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  • Amazon to Acquire Podcast Startup Wondery

    Amazon to Acquire Podcast Startup Wondery

    Amazon has announced it is acquiring podcast startup Wondery, with plans to add it to Amazon Music.

    Amazon launched podcasts on its music platform in September 2020 and, like many digital companies, has benefited from the pandemic as people’s habits change. The company is planning on using Wondery to accelerate the growth of its podcast business.

    Amazon Music launched podcasts in September 2020, and together with Wondery, we hope to accelerate the growth and evolution of podcasts by bringing creators, hosts, and immersive experiences to even more listeners across the globe, just as we do with music. This is a pivotal moment to expand the Amazon Music offering beyond music as listener habits evolve.

    Wondery is already known for “Dirty John,” “Dr. Death,” “Business Wars,” and “The Shrink Next Door.” Amazon has assured users that all of Wondery’s podcasts will continue to be available on their platforms of choice.

    When the deal closes, nothing will change for listeners, and they’ll continue to be able to access Wondery podcasts through a variety of providers. With Amazon Music, Wondery will be able to provide even more high-quality, innovative content and continue their mission of bringing a world of entertainment and knowledge to their audiences, wherever they listen.

    Details of the deal were not disclosed, but reports in early December placed the value somewhere between $300 and $400 million. Amazon’s investment in the startup is further evidence of the importance of the podcast industry.

  • App Stores See Massive Sales Over Holidays

    App Stores See Massive Sales Over Holidays

    Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store saw massive gains over the Christmas holiday as people stayed at home.

    As the coronavirus pandemic has hit record levels, health experts urged people to stay at home and cancel their holiday plans. While some refused to do so, many did change their plans. As a result, people looked elsewhere for entertainment and distraction, specifically to app stores.

    According to Sensor Tower’s estimates, people spent a shopping $407.6 million on the App Store and Play Store on Christmas. This represents a 34.5% year-over-year (YoY) growth from 2019.

    The biggest category was games, which grew 27% YoY, representing $295.6 million. Aside from games, Entertainment was the biggest category, with $19.3 million being spent on the App Store and $4.3 million on the Play Store.

    Sensor Tower’s figures are just the last example of the digital transformation currently underway, accelerated by the global pandemic.

  • Coronavirus Relief Package Includes $7 Billion For Broadband

    Coronavirus Relief Package Includes $7 Billion For Broadband

    The upcoming coronavirus relief package Congress has been working on includes $7 billion for broadband at a time when it’s needed most.

    As a result of the pandemic, record numbers of people are working from home, relying on broadband internet more than ever before. Unfortunately, many families are struggling with reduced or lost work, making it hard to pay for the very internet access they need for work, school and socializing.

    According to Senator Ron Wyden, the $7 billion includes $3.2 billion set aside to help keep families connected, via $50 a month broadband fund for anyone who has been laid off or furloughed.

    Broadband connections are essential for Americans seeking to get new jobs, and to access school, health care and other government services. Ensuring working families can stay online will pay massive dividends for kids’ education, helping people find jobs and jump starting the economic recovery next year.

    The provision should help families struggling with staying connected, and will no doubt assist in the ongoing digital transformation.

  • Shipping Scams Up 440% Amid Record Online Shopping

    Shipping Scams Up 440% Amid Record Online Shopping

    Shipping scams are up a whopping 440% as online shopping hits new records amid the pandemic.

    The coronavirus pandemic has changed how people are doing their holiday shopping, with many opting for online outlets rather than in-person options. Never too far behind any trend, scammers are seeing a potential gold mine.

    According to Check Point Software Technologies, a firm specializing in cybersecurity, scammers are trying to trick shoppers into divulging sensitive information. The scammers are impersonating shipping companies, such as Amazon, DHL and Fedex, to get people to lower their guard.

    Unlike classic phishing emails that are designed to lure people into giving personal details, credit card info or bank account credentials, these emails are specifically impersonating shipping vendors with different versions of fake messages reporting a “delivery issue” or “Track your shipment” details.

