Tag: Media

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TV advertising didn’t die, it just moved online

The tradition of sitting through a barrage of ads in exchange for being entertained began with radio, flourished with the arrival of television and followed the mass migration online.

As the massive $35 billion in advertising revenue captured by YouTube and Instagram in the last quarter indicated, online advertising around social media, influencers and streamers already represents roughly half of the total amount spent on television advertising at its 2018 peak of $72.4 billion.

Entertainment businesses are under enormous pressure to create new revenue models as linear advertising becomes less relevant to consumers, a potential harbinger for another boom in advertising technology as companies try to keep audiences engaged.

Instagram’s $20 billion advertising haul, first reported by Bloomberg, comes as Alphabet, Google’s parent company, disclosed advertising revenue of $15.1 billion at its YouTube subsidiary for the first time.

Taken together, those figures mean that the market share of advertising commanded by television may shrink to a quarter of all advertising spending sooner than the 2022 prediction from eMarketer, as reported in MarketingLand. While search on Google and Amazon are clear winners — as is Facebook — other technology companies are likely to see a windfall as advertisers chase consumers to new places.

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MSCHF’s latest stunt is to pirate video from Netflix and Hulu and Disney+ and maybe build a brand

It’s very likely that you don’t know MSCHF. It’s also likely that you’ve come across one of their wild ass projects. From “Jesus Shoes” filled with holy water to a collar that lets your dog finally tell you what it thinks about you to IRL loot crates that dare you not to open them — MSCHF has been launching highly viral stunts for the past year or so.

Hell they even got a vanity piece in the Times while they’re still ascendant. Pure magic given how famous the NYT has been at times for its ability to catch viral trends on the down slope.

The latest stunt officially launches tomorrow (today for early adopter fans that subscribed via text). It’s a “pirate video” station called Allthestreams.fm and it’s live now.

The premise is that MSCHF has picked up subscriptions to Hulu, Disney+, Netflix, HBONow, Prime Video and Showtime and it is broadcasting a continuous stream of one random program from each live to anyone who hits the site. At time of publish over 100,000 people are currently watching one of the ‘channels’.

There’s even a pirate radio-esque commercial interstitial that will surprise you if you watch long enough.

If you’re wondering whether this is legal, well, so did I. “We have a standard check with these types of things. Doesn’t mean it’s legal per se, but it means the risk profile is acceptable to us,” says Daniel Greenberg, one of MSCHF’s founding team.

The goal, Greenberg explained in a chat last week, is not to launch a product or company but instead to build a brand that stands for…something. Even MSCHF isn’t quite sure what that will be, though, by design.

Hell even when asked to provide a succinct summary of what the fuck MSCHF actually is, Greenberg pushes back.

“MSCHF is a multi angled mirror. Whenever we release something, people see different reflections of the same thing.”

I can’t actually argue, because even the latest stunt defies definition. MSCHF doesn’t earn anything from it, it’s a free stream. Though they have made money off of previous goods releases like the shoes or boxes, the goal is decidedly not to make money right now and instead to spend a great deal of it.

Though they’re reluctant to talk about it, MSCHF has raised $11.5M in venture led by Laura Chau at Canaan Partners . Money that they seem intent on burning.

The MSCHF plan of attach (yes, attach) is based on a key ideal: that one of the strongest stances any brand could have is “no matter what”.

No matter what they sell, what road they take you down or how weird it is, you’re in. Even if an offering isn’t for you, you’ll be there when it is.

This thinking isn’t super rare these days, though the anarchist viral experiment framework is a new application.

The thought process behind modern brand building is becoming centered around the idea that the audience should come first, providing a reason for the product.

Influencer culture is probably the shorthand people would use the most, but being known for something and then using that to build out a durable direct-to-consumer brand is becoming vital for small creators and entrepreneurs that know that their conduit to their consumer is as fickle as the platforms they sit on. One too many references to reefer or sex and their livelihood could go poof. Not so much if your audience will follow you wherever you go.

A new cluster of slow food brand builders is carving out their own path to this durability.

Even more so as the ad business becomes a media business. Though MSCHF is very decidedly not yet a merchandise brand, it absolutely has marketed and sold merchandise — extremely effectively too.

