In a struggle to display authenticity without resorting to obvious pandering, while still hitting ROI targets, some brands find Facebook Ads difficult to approach, especially in a politically and culturally sensitive era
Numerous reports can be referenced highlighting the importance of authenticity within marketing as a whole. This advice is doubly true when attempting to appeal to demographics that may span numerous cultures and socioeconomic backgrounds. The only way to truly be authentic is to have representation within these diverse groups of people that can tell their story about your brand in a way that is unique to them and their coveted audience.
The way for such brands to avoid failure is to adopt a UGC ad approach utilizing influencers. Influencer marketing, as you may recall, can be distilled in having someone else tell your brand story for you, which is precisely what UGC created ads are.
There are multiple methods that influencers can utilize in the Facebook ecosystem, including live streaming collaborations, fan page postings, and group advertisements. However, the method we have found particularly effective involves using Facebook’s internal brand collabs manager as a multi-step campaign process.
For this process to work, a brand will need to only have access to an account with Facebook Ads management credentials. However, in multiple tests, we have found it is faster and more efficient to prequalify influencers through an external network prior to engaging, rather than relying upon the Facebook marketplace alone for the selection process. The importance of this step is predicated on the importance of first calculating the probability of influence based on your predetermined campaign goals. The reasoning for external vetting prior to ad collaborations is as follows:
1. While approximate reach and engagement is discernable through the brand side of the Facebook collaboration marketplace, what isn’t obvious is relevance. By first vetting Facebook influencers, a brand will likely find the self-identified categorical selections and content focus is not always congruent with the information displayed in the collabs marketplace.
2. The next issue is cost. Once again, testing has determined that price is not as static as one might assume when simply utilizing the brand collabs marketplace. The reason for this is reflective of fit. As a thought exercise, imagine a digital marketer is being asked to set an hourly rate for her services. The ads collabs manager in this analogy represents the expected blended rate for all activities the aforementioned marketer would be asked to perform. The reality is her distaste for a service such as site infrastructure auditing may make other activities she enjoys more expensive on that blended rate. The same is true of influencers. A blended rate exists to satisfy the vast majority of collaboration pitches the influencer is expected to receive. Therefore, approaching an influencer external to the collabs marketplace can often result in a lower starting price point.
The only caveat to this approach is not every Facebook influencer in external networks is a member of the ads collabs marketplace. If time is of the essence, it is recommended to ask on the status of this membership when pitching. However, as Facebook is willing to let most applicants into the program, if a brand feels strongly about an influencer, it can be worth pursuing the relationship while urging the influencer also gain membership into the program.
Once an influencer has been selected based on campaign criteria of fit, economics, and expected outcome, the process for using this influencer in an ongoing ad is remarkably similar to that of a normal influencer campaign. The critical difference is centered on ad quality guidelines, as some industries are more heavily regulated from an ad copy perspective. Presumably, a brand will evaluate the true impact an influencer provides prior to elevating into an ad unit. Additionally, running a postmortem analysis in the event expectations are not in line with reality helps for future transactions. After initial satisfaction has been reached the next steps are simple:
1. Approve the collaboration in the Facebook collabs manager interface
Branded Content Approval. Source: Facebook.com
2. Create a new ad utilizing the influencer via the boost post ad type. Simply set a budget and you’re done.
To test this concept for yourself, simultaneously run this process against a fresh ad campaign on the same exact topic. You may find, as we and others have, that the UGC-elevated ads end up outperforming the conventional ad types. The often occurs without running into the pitfalls of a brand trying to target multiple demographics, which can often come off as inauthentic. All that was required was simply incorporating some influencers into the process.
To learn more, take a self-guided demo of Intellifluence, which will help you understand how influencers can be applied to virtually any marketing use case in a simple campaign creation process.
Zoom has announced it will be rolling out end-to-end encryption (E2EE) beginning next week.
Zoom quickly became the de facto standard for remote work and distance learning during the coronavirus pandemic. Unfortunately, the company made a number of security missteps early on, leading to a 90-day moratorium on new features as the company focused on security.
One of those issues revolved around E2EE. The company’s early marketing made it appear as if it offered E2EE when, in fact, it did not. The company later announced definitive plans to implement E2EE, although only for paid accounts. After feedback and criticism, the company reversed course, announcing its intention to bring E2EE to all users.
Those plans are coming to fruition, with the company implementing the first phase of its E2EE plans next week:
We’re excited to announce that starting next week, Zoom’s end-to-end encryption (E2EE) offering will be available as a technical preview, which means we’re proactively soliciting feedback from users for the first 30 days. Zoom users – free and paid – around the world can host up to 200 participants in an E2EE meeting on Zoom, providing increased privacy and security for your Zoom sessions.
CEO Eric S. Yuan highlighted the benefits of E2EE, both to customers and the Zoom platform:
End-to-end encryption is another stride toward making Zoom the most secure communications platform in the world. This phase of our E2EE offering provides the same security as existing end-to-end-encrypted messaging platforms, but with the video quality and scale that has made Zoom the communications solution of choice for hundreds of millions of people and the world’s largest enterprises.
Once enabled, users will know their meetings are encrypted with E2EE by looking at the green shield icon in the upper left corner. The normal checkmark, indicating GCM encryption, will be replaced by a padlock.
Dropbox has become the latest company to embrace a new normal, announcing it has become a “virtual first” company.
Since the pandemic forced organizations to adopt remote workflows, many companies were surprised to discover how well employees adapted to changing circumstances. As a result, numerous companies have announced plans to make remote work a permanent part of the corporate routine.
Dropbox is the latest to announce permanent changes as a result of the pandemic:
Starting today, Dropbox is becoming a Virtual First company. Remote work (outside an office) will be the primary experience for all employees and the day-to-day default for individual work.
As part of this strategy, Dropbox is also reevaluating standard workdays:
Next, we’re embracing what we call “non-linear workdays.” We’re setting core collaboration hours with overlap between time zones, and encouraging employees to design their own schedules beyond that. As our workforce grows more distributed, this will help balance collaboration with needs for individual focus. We want to prioritize impact and results instead of hours worked.
Dropbox acknowledges there are challenges to a virtual first policy, and is working to address them with the release of Virtual First Toolkit, which it has open-sourced for other companies to make use of.