    All are trying to lure the recipients to submitting details and stealing credentials or financial data. We believe hackers have specifically chosen this vector in November, as they know that large numbers of online shoppers are waiting for their packages to arrive and are more attentive to shipping-related emails while they may be more aware of more traditional e-commerce related fraud and phishing attempts.

    Check Point recommends basic security precautions, such as never giving credentials over email, verifying that any links include the correct domain and not a lookalike, being suspicious of an email that seems overly pushy, as well as any that contain spelling and grammatical errors.

  • States Sue Google For Antitrust Violations

    States Sue Google For Antitrust Violations

    As predicted, a coalition of 10 states have sued Google for alleged monopolistic behavior in digital advertising.

    The DOJ filed a lawsuit against Google in October, accusing the company of abusing its monopoly in the search business. Shortly after, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton warned that state lawsuits would likely follow.

    The first of those lawsuits has now been filed, according to NPR, with 10 states accusing the search giant of similarly abusing its monopoly in online advertising. The states involved are Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas and Utah.

    “These actions harm every person in America,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a video announcing the lawsuit. “If the free market were a baseball game, Google positioned itself as the pitcher, the batter and the umpire.”

    Google has said the claims are “meritless” and vowed to vigorously defend itself in court.

  • Slack CEO: No Intention To Make Slack Free

    Slack CEO: No Intention To Make Slack Free

    “There is definitely no intention to make Slack free,” says Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield. “What we’ve seen in the last little while is the biggest telco in North America is wall-to-wall on Slack. The operator of the largest integrated health care system in the United States is on Slack. The single largest government contractor in the United States is wall-to-wall on Slack.”

    Stewart Butterfield, CEO of Slack, says that both Slack and Salesforce have no intention of making Slack free for enterprises:

    Slack Connect Key To Value Unlock Of Salesforce Deal

    The simple version of the back story is this is a really unique combination. We believe we can accomplish in the next five years what might have taken us 20 years to do otherwise. That’s the heart of it and it’s a pretty big milestone for us. We’re excited. It wasn’t expected by the outside world but we have a lot of momentum now. We came out of this quarter and we announced our results and Salesforce announced their results. Then we announced the acquisition all at the same time.

    A little bit of this got lost but we added 12,000 new paying customers in that quarter. It’s up 140 percent from a year ago. It matches the crazy surge that we saw during the early days of the pandemic. That momentum is coming from product improvements and it’s coming from Slack Connect which allows two organizations to communicate across organizational boundaries. That’s actually going to be key to the value unlock over the next few years. Salesforce is all about CRM. It’s all about customers and Slack Connect is 95 percent customer-vendor relationships.

    Engagement Layer: Everyone Will See It Later

    This (acquisition) is 100% offense. There are some really unique aspects of this particular combination. We weren’t looking to sell the company. I have a great relationship with Brett Taylor, President, and COO of Salesforce. We’ve known each other for a couple of decades at this point. There’s a way in which we see the world that i think very few people see it today but everyone will see it later. One way to say that is to look at the engagement layer. That’s kind of a weird term but it is the place where the conversations are happening, the places where the decisions are being made, as the perfect place to bring together workflows across organizational boundaries.

    Salesforce has a really broad suite. But of course, we have 2,400 apps in the app directory for Slack. We have 700 000 custom integrations that were developed by customers. These are like unique little integrations, some of them very small, just sending notifications into Slack, and some of them are sophisticated workflows that run entire businesses. That’s something that we will see an increasing degree of sophistication in the messaging environment and an increasing degree of work getting done directly where the decisions are made.

    No Intention To Make Slack Free

    When Brett and I were talking we talked about the opportunity for something that’s one plus one equals seven. If you think back to the 90s and Cisco acquiring small hardware startups and then plugging it into their network of 20,000 salespeople and just selling a lot more of that thing. That’s not it. We will do that as well. We obviously have incredible distribution and incredible reach and incredible relationships across all industries and across all geographies. So we’ll sell more Slack.

