Here’s Mary Meeker’s essential 2018 Internet Trends report

Want to understand all the most important tech stats and trends? Legendary venture capitalist Mary Meeker has just released the 2018 version of her famous Internet Trends report. It covers everything from mobile to commerce to the competition between tech giants. Check out the full report below, and we’ll add some highlights soon. Then come back for our slide-by-slide analysis of the most important parts of the 294 page report.

• Internet adoption: As of 2018, half the world population, or about 3.6 billion people, will be on the internet. That’s thanks in large part to cheaper Android phones and Wifi becoming more available, though individual services will have a tougher time adding new users as the web hits saturation.
• Mobile usage: While smartphone shipments are flat and internet user growth is slowing, U.S. adults are spending more time online thanks to mobile, clocking 5.9 hours per day in 2017 versus 5.6 hours in 2016.
• Mobile ads: People are shifting their time to mobile faster than ad dollars are following, creating a $7 billion mobile ad opportunity, though platforms are increasingly responsible for providing safe content to host those ads.
• Crypto: Interest in cryptocurrency is exploding as Coinbase’s user count has nearly quadrupled since January 2017
• Voice: Voice technology is at an inflection point due to speech recognition hitting 95% accuracy and the sales explosion for Amazon Echo which went from over 10 million to over 30 million sold in total by the end of 2017.
• Daily usage – Revenue gains for services like Facebook are tightly coupled with daily user growth, showing how profitable it is to become a regular habit.
• Tech investment: We’re at an all-time high for public and private investment in technology, while the top six public R&D + capex spenders are all technology companies.

Mary Meeker, analyst with Morgan Stanley, speaks during the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2010. This year’s conference, which runs through Nov. 17, is titled “Points of Control: The Battle for the Network Economy.” Photographer: Tony Avelar/Bloomberg via Getty Images

• Ecommerce vs Brick & Mortar: Ecommerce growth quickens as now 13% of all retail purchases happen online and parcel shipments are rising swiftly, signaling big opportunities for new shopping apps.
• Amazon: More people start product searches on Amazon than search engines now, but Jeff Bezos still relies on other surfaces like Facebook and YouTube to inspire people to want things.
• Subscription services: They’re seeing massive adoption, with Netflix up 25%, The New York Times up 43%, and Spotify up 48% year-over-year in 2017. A free tier accelerates conversion rates.
• Education: Employees seek retraining and education from YouTube and online courses to keep up with new job requirements and pay off skyrocketing student loan debt.
• Freelancing: Employees crave scheduling and work-from-home flexibility, and internet discovery of freelance work led it to grow 3X faster than total workforce growth. The on-demand workforce grew 23% in 2017 driven by Uber, Airbnb, Etsy, Upwork, and Doordash.
• Transportation: People are buying fewer cars, keeping them longer, and shifting transportation spend to rideshare, which saw rides double in 2017.
• Enterprise: Consumerization of the enterprise through better interfaces is spurring growth for companies like Dropbox and Slack.
• China: Alibaba is expanding beyond China with strong gross merchandise volume, though Amazon still rules in revenue.
• Privacy: China has a big opportunity as users there are much more willing to trade their personal data for product benefits than U.S. users, and China is claiming more spots on the top 20 internet company list while making big investments in AI.
• Immigration: It is critical to a strong economy, as 56% of top U.S. companies were founded by a first- or second-generation immigrant.

TechCrunch – Mary Meeker 2018 Internet Trends Report from Josh Constine

Read Full Article

Google builds its cross-platform multiplayer AR tech into a doodling app

At Google I/O earlier this month, the company announced Cloud Anchors, a tool that shares with the cloud 3D data captured by a user’s smartphone — and can match that data with another user to create a shared AR experience where each person’s phone is seeing the same things in the same places.

Today, Google is rolling out Cloud Anchor functionality to its AR drawing app called Just a Line, which it released a couple of months ago. Just a Line is hardly a breakout hit for Google, but the simplistic app that lets users paint the 3D world with a white line offers a nice testbed for early AR functionality that’s just as experimental.