Apple CEO Tim Cook announced today the launch of iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro with 5G:
Today we’re bringing 5G to iPhone. This is a huge moment for all of us and we’re really excited. 5G will bring a new level of performance for downloads and uploads, higher quality video streaming, more responsive gaming, real-time interactivity, and so much more. 5G networks are more advanced with lower latency and less network congestion so you can get higher network speeds even in densely populated areas. 5G even helps protect your privacy and security since you won’t need to connect to unknown unsecured public wi-fi hotspots as often.
Each generation of cellular network technology on the iPhone has enabled breakthrough innovations and entirely new opportunities for our developers and our users. 5G is the most exciting step yet. For so many people this all becomes real with 5G coming to iPhone.
Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg also spoke at Apple’s launch event about the impact of 5G for the iPhone:
5G just got real. Of course, what’s the most exciting part for me as a guy who has worked in networking for 25 plus years? The fact that for the first time ever iPhone can now access Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband. It’s built with large quantities on millimeter wave spectrum that enable unprecedented performance. 5G Ultra Wideband has already been recognized as being the fastest 5G in the world and it’s getting even faster. Our 5G network now gives you double the peak download speeds, over 4 gigabits per second today in ideal conditions. And even higher over time.
It also gives you double the upload speeds at over 200 megabits per second. So whatever you’re watching, a high definition movie or you’re planning business workflows with real-time augmented reality, you can be sure that there’s no faster 5G anywhere on earth. 5G Ultra Wideband has also a massive capacity. We’re building it to help remove bottlenecks in crowded places where thousands of people use their phones at the same time. Because one day we’ll be safely back in those places.
T-Mobile has announced it is expanding its home internet to 450 markets in an effort to offer service to customers “left high‑and‑dry by AT&T.”
AT&T made headlines when it announced it was shuttering its DSL service. While the company said it would continue to offer service to existing customers for the time being, it is no longer taking new customers and considers DSL a legacy technology to be phased out.
T-Mobile started offering wireless home internet in 2019, and has been slowly expanding its service. Following AT&T’s announcement, however, T-Mobile has kicked its expansion plan into high gear.
“We can’t stand idly by while AT&T leaves potentially millions with fewer home Internet options at a time when our connection to the Internet is so vital — for work, remote school, connection with family and friends. That’s why we’re undertaking this massive expansion,” said Mike Sievert, CEO of T-Mobile. “The Carriers and the Cableopoly have consistently over-promised and under-delivered when it comes to broadband access. Thanks to our merger with Sprint, we can end this and give millions in underserved communities more choices and competition for high-speed home broadband.”
The company’s service is $50 a month and, unlike many standard internet providers, has no equipment leases. The $50 also includes taxes and fees, much like T-Mobile’s phone plans. The service has no data caps, no two-year contracts and no “introductory prices” that rapidly expand once the introductory period is over.
It’s a safe bet those terms will make it a hit with customers who are tired of traditional internet options.
Landry’s CEO Tilman Fertitta said on CNBC that at only 25% maximum capacity New York restaurants are going to go out of business:
New York Restaurants Are Not Going To Last
Restaurants are not going to last at these kinds of numbers. Anybody who has a restaurant in New York that is full-service casual dining at 25% is going to go out of business. It’s really a shame. People have taken years and years and years to build these restaurants up. I have a huge company with restaurants in 40 states. I have casinos that are doing well. But if you are a New York restaurateur you’re in for a long haul right now.
I will say it again. I don’t think that the government officials realize it because they get their paycheck every single week. They don’t realize that these cooks, these waiters, these hostesses, and then the managers at these restaurants, and how difficult it is when you are not getting a paycheck every week. And you don’t get that $600 kick from the government anymore. So you are going to see unemployment stay probably where it is until we get through the winter months and we start to improve things hopefully or the vaccine comes out.
Don’t Punish Me Just Because I’m Big
My whole problem has been I definitely want to take care of the small mom and pop businesses. I think we should also take care of the airlines. But you can’t leave people out like me. I’m a 100% owned family business. Don’t punish me just because I’m big and I provide 60,000 jobs out there. I can’t make a 60,000 payroll if they shut us down again. I don’t want to have to lay my employees off again. There has got to be something that treats everybody. Forget about the ownership.
Why should an employee (not get helped out) because you work for a billionaire and you don’t? Or, a person that isn’t the front person of the company. I know people that have billionaires that really own restaurants and the chef only owns a small percentage but they were all able to take PPP money because they are not at the forefront like I am. I just want to see everybody treated the same. The government definitely needs to come in and help everyone but it should be for all employees of all businesses, especially restaurants and retail. Don’t look at ownership. Make the money go to the employees. Don’t worry about me.
“Even ahead of COVID, the market for companies who are undergoing digital transformation and who need to use digital technologies to compete and win in the modern economy was enormous,” says Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson. “COVID has been a tailwind to Twilio business but really is an acceleration of the trends that have gone on for the last 10 to 20 years as a result of digital transformation in nearly every kind of company.”
Even ahead of COVID, the market for companies who are undergoing digital transformation and who need to use digital technologies to compete and win in the modern economy was enormous. What COVID did is it accelerated many of the initiatives, many of the use cases, the things that companies needed to build to be competitive in this digital era were accelerated.
They were accelerated because of COVID, because of social distancing, work from home, and migrating a lot of these business processes to software and into the cloud and modernizing all of this. COVID has been a tailwind to Twilio business but really is an acceleration of the trends that have gone on for the last 10 to 20 years as a result of digital transformation in nearly every kind of company.
I’m Not Very Concerned About Microsoft
I’m not very concerned (about new competitors like Microsoft). It’s the same reason that (I wasn’t concerned) when Amazon started building products in the communication space or Facebook or Google or even Blackberry once announced that they were going to compete with Twilio. First of all, we’re no stranger to competition. This is a huge market. It’s no surprise that a wide variety of companies have products in the communications domain.
We compete by focusing on our customers, listening to what they need, and building differentiated APIs, a differentiated platform, and a differentiated super network. We’ve got a 12-year head start on anybody entering the space. The last thing I’ll add is that we are not a company that is very focused on competition. We’re focused on our customers. That focus has driven us for the last 12 years and has served us very well. We will continue to focus on the things our customers need in this enormous market and be able to take a lot of market share.
