly ubiquitious Gorilla Glass has certainly been a big piece of that puzzle.

Today Corning announced the latest offering — a follow-up to 2020’s Gorilla Glass Victus. The fittingly named Victus 2 has been put through the paces in the Corning labs. The company says it’s able to survive a one meter drop onto concrete and two meters onto asphalt (been there).

“Smartphones are the center of our digital lives, and the requirement for exceptional scratch and drop resistance has only increased with our growing reliance on clear, damage-free displays,” says Gorilla Glass GM Dave Velasquez. “Surfaces matter, and rough surfaces like concrete are everywhere.”

The company says the material is “being evaluated” by some major brands and is set to hit the market “within the next few months” — in time, one supposes, for the products announced at and around Mobile World Congress in late-February/early-March.

New Gorilla Glass just dropped by Brian Heater originally published on TechCrunch

Spotify Wrapped 2022 has officially arrived. Though other music services, including Apple Music and YouTube Music, now put together their own year-end retrospectives, Spotify’s personalized and interactive Wrapped experience for its users, creators and podcasters remains the one to beat. The secret to its ongoing success is how it goes beyond simply offering a summary of top songs or artists to also include fun, shareable elements for music and audio fans to explore, post to social media and compare with their friends.

The Wrapped experience has grown in popularity over the years. In 2017, some 30 million Spotify users accessed Wrapped; by last year, that figure had grown to more than 120 million. In addition, there were nearly 60 million shares of Wrapped stories and cards across social platforms in 2021.

Consumer interest in Wrapped isn’t just about the data itself but also the way that Spotify personalizes the data to its users and presents it in clever ways. Last year, for example, Wrapped included an “Audio Aura,” which showed listeners their top two “moods” based on their listening behavior.

This year, the new addition of note is something Spotify calls your “Listening Personality.”

Created with obvious inspiration from the classic Myers-Brigg personality test and its four-letter codes, the “Listening Personality” feature also introduces a four-letter combination for the user that translates into one of the 16 personality types Spotify has created. For instance, fans who quickly stream new releases and who are often ahead of trends might find themselves dubbed an ENPC, or an early adopter, while fans who love to stream music from other parts of the world might be labeled an ENLC, or a voyager.

“The way we listen to music says a lot about us and your Listening Personality not only tells you about the music you listen to but what that says about your music taste,” explains Spotify VP of Product Development Babar Zafar, who leads the team that creates the Wrapped experience.

People’s personality type will be based on a combination of the music they stream and a selection of specific traits — like their tendency to discover new music, the average age of the songs they listen to, the range of artists they listen to and how their listening resembles or differs from others. Each of the 16 possible Listening Personalities is given its own colorful card designed for re-sharing to social media or for messages to friends.

This new feature is being integrated with Snapchat, too, allowing fans to unlock a personalized Snapchat Lens that reflects their “Listening Personality.” Snapchat users can also take advantage of Wrapped-themed apparel for Bitmojis. And with a new GIPHY partnership, users can access custom Wrapped-themed GIFs.

Another Wrapped 2022 feature is something called “Audio Day,” which is an interactive story that describes an individual’s listening trends from morning through evening.

Meanwhile, Wrapped’s popular “Top Song” feature is being expanded this year to offer a few more insights, like how many times users listened to their top song and on which day of the year they listened the most.

Plus, users will receive their usual year-end updates about their top artists, songs, genres, podcasts and minutes listened as well as their Top Songs 2022 playlist.

Despite the many ways to share and interact with Wrapped, Spotify admits it can’t track the full reach of Wrapped as it notices its younger users will often snap a photo of their phone screen for private sharing, rather than — or in addition to — posting their Wrapped to social media.

To help address this, Spotify this year is now more deeply integrating with various messaging platforms as part of its drive to get Wrapped shared — and tracked — in as many places as possible. While users could always share Wrapped on social media, Wrapped 2022 is adding direct integrations with WhatsApp, Instagram Direct Messages, Facebook Messenger and Line, in order to better cater to those users who prefer to share their Wrapped more privately.

Spotify is also leveraging its more recent Roblox integration, Spotify Island, as part of this year’s Wrapped.

In its virtual world, Roblox users can go on Wrapped-inspired quests, play games, shop virtual merch and use a photo booth feature with 12 different artists, including Bizarrap, Black Sherif, CRO, Doechii, Eslabon Armado, Miranda Lambert, NIKI, Stray Kids, SUNMI and Tove Lo.

The company is also doubling down on another feature introduced last year: artist video messages.

Taking a cue from celeb social apps like Cameo and the popularity of short-form video, as on TikTok, Spotify last year had worked with 170+ artists to create short video messages where they thank fans for including them in their listening throughout the year. This year, the company expanded the video message feature, “Your Artist Messages,” to more than 40,000 music creators, including well-known names like Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, J Balvin, Måneskin, Shania Twain, Pusha T and others.

Users can scroll through the video messages in a vertical, full-screen interface, similar to TikTok.