    Salesforce recently announced their plan to get to $50 billion in revenue and we’ll play an important part in that. We’ll also be an accelerant for the adoption of Salesforce’s core products. There is definitely no intention to make Slack free. What we’ve seen in the last little while is the biggest telco in North America is wall-to-wall on Slack. The operator of the largest integrated health care system in the United States is on Slack. The single largest government contractor in the United States is wall-to-wall on Slack.

    We win in media and technology, kind of famously, but we also win in retail and apparel and industries that people don’t imagine seeing us. We have 142,000 customers right now. There’s going to be a lot of overlap with Salesforce but there’s also going to be 100,000 plus of those customers which are SMBs and kind of outside of Salesforce’s purview so far. We think there’s the opportunity to bring them into the fold and to connect them all together with Slack Connect.

    Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield: No Intention To Make Slack Free
  • RingCentral Takes On Zoom With Free RingCentral Glip Pro

    RingCentral Takes On Zoom With Free RingCentral Glip Pro

    RingCentral has introduced its free Glip Pro, in an effort to take on Zoom and address some of the challenges with digital collaboration.

    As the pandemic forced companies and employees to work remotely and collaborate digitally, “virtual meeting fatigue” has become a real concern. Many studies and surveys have shown that virtual meetings are more taxing for individuals than in-person meetings.

    RingCentral is trying to make a difference with its Glip Pro.

    “We’re excited to announce the launch of RingCentral Glip Pro, a free, unlimited, easy-to-use solution that offers high-quality video and audio conferencing, seamlessly integrated with team messaging, file sharing, contact, task, and calendar management — resulting in a Smart Video Meetings™ experience,” writes RingCentral’s William Lau.

    “Today’s employees work in hybrid environments—any combination of office, home, and anywhere in between. RingCentral Glip is designed to drive collaboration no matter where employees work from.”

    The platform is designed to combine the best of messaging and video calling. Users can start a video call directly from a chat with a single click, making it easier to collaborate across mediums. Glip Pro video meetings provide HD quality, up to 100 attendees and a 24-hour time limit, a major selling point compared to Zoom’s free tier.

  • Internet Companies Launch Initiative In Support of Section 230

    Internet Companies Launch Initiative In Support of Section 230

    Some of the most prominent internet companies have formed the Internet Works coalition to promote Section 230, a key internet law.

    Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act gives companies immunity for content users upload or post on their sites. As a result, companies like Facebook, Twitter and others cannot be held legally liable for an offensive post, picture or the like.

    In recent years Section 230 has come under fire, culminating in President Trump threatening to veto a defense spending bill unless Section 230 is revoked. While President-elect Biden has not weighed in on Section 230 directly, his former top tech advisor has said its time for changes to the law, throwing in question the law’s status even with a change of administration.

    Internet Works, however, is working to help educate lawmakers about the role of the law. Automattic (maker of WordPress), Cloudflare, Dropbox, eBay, Etsy, Glassdoor, GoDaddy, Medium, Nextdoor, Patreon, Pinterest, Reddit, Snap Inc., Tripadvisor, Vimeo and the Wikimedia Foundation are all members of the coalition.

    “These well-known internet companies and nonprofits launched Internet Works to elevate the voice of stakeholders across the digital economy and work with policymakers to preserve the benefits of Section 230, the foundational internet law that enables the United States to lead the world in innovation and robust job growth in the technology sector,” said Josh Ackil, Spokesperson for Internet Works. “Internet Works members rely on CDA 230 to make their platforms safe for users and support free expression. This coalition brings new voices and diverse perspectives to Washington’s current Section 230 debate, which too often focuses on the largest internet platforms.”

    The wide range of companies making up the coalition illustrates the far-reaching impact of Section 230. While many think of social media platforms as the primary beneficiaries of the law, companies like Dropbox also benefit. As a cloud storage provider, should Dropbox be liable for whatever a customer chooses to use that storage for? If Dropbox should be liable, then what measures should they be expected to take to verify the content they host? What privacy protections will customers be able to expect, or not expect, as a result of those measures?

    Whatever happens with Section 230, it’s clear there are significant challenges to addressing the problems of a modern internet.