Digital-Native Companies Want APIs That Work
Strangely, I don’t think Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella wakes up every day thinking about Twilio. But we are also no stranger to pricing competition. In fact, that is how most companies have tried to compete with us through our 12-year history. They come in with an inferior product and they say we’re going to be cheaper. But it turns out that the biggest enterprises on the planet or digital-native companies, what they want are APIs that work, mature, scalable, and that work everywhere around the world.
We’ve invested a tremendous amount of time and money to build the leading platform out there and what we found is that customers value that. So we’re no stranger to people trying to undercut us on price. What we think and what we hear from our customers is that they want quality, they want reliability, and they want HIPAA compliance. They want all sorts of capabilities that let them power their business and that’s what we offer.
Low-Code, No-Code, and Yo-Code
Low-code is a really exciting area. There are three buckets. There’s low-code, no-code, and then yo-code for the people who love to write code, developers. We’ve got products really for that whole spectrum. The typical way a developer might build on top of Twilio is to write code and host it themselves. We have a Twilio Functions product that allows us to host the software for our customers. Then we have Twilio Studio which is a drag and drop designer for the non-developer to be able to build out sophisticated workflows like interactive voice response systems on top of Twilio.
We have embraced really all three of those categories of builders. We do believe that at every enterprise there is a large number of builders with different skill sets who are building the future of how those companies engage with their customers. We want to enable all those people to succeed on Twilio.
Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson: COVID Accelerated Digital Transformation
Slack started experiencing performance issues early Monday morning, impacting remote workers that rely on the service.
Slack is locked in a battle with Microsoft Teams for the corporate messaging market. While the service is widely popular, it can’t afford errors or missteps that Microsoft could capitalize on.
Unfortunately, Monday morning the service was experiencing significant performance issues impacting all three of its target platforms.
Some users may be experiencing slowness with Slack in the desktop, browser and mobile at this time. The issue is impacting sending messages and troubles with API calls.
As of mid-afternoon, the issues were declining, although many customers were still not seeing any improvement. The company had also not indicated what underlying issue caused the problem.
If you are missing your daily commute to and from your office, Microsoft Teams is coming to your rescue. According to the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft Teams is developing an update to Teams that will give you and your colleagues a virtual commute. The Teams update launching next year will let you schedule virtual commutes at the beginning and end of each workday. The idea is to bring back definition to your workday for those that are working remotely, where there is a beginning and an end to work.
This feature is designed to bring a sense of healthiness and balance to your life for those that find themselves always connected to work. “Enterprises across the world right now are coming to us and saying, ‘I don’t think we will have organizational resilience if we don’t make well-being a priority,’” said Kamal Janardhan, General Manager, Workplace Intelligence, Microsoft 365, which runs Teams. “I think we at Microsoft have a role, almost a responsibility, to give enterprises the capabilities to create these better daily structures and help people be their best.”
Half of the chat volume on Teams occurred between 5 p.m. and midnight in the past six months, up 48% from the months before the pandemic, according to Microsoft.
Source: WSJ
With many offices still closed throughout the world workers are feeling like their work life never ends.
“I don’t miss my commute per se,” said Adam Clenton, a London-based lawyer who spent 80 minutes commuting each day before his office closed during the pandemic. “But it did give me the chance to switch off on the way home. It helped demarcate the day in a way that isn’t possible now.”
Source: WSJ
Some Teams users don’t see the point of this feature:
“Right…people will start their day earlier and end it later for goal setting and reflection. What planet does Microsoft live on?” says Stephen Johnson.
“In a work from home setup, adding *more* time sitting in front of your computer isn’t helping the separation of work and home,” notes Anne Jackson.
“The people who came up with this clearly have no idea what the commute is for most people,” said David Weingart. “If you’re driving, you’re not thinking about the day ahead or the day just past. You’re listening to the radio, drinking your coffee, maybe talking to your carpool if you have one. If you’re on the train, you’re either sleeping or talking to the people you ride with every day. Coffee in the morning, beer in the evening.”
“This is a meaningless update,” adds Weingart. “The best way to deal with the “virtual commute” is to not turn your computer on in the morning until it’s time to be “at the office” and to turn it off at night when you leave.”
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Google may be paying Apple as much as $13 billion per year to be the default search engine for the Safari web browser which is included on all Apple devices. That’s up from $1 billion that Google paid Apple in 2014 which was disclosed in a court filing during a legal battle with Oracle. If the $14 billion is accurate it amounts to approximately 25% of Apple’s total services revenue.
The DOJ is currently meeting with state attorney generals in anticipation of filing an antitrust case against Google which is officially owned by Alphabet, Inc. The New York Times says that a primary focus of a lawsuit by the Justice Department is the default search deals that Google has with Apple and other companies. These agreements make it virtually impossible for competitors to ever make a dent into Google’s 92.1% US search engine market share.
Google has repeatedly said that the simple reason it is popular is that it works hard to deliver the best search results. The WSJ article notes that even if Google was precluded from default search deals many people would still choose to use Google for search, validating Google’s argument.
Products like Search, Gmail, and Maps help Americans every day. Survey research found that these services provide thousands of dollars a year in value to the average American. We provide these tools to everyone for free.
Our products increase choice and expand competition. They level the playing field for small businesses everywhere—enabling them to sell their products, find customers, reduce their costs and, in difficult times, get back on their feet.
Source: Google Blog
Google says that its free products help people and small businesses across America. They make the case that their technologies help America maintain its competitive edge. In other words, Google doesn’t charge for its search engine and is providing a service loved by millions, so it’s not anti-competitive simply because people choose it instead of competitors.
“Zoom is now integrated into all aspects of our lives,” says Zoom CFO Kelly Steckelberg. “We look forward to the day that the pandemic is over and we can resume more normal activities and yet I don’t think that in itself is a threat to Zoom. People have grown accustomed to it. Working from home is not a fad. We are all really adjusting to this new way of life and are integrating Zoom into all aspects.”
We indicated coming into the quarter that we really expected strong growth in Q2. We saw that across all geographies and all industries. International grew over 600 percent year over year. We saw strong performance in industries like education and nonprofits. We also had our largest Zoom Phone deal to-date signed in Q2. There was really strong performance across all aspects of our business.
What we saw from the retention perspective is that working from home is not a fad. People are really adjusting to this new way of life. They’re integrating Zoom into all aspects. We saw strong retention not only in our enterprise but in customers with fewer than ten employees as well. As we’ve continued to focus on leveraging both the public cloud as well as our own co-located data centers that’s why we saw improvement in the gross margins. We are going to continue to optimize across all of those metrics as we focus on the rest of the year.