But that ability to do so came from not trying to build any real business at all. MSCHF is, by Greenberg’s own admission, just spending money to create attention. No more, no less. What sets it apart from any other marketing effort, in my opinion, is the tone-perfect nature of those experiments.

The average MSCHF stunt (that’s what they are, for sure) is funny, hotly traded in a particular vertical or ideally across several verticals — that have high audience counts and a natural tendency to amplify. The biggest hits of the company so far have traded on  the base powers of the internet like pets and profanity — but every one of them has something super interesting going on.

Each idea comes out of a regular weekly meeting that the team has to throw out potential ideas. They’re then picked out and refined over weeks or months and ‘dropped’ in a manner that resembles limited edition streetwear or collectibles. Every ounce of a MSCHF stunt is viral muscle, no fat. And every one of them goes over like crazy on the net.

Even the ideals that surround each experiment are loosely held. The cleverness evident here is that by defining the goals too clearly you lose the ability for people to attach their own personal vibes and therefore get invested.

“Streaming is a mass common denominator,” Greenberg offers by way of reason for this particular drop. “We all use it. We all have feelings on it. We all hate paying more and more for it. Why not now?”

There are some interesting things about this particular experiment that bear some pondering, outside of the stunt-based brand building apparatus that MSCHF has set up. In poking around at it I found myself watching several of the brands ‘hot’ shows that I never actually got around to seeing.

A random button could actually be a nice advertisement for content (Netflix tested a random shuffle feature last year) for any streaming platform, given the well documented issues people have picking something to watch.

There’s also the side-by-side comparison that you get to draw between the plans of attack of the various entities. Disney is BRAND FIRST, Netflix is new money premium content, Showtime is mostly old with a couple really good ones and HBO the grandaddy trying to stay relevant.

For what it’s worth, there’s also an interesting side point here in how they gather zero data on watching behavior other than pure traffic — and given MSCHF’s repertoire, the side point is probably also a point.

But, as with all of MSCHF’s projects, the takeaways may just be the things I’m bringing to the table.

That interchange of ideas is one of the things that sets MSCHF apart from a lot of brands that have manufactured interest in their products. It generates brand loyalty no matter what is being sold — which in turn results in durability.

One guarantee is that whatever MSCHF drops next, a metric ton of people are going to be interested. No matter what.

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Spotify rolls out a more personalized home screen to users worldwide

Spotify has been slowly rolling out a redesigned mobile app in small sections — first with an update to podcast pages, then to other parts of the experience. Today, the company is revamping the most critical part of the Spotify app: the Home screen. Now, when Spotify users launch the app, they’ll notice the new home screen greets them depending on what time of day it is with a “Good Morning,” “Good Afternoon,” or “Good Evening,” for example. But the screen’s content and recommendations will also change with the time time of day, Spotify says, and the content has also been better organized so you more easily jump back in or browse recommendations from the main page.

Before, Spotify’s home screen emphasized your listening history by putting things like your “Recently Played,” “Your Top Podcasts,” and “Your Heavy Rotation” at the top of the page.

Effectively, the update breaks up the app’s home screen into two main parts: familiar content on top and new or recommended content on the bottom half.

Now, the home screen reserves six spots underneath the daily greeting where you can pick back up with things like the podcast you stream every morning, your workout playlist, or the album you’ve been listening to on heavy rotation this week. This content will update as your day progresses to better match your activities and interests, based on prior behavior.

Beneath these six spots, the home page will display other things like your top podcasts, “made for you” playlists, recommendations for new discoveries based on your listening, and more.

The concept for the new home screen is similar to what Pandora recently rolled out with its personalized “For You” tab late last year. Like Spotify, Pandora’s tab also customizes the content displayed based on the time of day, in addition to the day of the week and other predictions it can make about a customer’s mood or potential activity, based on prior listening data.

Pandora’s revamp led to double the number of users engaging with the personalized page, compared with the old Browse experience, it says. Spotify, too, is likely hoping to see a similar bump in usage and engagement as users won’t have to dart around the app as much to find their favorite content or recommendations. That way, they’ll be able to start streaming more quickly after the app is launched, potentially leading to longer sessions and more discovery of new content.