  • FTC Demands Answers From Big Tech on Privacy

    FTC Demands Answers From Big Tech on Privacy

    The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has issued orders to nine social media and video platforms, inquiring about their data practices.

    Big Tech is under more scrutiny than ever before, and privacy is a big focal point. Data breaches and mishandling of consumer data in recent years has resulted in individuals and officials being more privacy-conscious. As a result, there have been some instances of groundbreaking legislations, such as the EU’s GDPR and California’s CCPA/CPRA.

    It appears the FTC is increasing its own scrutiny of companies’ data practices, with an order to “Amazon.com, Inc., ByteDance Ltd., which operates the short video service TikTok, Discord Inc., Facebook, Inc., Reddit, Inc., Snap Inc., Twitter, Inc., WhatsApp Inc., and YouTube LLC.”

    The FTC is specifically looking to understand how these platforms “collect, use, track, estimate, or derive personal and demographic information.” In addition, the FTC wants to know how these platforms determine which ads and content are shown to users, how they handle user engagement and how children and teens are impacted.

    Some companies, such as Apple, Microsoft and Mozilla, have taken strong stands on privacy. The platforms covered by the FTC’s order, however, have based much of their business on collecting user information. In many cases, there has been a lack of transparency about what data is collected and how it is used.

    Hopefully the FTC’s inquiry is the first step toward stronger data protections for consumers.

  • Twitter Works to Make Advertisers Feel Safe

    Twitter Works to Make Advertisers Feel Safe

    Twitter is taking steps to ensure advertisers feel safe on its platform, a vital step for the company’s long-term growth.

    One of the biggest challenges social media companies face is balancing individuals’ right to express themselves with companies’ efforts to protect their brand. Facebook ran afoul of advertisers in June when the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) found many ads from high-profile companies placed alongside content that would be deemed racist and offensive. As a result, Coca-Cola, The Hershey Company, Levi Strauss & Co, Verizon, Mozilla, Upwork, REI, Patagonia, Ben & Jerry’s, The North Face and Eddie Bauer were just a few of the companies that pulled their advertising from the platform.

    Twitter is working to prevent that kind of scenario, with a new focus on brand safety, according to Business Insider.

    “We want every brand to feel confident advertising on Twitter,” said Sarah Personette, Twitter VP of global client solutions, in an interview. “Brand safety is a critical component to that.”

    The company has committed to audits by the Media Rating Council. Certification by the MRC is considered the gold standard, providing some assurance the platform’s systems are operating without bias. Twitter is also planning to announce third-party partnerships in the coming weeks, aimed at promoting brand safety.

    At a time when Twitter is working to stay relevant amid the onslaught of newer platforms, and is trying to walk the moderation tightrope, this is a critical step for the company’s success.

  • Zoom the Most Downloaded iOS App of 2020

    Zoom the Most Downloaded iOS App of 2020

    Apple has released its yearly report of the most popular apps and, to no one’s surprise, Zoom was the most popular iOS app in 2020.

    Few apps have become synonymous with the pandemic as much as Zoom. As employees went home to work remotely, Zoom quickly rose to become one of the most common choices. It has also enjoyed wide use among schools, colleges and churches, as well as individuals and families looking to socialize virtually.

    As a result, Zoom quickly skyrocketed from 10 million daily users to 300 million. The company has also repeatedly beat analyst estimates for its quarterly earnings.

    Apple’s report is just the latest indication that Zoom is the company to beat among pandemic-fueled communication platforms.

  • New Apple Hardware On December 8?

    New Apple Hardware On December 8?

    Apple has issued an internal memo this week, telling technicians to be ready for AppleCare-related changes next Tuesday.

    MacRumors obtained a copy of the memo from a reliable source. The memo is similar in nature to ones that have gone out before other major hardware releases of late. In the memo, “Apple has advised technicians to prepare for new product SKUs, new/updated product descriptions, and new/updated product pricing.”

    The fact that the memo includes information related to new product SKUs and descriptions would seem to indicate new hardware, and not just an update to the AppleCare service itself.