Spotify says users will see these videos if they have at least two artists with “thank you” videos in their top artists. In other words, the feature is limited to those fans who are most engaged with the artists. While the feature is sure to boost fan engagement, it’s a shame the artists can’t also post their videos somewhere else on Spotify — like a Stories section on their own Artist profile, for example. Spotify says users can see up to a maximum of 10 artists’ “thank yous” in Wrapped.

Wrapped will also get its own hub on Spotify’s mobile app, where streamers can browse merch and concert tickets from their top artists.

As in past years, creators and podcasters will have their own Wrapped experiences, available directly from Spotify for Artists, Spotify for Podcasters and Anchor. Artists will gain insight into their streams, their most-shared lyrics, how many fans had them in their top artists, fans’ Listening Personalities and more. Podcasters will gain insights on listens and follows, how many fans had their podcast in their top 5 or 10, their top episode overall, placement on the charts and more.

Of course, as part of Spotify’s year-end review, the company also highlighted the top artists and creators on its platform, both globally and on a per-country basis.

This year, the most-streamed artist globally was Bad Bunny, followed by Taylor Swift, Drake, The Weeknd and BTS. The most-streamed songs globally were “As It Was” by Harry Styles, “Heat Waves” by Glass Animals, “STAY (with Justin Bieber)” by The Kid LAROI, “Me Porto Bonito” by Bad Bunny featuring Chencho Corleone, and “Tití Me Preguntó” by Bad Bunny. And the most-streamed albums globally were “Un Verano Sin Ti” (Bad Bunny), “Harry’s House” (Harry Styles), “SOUR” (Olivia Rodrigo), “=” (Ed Sheeran) and “Planet Her” (Doja Cat).

In reference to Bad Bunny’s chart dominance — the artist is now the most-streamed globally for the third year in a row — Spotify points out that an average of 50% of users globally stream at least one Latin song per month on its service, equating to around 215 million users around the world. To celebrate, Spotify will turn its green heart to Bad Bunny’s red heart when users “like” a Bad Bunny track during the next week.

“You can see it’s far more than a genre. The average monthly streams of Latin music in 2022, so far, is over 24 billion streams,” said Spotify’s Global Head of Public Affa1irs Dustee Jenkins. “A massive number — and just in the U.S., 1 in 10 streams is Latin music,” she noted.

In the U.S., the most-streamed artists were led by Drake in first place, followed by Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny, Kanye West and The Weeknd. The top songs were “As It Was” by Harry Styles, “Heat Waves” by Glass Animals, “Bad Habit” by Steve Lacy, “Me Porto Bonito” by Bad Bunny featuring Chencho Corleone and “First Class” by Jack Harlow.

Top albums were “Un Verano Sin Ti” (Bad Bunny), “Harry’s House” (Harry Styles), “Dangerous: The Double Album” (Morgan Wallen), “Midnights” (Taylor Swift) and “SOUR” (Olivia Rodrigo).

Notably, Swift’s “Midnights” album only arrived last month and already broke numerous records, including becoming the most-streamed album in a single day. Not surprisingly then, Swift became 2022’s “most viral” artist globally, ahead of The Weeknd, Bad Bunny, BTS and Lana Del Rey, based on shares from Spotify to social platforms.

Spotify also highlighted its most popular podcasts for the year, which, globally, were led by “The Joe Rogan Experience” (again!), then “Call Her Daddy,” “Anything Goes with Emma Chamberlain,” “Caso 63” (All Languages) and “Crime Junkie.” The U.S. list also saw Rogan and “Call Her Daddy” in the top two spots, followed by “Crime Junkie,” “The Daily” and “Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard.”

And though a fairly new addition in the U.S., Spotify showcased its top audiobooks in a list that didn’t seem to include only current releases. Instead, users’ top books were “I’m Glad My Mom Died” by Jennette McCurdy, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” by J.K. Rowling, “It Ends with Us” by Colleen Hoover, “Atomic Habits” by James Clear and “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck” by Mark Manson.

The company said it will also market Wrapped through out-of-home campaigns, including things like a word search that appears in billboards in LA and Brooklyn, and more. Spotify additionally partnered with FC Barcelona, which will result in 2022 Wrapped videos from players, including Robert Lewandowski, Alexia Putellas, Pedri and Ansu Fati, shared to social media.

Wrapped 2022 is available only through Spotify on mobile devices.

Spotify Wrapped 2022 arrives with new features like your ‘Listening Personality,’ 40K+ Artist Messages by Sarah Perez originally published on TechCrunch

European Central Bank officials alleged on Wednesday that bitcoin is “rarely used for legal transactions,” is fuelled by speculation and the recent erosion in its value indicates that it is on the “road to irrelevance,” in a series of stringent criticism (bereft of strong data points) of the cryptocurrency industry as they urged regulators to not lend legitimacy to digital tokens in the name of innovation.

The value of bitcoin recently finding stability at around $20,000 was “an artificially induced last gasp before the road to irrelevance – and this was already foreseeable before FTX went bust and sent the bitcoin price to well down below $16,000,” wrote Ulrich Bindseil and Jürgen Schaaf on ECB’s blog.

The central bankers argue that bitcoin’s conceptual design and “technological shortcomings” make it “questionable” as a means of payment. “Real Bitcoin transactions are cumbersome, slow and expensive. Bitcoin has never been used to any significant extent for legal real-world transactions,” they wrote.