Hired Over 500 Employees In Q2
We have worked very tirelessly. Our entire Zoom team is doing everything we can to continue to support not only our existing customers but to ensure that every customer who has a need for Zoom has access to it. We have focused quickly on scaling up our employee base. We have hired over 500 employees in Q2. That’s the largest growth we’ve had to date. We are also working from home like many of our customers are and really supporting our employees to ensure that we can meet the needs of the customer. We are leveraging great partners like AWS and Oracle as we need to in order to ensure that we have the capacity to continue to support our customers along the way.
We continue to look for opportunities to invest to grow the top-line (while free cash flow rose by 2,000 percent year over year). We had record operating margins in the quarter at 41.7 percent. We expect those to come down for the rest of the year as we are focusing on investing in more salespeople to meet the demand and more engineers to continue to innovate and build our platform. Of course, we are always looking for opportunities with M&A, technology, or teams that can really augment our platform or our team to continue to drive that top-line growth.
Video Is The Future Of Communications
We really believe that video is the future of communications. With that, we want our Zoom customers to be able to use the Zoom platform with other best of breed products in platforms that they choose. We have integrations with many products out there and that’s great. We want our customers to be able to use the products that they know and love and have them work together seamlessly.
What we’ve heard from our customers is that while everyone is really longing for the day that we get to go back to a more normal life before COVID that in many ways they are loving the flexibility that this has brought to them. They get to wake up with their children, have a full day of work and then have dinner with their family at the end of the day.
End Of Pandemic Is Not A Threat To Zoom
I really believe that Zoom is now integrated into all aspects of our lives. We look forward to the day that the pandemic is over and we can resume more normal activities and yet I don’t think that in itself is a threat to Zoom. We have grown accustomed to it. We have seen so many additional use cases. If you think about Formula One having these great premium experiences leveraging Zoom now in bringing clients into the paddock.
There is a company in Singapore using it to do virtual tours. They did half of their new properties that came to sale in Q2 they showed them virtually and sold them this way. We are starting to see more and more ways that people are making more efficient and more effective. This way of communicating and working is here to stay.
Zoom CFO Kelly Steckelberg: End Of Pandemic Is Not A Threat To Zoom
“We want to make sure that 70 to 80 percent of the volume for pizzerias is digital., says Slice CEO Ilir Sela. “This is very comparable to Domino’s and Papa John’s and other big chains. We’ve got to lead the digital transformation of these small businesses. We bring technology and marketing and we enable the existing operation of the pizzeria. We make them more efficient and we make these Pizzerias really powerful and valuable.”
Ilir Sela, CEO of Slice, discusses how the Slice app is driving the digital transformation of small pizzerias so that they can compete effectively with the national pizza chains:
Leading Digital Transformation Of Pizzerias
We take a merchant friendly approach because we really believe in the power of small business and the American dream. I am third generation in the pizza industry. My family consists of a ton of entrepreneurs who mostly opened up small business pizzerias. The goal for us was to make sure that as digital becomes an important component of their business that it doesn’t cannibalize the physical location.
So we take a digital-first approach in a way that means we want to make sure that 70 to 80 percent of the volume for these pizzerias is digital. This is very comparable to Domino’s and Papa John’s and other big chains. In order to do that you have to take a long-term view and you’ve got to take a merchant friendly view around loyalty and online ordering. Obviously, in order to do that we’ve got to run the playbook. We’ve got to lead the digital transformation of these small businesses.
All Pizzerias Need To Digitize Their Platforms
We are actually an all-in-one platform where we partner with a small business in order to digitize their operation. We are not a logistics company ourselves. We empower small businesses to have what we call first-party delivery. In a way, that’s been done forever. Small business pizzerias have delivered across the entire country for decades and they’ve made it work incredibly well.
The reality is that in the world of COVID and as we go further into the 2020s, all these pizzerias really need to digitize their platforms in order to become more efficient. What we do is we bring technology and marketing and we enable the existing operation of the pizzeria. We make it more efficient and we make it really powerful and valuable.
Slice CEO Ilir Sela Leading Digital Transformation Of Pizzerias
Microsoft on Monday announced plans to acquire ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Bethesda Softworks, one of the largest, privately-held game developers and publishers in the world. The ZeniMax library includes game franchises such as The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Doom, and Rage, among many others, Under the terms of the agreement, Microsoft will acquire ZeniMax Media for $7.5 billion in cash.
“Gaming is the most expansive category in the entertainment industry, as people everywhere turn to gaming to connect, socialize and play with their friends,” said Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft. “Quality differentiated content is the engine behind the growth and value of Xbox Game Pass—from Minecraft to Flight Simulator. As a proven game developer and publisher, Bethesda has seen success across every category of games, and together, we will further our ambition to empower the more than three billion gamers worldwide.”
“This is an awesome time to be an Xbox fan. In the last 10 days alone, we’ve released details on our two new consoles which go on pre-order tomorrow, launched cloud gaming in Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, and now we’re making another investment in the most critical part of our strategy: the games,” said Phil Spencer, executive vice president, Gaming at Microsoft. “Generations of gamers have been captivated by the renowned franchises in the Bethesda portfolio and will continue to be so for years to come as part of Xbox.”
Bethesda parent company ZeniMax Media was founded in 1999 by Chairman and CEO Robert A. Altman; Bethesda’s structure and leadership will remain in place.
“This is a thrilling day for this company, our employees, and our fans. We have enjoyed a close partnership with Microsoft for decades, and this deal is a natural progression of those years working together,” said Altman. “The big winners today are our fans. We are continuing to develop our slate of AAA games, but now with Microsoft’s scale and entire Game Stack, our games can only get better.”
Today is a special day… We are THRILLED to welcome the talented teams and beloved game franchises of @Bethesda to Team Xbox!
Phil Spencer, head of Xbox at Microsoft, discusses the company’s acquisition of game maker ZeniMax and how this impacts gaming and the Xbox platform:
Adding ZeniMax Games To Xbox Is Incredible
Gamers love great games. The Xbox console is going on preorder tomorrow for the next generation. Just last week we added Game Pass cloud streaming so that people can play this Game Pass library across all of their Android phones. Then obviously Game Pass which is the largest game content subscription out there with 15 million subscribers and growing. So getting to work with ZeniMax to bring their amazing collection of games to GamePass is just an incredible opportunity for us.