What will likely differentiate Google’s offering from whatever Apple ends up shipping is that Cloud Anchor is cross-platform. The Just a Line app is available on both Android and iOS, and with today’s update users on both platforms will be able to collaborate and view items in a shared space.

Google wants to bring multiplayer AR to iOS and Android with its new Cloud Anchors tool

What’s generally important about multiplayer AR experiences is making the process simple enough for users to sync their spatial map with another user so they see the same digital objects in the same physical locations. What Google has built seems a bit cumbersome, with each user needing to stand next to each other to pair their environments. It also seems that the functionality is limited to two people at the moment.

Just a Line isn’t the most high-stakes place for Google to be dropping this feature, so there is clearly room for the company to keep updating what they’ve got as they see what early usage looks like.

Read Full Article

Google Expeditions app now offers augmented reality tours

Thanks to Google’s AR tech, you’ll soon be able to throw a skeleton onto your kitchen table and take a guided tour of the bones.

Google is bringing AR tech to its Expeditions app with a new update going live today. Last year, the company introduced its Google Expeditions AR Pioneer Program, which brought the app into classrooms across the country; with this launch the functionality is available to all.

Expeditions will have more than 100 AR tours in addition to the 800 VR tours already available. Examples include experiences that let users explore Leonardo Da Vinci’s inventions and ones that let you interact with the human skeletal system.

You’ll need an ARCore or ARKit-compatible phone in order to take advantage of the feature. A compatible AR/VR educator bundle is also now available from Best Buy.

Read Full Article

Google Fi adds support for the Moto G6, LG’s G7 and V35 phones

Project Fi, Google’s wireless service, is getting support for a number of new phones today. Until now, if you wanted to switch to Fi, the only officially supported phones were Google’s own Pixel and Pixel 2 phones, the Nexus 5X and 6P, as well as the Moto X4 and its Android One variant. Today, Google is adding the Moto G6, as well as LG’s G7 ThinQ and V35 ThinQ phones to this list.

Since Google’s network is a bit different from its competitors, thanks to Fi’s ability to switch between the networks of T-Mobile, Sprint and U.S. Cellular to provide users access to the strongest signal in a given area, the company has always taken a very strict approach as to which phones it officially supported.

If you want to make the switch to Fi, which also recently introduced its own take on its competitors’ flat-rate plans, then the 32GB version of the 5.7-inch Moto G6 is now available for $199 (discounted from $249). The two LG phones will be coming to Fi next month for their standard retail prices of $899 for the V35 and $749 for the G7. While Google isn’t offering any major outright discount for the LG phones, those who pre-order one will get a $50 Fi credit.

It’s worth noting that the V35, LG’s new a 6-inch flagship phone, only launched today and is essentially a G7 with more RAM, a different display and larger battery. The phone was originally rumored to be an AT&T exclusive, but I guess we can put that idea to rest now.

Both the G7 and Moto G6 have generally received favorable reviews. Google also currently offers the Moto X4 for a heavily discounted $249, but that still makes the G6 the most affordable option for Fi. This may create a bit of confusion for potential users, though, as those are quite similar and it’s hard to figure out which one to pick (just like choosing between the G7 and V35). At the same time, though, it’s nice to see Google add more options for its Project Fi customers.

LG adds more AI camera features and a notch for the G7 ThinQ

Read Full Article

xkcd Phone 2000

xkcd Phone 2000

Google Fi adds support for the Moto G6, LG’s G7 and V35 phones

Project Fi, Google’s wireless service, is getting support for a number of new phones today. Until now, if you wanted to switch to Fi, the only officially supported phones were Google’s own Pixel and Pixel 2 phones, the Nexus 5X and 6P, as well as the Moto X4 and its Android One variant. Today, Google is adding the Moto G6, as well as LG’s G7 ThinQ and V35 ThinQ phones to this list.

Since Google’s network is a bit different from its competitors, thanks to Fi’s ability to switch between the networks of T-Mobile, Sprint and U.S. Cellular to provide users access to the strongest signal in a given area, the company has always taken a very strict approach as to which phones it officially supported.

