5 trending tech news with lessons for your business – November 2017
Google announces and releases new Pixel 2 phones and more!
Just after Apple’s big presentation event, Google also organized a conference in San Francisco where the corporation revealed a whole set of new devices.
The list of goodies announced includes two second-generation Pixel smartphones, a Pixelbook laptop, Clips wearable smart camera, new wireless Pixel Buds headphones, Google Home Minis and a brand new HomePod competitor, the Max.
A great event indeed. Both Pixels 2 are already on sale, so if you’re into stock Android – that’s the choice for you.
A lesson for business:
When both Google and Apple adopt the same product promotion model, it’s worth taking notes: warm up the hype by keeping everything secret, and then boom! Your products come in fireworks, shut up and take my money.
Facebook, Twitter, and fake news from Russia
Despite the fact, that the presidential elections in the US took part a year ago, the discussions around the fake sponsored Facebook news from Russia to keep going all over the Internet.
Several days ago Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg said that If the Russian-bought election interference ads hadn’t been bought by fraudulent accounts, “Most of them would be allowed to run”. “The responsibility of an open platform is to allow people to express themselves,” she stated during one of the interviews this month.
This approach, of course, presents Facebook as a politically neutral company and absolves it from playing the censor role. But at the same time in the wake of political confrontation, Facebook becomes an incredibly huge platform for misinformation.
In a related story this month, Twitter banned Russian media agencies Russia Today and Sputnik from advertising on its service after it found that both had “attempted to interfere with the election on behalf of the Russian government” with the help of the social network.
“We see this as another aggressive step aimed at blocking the activities of Russian TV channel Russia Today and it is the result of pressure from the part of the American establishment and special services,” wrote the Director of the Information and Press Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Maria Zakharova.
A lesson for business:
Try to keep your business away from politics and religion, you are here to unite people, not to divide them. And if the clash with controversial opinions is already inevitable, try your best to moderate it or phase it out for good.
Lyft raises $1 billion at $11 billion valuation
Lyft has raised a new $1 billion funding round, which puts its total valuation at $11 billion. The leader of the round was CapitalG, Alphabet’s investment fund, and CapitalG partner David Lawee will join Lyft’s board as part of the transaction.
A lesson for business:
When your main competitor (Uber, in this case), experiences troubles, it’s time to accumulate as many resources as possible and start making decisive steps to become the leader.
More achievements of Elon Musk’s projects
Seriously, we don’t do this on purpose. It just seems like nothing surrounding Elon Musk can now miss monthly tech news digests. Especially the ones with lessons for business. Let’s get to the news, then.
Hyperloop One has gained a large investment from Virgin Group. The official numbers haven’t been revealed yet, but it was definitely enough for a multinational startup to change its official name. Virgin Hyperloop One is now the project’s official brand for the future.
Parallel to that, Musk’s another project, Tesla, can reportedly provide Puerto Rico with power infrastructure that could be used to generate and store power reserves when the existing facilities aren’t available, just like it happened after the United States faced the aftermath of hurricane Maria.
Now, Tesla is showing that it’s delivering on its promise of help, with significant advancements being made on a solar generation/storage facility on the island.
A lesson for business:
Social responsibility is great for your business not only because it’s a good deed for humanity, but also because when your brand makes the news, this news needs to be success stories rather than scandals and troubles. Right, Uber and Yahoo?
A busy month for tech stocks once again
It’s the time of the year when many tech giants report their earnings. So did, for instance, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, and Twitter a couple of weeks ago.
Ahead of its earnings report, Microsoft stock hit record highs. Amazon shares passed $1,000 after the company has beaten pessimistic expectations, and Alphabet showed growth in a critical corporate KPI that has seen a steady decline for a while: Google’s cost-per-click.
A lesson for business:
Just 15 years ago nobody would believe all the corporations mentioned in the article would be on top of the market cap lists, higher than oil and energy companies.
The trend is steady, and the gap will probably keep growing. Still a great investment for the future, these tech companies. And some of the smaller ones as well.
And what lessons did you learn last month? Tell us!