Our plan is to leave it alone. ZeniMax has an amazing track record of building great games. Our goal is to make ZeniMax the best ZeniMax they can be. ZeniMax will be working individually with their studios on the great platform technology that we have, getting their creators feedback into the things that we need to go build. That’s just a critical flywheel for us innovating, just the feedback from the world’s best creators on our platform.
Committed To Bringing Game Pass To iPhones
When you get large scale general compute platforms like mobile phones people should have access to the great content and services that are out there. We remain committed to that. There are over 3 billion people who play video games today and many of them play on phones. We’re committed to bringing Game Pass to all mobile phones out there including Apple phones. We will continue to have conversations and I’m sure we will be able to get to some resolution.
Our biggest issue (with the Apple app store) isn’t a financial issue. Our biggest issue is that cloud game streaming apps are actually not allowed in the way that Game Pass is built for other platforms. For us, this is about gamers having great access to the content from the creators they love on the devices they own. Play the games that you want with the community that you want to play with the devices that you have. That’s our goal.
COVID Impacted Game Production
People with sheltering in place and work from home, we’ve seen incredible engagement in the gaming community over the last few months. We’re really proud with the way that gaming has been able to play such a pivotal role for people. Games today are hundreds of people coming together to build these massive games. It’s important that we’re conscious of the safety of our teams. COVID has had an impact on production and you’re seeing that out there.
When you look at this launch and people’s appetite for gaming right now we are very bullish on how are preorders are going to go tomorrow. We have the most powerful console on the market. We have the most affordable console on the market. We’ve got things like Xbox All Access that allow people to join this next generation of gaming for $24.99 a month with no upfront costs. You get a console and Game Pass. In times like this, I think that accessibility of price point and offer is really important.
“The (COVID-19 crisis) has really transformed what used to be a business platform primarily used for enterprises to now be used for all kinds of new consumer and small business use cases,” says Zoom CFO Kelly Steckelberg. “I don’t see everybody going back to the way that it was before. I don’t think that everybody that’s working from home today is going to go back to their office necessarily or that these small business owners are going to stop using it in the way that they’ve had.”
Kelly Steckelberg, Chief Financial Officer of Zoom, discusses how the COVID-19 crisis has transformed Zoom into a consumer platform with a 20-times increase in daily usage:
Zoom Has Transformed Into a Consumer Platform
We are proud that we’ve enabled over 90,000 schools in over 25 countries around the globe to use a Zoom. That along with many other use cases that we didn’t contemplate before this such as grandmother’s using Zoom to read bedtime stories to their grandchildren across the country. We are also seeing small businesses using it now to do tutoring or give yoga lessons. It has really transformed what used to be a business platform primarily used for enterprises to now be used for all kinds of new consumer and small business use cases.
That has caused a 20-times increase in our daily participants from just December through March. Yes, with that has come new opportunities and challenges as well including opportunities to educate and enable our users in a very different way than we needed to before. Coming into this pandemic and seeing the increase in demand we have been very focused on ensuring that the platform is stable and reliable and available for everybody who needs it.
When we had our earnings call on March 4th we did talk about this that we already had started to see the rise in demand. While I’m not confirming guidance today, we did indicate then that we expected to see an increase in our cost of goods sold that would have an impact on our gross margins. That is consistent with what we’ve continued to see.
I Don’t See Everybody Going Back To The Way It Was
In terms of what does this mean going forward and are we trying to convert some of these users, we have a freemium version of our product that many of these new users are using today. We are really focused on ensuring that everybody and anybody who needs Zoom or has a use for it today can get access to it. We really want to focus on minimizing the disruption and communication during this difficult time for everyone.
It’s too early to tell what comes next. Ideally, in a few months, we’re all back to a more normal state. I don’t see everybody going back to the way that it was before. I don’t think that everybody that’s working from home today is going to go back to their office necessarily or that these small business owners are going to stop using it in the way that they’ve had. So we’ll just see what that brings. it’s really too early to tell today.
Zoom Has Transformed Into a Consumer Platform, Says Zoom CFO Kelly Steckelberg
By far, the hardest hit segment of the economy impacted by the forced government closures mandated by various state governor executive orders over the last six months has been restaurants. According to a Yelp COVID Impact Report, 61 percent of restaurants closed during the pandemic will never reopen. Remember, these are businesses that never should have closed in the first place considering that Walmart, Target, Kroger, and hundreds of so-called ‘essential’ businesses remained open.
The obvious question that the media seems oblivious to is if social distancing and preventive measures could be implemented in the busiest of all retail establishments like Walmart, then why on earth couldn’t they have been implemented at restaurants, small businesses, and other chain stores also? In fact, they are being implemented now, months later, which proves that just like Walmart they could have been implemented six months earlier and saved thousands of businesses and jobs.
“The restaurant industry continues to be among the most impacted with an increasing number of closures – totaling 32,109 closures as of August 31, with 19,590 of these business closures indicated to be permanent (61%). Breakfast and brunch restaurants, burger joints, sandwich shops, dessert places and Mexican restaurants are among the types of restaurants with the highest rate of business closures. Foods that work well for delivery and takeout have been able to keep their closure rates lower than others, including pizza places, delis, food trucks, bakeries and coffee shops.
Yelp: Local Economic Impact Report – September 2020
Yelp says that a total of 163, 735 business on Yelp have closed since the pandemic closure mandates and reopening restrictions started. Yelp focuses on restaurants, services businesses, and retail, many of which are locally owned and family-owned establishments. As one would expect, the mandates hurt these businesses very badly. In fact, according to the study, over 60 percent of all businesses that closed will never reopen. That equates to 97,966 businesses closed for good.
The last Yelp Economic Average showed a decreasing number of overall closures, 132,580 in total. As of August 31, 163,735 total U.S. businesses on Yelp have closed since the beginning of the pandemic (observed as March 1), a 23% increase since July 10. In the wake of COVID-19 cases increasing and local restrictions continuing to change in many states we’re seeing both permanent and temporary closures rise across the nation, with 60% of those closed businesses not reopening (97,966 permanently closed).
Yelp: Local Economic Impact Report – September 2020
Yelp: Local Economic Impact Report – September 2020
According to the Yelp report, Hawaii, California, and Nevada have the highest rate of total closures and permanent closures. They are also the three states with the highest unemployment rates. The states with the least business restrictions, West Virginia and the Dakotas, not so coincidentally, also have the lowest closure rates. The cities with the highest number of permanent business closures also tend to be in areas where the government has been the harshest on businesses imposing full closures for the longest periods and only allowing partial reopenings. The top five states with the most businesses closed are Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, and Dallas.