Spotify to date has defined itself by its advanced personalization and recommendation technology, but its app hasn’t always been the easiest to use and navigate — especially in comparison to its top U.S. rival, Apple Music, which favors a simpler and cleaner look-and-feel. Its recent changes have tried to address this problem by making its various parts and pages easier to use.

Spotify says the updated home screen will roll out starting today to all global users with at least 30 days of listening history.

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Original Content podcast: ‘Love is Blind’ adds a touch of reality to a silly premise

Even by the standards of romantic competition reality shows, “Love is Blind” has a doozy of a concept: A group of men and women “date” by talking in pods where they can only hear each other’s voices. In just a little over a week, they’re expected to start proposing marriage to someone who they’ve never seen.

On this week’s episode of the Original Content podcast, we’re joined by TechCrunch marketing director (and reality TV expert) Alexandra Ames to review the just-wrapped first season of the Netflix show. As we explain, the series actually moves beyond its initial high concept pretty quickly — after the first few episodes, the newly-engaged couples leave the pods and to see if their relationships can survive in the real world.

So the show prompted plenty of discussion about relationships and reality TV in general. At the same time, we’re happy to gossip about the most and least interesting couples, and about who left who at the altar.

And we also some thoughts about the choice of Nick and Vanessa Lachey as the hosts. (Hey, at least most of their material appears to have been left on the cutting room floor.)

You can listen in the player below, subscribe using Apple Podcasts or find us in your podcast player of choice. If you like the show, please let us know by leaving a review on Apple. You can also send us feedback directly. (Or suggest shows and movies for us to review!)

And if you’d like to skip ahead, here’s how the episode breaks down:

0:00 Intro
0:59 “Love Is Blind” spoiler-free review
28:12 “Love Is Blind” spoiler discussion

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‘Thinking out loud’ with TechCrunch senior editor Alex Wilhelm

Extra Crunch is now past its first birthday. Over the past year, we’ve learned a lot, made some changes and generally found our groove.

Toward the end of 2019, former TechCrunch writer Alex Wilhelm returned to the publication to help grow Extra Crunch, though he still writes for the main site as well. His daily columns dig into the financial side of the startup world and have resonated deeply with our audience, so I wanted to talk to him about what he’s doing and why more people might want to read his work.

Normally, we’d run a Q&A like this on Extra Crunch, but we’ve removed the paywall so everyone can learn a bit about how we approach our work at TechCrunch so we can better serve our audience of founders, operators, tech fans and investors.

Read on for an unvarnished look at our process, from two of our own. Cheers!

Senior Editor Alex Wilhelm

Chatting with Alex

Walter Thompson: I’d like to introduce you to readers. What is your daily column about?

Alex Wilhelm: I’m always trying to figure out what’s going on and why. And I think that one thing that the news media does traditionally quite well, is to present everyone with a set of facts.

But one thing that the news has always been hesitant to do is tell people why they might care or why things are happening, because they don’t want to lose their journalistic status. I don’t share that perspective. And so my morning column is essentially me thinking out loud about markets, trends and news events that I’m trying to piece together into themes and narratives to help explain the world around me on topics that I find interesting. It’s really just a process of thinking out loud, trying to learn, and put the LEGOs together to make something a bit larger than the parts themselves.

Who should be reading your daily column? Is it just for Silicon Valley insiders?

It’s designed to help people who want to be more on the inside. I’m writing for the people in the world of technology, and the financial world that encompasses startups, to better understand where they work and how their jobs function inside the context of business.

If you work for a startup — you know, seed through late-stage — it probably is something that you might want to read, because you’ll better understand who’s doing well, and business models, where money is going, how exits are happening, what your options might be worth and maybe we’ll talk about the company you work for. So if you’re in that area, I would read it, but if you’re not, it’s probably wildly esoteric and not tailored for you.

Do you think your column could help someone become a better founder, or are you offering more specialized knowledge?

If founders wanted to understand more about the world around them, it is a useful read.