“It does not generate cash flow (like real estate) or dividends (like equities), cannot be used productively (like commodities) or provide social benefits (like gold). The market valuation of Bitcoin is therefore based purely on speculation,” they wrote.

The bankers’ remarks have drawn criticism from several tech-savvy enthusiasts. In a series of tweets, investor and commentator Joel John pointed to a security auditing firm Chainalysis report that concludes that only 0.15% of crypto transactions were linked to criminal activities, compared to 5% for the traditional currency.

“I don’t mean to imply crypto has no funny actors. We had our share of scrupulous players and the regulators are a crucial part of the mix. But a little more effort into how the industry is covered can help us go far. Bias is easy, but it doesn’t deliver progress,” wrote John.

The central bank officialls also alleged that bitcoin has “repeatedly benefited from waves of new investors,” “manipulations by individual exchanges or stablecoin providers” but these tactics aren’t able to provide stabilizing factors.

The bankers say that crypto firms have funded lobbyists to sway lawmakers and regulators, but their efforts are not proving successful because even lobbying activities “need a sounding board to have an impact.”

“The current regulation of cryptocurrencies is partly shaped by misconceptions. The belief that space must be given to innovation at all costs stubbornly persists. Since Bitcoin is based on a new technology – DLT / Blockchain – it would have a high transformation potential. Firstly, these technologies have so far created limited value for society – no matter how great the expectations for the future. Secondly, the use of a promising technology is not a sufficient condition for an added value of a product based on it,” they added.

Several central banks around the globe have expressed concerns about the adoption of cryptocurrency (and the proliferation of their trading) in recent quarters. Shaktikanta Das, the governor of Reserve Bank of India, said earlier this year that cryptocurrency has no underlying value and is not even tulip, referring to the Dutch tulip bulb market bubble from the 17th century. The South Asian nation will kickstart a pilot for retail digital currency on Thursday, with which it aims to, among other things, protect citizens from the volatility of private cryptocurrencies.

Bitcoin ‘rarely’ used for legal transactions, on ‘road to irrelevance’, say European Central Bank officials by Manish Singh originally published on TechCrunch

The football World Cup — yes, the “soccer” one — is one of the biggest sporting events on the globe. And it’s really fun to follow it on Twitter with all the memes, commentary, and live tweets. But under Elon Musk-led Twitter it’s something different.

After the World Cup started, the social network started sending notifications to people who had Twitter alerts turned on — even if they didn’t want it. For folks following the world cup, these notifications are not useful as they are often outdated and irrelevant. I have received a notification of a game with a 0-0 score in the 78th minute. So users are not really pleased by this.

So in case you also feel the same, here is an easy way to turn off the notifications — and you don’t even have to pay $8 for it:

Open the Twitter app on your phone, and go to Settings > Notifications for your account.
Tap on the Preferences and select Push Notifications.
Under that, scroll down to the From Twitter section and turn off the News/Sports toggle.
Twitter sends these notifications when you’re scrolling in the app, so you should turn off the News/Sports toggle under the in-app Notification from the Twitter section as well.

That’s it. Now, Twitter won’t bother you with untimely notifications and you can enjoy the World Cup (or your favorite activity) in peace. This way, you don’t have to turn off all Twitter notifications just to get away from those pesky World Cup alerts.

How to turn off World Cup notifications from Twitter by Ivan Mehta originally published on TechCrunch

Pinterest has shut down its Creator Rewards program that allowed creators to earn money by creating content around monthly prompts and achieving certain engagement goals.

“The Creator Rewards program will end on November 30, 2022. To all the creators who participated, thank you for your partnership. We’re committed to exploring more ways to help you find success on Pinterest and we’re looking forward to finding more opportunities to work together in 2023,” Pinterest said in a note on its creator rewards help page.

The rewards program asked participants to create Idea Pins — a video format introduced by the company last year — based on a monthly theme to earn cash.

The announcement, first reported by The Information, also said that Pinterest will pay a one-time bonus to creators who participated in at least one reward goal for August, September, or October 2022. The company didn’t specify the bonus amount on the Creator Rewards page.

Pinterest said that it is closing this program “in order to focus on other creator programs and features.” Last year, when the company debuted Creator Rewards, it said it planned to invest $20 million in the program. Separately, the company launched a $500,000 Creator Fund last year and injected an additional $1.2 million this year into the project. The social network created this project to help creators from underrepresented communities through cash and ad rewards.

Pinterest is still continuing with programs like the Creator Fund, “shoppable” Idea Pins, and paid partnerships by converting Idea Pins into ads.

Social media companies have been constantly tweaking their creator payment programs in recent times. Last month, Snapchat reduced its payouts to creators from millions of dollars per week to millions of dollars per year. In September, Meta announced that it is closing its Live Shopping program to focus on reels. At the same time, the social media giant also closed its Instagram affiliate program, which allowed creators to get a commission if users purchased tagged products from their posts.

Pinterest shuts down its ‘Creator Rewards’ program by Ivan Mehta originally published on TechCrunch