Yelp: Local Economic Impact Report – September 2020
“There are huge benefits to collaboration,” says Proofpoint CEO Gary Steele. “However, I do believe fundamentally that this work from home economy that we’re living in is going to change the face of work. You’re going to see a blend. Security leaders and organizations are going to need to figure out how do you defend people when they are sitting at home working from their couch just doing their job and doing it well?”
New AI/ML Innovations Block Bogus Emails
One of the big investments for us in this people-centric framework is to help organizations protect the data that people create. We’re giving companies more visibility and more controls to ensure that when you’re sitting in front of your couch and working from home that you’re not treating data in a way that’s going to ultimately hurt the company. For those individuals that are doing something malicious, we’re going to help companies find those malicious individuals.
We need to block (bogus emails that are supposedly from a trusted source) so that an individual doesn’t actually receive that message (in the first place). That is an impersonation. That’s how we’re applying new innovations in the AI/ML (artificial intelligence & machine learning) space to be able to identify those very sophisticated attacks and block them so that a poor user is not trying to figure out (if it is really) the CEO that asked me to do something that they shouldn’t do.
Proofpoint CEO Gary Steele: Working From Home Changes Face Of Work
As companies look to save money, thanks to remote workers, Stripe is offering to pay employees $20,000 to relocate.
The coronavirus pandemic has changed how companies operate, with many making remote work a permanent part of their process. For many companies, however, that means they have unused office space costing money.
Stripe is one company trying to address the problem directly. According to CNN Business Stripe is offering employees $20,000 to relocate out of New York and San Francisco, two of the highest priced cities in the country.
The one major caveat, however, is that employees that take advantage of the offer will have to take a 10% pay cut. The arrangement could be a win-win. If a substantial number of employees take the offer, 10% per employee could represent a significant sum of money. Depending on where they opt to move, it may still end up being a bargain for the employees too.
Amazon has entered the super hot podcasting arena, adding podcasts to their Amazon Music platform. All podcasts will, of course, be able to be accessed via Alexa, through its voice-activated Echo speakers, and are free to Amazon Prime members. Check the podcasts out here: Amazon Podcasts
“Our customers’ listening habits are constantly evolving, and we know they’re looking to us to provide them with a rich experience rooted in music and entertainment,” said Steve Boom, VP of Amazon Music. “With this launch, we’re bringing customers even more forms of entertainment to enjoy, while enabling creators to reach new audiences globally, just as we’ve done with music streaming. Podcasts, paired with our recent partnership with Twitch to bring live streaming into the app, makes Amazon Music a premiere destination for creators.”
Popular shows such as Crime Junkie, What A Day, Radiolab, Revisionist History, Planet Money, Ear Hustle, Why Won’t You Date Me? with Nicole Byer, and Stuff You Should Know are available now, and millions of episodes from top shows, with more being added all the time. Amazon Music will also soon be the exclusive home of the music-meets-true-crime podcast, Disgraceland, a show exploring the criminal antics and connections of some of the world’s favorite musicians, from the Rolling Stones to Tupac. Disgraceland’s narrative storytelling highlights tales of getting away with murder and behaving badly, chronicling some of the craziest criminal stories surrounding some of the most interesting and infamous pop stars. Disgraceland will arrive exclusively on Amazon Music in February 2021.
“Partnering with Amazon Music allows me to really give my listeners what they’ve always asked for: more Disgraceland content,” said Jake Brennan, host of Disgraceland and cofounder at Double Elvis Productions. “Through this partnership with Amazon Music, we’re enhancing the future of the show for fans, expanding our output of content by moving to an ‘always on’ weekly schedule, which will translate to more episodes for listeners on a more consistent basis.”
Amazon Music has also partnered with creators to produce original, exclusive podcasts. Coming soon, customers will be able to listen to “The First One,” a new audio experience hosted by one of the most prolific hit makers of the 21st century, DJ Khaled. Developed by Amazon Music and the Springhill Company, in “The First One” the mogul and superstar will interview his all-time favorite artists about the hits that made them iconic and eventually legendary.
“I’m recording my podcast with the greatest musicians of all time, and with some of my best friends who also happen to be the most iconic artists on the planet,” said DJ Khaled. “We’ll talk about fame, fortune, life, and success. These stories are here to motivate you because everybody starts from somewhere, from the ordinary to extraordinary. Before you get to another one, you got to get to ‘The First One,’ only on Amazon Music.”
Also coming to Amazon Music is a brand-new multimedia podcast hosted and curated by superstar Becky G, featuring audio and corresponding video broadcast on Amazon Music’s Twitch Channel. Titled “En la Sala,” every week, you’re invited to join Becky G as she calls on some of the biggest names in music and entertainment, her familia and friends, to discuss Latinx pride, women empowerment, LGBTQ+ rights, relationships, politics and sports, all while unpacking the most important issues facing the Latinx community today. Developed by Amazon Music and Gema Productions, Becky G has also dedicated each episode to a nonprofit organization related to the theme of the week. With a charitable donation attached to each episode to pay it forward to organizations directly impacting the Latinx community in a positive way, Becky sets the standard for her guests and listeners, since En La Sala, you can’t just talk about it – you have to be about it too.
“To me, my voice has always been about more than just singing, it’s using it for the greater good and creating a destination for change,” said Becky G. “In quarantine, with so much time to consider the world around us, it felt like the perfect opportunity to open a new line of communication and pay it forward, and I’m so thankful that Amazon Music and Gema approached me with the opportunity to create this podcast. I’m excited to be joining forces with Amazon Music so we can start to have conversations about looking within to see how we can all be better.”
Broadcasting legend Dan Patrick and IMDb will soon give movie fanatics exclusive interviews with top Hollywood stars in his new show, “That Scene with Dan Patrick.” Produced in collaboration with IMDb, this new podcast will dissect memorable scenes from some of the biggest films and television series. And coming soon to Amazon Music and Audible, is a project from Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith’s Westbrook Audio, a co-production with Audible.