You can certainly build a company with blinders on and just run straight forward. And if everything goes well, you’ll look like a genius. But if you did want to kind of maybe look around a bit more — I cover transportation, fintech and venture trends, and you know, the Chinese market and stock market trades — I try to bring all this stuff in to explain what’s going on. If you wanted a broader view, I hope that my column will help. If it doesn’t, I’m failing.

Any interest in using what you’ve learned writing about startups to found your own company?

I worked for a bunch of startups. I worked for a startup in Chicago during college. Then I also worked for a startup in Portland and I founded a company with some friends called Contenture. TechCrunch covered us back in the day when I was in college, and the dissolution of that startup got me into writing. So I guess I rephrase your question, “am I willing to go back into building companies?” And the answer is no.

I love what I do. And I’m very, very lucky to get to do it. And this is the job that I want. So at least today, no. Maybe down the road as my perspectives, you know, change maybe, but I love writing. I get to write about stuff that I find fascinating.

Use discount code ALEX at checkout to save 25% off the price of an annual or two-year Extra Crunch subscription.

If you’re a founder who’s looking at the novel coronavirus, a possible recession, real uncertainty in public markets and more VCs who are demanding profitability, is this a good time to launch a startup? Or is this a bad time? Or is it just as dodgy as it ever was?

It’s a really good question. I’ve been talking with many people about this, in particular, Elizabeth Yin, who was breaking down the two-tiered founder world — how some people can raise infinite money and some people are kind of starving.

I think it’s a pretty good time to found a company because even if the fundraising market does change and become a bit more stiff and strict, it will be nothing compared to how bad it was in 2008. And nothing as bad as it was 2000 and 2001. So there’s going to be more capital and more risk tolerance. And sure, maybe you won’t be quite as fantastic, but it’ll still be good.

And that means that you have the fuel to build whatever it is that you think is going to change the world if it’s a good idea. I would get out there and go do it. “Good companies are born in bad times” as a theme isn’t wrong. They’re also founded in good times. But if you’ve got a really good idea and a solid team in mind, I don’t think the macro conditions should change the way you think about building a business.

Hustle Fund’s Elizabeth Yin discusses 2020’s fundraising landscape

Is there anything you wanted to add before we wrap up? We’re doing this interview for readers who aren’t already Extra Crunch subscribers. Why do you think they should sign up?

Extra Crunch is a grand experiment, and one that’s been a real pleasure to get to be a small part of. I want to thank everyone who’s come along for the ride so far. And if you haven’t yet, come over to try it.

TechCrunch as an organization is now doing three things at once. We’ve always done news and events. And now we’re doing something a little bit different at the same time. So thank you for everyone who’s taking this up with us. And we’re going to earn everyone else’s support and time as soon as we can.

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Quibi will launch with 50 shows on April 6

Short-form video service Quibi is announcing its full launch lineup today — exactly once month before launch.

True to its name (which stands for “quick bites”), Quibi will focus on short videos that you can watch on your phone. Its content will include “movies in chapters” (longer, scripted stories broken into chapters that are between seven and 10 minutes long), as well as unscripted shows, documentaries and daily hits of news/entertainment/inspiration.

The company, which is led by longtime Hollywood executive Jeffrey Katzenberg and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, says there will be 50 shows live at launch, including:

  • “Most Dangerous Game,” a dystopian action thriller starring Liam Hemsworth and Christoph Waltz
  • “Survive,” a drama starring Sophie Turner about the aftermath of a plane crash, based on a novel by Alex Morel
  • “Chrissy’s Court,” in which Chrissy Teigen presides over small-claims court
  • “Murder House Flip,” in which homeowners try to renovate homes that are infamous for murders committed inside
  • “Thanks a Million,” a reality series where celebrities (including executive producer Jennifer Lopez) give $100,000 to regular people who must them pay it forward
  • “Last Night’s Last Night,” Entertainment Weekly’s daily recap of late-night shows
  • “The Replay by ESPN,” offering daily episodes covering sports news

Quibi says it will release a total of 8,500 episodes across 175 shows in its first year.