If you want to make the switch to Fi, which also recently introduced its own take on its competitors’ flat-rate plans, then the 32GB version of the 5.7-inch Moto G6 is now available for $199 (discounted from $249). The two LG phones will be coming to Fi next month for their standard retail prices of $899 for the V35 and $749 for the G7. While Google isn’t offering any major outright discount for the LG phones, those who pre-order one will get a $50 Fi credit.

It’s worth noting that the V35, LG’s new a 6-inch flagship phone, only launched today and is essentially a G7 with more RAM, a different display and larger battery. The phone was originally rumored to be an AT&T exclusive, but I guess we can put that idea to rest now.

Both the G7 and Moto G6 have generally received favorable reviews. Google also currently offers the Moto X4 for a heavily discounted $249, but that still makes the G6 the most affordable option for Fi. This may create a bit of confusion for potential users, though, as those are quite similar and it’s hard to figure out which one to pick (just like choosing between the G7 and V35). At the same time, though, it’s nice to see Google add more options for its Project Fi customers.

LG adds more AI camera features and a notch for the G7 ThinQ

Read Full Article

Google Fi adds support for the Moto G6, LG’s G7 and V35 phones

Project Fi, Google’s wireless service, is getting support for a number of new phones today. Until now, if you wanted to switch to Fi, the only officially supported phones were Google’s own Pixel and Pixel 2 phones, the Nexus 5X and 6P, as well as the Moto X4 and its Android One variant. Today, Google is adding the Moto G6, as well as LG’s G7 ThinQ and V35 ThinQ phones to this list.

Since Google’s network is a bit different from its competitors, thanks to Fi’s ability to switch between the networks of T-Mobile, Sprint and U.S. Cellular to provide users access to the strongest signal in a given area, the company has always taken a very strict approach as to which phones it officially supported.

If you want to make the switch to Fi, which also recently introduced its own take on its competitors’ flat-rate plans, then the 32GB version of the 5.7-inch Moto G6 is now available for $199 (discounted from $249). The two LG phones will be coming to Fi next month for their standard retail prices of $899 for the V35 and $749 for the G7. While Google isn’t offering any major outright discount for the LG phones, those who pre-order one will get a $50 Fi credit.

It’s worth noting that the V35, LG’s new a 6-inch flagship phone, only launched today and is essentially a G7 with more RAM, a different display and larger battery. The phone was originally rumored to be an AT&T exclusive, but I guess we can put that idea to rest now.

Both the G7 and Moto G6 have generally received favorable reviews. Google also currently offers the Moto X4 for a heavily discounted $249, but that still makes the G6 the most affordable option for Fi. This may create a bit of confusion for potential users, though, as those are quite similar and it’s hard to figure out which one to pick (just like choosing between the G7 and V35). At the same time, though, it’s nice to see Google add more options for its Project Fi customers.

LG adds more AI camera features and a notch for the G7 ThinQ

Read Full Article

Durable speakers you can buy without overspending

Editor’s note: This post was done in partnership with Wirecutter. When readers choose to buy Wirecutter’s independently chosen editorial picks, Wirecutter and TechCrunch earn affiliate commissions.

There are few scenarios where enjoyable music pumping out of a good speaker is an annoyance. Outdoor gatherings, casual cleaning sessions at home, and parties (big and small) call for entertainment that can be provided through sound.

While speakers and systems are known to be pricey, there are a variety of affordable options that perform exceptionally well. We did some digging and found speakers that are worth buying now—or anytime you need a durable, high-quality speaker.

Computer speakers: Mackie CR3

For listening to music or playing games on your desktop computer, the Mackie CR3 speakers (Amazon) are our top recommendation. The set delivers better sound than you’d expect from computer speakers in this price range. Aside from the decent sound quality, we like the user-friendliness of the Mackie CR3 best. The sturdy speakers have a front AUX input and volume knob for easy access. They can be used with a phone and have acoustic sound pads that minimize transferred vibrations. If Bluetooth is a must, a compatible adapter can enable this set.    