With Amazon Music visual apps on mobile and web, customers will be able to discover new favorites through curated recommendations across top categories, popular podcasts charts, and access to trailers on show pages. Whether listening on mobile, web, or on Echo devices with Alexa, Amazon Music makes it easy for customers to find, start, and continue listening to their favorite podcasts throughout the day. Only with Amazon Music can customers ask for the latest episode of their favorite show on Echo Auto during their morning commute, resume playback on their phone while working out, and seamlessly move to their Echo device when getting home – just by asking Alexa, with no additional sign in or device linking needed.
“We’re thrilled to offer customers a convenient podcast listening experience that fits their lifestyle,” said Kintan Brahmbhatt, Director of Podcasts for Amazon Music. “Never before has listening to podcasts on the move, in the car, or at home been so simple. Our customers will be able to utilize the voice functionality they know and love with music, to now enjoy a superior podcast experience and uncover a brand-new selection of favorites.”
Podcasts are now available to stream on all tiers of Amazon Music at no additional cost, including free access on Echo, web, and in the Amazon Music mobile app.
It was a merger that started out nearly a year ago as a perfect idea and was even approved by the U.S. government. In the end, it turned into a perfect storm because of the ad industry upheaval caused by the coronavirus and subsequent business closures followed by massive unemployment and fewer clicks on ads. Ad prices then dropped dramatically which changed the value proposition for both Outbrain and Taboola.
The world’s two leading companies in the discovery & native advertising industry will remain fierce competitors in what still is a chaotic and unpredictable ad market.
“As part of the process we exchanged financial information with each other,” says Taboola Founder & CEO Adam Singolda in a blog post. “Based on the relative performance of the two companies, we decided the original deal does not make sense anymore. We could choose to pay the same price of 30% in equity + $250M, but our shareholders thought it’s too much for what we would get based on the relative contribution of the two companies. Nothing emotional, not about culture fit, just data.”
“Out of deep respect, we tried to do a deal that was equity only (but less equity), or equity and cash (but less cash) that matched Outbrain’s financial contribution to Taboola. We failed, and we called it off.”
“It is now public news that Outbrain’s planned merger with Taboola is heading to termination in the near future. This isn’t the outcome any of us anticipated for this process. We believed when entering this deal that there is great potential value to be had for our employees, our marketers and publisher partners, and our shareholders. However, this combination apparently was simply not meant to be. We worked hard to mix water and oil, but ultimately the companies proved to be too different to be mixed.”
“During a very stormy year for the Outbrain team, due to both the pandemic and the cloud of the merger, Outbrain’s character as the #1 most trusted partner for the world’s best publishers has shone through very brightly. We’re excited to continue innovating and building the best native advertising products for publishers and marketers as an independent company for many years to come.”
This may or may not worry you depending on your point of view. IBM has deployed a super intelligent face mask surveillance system for businesses (or government) to discreetly track face mask usage by employees, customers, and anyone who enters a building where their system is installed. The platform will send alerts to the powers that be if anyone is either not wearing a face mask properly or not wearing one at all.
Presumably, if the tech savvy eye in the sky notices an infraction it will quickly enable management and their enforcement teams to confront the individuals to rectify their face mask violation. How dare they! It will also monitor in real-time crowd density, social distancing, and elevated body temps of those who are entering an establishment.
IBM Cloud released a video narrated by Ian Smalley (below) that explains how their technology works to enable any business or government to surveil and enforce mask usage:
Here is a really cool way that Edge Computing is being used to help businesses reopen and operate safely. We know face masks can substantially reduce the transmission of aerosol borne viruses. But sometimes people forget to wear them properly or at all. IBM Edge Application Manager places analytical workloads with Edge enabled cameras that can recognize face masks and determine if they are being worn effectively.
Since analysis is being performed at the camera the video data and individual privacy are protected. You also avoid the expense of transmitting, storing, or analyzing that image data any further. Alerts are sent every time the camera detects improperly worn or non-existent face masks. Then it sends the aggregated data back to the IBM Maximo Worker Insights platform allowing you to highlight face mask activity in your facilities.
It’s pretty amazing stuff and that’s only scratching the surface. IBM Application Manager is also using Edge Computing to monitor crowd density, social distancing, and elevated body temps of those who are entering an establishment.
“Let’s talk about a very dangerous event, an event that might in your lifetime happen here on planet earth,” says space scientist and YouTube star Anton Petrov. “I don’t want to scare you too much but this is something you should be familiar with. So let’s talk about this unusual event known as a geomagnetic storm. This event might cause World War 3. Here is why actually it is a very potential threat to our planet.”
Anton Petrov, the host of a popular YouTube channel with nearly 600,000 subscribers and over 142 million video views, tells us in his latest video that we should all be very worried about a massive geomagnetic storm that will definitely happen in our lifetimes:
EMP Will Annihilate Technology In Just A Few Hours
What exactly are these geomagnetic storms and why are they so dangerous? You may have already heard of the so-called Carrington event that happened back in 1859. In a nutshell, it was such a powerful solar storm that even back then when we just started using the Telegraph for a first attempt at long-distance communication the actual paper that was used in the Telegraph was set on fire.
This was an extremely powerful event that if it happened today would most likely have a huge impact on most of the modern technology. It would very likely wipe almost all of the data and destroy a lot of, if not all of, the devices that we have on the planet. They are not EMP protected or are not protected from the electromagnetic pulse. Some of the military technology might survive but most of the civilian technology will probably be completely annihilated within only a few hours.
The Scary Part: CME Events Are Pretty Common
Here is the scary part. There have been a lot of recent studies that decided to focus on trying to estimate how often such events occur. Even though the Carrington event happened about 150 years ago these events could have been a lot more common than we thought. For the past few months, I’ve been collecting a few papers on the subject to see what scientists have discovered in the last year or so.
What exactly are these events and how do they even form? All of this starts on the surface of our Sun. Magnetic lines form on the Sun’s surface and these lines actually have a tendency to then snap. In other words, once in a while, these magnetic loops have a tendency to reconnect and this magnetic reconnection can then lead to a release of a tremendous amount of so-called coronal mass.
Very Powerful CME Barely Missed Earth In 2012
These CME events, or coronal mass ejection events, are pretty common. The Sun is essentially a sphere where they can go in any direction around the solar system. But once in a while, if we’re really unlucky, they will point at just the right direction at where Earth is going to be. In other words, when this CME is headed toward Earth it can, unfortunately, intersect with our planet and then cause a lot of disturbance on the surface.
