#72 - Twitter bought, Instagram in "real" and the setbacks of streaming

Hello,

How are you this week?
I'm fully recharged after a few days of break. So I'm back again even if we haven't really left with some very rich news this week.

• 💰Elon Musk buys Twitter
• 😱 Bad week for streaming
• 🤳BeReal: the anti-Instagram that's a hit is French
• 📱 The nice publicity stunt of Backmarket

💰Elon Musk buys Twitter

It's THE tech news of the week (of the month? of the year?). After a soap opera worthy of a TV series, Elon Musk has just bought Twitter for $44 billion.

I'm not going to dwell on the subject here but know that if you want to know more it's a good thing, it's precisely the subject of this week's podcast.

Behind the scenes of the takeover, the crazy recap of the last few weeks and what it can change... We'll tell you everything.

To be found on Thursday morning in your app podcast.

📱 Backmarket's nice publicity stunt

Last April 22 was Earth Day. Each brand made its own little post on social networks but there was one which was more visible than the others: Backmarket, the unicorn of reconditioning.

Based on the principle that a smartphone consumes most of the natural resources during its creation (see this very page funny on their site), buying refurbished products is an ecological act coupled with a source of savings.

And if there is one tech brand whose products are expensive, it’s Apple. So BackMarket had an idea: why not remind customers who are in an Apple Store that there is a cheaper and more environmentally friendly alternative: buying second hand.

Here's how it happened:

The company created a program that mass-sends an Airdrop link to a video encouraging people to buy from Backmarket. She stationed herself at the approach of Apple Stores in Paris, Berlin or London to flood all the demo devices with notifications.

Even if I found it funny in principle, I am a little cautious about the target, namely Apple.

In fact the Cupertino company is one of the most environmentally conscious in its field (see the page of their site and the report which details their progress in the field for 2022 (128 pages of maddening detail).

But hey, it's certainly fair game because we're more likely to buy second hand a product that's basically expensive than a €200 Xiaomi smartphone.

😱 Bad week for streaming

I like to regularly bring you the main streaming news, and this week they're not good for everyone. world.

Netflix takes its first big slap in 10 years of uninterrupted growth: -200,000 subscribers

A trifle in the face of 200 million subscribers but a trend which is anything but to be neglected as the position of the giant is weakened following increasingly fierce competition (we talked about it here). Result: immediate sanction from the stock market with a 35% drop in the stock and the announcement of a version with advertising to lower the price of subscriptions
(speaking of Netflix you have to see this guy who rcreated the logo with pieces of string, it's just crazy).

• CNN launched CNN+ a month ago, a streaming service at $5.99/month which offered exclusive content. Only you won't have the opportunity to test it because Chris Licht, the new CEO of CNN, has just announced his termination. Well, it must be said that the beginnings were rather timid with 150,000 registered for only 10,000 daily active users in recent days. It therefore enters the Guinness Book of streaming services with the shortest lifespan. We must say who would pay to have bad news?

🤳BeReal: the anti-Instagram who is a hit is French

We often criticize - rightly - social networks for their lack of authenticity. The champion in the field is undoubtedly Instagram. We like our photos to be flattering, original, elaborate and we inevitably lose spontaneity.

The best example of this apology for fakery is all these people who take their best pose for the sole purpose of publishing on Instagram (a best of video here)

What if we reset the counters to zero? If you could no longer prepare for hours for your best photo? What if we became spontaneous again?

This is the promise of BeReal: a new app that will offer you once a day to take a double photo (selfie & rear camera). After the notification you have 2 minutes flat to take your photos and publish them. It is of course impossible to choose a photo from your gallery, live is king here. No preparation possible because the notification occurs every day at a different time.

No way to cheat, if you take more than one take, or if you post after the 2 minute window your contacts are notified.

No way to stalk here since you will only be allowed to see your friends' images on the days when you publish an image yourself.

The application is a hit since it has already been downloaded 7 million times and that it is a hit in the US (a rare thing for a French social network application).

BeReal. Your friends for real.

Every day at a different time, everyone is notified simultaneously to capture a photo in 2 minutes.

Kevin Perreau