Photo: Kyle Fitzgerald

Portable Bluetooth Speaker: UE Roll 2

Portable Bluetooth speakers are great for taking anywhere. Our top pick, the UE Roll 2, comes with a bungee cord and whether you hang it in the shower or on a tree, it’ll bounce back from a fall. If things get out of hand at your pool party, rest in knowing that it’s waterproof and can be submerged 3 feet underwater for 30 minutes. It has a 60-foot Bluetooth range, and during testing its playback time averaged around 11.5 hours. Its bass is deep and its sound is full enough to entertain intimate or large crowds on a camping trip, picnic, a spot on the beach or at a home get-together.                   

Photo: Kyle Fitzgerald

Portable Bluetooth speaker: EcoXGear GDI-EXBLD810 EcoBoulder+

Some gatherings need a portable Bluetooth speaker that offers bigger sound than an option you can toss around. The EcoXGear GDI-EXBLD810 EcoBoulder+, our “also great” pick, will get the job done at tailgates and large outdoor parties that require high-volume sound. Though its cup holder is made for two, it has a bottle opener on its side to service all of your guests. If they need to use a microphone or speakerphone, it offers these functions, too.

We like its built-in AM/FM radio, long-lasting battery life, waterproof and dust-proof design, and price, which is considerably lower than competitor models. The EcoBoulder+ is large, but it has wheels and a retractable handle that make moving it less of a hassle.                     

Photo: Kyle Fitzgerald

Budget soundbar: Vizio SB3651-E6

A starter home theater setup doesn’t have to be packed with speakers, and it doesn’t have to be super expensive. The basic, affordable route to getting high-quality sound for listening to music and watching TV or movies is to invest in a good soundbar. Our top pick for budget soundbars with sub, the Vizio SB3651-E6, offers the best combination of value, connectivity and performance.

It doesn’t support HDMI 2.0 for external 4K sources, but you can connect video sources (game consoles, Blu-ray players, etc.) to your TV and run an optical or coax cable to the soundbar as a workaround. Its stereo mode will give your setup noticeable surround sound that makes watching movies and TV better. You can also stream music from your phone over Bluetooth, or by using Google Chromecast.

Wireless multiroom speaker systems: Sonos One

Wireless multiroom speaker systems are great for anyone who wants to build out and link a home sound system. If you’re looking for an entry point to the Sonos system, the Sonos One is one of our top recommendations. It’s a newer smart speaker with multiroom functionality, which means you’ll be able to group it with other speakers, or play and control them independently.

While the Sonos One is in the process of being updated to stand as a voice-controlled speaker that works with Apple AirPlay 2, Google Assistant, and Amazon’s Alexa—for now, it’s only Alexa-enabled. Still, we think it’s a great multiroom speaker addition for most homes. The Sonos One sounds impressive on its own, but when you’re ready to add deep bass, a bookshelf speaker, a soundbar or another Sonos One, this pick will pair seamlessly.

This guide may have been updated by Wirecutter.

Note from Wirecutter: When readers choose to buy our independently chosen editorial picks, we may earn affiliate commissions that support our work.

 

 

Read Full Article

Plex adds support for podcasts, debuts personalized mobile apps

At CES in January, TechCrunch broke the news that media software maker Plex was planning to expand its service with the addition of new media content, starting with podcasts. Today, it’s making good on that promise by launching support for podcasts into beta, along with a whole new look and more customization options for its Plex mobile apps.

While Plex got its start as a software application for organizing people’s home media collections, it’s been expanding over the past couple of years to add new features in support of cord cutters who want to watch TV via their antenna, and record those shows. It also acquired the streaming news startup Watchup in order to add a dedicated news hub within its app.

Earlier this year, the company spoke of its ambitions to continue adding more types of content to its media center software, including audio and video podcasts, followed by digital, web-first and other longer-form creator content. (It had originally expected to add podcasts in Q1 2018, so this nearly-June launch is a bit of a delay.)