Using the company’s “Turnstyle” technology, viewers will be able to switch seamlessly between watching videos in portrait and landscape mode. In fact, some shows are designed specifically to offer different-but-complementary viewing experiences in different viewing modes.

The service will cost $4.99 per month with ads or $7.99 per month without ads. Quibi is also announcing today that it’s offering a 90-day free trial — but you’ll need to sign up on the Quibi website before the official launch on April 6.

Quibi execs Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman explain their big vision

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Pex buys Dubset to build YouTube ContentID for TikTok & more

Social networks are in for a rude copyright awakening. A new European Union law called Article 17 essentially eradicates safe harbor and requires that they’ve made their “best effort” to get licenses from rights holders for all content on their platform. If a user uploads a video with a popular song in the background, tech platforms can’t just take it down if requested. They’ll be liable if they didn’t already try to get permission.

That’s good news for musicians and film producers who are more likely to get paid. But it could hurt influencers and creators whose clips and remixes might be blocked or have their revenue diverted. It will certainly be a huge headache for content sharing sites.

That’s where Pex comes in. The profitable royalty attribution startup founded in 2014 scans social networks and other user generated content sites for rightsholders’ content. Pex then lets them negotiate licensing with the platforms, request a take down, demand attribution, and/or track the consumption statistics. It’s collected a database of over 20 billion audio and video tracks found on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitch, Twitter and more. It’s like an independent YouTube ContentID.

Today that business gets a big boost as Pex is acquiring Dubset, which has spent 10 years tackling the problem of getting remixes and multi-song DJ sets legalized for streaming on services like Spotify to some success. The $11.3 million-funded Dubset does fingerprinting of 45 million tracks from over 50,000 rights holders down to the second so the artists behind the source material get paid.

Pex has come a long way from when CEO Rasty Turek tried build a Shazam for video. “It took me years to figure out how to do it technically, but there was no market for it” he tells me. Turns out that the technology was perfect for spotting illegal usage of copyrighted songs.

Now Pex will gain Dubset’s connections to tons record labels and other rightsholders in what two sources close to the deal says is an acquisition priced between $25 million and $50 million. “There are very few companies in the music business that have successfully licensed as much catalog as Dubset, and the music rights database they’ve built is massive and rare” Pex CEO Rasty Turek tells TechCrunch exclusively before the deal’s formal announcement tomorrow.

Together, they’ll be pushing Pex’s new Attribution Engine that establishes a three-sided marketplace for content. Instead of just working with rightsholders, the fresh tech can plug directly into big platforms and instantly identify copyrighted audio and visual files as short as one second. It can even suss out cover versions of songs via melody matching, as well as compressed, cropped, and modified variations. Creators can also use it to ensure the source material they’re remixing or turning into memes is given proper attribution or a cut of revenue.

The Attribution Engine earns money by facilitating the licenses and payments between platforms, rightsholders, and creators. It’s free to register content with the service as well as for platforms to perform

The Attribution Engine is free for rightsholders to register their content and free for platforms to run identification scans on what’s uploaded to them. using our asset lookup service. The hope is that by creating a simpler path to cooperation and revenue sharing, more rightsholders will make their content accessible for use on social networks or in remixes. It could also grant platforms protection from Article 17 liability since they’ll be able to say that Pex made it best effort to get content usage approval from rights holders.

“Basically every platform in the world that operates in the EU will have to identify all copyrighted content on their platform as it comes in or go back and identify all of it” says Dubset chief strategy office Bob Barbiere. “Dubset was really built to serve at the DJ or content creator level . . . doing it purely for the purposes of mix and remix content. Pex does it in a much bigger way for the platforms.”

For up-and-coming platforms like TikTok competitors Dubsmash or Triller, Pex’s business model is a gift. They don’t have to pay for the ID service until they’re ready to cut licensing deals with rightsholders when Pex adds a fee on top. Trying to build this stuff from scratch could be slow and hugely expensive, given YouTube’s still perfecting its ContentID system eight years in.

Pex will have to manage the careful balance of staying ahead of regulation but not so far that it’s building technology people won’t need for a long time. European Union states have until June 21st 2021 to implement Article 17 with local laws. “We don’t want others to out-innovate us, but we also don’t want to out-innovate ourselves out of existence by being too early and then waiting for the market to catch up to us” Rasty explains.

