Greetings and happy Friday! We're excited to present today's edition of the Inside Tech newsletter. Let's dive into today's top stories: - User engagement takes a dip for Meta's Threads app.
- Binance, the leading cryptocurrency exchange globally, trims its workforce by more than 1,000 employees.
- Subcontractors who opted to join a Google union were laid off.
- Twitter launches ad revenue-sharing program to pay creators.
Stay tuned for more insightful tech news and updates. Have a fantastic weekend! Beth
p/beth-duckett | |
| 1 | | The news: Meta's Threads app, its competitor to Twitter, has seen a drop in user engagement in recent days, based on data from Sensor Tower and Similarweb. Daily active users and time spent on the platform have taken a fall since the app's astounding launch on July 5. What the numbers say: Despite Threads achieving a record-breaking 100 million sign-ups in five days, its daily active users on Android phones dropped by over 25% from its peak on July 7 to July 10, according to Similarweb. Similarly, Sensor Tower found that Threads experienced a 20% drop in daily active users and a 50% decrease in the time spent per user from July 8 to July 11 and 12. What it means: While the first 72 hours of the Threads launch exceeded everyone's expectations, early data suggests that Threads will face challenges in becoming a regular part of users' social network routine, says Sensor Tower's Anthony Bartolacci. 
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| 2 | | Binance has cut over 1,000 jobs in recent weeks as regulators ramp up their scrutiny of the troubled cryptocurrency exchange. The ongoing layoffs could result in a loss of more than a third of its staff, according to an insider cited by the Wall Street Journal. More: - According to the WSJ, the global layoffs heavily impacted customer-service employees at Binance, the largest crypto exchange by trading volume.
- A spokesperson has since confirmed the job cuts and said the firm is focused on "talent density" as it prepares for the next major bull cycle.
- Prior to the layoffs, Binance employed 8,000 people worldwide.
Zoom out: - Over the past several months, Binance has faced growing regulatory scrutiny globally, including in the U.S., Australia, France, and Belgium.
- Last month, the SEC sued Binance and its co-founder CEO Changpeng Zhao, accusing the exchange of commingling customer funds, misleading investors, and engaging in manipulative trading.
- In recent weeks, several senior executives have left, including chief strategy officer Patrick Hillmann, compliance SVP Steven Christie, and general counsel Hon Ng.
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| 3 | | Twitter has started paying popular creators through its new revenue-sharing program. Twitter aims to draw more content creators to its platform amid growing competition from Meta's Threads app, posing a threat to Twitter's dominance as a microblogging platform. More: - Twitter's program pays content creators a share of the revenue from ads displayed in their reply threads.
- Payouts are determined by tweet impressions.
- To be eligible, users have to subscribe to Twitter Blue, have over 5 million monthly tweet impressions for the past three months, and use Stripe for payment.
- Owner Elon Musk said that the first round of payouts will total $5B and be cumulative from February, when he first announced the program.
The tallies: - One user claims to have already received over $100,000, though that has not been verified.
- According to TechCrunch, writer Brian Krassenstein, with 750,000 followers, claims to have received $24,305 from Twitter.
- Benny Johnson, a political commentator with 1.7 million followers, says he earned $9,546.
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| 4 | | Around 80 out of the 120 subcontractors who recently voted to join the Alphabet Workers Union have been laid off. The employees, who handled content creation for Google projects such as the Help support pages, consider both Google and Accenture to be joint employers. More: - The team, consisting of graphic designers and writers, had announced plans to unionize in early June but received layoff notices weeks later.
- They had agreed to join the Alphabet Workers Union-Communications Workers of America (AWU-CWA) to initiate contract negotiations with Google and Accenture.
- Since they are joint contractors under Accenture, the workers aren't protected under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act.
- The National Labor Relations Board is currently looking into whether the workers should be classified as joint employees of Google and Accenture. Additionally, the board may investigate allegations of retaliation by Google.
Zoom out: | | | |
| 5 | | Emojipedia unveiled a draft list of potential new emojis, including a lime, phoenix bird, broken chain, brown mushroom, and gender-neutral family represented through silhouettes. Once approved, Apple, Samsung, Google, and others will adopt them through software updates in 2023-2024. More: - On Thursday. Emojipedia shared the sample designs that could be part of Unicode's Emoji 15.1 update.
- The update, which will likely be approved in September, features 108 new emojis when accounting for skin tone and gender variants.
- The list also includes directional versions of person emojis.
- It's likely that the emojis will be integrated into Apple's iOS 17.2 or iOS 17.3 in 2024, following the trend of previous updates.
- Apple last released new emojis, including a plain pink heart, a shaking face, a goose, and a hyacinth, through iOS 16.4 this past spring.
Source: Emojipedia | | | |
| 6 | | The FTC has launched an investigation into OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT. The agency is specifically looking at any potential violations of consumer protection laws. More: - The FTC is investigating OpenAI's "risks of harm to consumers, including reputational harm."
- The agency has issued a request for information, seeking records on OpenAI's data handling and privacy practices, AI training methods, and more.
- It also's seeking more information on ChatGPT's "capacity to generate statements about real individuals that are false, misleading, or disparaging."
- OpenAI has also faced regulatory pressure internationally, with Italy's data protection authority temporarily banning ChatGPT earlier this year.
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- The FTC has asked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to temporarily pause Microsoft's closing on its $68.7B acquisition of gaming giant Activision Blizzard. The FTC says its emergency motion is the "next step to continue our fight to preserve competition and protect consumers." The companies have a merger deadline of July 18.
- According to a report from DappRadar, NFT trading volumes worldwide fell to $2.9B in Q2, a 38% decrease from $4.7B in the previous quarter.
- Stability AI introduced Stable Doodle, an AI model that transforms sketches into artistic images. The service is built on the latest Stable Diffusion model.
- Microsoft will swap out its default font, Calibri, in favor of a new sans-serif typeface named Aptos. The font draws inspiration from the minimalistic Swiss typography of the mid-20th century.
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 | AI and technology writer | | Beth is a writer and editor at Inside.com covering artificial intelligence and daily technology news. She has written the Inside AI newsletter since 2019. You can reach her at Beth.Duckett@inside.com. | | This newsletter was edited by Eduardo Garcia | |
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