    There are a number of possibilities, although our money is on additional M1 Macs, or possibly an update to the iPad Pro. Other possibilities include the rumored AirTags, over-ear AirPods or an update to the Apple TV.

  • EU Working On ‘Right to Disconnect’ Legislation For Remote Workers

    EU Working On ‘Right to Disconnect’ Legislation For Remote Workers

    With unprecedented numbers of employees working remotely, the EU is working on legislation that protects workers’ “right to disconnect.”

    As the coronavirus pandemic spread across the globe, employees went home in record numbers to work remotely. While many employees have loved the opportunity and flexibility of working from home, doing so has come with its own challenges. Chief among those challenges has been increased blurring of the lines between home life and work, as well as the expectation employees are always available.

    The EU is looking to address the problem. According to Deutsche Welle, “lawmakers passed a non-binding resolution arguing that individuals have a fundamental ‘right to disconnect.’”

    “After months of teleworking, many workers are now suffering from negative side effects such as isolation, fatigue, depression, burnout, muscular or eye illnesses,” said Alex Agius Saliba, the Maltese politician who pushed the resolution. “The pressure to always be reachable, always available, is mounting, resulting in unpaid overtime and burnout.”

    The next step is for the full chamber to approve the measure. It can then be submitted to the commission and the individual EU member nations for a vote.

    It’s a safe bet this kind of legislation will become more common as remote work becomes the new status quo.

  • Deliveroo CEO: COVID Has Accelerated Food Delivery Adoption by 2 to 3 Years

    Deliveroo CEO: COVID Has Accelerated Food Delivery Adoption by 2 to 3 Years

    While many businesses are struggling as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the food delivery industry is booming.

    Deliveroo is a London-based food delivery service that operates in a number of European and Middle Eastern countries, as well as Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore. According to CNBC, Deliveroo’s Founder and CEO Will Shu told the Web Summit conference how COVID-19 has transformed the industry:

    Our initial analysis suggests that Covid-19 has accelerated consumer adoption of these delivery services by about two to three years.

    That, in turn, as been good for Deliveroo’s business:

    We saw this incredible increase in new customers joining the platform. We also saw our existing customers looking to order more often, also ordering for the family more frequently, we saw average basket sizes increase, and also ordering a wider range of products.

    Shu’s statement is an indication of the deep-seated changes occurring in business, as well as society at large, as a result of the pandemic.

  • AWS Adds EC2 Mac Instances

    AWS Adds EC2 Mac Instances

    AWS has added EC2 Mac instances, providing a new way for developers to harness macOS for their workflows.

    Development for Apple’s devices is more popular than ever. The Mac was already on the rise, ever since Steve Jobs turned the company around, but the iPhone and the iPad led to a record number of developers flocking to Apple. Add in watchOS and tvOS and the opportunities are virtually endless.

    While it’s possible to develop apps using a variety of tools, a Mac is still needed for the final steps of building in Xcode and deploying to the App Store. As a result, AWS’ EC2 Mac Instances provides a viable alternative to investing in expensive hardware.

    “To all the thriving community of millions of developers worldwide building applications on Apple platforms, we at AWS bring you the first ever macOS based compute environments in the public cloud,” writes Harshitha Putta. “Yes, you read that right! You can now run macOS applications on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) while enjoying elasticity, scalability, reliability, security, and cost effectiveness. If you are running workloads in your on-premises data center on Apple platforms, you can now use macOS on AWS to achieve cloud benefits.”

    The AWS announcement represents an excellent opportunity for developers.

  • Microsoft Buys Smash.gg to Boost Xbox

    Microsoft Buys Smash.gg to Boost Xbox

    Microsoft has bought Smash.gg, the site dedicated to building “active esports scenes around the games people love to play.”

    Gaming is becoming an increasingly important part of the tech industry, with recent information showing significant upticks in the amount of time all age groups are playing games. Games are also used for training purposes, therapy and community building.

    Microsoft has been at the forefront of the gaming industry for years, thanks to its Xbox console. The company has been expanding its influence, buying game studios and bringing some of the biggest titles to the Xbox. As a result, buying a company dedicated to esports seems the next logical step.