Image via HelpCloud

The internet needs this kind of infrastructure because we’re still at the beginning of the age of the remix. TikTok has proven how recontextualizing a song or vocal track with new visuals can create chains of jokes and content that go massively viral. The app productizes the Harlem Shake phenomenon, whereby people promote their own takes on a piece of content, drawing attention to the original and all the other versions. But these webs of remixes could be severed if platforms and rightsholders can’t forge licensing agreements.

“I hope that thanks to Pex, 20 years from now people will not have to think about copyright” Turek concludes. “Any content they produce and distribute on the open internet will be automatically attributed to them and generate revenue if they so choose.” That could allow more people to turn their passion for creation into their profession, whether they’re building an app, writing a song, or remixing a song into a meme for an app.

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US threatens to pull big tech’s immunities if child abuse isn’t curbed

The Department of Justice is proposing a set of voluntary principles that take aim at tech giants in an effort to combat online sexual abuse.

The principles are part of a fresh effort by the government to hold the tech companies accountable for the harm and abuse that happens on their platforms, amid the past two years of brewing hostilities between the government and Silicon Valley. But critics also see it as a renewed push to compel tech companies to weaken or undo their “warrant-proof” encryption efforts under the guise of preventing crime and terrorism.

U.S. Attorney General William Barr announced the proposals at the Justice Department on Thursday with international partners from the U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

The principles, built by the five countries and tech leaders — including Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter — aim to incentivize internet companies and social media giants to do more to prevent child sexual abuse on their platforms.

Barr said he hopes that the principles “set new norms” across the tech industry to “make sure there’s no safe space on the internet for offenders to operate.”

The principles come ahead of anticipated bipartisan legislation to Congress — the so-called EARN IT Act, which reports say could effectively force the tech companies’ hands by threatening to pull their legal immunities for what their users post if the companies fail to aggressively clamp down on online child sexual abuse.

Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) announced the legislation shortly after the Justice Department presser ended.

The bill got quick rebuke from Senate colleague, Ron Wyden (D-OR), calling the bill “deeply flawed and counterproductive bill.”

““This bill is a transparent and deeply cynical effort by a few well-connected corporations and the Trump administration to use child sexual abuse to their political advantage, the impact to free speech and the security and privacy of every single American be damned,” said Wyden.

Justice takes aim at big tech’s immunities

Barr warned that the government is “analyzing the impact” of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects tech platforms from legal liability for content created by their users.

Under Barr, the Justice Department has taken a particular interest in dismantling Section 230. Last month, the Justice Department hosted a “workshop” on Section 230, arguing that the immunity it provides interferes with law enforcement and needs to be reexamined.

“We must also recognize the benefits that Section 230 and technology have brought to our society, and ensure that the proposed cure is not worse than the disease,” Barr said last month.

Any change to Section 230, widely regarded as the legal underpinning of all online platforms, could radically alter the landscape of the modern internet and give the government more power to control online speech. Privacy advocates view the government’s interest in wielding Section 230 as a cudgel and existential threat to the internet as we know it.

Last month, Wyden, one of Section 230’s co-authors, condemned the Trump administration’s scrutiny of the law and argued that repealing the law would not be a successful punishment for large tech companies. “… The biggest tech companies have enough lawyers and lobbyists to survive virtually any regulation Congress can concoct,” Wyden wrote. “It’s the start-ups seeking to displace Big Tech that would be hammered by the constant threat of lawsuits.”

Encryption enters the limelight

U.K. Security Minister James Brokenshire lauded the initiative’s existing six tech partners, encouraging the rest of the industry to fall in line. “It’s critical that others follow them by endorsing and acting on these principles.” The minister claimed that plans to encrypt tech platforms are “sending predators back into the darkness” and away from “artificial intelligence advances that can expose them.”

Brokenshire admitted that encryption “remains the elephant in the room.”

But privacy groups remain wary of legislative action, fearing that any law could ultimately force the companies to weaken or break encryption, which government officials have for years claimed helps criminals and sexual predators evade prosecution.