The larger goal, on Plex’s part, is to organize all your media content in one place – from live and recorded TV to your personal media collections of music, photos, and videos, and your news and information – including, now, your favorite podcasts.

The feature, live today in beta, is available on the Plex web platform, Roku, and iOS and Android, with other device support coming soon.

You can browse and search across Plex’s podcast library, filter podcasts by categories, or click into a title to see the details, episode lists, and related podcasts. To follow that podcast, you click the “Add to My Podcasts” button. This will add the podcast to your “On Deck” dashboard, as well.

If the podcast you like isn’t in the Plex catalog, you can add it by entering the feed URL, and Plex will treat it as if it is – it will retrieve all its metadata, related podcasts, and make it searchable. (That’s useful because Plex’s catalog isn’t as robust as others at launch.)

The feature also includes the standard media controls you’d expect, like forward and back and support for variable speed playback, as well as a “mark as played” option, all available through Plex’s upgraded media player. That option can help you transition to Plex’s podcast platform from another app, as you won’t have to lose your place, in terms of what you’ve listened to, and what you’ve not. And it lets you continually mark off any episodes you may have caught elsewhere, or just otherwise want to skip.

Your listening progress is also synced across Plex’s suite of apps.

The feature wasn’t perfect in brief testing, but it was in a pre-launch state, and today it’s only arriving in beta – so it’s too soon to speak to how well it performs as a publicly-facing product.

In a few weeks, Plex will roll out a handful of other features for podcasts, including smart downloading with granular controls for managing the episodes you want to keep on a per show basis (e.g. keep the last three); additional metadata for richer show pages and better discovery options; and podcasts import and export (OPML) so you can move your current subscriptions more easily into Plex.

Along with the launch of podcasts, Plex is updating its mobile apps, too, to offer better customization options.

Now, if you want to listen to your podcasts and news while you’re on the go, on mobile, you can configure the app to show that media on your home screen. Or, if you use the app more for casting your videos to your living room TV, you could bring those favorite shows to the front of the experience instead. And so on.

On this new, customizable home screen you can re-order you content, remove any of its sections (like “Recently Added” or “On Deck,”), or add new ones from elsewhere in the app, including across servers (like Plex Cloud or your local server such as your home PC.)

Plex has also added tabs at the bottom of the screen for switching between your media type (e.g. movies, TV, podcasts, etc.), which are fully customizable, too. You can even customize the default source for each media type.

[gallery ids="1647814,1647815,1647813,1647812,1647811,1647806,1647805,1647803,1647802,1647799,1647795"]

The addition of podcasts to this more personalized media experience makes sense not only because of how popular podcasts have become, but also because many are tied to the shows you watch – they’re creator commentaries, roundtable discussions, fan chats, critic reviews, and more. It’s easy to imagine, then, moving from watching a show on the TV then heading out and launching the Plex app to listen to the podcast discussing the last episode.

That’s the vision Plex has, at least. However, even with these additions, Plex’s software overall still caters more to the DIY crowd – those who want set up their own antenna, rather than pay for an online TV service like YouTube TV or Sling. And it hasn’t yet solved the problem of media that’s all over the place – favorite shows and movies are strewn across services like Netflix, Hulu, HBO, and Amazon, and it’s hard to know where the things you want to watch reside. Those are still challenges Plex could attack in the future, by becoming a hub that jumps you into streaming catalogs, too.

It’s unclear how well Plex’s expansions have been working to attract new users and paying subscribers.

The company doesn’t break out the latter figure. and it still claims today the same 15 million registered users it had at the beginning of the year. Becoming a podcast player could help bump that number up, though, and introduce more people to Plex’s software, as a result.

Podcasts are in beta on web, mobile and Roku, and the mobile apps are rolling out starting today.

