Business related notes.
… and that’s this year only so far. CBS reports the previous years record has already been broken in October this year. The source for this information is blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis.
About $718 million in digital assets were taken in October alone, according to blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis.
Source: Hackers have stolen record $3 billion in cryptocurrency this year – CBS News
Apple’s CEO has doubt about the ‘metaverse’ – The Verge reports Tim Cook wouldn’t believe individuals couldn’t make up the ‘metaverse’. On #Labstalk we already debated the future of hardware will define the future of this mythical space. Tim Cook apparently concludes most people wouldn’t be able to spend time in the virtual world. Meanwhile, the corporate, The Verge supports the market rumours about upcoming AR and VR gear.
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It’s still reportedly developing AR and VR hardware.
Source: Tim Cook is latest CEO to question the ‘metaverse’ – The Verge
The same time, Germany’s #1 Internet explainer Sasha Lobo believes in the future of the metaverse.
Players will continue to have access to their games library until January 18th 2023, less than half a year from today, reports Engadget.
The cloud gaming service was only launched 3 years ago, with many ambitions. Google started it’s efforts with an own game studio. However, the entire service fell back behind the attached expectations and was never considered successful. The game studio already shut down last year, making this move no surprising consequence.
What is remarkable is the almost prophetic accuracy of http://stadiacountdown.com, a single purpose website built and launched by Jason Scott.
The tweet dates back to November 2019, the day before Stadia actually launched, predicting a lifespan of 4 years for Stadia. As of today, the counter has 412 more days for Stadia to go. Google will kill the product earlier than that.
One thing noteworthy here is that Google products are already notorious for being very mortal. The above is based on Google Cemetery calculates average days for the life expectancy of any life and future product and came up with the ~4 years for the Stadia countdown. While this is kind of normal and necessary in the B2C market, the reputation the company builds is dangerous for its enterprise ambition.
It’s been more than four years since I read a stat put out by Aspect that prompted me to write about this very subject, the choice of cleaning a toilet or contacting customer support.
Quote from Article
We all know the feeling. Shep Hyken, contributer to Forbes Magazine, did a survey among a thousand customers/consumers. The survey apparently was not too diplomatic on the wording and used the exact question. The quota of people who’d rather clean a toilet is a really bad report on the quality of customer report.
Luckily, Shep does not leave customers to clean toilets, but offers 10 ideas that are guiding towards improved customer service.
Source: 42% Would Rather Clean A Toilet Than Call Customer Support
Mobility is an increasingly complex matter to society.
Supermarktkette Kaufland hat in einer Pressemitteilung bekanntgegeben, über die Point-of-Interest-Suche in Auto-Navigationssystemen Werbehinweise einblenden zu wollen. Das Vorhaben wird zusammen mit SAP.iO Alumni 4.Screen realisiert.
Source: Pressemitteilung | Kaufland
A “Dream Job”, writes Reuters. The report has it the man actually charges for doing nothing, making it a real job.
Shoji Morimoto has what some would see as a dream job: he gets paid to do pretty much nothing.
From the article
The service comes at ￥10.000, about 70€, per hour and gives the client the company, or existence of Shoji. While at first glance this is a superfluid job, it wouldn’t fit any of David Graebers categories for bullshit jobs. Being booked for being around and do nothing wouldn’t be a „Flunkie“, a „Goons“, a „Duct Taper“, a „Box Tickers“ or a „Taskmasters“.
For many, a dream job has to come with purpose. Doing nothing may be different from having nothing to do. Being paid for what you want to do may indeed be a form of a dreamjob. For some.
Source: Dream job: the Japanese man who gets paid to do nothing | Reuters
The 9-Euro Ticket was considered experimental in first place. And still deemed to become a huge success in Germany. At the price-point, the ticket was unbeatable and created lots of debates about the future of mobility in the country. First research showed accessible public transport can lay grounds for a modal shift in the population. After many controversies, even the liberal forces in the government acknowledged the need for affordable transportation.
The Technical University of Munich now conducted a survey. Results conclude that just about 50 Euro would be affordable / acceptable for the majority of possible audience.
The experimental “9 Euro Ticket” general transit pass has run its course and the calls for a successor pass are growing. A study conducted by the Technical University of Munich (TUM) accompanied more than 2000 people during the 9 Euro Ticket trial period, interviewing them on a regular basis. In addition to questions on mobility behavior, information on the price which the participants were willing to pay for a follow-up pass also played an important role.
Technical University of Munich (TUM) conducted a mobility study.
Being from the Metropolregion myself, this comes not at a surprise. The city ticket here alone comes in at about 70€ a month, and to reach TUM alone, the monthly ticket will set you back by roughly 100€. At 50€, the ticket therefore still will be a bargain for anybody. Whether it creates the same effects the 9€ ticket created is questionable. For those that have a car, it’s likely still to complex.
After all, the debate continues and how mobility needs more diversified products. At the same time, simplification to many is the key to solve the problem.
Source: A little over 50 euros acceptable for 9 Euro Ticket successor – TUM
Jay Leno visited SpaceX to interview Elon Musk. The quick trailer on Jay Lenos Twitter channel shows them debating Raptor Engines, used in SpaceX’s rockets. In the converation, Elon Musk takes a hot take on patents. He claims the company ain’t using the mechanism, that won’t help progressing anywhere. His take is patents are meant to keep others from progressing along. My bubble will appreciate.
On Monday Apple opened this years World Wide Developer Conference, WWDC for short.
The entire keynote felt encroaching to me, but I failed to grab the feeling while the show was on. Only after I got through notes it became clear to me how many business areas Apple is attacking on their own territory.
“Buy Now Pay Later” is entering the increasingly prominent fintech market that make companies like Klarna big: Apple introduces Apple Pay Later, that will allow consumers to split payments into 4 installments over the course of 6 weeks. The consumer payment feature comes at not investment into UI or development, it will work out of the box.
Collaboration has been a huge topic throughout the keynote. Apple Freeform was announced, just like improved capabilities for collaboration in Keynote, Pages and Numbers, all integrated through iMessages. While the eyecatching moment with Freeform obviously created associations with popular tools like Miro and Mural. Digital whiteboard software integrated with all other Apple services, on the device, has huge potential to grab some already distributed marked. An underlying strategy for all these announcements may very well be the much larger enterprise market, that traditionally is dominated by Microsoft, that even Google has a hard time to get a hold of.
Apple Passkeys, apparently keychain thought through, will allow users to get rid of passwords and end passwords for authentication. Signing in to websites will be as easy as using Touch- or FaceID, not requiring a password. A promisse that products like LastPass or 1Password gave for the past years.
Probably the biggest announcement was CarPlay. Throughout the Keynote it didn’t get the attention that it probably should have got. CarPlay has huge potential to marginalize large industries. After its first of the concept announcement in 2014 it quickly became clear even premium cars had potential to become minor partners in the relationship. A trend that car manufacturers are trying to mitigate and create software organizations ever since. With no breakthrough success so far. Only recently Germany’s Volkswagen daughter Cariad has been in the news for failing to deliver a solid product and executing on their goals. What Apple presents through out their WWDC keynote is only a concept at the time. Still, there no little doubt on Apple’s ability to execute on this concept and with that creating an even bigger competitive advantage. All of this without mentioning that rumors for an Apple car persist.
Apple is executing on a strategy to controlling digital life end to end, and it’s taking no prisoners along its path.
Customer Experience will continue to drive Apples success.