End-to-end encryption has become largely the norm in the past few years since the Edward Snowden revelations into the vast surveillance efforts by the U.S. and its Five Eyes partners.

Apple, Google and Facebook have made encryption standard in its products and services, a frequent frustration for investigators and prosecutors.

But last year, the Five Eyes said it would contemplate forcing the matter of encryption if tech giants wouldn’t acquiesce to the pact’s demands.

The government has called for “responsible encryption,” a backdoor-like system that allows governments to access encrypted communications and devices with a key that only it possesses. But security experts have universally panned the idea, arguing that there is no way to create a “secure backdoor” without it somehow being vulnerable to hackers.

The bill has already received heavy opposition. Facebook said that child safety is a “top priority,” but warned that the EARN IT Act would “roll back encryption, which protects everyone’s safety from hackers and criminals.”

It’s a similar anti-encryption bill to one that Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Richard Burr (R-NC) introduced in 2016, which would have forced tech companies to build backdoors in its systems. The bill failed.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation said the bill would “undermine the law that undergirds free speech on the internet.” Firefox browser maker Mozilla said the bill “creates problems rather than offering a solution.”

“The law enforcement community has made it clear this law is another attempt to weaken the encryption that is the bedrock of digital security,” said Heather West, Mozilla’s head of Americas policy. “Encryption ensures our information — from our sensitive financial and medical details to emails and text messages — is protected.”

“Without it, the world is a far more dangerous place,” said West.

‘Five Eyes’ governments call on tech giants to build encryption backdoors — or else

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Quibi closes on $750 million as its date with destiny approaches

With just over one month to go until its official launch date, the short-form, subscription streaming service, Quibi has closed on $750 million in new financing, according to a report in the company’s private PR Firm The Wall Street Journal.

The company declined to disclose exactly who invested in the new round (which is always a great sign) and didn’t comment on how the new investment would effect the company’s valuation.

Chief Executive Officer Meg Whitman told the Journal that the new financing was made to ensure that the company would have the financial flexibility and runway to build a long-term business, but it’s likely that companies as diverse as Brandless and WeWork said the same thing about their goals when raising capital as well.

According to the story in the WSJ, the company’s new investment contains both existing investors like the Alibaba Group and Hollywood Studios along with WndrCo, the investment firm and holding company launched by Quibi’s co-founder and Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg.

While the company touts its original approach to storytelling, and its list of marquee talent developing series for the app, the emphasis on short-form has been tried before by other companies (notably TechCrunch’s own parent company)… and the results were less than promising.

The idea that people need to consume short-form stories instead of … maybe just hitting the pause button… is interesting as an experiment to see what kinds of narratives or reality show-style entertainment needs to live behind a paywall rather than on YouTube or TikTok.

Perhaps Quibi will win with its slate of reality and narrative shows (which, to be honest, look pretty fun). The big names that Katzenberg and co-founder Meg Whitman promised are certainly on offer in the roster that is helpfully synopsized in a recent Entertainment Weekly article about the company’s programming.

Quibi, unlike some of the streaming services that it’s going to compete with, doesn’t have a back catalog of titles to tap to pad out the service, so it’s coming to market with a whopping 175 shows in its first year with 8,500 episodes, which run no longer than 10 minutes.

When it launches there will be 50 shows on offer from the service. A lot depends on the reception of those shows. While many of the titles seem compelling, there’s only a couple that seem to have the appeal to break through to the audience that Quibi hopes it can reach, and that will be willing to shell out money for its subscriptions.

The service is also hoping to differentiate itself by dropping new episodes daily — rather than weekly releases common on network television or the season-long binges that Netflix encourages.

The app itself seems to be fairly undifferentiated from the services available from other streamers. As we wrote when the company unveiled its service at the Consumer Electronics Show in January.

Much has been made about Quibi’s potential to reimagine TV by taking advantage of mobile technology in new ways, but the app itself looks much like any other streaming service, save for its last app store screenshot showing off its TurnStyle technology.

The app appears to favor a dark theme common to streaming apps, like Netflix and Prime Video, with just four main navigation buttons at the bottom.