Read Full Article

GIF lord Imgur caves to video to hasten profitability

Imgur is the internet’s best time sink, where 250 million monthly users silently consume an endless community-curated collection of absurd GIFs, inspiring tales, pop science explainers, and giant meme dumps. But what it’s never had is video. That was a differentiator that made it ideal for quiet browsing in class, on public transit, or in bed. Since none of the content required audio, you never had to worry about grabbing your headphones or disturbing those around you.

But the lack of video was also holding Imgur back. Sometimes you need to hear a crazy cat meow, or a baby giggling, or a crappy robot explode. So users would have to hunt down the “sauce” aka the GIF’s source video on another site. Oh, and advertisers love video and will pay a boatload more for it than a silent GIF or static image.

And so, Imgur is evolving with the launch of video. You can check them out, including this ream of popular GIFs reunited with their soundtracks, on the Imgur Unmuted channel.

The shift comes at a pivotal moment for the company. Launched in 2009, founder Alan Schaaf bootstrapped the startup to 130 million monthly visitors over the course of five years before finally taking a $40 million Series A from Andreessen Horowitz in 2014. Two years later it augmented its flimsy banner ads with full-screen promoted posts while trying not to damage the irreverent nature of the app.

Imgur’s Chief Operating Officer Roy Seghal, its Sheryl Sandberg, tells me that as of recently “we were cash flow positive” before revealing “We expect to be profitable this year.”

Video could push Imgur to that milestone. The more organic video posts from users, the easier it will be for Imgur to slide in lucrative video ads. Facebook printed money with the same strategy, rolling out auto-play video in 2014 to pave the way for video ads that command high prices from businesses. Imgur recently began allowing video ads, but they stuck out, seeming to violate the app’s code of silence. Now Imgur is training its users to tolerate or even embrace audio and video.

Next Comes Video Editing

Starting today, everyone can watch videos on Imgur, while iOS users can post video, with that opening to more people soon. Wisely, sound is off by default so you won’t get accidentally blasted, and technically you could just pretend they’re GIFs if you don’t click the audio button in the bottom right. They’re also limited to 30 seconds, so you won’t have lengthy YouTube reposts or as many copyright concerns, and they can be trimmed in the uploader.

“We’ve been making the transformation from an image community to a community-powered entertainment platform” says Seghal. Video could keep Imgur’s legion of users growing, and make sure they can experience today’s hottest content in whatever format it’s made for.

“We realized there was a vector of content we were not supporting that we thought our users would want” Seghal notes. The launch comes following the addition of much-requested Favorites folders and chat, and the Snapchat Stories-esque Snacks GIFs that no one asked for.

But video will bring a new sense of FOMO to those watching discretely. They’ll either have to swipe past the videos or miss the aural dimension. That could splinter Imgurians, who are otherwise united by a homescreen that shows identical top-rated content to everyone, unlike the fractured and personalized landing pages of most social networks. Some of Imgur’s funniest content relies on inside jokes powered by everyone having the right prerequisite knowledge from seeing the same things.

“They are definitely surprised” says Seghal, but he claims “the reaction has been very positive.” That’s not exactly clear from reading the Imgur Most Viral homepage, which just got a desktop redesign with bigger previews and easy access to popular tags you can explore. GIFs and still images still dominate and I’ve hardly seen any videos.

That could change as Imgur plans on equipping users with new editing tools to help them turn generic clips into weird and wacky stuff people love to upvote. Imgur’s existing Video-To-GIF creation tool has been a hit. Hopefully future editing tools will let people add custom subtitles, stickers, interjected titling screens, and more. Those will be crucial to keep video from making Imgur generic.

Alan Schaaf, founder of Imgur, and his sister/community director Sarah Schaaf, speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt

The pivot to video may be inevitable for all online content. Combined with every app from Instagram to Netflix to Airbnb adopting Snapchat’s Stories, there’s an unsettling convergence going on. Video may be the most vivid and emotive medium. Yet we’ll lose something if there’s a social network singularity where they all have the same features.

Imgur is looking to become a business that’s palatable to a mass audience with video. But it must take care not to forfeit esoteric absurdity that’s made it a vacation from the overwhelming news and envy spiraling of other feeds.

Read Full Article