Interestingly, a few years ago in 2012, a very powerful CME occurred that was headed right at our planet but missed us by just a little bit. The so-called solar storm of 2012 could have been the next Carrington event had it crossed our planet but we got really lucky and it didn’t. It just missed us. Since then scientists have been very active at trying to establish how often these events occur and are trying to come up with some sort of a way of avoiding certain damage that will occur when they do come here. The problem today is that most of our technology is completely unprepared for this and because of our reliance on technology and the lack of these very powerful events we have so far been pretty lucky.
Another very powerful event occurred back in 1989 in my home province of Quebec in Canada. I was too young to remember what exactly happened but according to my parents, it was a pretty serious event with essentially most of the province being completely in the dark because of the geomagnetic storm. It completely wiped the electric grid of the whole province. This event was so powerful that a very large Aurora was visible very far south, even in places like Florida. This very powerful event also had a lot of effect on various satellites. It also affected some of the computers that were already used back then.
CME Event Could Look Like Start Of World War 3
More terrifyingly, this event also caused a very large blackout of communications across the planet. This is actually one of the scariest parts of these geomagnetic storms. A typical CME would ionize our atmosphere so much that you would not be able to have any kind of electromagnetic communication anywhere. The radio communication would cease to operate. It could also lead to the failure of various cooling mechanisms inside nuclear reactors.
This is actually one of the scarier parts. Imagine, you have no communication and all you nuclear technology is failing and satellites are either failing or are completely unresponsive. Well in some sense, this really looks like someone is about to start World War 3. I’m pretty sure that countries like China that are not even used to seeing this would panic completely. With a complete lack of communication and understanding of what’s happening a country might accidentally push that red button and start another world war.
Telecommunications Could Be Wiped Out
The effects of a typical CME don’t even end there. A typical CME would also affect our ozone layer, decreasing it quite dramatically. It would also significantly increase various types of radiation in the upper atmosphere, turning flying or being in space into a very dangerous endeavor. If you are in an airplane, if it doesn’t crash obviously, you might experience a tremendous amount of radiation that you would not experience otherwise.
In the last decade, so much of the technology is essentially interdependent with telecommunication and with space technology. There are a lot more satellites today and a lot more rocket launches happening every year. All of this is in a sense a bubble that’s forming that could be completely wiped overnight by a CME which nobody is prepared for. The computers that we use, smartphones, and very likely all of our bank accounts would most likely not operate for at least a few days, possibly weeks, and possibly be completely wiped entirely.
It’s Going To Happen A Lot Sooner Than You Think
My hope lies in the idea that one day we will realize that it’s going to happen and start making things a little bit more EMP proof. It’s going to happen and possibly a lot sooner than you think. Some of the recent studies including one of the most comprehensive ones in the last few months decided to investigate the frequency of potential CMI’s and find out the average frequency for an extremely powerful storm.
They found a perfect opportunity to study these at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich in England that’s been active for a very very long time with data of up to 150 years. Scientists also looked at another famous and active observatory in Melbourne, Australia that has a similar amount of data available. The most important thing about these two observatories is their location is actually antipodal. What this means is that they are almost exactly on the opposite sides of the earth.
Scientists Expect A “Great Event” To Happen Every 25 Years
By being on two opposite sides, it allows us to study the magnetic effects in a lot more detail and essentially create a very interesting and very accurate magnetic index of our planet. They refer to this as the aa index. By using this index, the scientists behind the paper identified several events in the last 150 years when the magnetic emissions coming from our Sun were a lot higher than they were otherwise. In other words, other potential Carrington like events.
Unfortunately, what they discovered is that we can expect a great event to happen at least once every 25 years. However, a Carrington like event would only happen every 150 years or so. Such a great event would be only a little bit weaker than a typical Carrington like event suggesting that we might still have a few years in reserve before such an event occurs. But here’s the thing, even a great event would be enough to destroy and severely disrupt modern communication.
A Great Event Should Occur In The Next 10 To 15 Years
In the last few years, we’ve been really ignoring the fact that our Sun can be occasionally extremely active. As a matter of fact, in the last decade or so, our Sun basically spoiled us. The magnetic emissions and various solar emissions were so low that we almost forgot that it can even happen. Judging by their predictions, a great event should definitely occur in the next 10 to 15 years which is kind of troubling. Other similar studies confirm the results as well.
There was another study from Japan that discovered a similar finding including identifying several events that we ignored simply because the technology just didn’t exist yet. There were several major events back in 1921 and in 1872 all which were comparable to a Carrington event as well. Interestingly, some of the scientists even started discovering these reports of solar storms from various archaeological evidence and by looking at the written records by advanced civilizations that lived in the past.
Modern Technology Can Be Wiped Out By An EMP
For example, the Assyrian civilization kept a very detailed analysis of everything including the night skies and they’ve had several observations of these very powerful electromagnetic storms that resulted in the Aurora which could only be explained as another CME event. In other words, human civilization has always experienced these events but back then it wasn’t really a big deal. Now it’s a much bigger deal.
A lot of our modern civilization depends on the technology that can be completely wiped by a typical electromagnetic pulse. This is something that we definitely need to take seriously. More studies of our Sun are needed and we need to start thinking about how to protect our technology from a potential coronal mass ejection that could come our way and disrupt our life once and for all.
Need To Prepare – EMP Event Could Happen Anytime
Now today, we have several studies that do focus on trying to analyze the Sun and predict some of these emissions but we’re still not there yet. We need to have more satellites observing the Sun and more studies trying to understand how these CME’s work. Luckily, the Parker Solar Probe that’s slowly coming closer and closer to the Sun is going to provide a tremendous amount of data that will help us with this.
But remember, these events happen really quickly. By the time that it occurs, it’s going to give us almost no time to prepare and to protect our technology. We need to be ready in advance. This, of course, includes creating technology that is ready for these events. It also includes trying to create satellites that will not fail if a CME occurs. Most importantly, modern banks need to have a lot of backup systems in order for all of us not to suddenly become bankrupt overnight.
It’s also very important to just be aware that these events happen if suddenly you find yourself in a complete blackout and not being able to communicate with anyone. CME’s and events like the Carrington event do happen a lot more frequently than we initially thought. Most of the scientists agree that these events will definitely occur in our lifetime, possibly 10 years, maybe 15, but they could happen even sooner.
CME Event Could Look Like Start Of World War 3 Says Anton Petrov