The first is a personalized For You page, where you’re presented a feed where you’ll discover new things Quibi thinks you’ll like.

A Search tab will point you toward trending shows and it will allow you to search by show titles, genre or even mood.

The Following tab helps you keep track of your favorite shows and a Downloads tab keeps track of those you’ve made available for offline viewing.

Otherwise, Quibi’s interface is fairly simple. Shows are displayed with big images that you flip through either vertically on your home feed or both horizontally and vertically as you move through the Browse section.

The company does promote its TurnStyle viewing technology in its app store description, though it doesn’t reference the technology by name. Instead, it describes it as a viewing experience that puts you in full control. “No matter how you hold your phone, everything is framed to fit your screen,” it says.

In vertical viewing mode, it also introduces controls that appear on either the left or right side the screen — you choose, based on whether you’re left or right-handed.

Quibi did not formally announce the app was open for pre-order.

The startup, founded by Jeffrey Katzenberg, is backed by more than a billion dollars — including a recently closed $400 million round.

Despite the doubt surrounding its success, Quibi managed to sell out of the initial $150 million in available advertising for the service’s first year.

Whether it’s as big of a hit with potential subscribers as with advertisers remains to be seen. The service could still become the Mike Bloomberg campaign of streaming media — a lot of money and no discernible result.

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Following Disney+’s successful launch, AT&T positions HBO Max as family-friendly

AT&T’s upcoming streaming service, HBO Max, is still on track for a May 2020 launch, said President and CEO John Stankey, speaking today at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom Conference where he provided an update to shareholders. Though the HBO brand tends to be associated with adult fare, like “Game of Thrones,” Stankey positioned the new offering as more family-friendly by saying there would be content for children, tweens, and parents alike.

HBO has tried in the past to market itself to families. In 2015, it announced a deal with Sesame Workshop to stream the next five seasons of the popular preschooler show “Sesame Street” on its network. It later rolled out a “Kids” section on its app to feature Sesame Workshop shows and other kid-friendly titles. And this past fall, HBO Max and Sesame Workshop expanded their partnership with a new deal that brings four more shows and five more seasons of “Sesame Street,” plus annual specials, and its 50-year library to HBO’s new streaming service.

Despite these agreements, HBO isn’t a brand people think of when they want family entertainment. But in the wake of the successful launch of Disney+ — the company knows there’s massive potential in catering not only to the adults paying the bills, but to the whole household.

“It’s going to be a content offer[ing] that will have something for everybody in the household. They’re going to look at it and say, I see myself there,” said Stankey, speaking at the event. “It doesn’t matter whether you are a child in the household, a tween in the household, a mother, a father. You’re going to see something in that offering that wants you to say, I resonate with that and that’s relevant.”

He also noted that a beta version of HBO Max has been in testing with a controlled group. The second beta version was just released with new features, including customer profiles and content downloads.

Today, streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and Disney+ let customers set up profiles for all the users in their household. But while HBO NOW added parental controls and a kids lock feature for mobile, it hasn’t allowed customers to personalize their experience with individual profiles and watchlists. HBO MAX will need this feature if it truly wants to cater to families with children.

The company believes it will have a solid user base for the new service when it launches in May, thanks to its existing customers. HBO NOW customers will be immediately upgraded to HBO MAX, if they subscribe through hbonow.com, for example. Meanwhile, the 10 million AT&T customers who already subscribe to HBO by way of DirecTV, AT&T TV or U-Verse TV will get the service free.

In addition, Stankey said it will be distributed through AT&T channels, including AT&T wireless bundles, and via existing HBO partners, like MVPDs (cable or satellite providers). HBO Max also recently announced a deal with its first vMVPD (virtual multichannel video programming distributor), YouTube TV. Similar deals are in the works, as well, Stankey hinted. But he didn’t offer names.

WarnerMedia had already revealed most of these details, as well as the HBO Max pricing — $14.99/mo — and much of its content slate. The latter consists of 10,000 hours of content at launch, including the HBO library, Warner Bros. film library, and 31 Max Originals series. The service will also be the new streaming home for the 90’s classic “Friends,” as well as “The Big Bang Theory,” for which it paid over $1 billion.