    Smash.gg posted the announcement on their website:

    Since we started in 2015, our goal has been to build active esports scenes around the games people love to play. Today we’re excited to take the next step in that journey by joining Microsoft to help strengthen our existing relationships and explore new opportunities. Smash.gg will continue as a self-service esports platform available to tournament organizers from all game communities. If you have any questions about existing tournaments please reach out to [email protected].

    Microsoft also confirmed the announcement via their MSN Esports Twitter account:

  • Salesforce Plus Slack Equals a Battle Over the Cloud

    Salesforce Plus Slack Equals a Battle Over the Cloud

    Salesforce announced its much-anticipated acquisition of Slack earlier today, sparking nothing short of a battle over the cloud.

    Salesforce made headlines last week when news broke that it was looking to acquire Slack. Talks progressed rapidly, with the deal announced a few hours ago. In the statement announcing the deal, Stewart Butterfield, Slack’s CEO and Co-Founder, provided a clue about what’s at stake:

    Salesforce started the cloud revolution, and two decades later, we are still tapping into all the possibilities it offers to transform the way we work. The opportunity we see together is massive.

    Despite being responsible for starting the cloud revolution, Salesforce has come under increasing pressure from other companies, most notably Microsoft. The Redmond company has made no bones about its intention to unseat Salesforce as the dominant CRM company. Most recently, Microsoft partnered with C3.ai and Adobe to roll out an AI-based CRM.

    Similarly, Slack has been under increased pressure from Microsoft Teams. Teams doubled Slacks installed user base in November 2019 when it reached 20 million daily users. Its user base has exploded since then, reaching 115 million in October. Much of Teams’ growth has been the result of Microsoft’s bundling it with Office, a practice that prompted Slack to file an antitrust complaint with the EU.

    Butterfield’s comment about “the opportunity we see together is massive” is indicative of just how much both companies need this merger. Since its IPO, Slack has never turned a profit. To make matters worse, Slack has not experienced the same pandemic-fueled boon like Zoom and other cloud platforms. It’s experienced significant growth to be sure, but not to the same degree as competing companies.

    The combination of the two companies will help both fight Microsoft.

    “The core reason for this deal in our opinion is to keep pace with the cloud behemoth in Redmond,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in a note to investors Tuesday, reports CNN. “Slack despite facing stiff competition from Microsoft has been a clearly successful solution set further penetrating enterprises and thus looks like the natural fit for Salesforce to beef up its collaboration and messaging footprint and keep pace with [Microsoft].”

    It remains to be seen if the two companies will be more effective together, but it’s a good start. The combination of the two platforms helps both provide a more complete offering to its customers.

  • Microsoft Teams Offers CarPlay Integration, Improves Calling

    Microsoft Teams Offers CarPlay Integration, Improves Calling

    Microsoft has announced significant improvements to Teams, adding CarPlay integration and improved calling features.

    Microsoft Teams is one of the company’s premier applications, and has been steadily dominating the corporate messaging market. The company is staking so much on Teams, that it sees it as “a platform that transcends operating systems that will be even bigger than Windows.”

    The latest announcement includes a number of significant improvements, including the ability to integrate with Apple’s CarPlay platform.

    CarPlay support: Placing and receiving calls in the car will soon be easier than ever, thanks to CarPlay support for Teams Calling. With CarPlay, you can use your vehicle’s built-in controls to operate Teams, including using Siri to place and answer calls.

    Microsoft is also improving the application’s calling features, helping Teams be a viable replacement for traditional phone options.

    Transfer calls between mobile and desktop: Teams makes it easy to place and receive calls from several different endpoints, including desktop and mobile devices, but sometimes you need to move locations or devices to finish your call. Starting in early 2021, you will be able to shift your calls between your mobile and desktop endpoints with an easy-to-use interface on the Teams app.

    Call merge: Calling users can bring multiple different one to one calls together to combine conversations and simplify multiple conversations. Call merge is now available for both PSTN calls and VoIP calls.

