- Front Research
- Posts
- 📹 X Nears Break-Even & Aims for Video Calls
📹 X Nears Break-Even & Aims for Video Calls
Today: X Nears Break-Even & Goes for Video Calls | ChatGPT Bad for Coding? | iOS 17 Redesigns Call Button
Kristoffer Lindström
August 11, 2023
In Partnership with ⬆️
Hi there!
Welcome to today's update. It's Friday, August 11th, and we have much to cover today, including Amazon's reduction of house brands, ChatGPT news, X's approach to profits according to their CEO, and more. Here are today's top headlines:
Amazon Slashes House Brands
X Nears Break-Even & Aims for Video Calls
ChatGPT's Coding Accuracy Questioned
ChatGPT Offers Custom Controls to All Users
Is Stack Overflow's Traffic in Decline?
YouTube Battles Scam Links
iOS 17 Redesigns Call Button
and more...
READ TIME: 4.8 MINUTES
From our partner: Looka
Build your brand identity with AI
Create your brand identity with Looka's AI-powered logo maker.
Get started now for free.
Tech Companies
In a significant reduction, Amazon.com is discontinuing many of its in-house brands, particularly in clothing, leaving only Amazon Essentials, Amazon Collection, and Amazon Aware. This move is a response to antitrust scrutiny, profitability concerns, and diminishing sales. Moreover, private-label furniture brands like Rivet and Stone & Beam are being phased out, while Amazon Basics remains a core focus.
In her first interview since taking over, X CEO Linda Yaccarino claims the company, formerly Twitter, is approaching a financial break-even point. This comes despite X's visible struggles post-acquisition by Elon Musk, including plummeting ad revenues and significant layoffs. Despite the cuts, Yaccarino highlighted growth areas like data licensing and their new subscription business. Yet, controversy surrounds the platform's content "health" metrics and pending office rent lawsuits in multiple countries.
CEO Linda Yaccarino of X announced video call integration, evolving X into an "everything app." This comes alongside features like long-form videos, creator subscriptions, and payments. Elon Musk's vision for X includes options like 25,000-character posts, financial services, and extensive multimedia capabilities.
Lyft is launching new advertising products within its app to diversify revenue streams beyond ride-sharing. These changes include display and video ads, in-car screens, and expanding other ad offerings. Under the leadership of recently appointed CEO David Risher, Lyft intends to boost its business, focusing on advertising, job cuts, and potential sales of its bike unit. Given the frequent app engagement, Lyft sees a significant ad-viewing opportunity.
Startup Scene
Despite a global fintech downturn, Hong Kong's Micro Connect secured $458M in Series C, reaching a $1.7B valuation. Leading Scottish investment firm Baillie Gifford, known for backing Amazon and Tesla, participated alongside repeat investors.
Virtualitics, an AI and data exploration firm, secured $37 million in Series C, backed by Smith Point Capital, Citi, and others.
Osano, a data privacy management leader, receives $25 million in Series B funding, backed by notable investors like Baird Capital and LiveOak.
AI Corner
Researchers at Purdue University discovered that ChatGPT, OpenAI's AI tool, incorrectly answered over half of 517 software engineering prompts from Stack Overflow. The study also revealed humans struggled to identify ChatGPT's errors, missing inaccuracies 39.34% of the time. Although many programmers verify ChatGPT's output, the study emphasized enhancing its understanding and reasoning capabilities.
OpenAI has rolled out its 'custom instructions' feature to all ChatGPT users, including the free tier, previously exclusive to ChatGPT Plus subscribers. This enhancement lets users set preferences for ChatGPT's responses, like specific character counts or desired tone. It eliminates repetitively setting the same instructions and can even adjust for preferred languages. OpenAI plans to bring this feature to EU and U.K. users soon.
Markets & Money
Alibaba Group experienced a 14% revenue rise, beating expectations, even as China's economy faced challenges. This surge comes after a period of stagnation amid challenges like China's crackdown on private businesses and competition from newer firms. While the company cut costs, its cloud division rebounded, and its overseas ventures, including Lazada, saw a 41% revenue increase.
The U.S. has witnessed cooling inflation over the summer, with July's Consumer Price Index confirming easing price pressures. Despite elevated inflation, data indicates a downward trend, offering relief to consumers.
Insights & Analysis
While machine learning engineer Ayhan Fuat Çelik reported a 50% traffic decrease on Stack Overflow, adjustments for a Google Analytics change suggest a 35% drop.
The main concern is the significant decline in questions and upvotes. Stack Overflow attributes some of the traffic decline to the release of GPT-4 and a decrease in search engine traffic. However, the platform's Q&A activity is down, which they are addressing.
There's a trend among developers to use AI tools like Copilot, Cody, and ChatGPT before resorting to platforms like Stack Overflow. The company recently introduced OverflowAI, AI-related products, and improvements like better search. Stack Overflow for Teams, a private instance of the platform, is becoming more relevant, with new features like Slack integration, improved search, and knowledge ingestion from various platforms.
The primary challenge remains: how will StackOverflow encourage more questions when AI tools can answer most of them?
Apps & Gadgets
YouTube targets scams and spam in its TikTok competitor, YouTube Shorts, by disabling clickable links. Plans for a safer linking method for creators are set for September. Also, they'll remove some social media icons from desktops, offering a new link space on channel profiles starting August 23rd.
Apple's iOS 17 beta showcases a repositioned end call button in the Phone app. The change seemingly supports the new Contact Poster feature, centering caller images while adjusting other controls.
Google is introducing eSignature support in Docs and Drive, aiming to simplify signature processes within its cloud software. This follows a year-long alpha testing phase.
The Apple Vision Pro's 'Magic Battery' is raising questions about battery life, with the device only providing two hours of use. The battery's name was revealed in the latest leak, but the cost and potential for larger or third-party batteries remain unknown.
Reply