    Teams has long surpassed Slack’s user base, even as Microsoft continues to expand the platform’s ecosystem and abilities. These latest features continue to demonstrate Microsoft’s commitment to the platform and should be welcome improvements for customers.

  • Libra Association Changes Name to Diem Association

    Libra Association Changes Name to Diem Association

    The Libra Association has changed its name to the Diem Association to signal a new phase in its development.

    The Libra Association was initially proposed and created by Facebook. Although there are other companies involved in the association, it is most closely associated with Facebook—a point that has proved a bit of a hinderance to the fledgling platform. Many lawmakers around the world were concerned with the possibility of giving Facebook even more access into people’s financial lives.

    A year ago, these concerns contributed to a number of high-profile members of the association reconsidering their involvement. It also led to the creation of OpenLibra, “an open platform for financial inclusion. Not run by Facebook.” Facebook eventually began considering currency-backed options in an effort to help win regulatory approval.

    Libra has taken the next step by renaming itself to the Diem Association, with the currency being called Diem as well. Latin for “day,” the name change to Diem signals a new day for the cryptocurrency project.

    “The Diem project will provide a simple platform for fintech innovation to thrive and enable consumers and businesses to conduct instantaneous, low-cost, highly secure transactions,” said Stuart Levey, the Diem Association’s CEO. “We are committed to doing so in a way that promotes financial inclusion – expanding access to those who need it most, and simultaneously protecting the integrity of the financial system by deterring and detecting illicit conduct. We are excited to introduce Diem – a new name that signals the project’s growing maturity and independence.”

    The association is moving full speed ahead with its plans to gain regulatory approval, and the name reflects input from those efforts.

    “The evolution of the project results from constructive ongoing engagement with governments, regulators and other key stakeholders,” said Levey

    It remains to be seen if the currency will gain widespread backing and support, although the name change may help give it the boost it needs.

  • Video Gaming Increasing Across All Age Groups

    Video Gaming Increasing Across All Age Groups

    In further evidence of the impact the pandemic is having on everyday life, video gaming has seen a significant uptick across allage groups.

    With more people staying home and avoiding in-person contact, alternative forms of entertainment and socialization have been on the rise. Video gaming, in particular, has become a popular option. Rather than being a solo experience, modern video games often provide a high level of social interaction.

    According to Mat Piscatella, Video Game Industry Analyst, The NPD Group, video games are rising in popularity across age demographics, and specifically among middle-aged and older groups.

    https://twitter.com/MatPiscatella/status/1333452885422587912?s=20

    Interestingly, the biggest jump in video game usage was in the 45 to 54 year-old age group. This impact of the pandemic is sure to open up new opportunities for enterprising companies to better engage with potential customers.

  • Zoom Reports Q3 Results: Beats Estimates Again

    Zoom Reports Q3 Results: Beats Estimates Again

    Zoom has reported its Q3 results, beating estimates on strong demand amid a pandemic-fueled transition to remote work.

    Zoom quickly became a favorite of companies and individuals as the pandemic forced employees to work from home, children to learn remotely and families to socialize virtually. As a result, the company has seen explosive growth, helping it beat analysts estimates yet again.

    The company reported Q3 revenue of $777.2 million, an increase of 367% year-over-year. The number of customers spending more than $100,000 in revenue was up 136% year-over-year. This is an even bigger jump than last quarter, that saw an increase of 112% year-over-year. The number of customers with more than 10 employees reached 433,700, up 485% year-over-year.

    “We remain focused on the communication needs of our customers and communities as they navigate the current environment and adapt to a new world of work from anywhere using Zoom. We aspire to provide the most innovative, secure, reliable, and high-quality communications platform to help people connect, collaborate, build and learn on Zoom,” said Zoom founder and CEO, Eric S. Yuan. “Strong demand and execution led to revenue growth of 367% year-over-year with solid growth in non-GAAP operating income and cash flow in our third fiscal quarter. We expect to strengthen our market position as we finish the fiscal year with an increased total revenue outlook of approximately $2.575 billion to $2.580 billion for fiscal year 2021, or approximately 314% increase year-over-year.”