Current Affairs

Snap soars 23% after a stunning Q2 earnings beat, while Twitter jumps 2%

Snap and Twitter’s shares rose in regular trading on Friday after the social media sites reported second-quarter earnings that beat analyst expectations.

Snapchat’s parent popped as much as 23% after posting a jump in daily active users to 293 million in the quarter, which is about 23% higher than the 238 million daily users reported a year earlier. That beat the 290.3 million expectation of analysts polled by StreetAccount.

Revenue for the quarter more than doubled to $982 million, compared to the $846 million expectation of analysts polled by Refinitiv.
Snap’s net loss shrank 53% to $152 million, compared to its $326 million loss a year ago.

Twitter also had a solid quarter, reporting a 74% jump in revenue to $1.19 billion, which is its fastest rate of topline growth since 2014. Analysts polled by Refinitiv expected quarterly revenue of $1.07 billion.

The company’s stock rose 5% in pre-market trading, before falling to around 2% at the market open.

Twitter is in a strong position, and according to its forecasts, market conditions seem to have improved to the point where it can thrive, Pearse Carson, an analyst at multi-asset investment platform eToro, said.

Its number of monetizable daily active users, or those able to view ads on the platform, rose by 11% to 206 million, Twitter said. Analysts polled by StreetAccount expected 206.2 million.

Advertising revenue rose 87% year-on-year to $1.05 billion…read more.

Consumer behavior in e-Commerce moving towards “shoppertainment”

Despite the challenges many businesses faced during the COVID-19 pandemic, e-Commerce was able to ensure that many of them could still carry on with their business. While consumers could not shop physically, online shopping proved to be the next best option for them.

The beauty of e-Commerce is that it is not just for selling physical products, but also for services. Aside from listing on a services marketplace, companies could also sell promotional e-vouchers, or include a shopping cart system on their own websites. Naturally, the next important step for them was to understand consumer behavior.

Realizing the potential of e-Commerce, banks, large enterprises, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and even government agencies begin adopting e-Commerce. Fintech became an enabler of e-Commerce with more startups developing digital payment solutions, and businesses turned to artificial intelligence to help improve their operations and customer experience.

Consumer demand for real-time payments, too, is on the rise in Malaysia as the pandemic accelerated demand for rapid, contactless payments, according to research by ACI Worldwide and YouGov.

With increased internet penetration and smartphone use, especially within emerging economies in the Asia Pacific (APAC), consumers now expect convenience and speed with mobile apps and instantaneous payments, an area in which the traditional financial industry has struggled to keep up…read more.

Peloton plans to launch an in-app video game where you pedal to control a rolling wheel

Peloton is entering the video game business. Today the company announced its latest idea to get people to exercise: an in-app video game tentatively called Lanebreak. The game, which will only be available for Peloton bike owners and subscribers, involves riders changing their cadence and resistance to meet various goals and control an on-screen rolling wheel. Players can choose a difficulty level, the type of music they want to hear, and the duration of the track before starting. The game isn’t available yet, but a members-only beta will open later this year. Peloton hasn’t share details around how people will be able to sign up.

The game’s vibe and interface reminds me of the Rainbow Road in Mario Kart, with a track trailing off into the universe. It’s more or less the same on Lanebreak, except instead of controlling Mario, you’re pedaling to keep your tire moving and meet specific goals. There are three types of challenges and ways to earn points: Pickups, which means that so long as you’re in the lane that the game commands, you’ll earn points; Streams, which reward you based on your cadence; and Breakers, which reward you based on energy output…read more.

New Anthony Bourdain documentary deepfakes his voice

‘We can have a documentary-ethics panel about it later’.

In a new documentary, Roadrunner, about the life and tragic death of Anthony Bourdain, there are a few lines of dialogue in Bourdain’s voice that he might not have ever said out loud.

Filmmaker Morgan Neville used AI technology to digitally re-create Anthony Bourdain’s voice and have the software synthesize the audio of three quotes from the late chef and television host, Neville told the New Yorker.

The deepfaked voice was discovered when the New Yorker’s Helen Rosner asked how the filmmaker got a clip of Bourdain’s voice reading an email he had sent to a friend. Neville said he had contacted an AI company and supplied it with a dozen hours of Bourdain speaking.

“ … and my life is sort of shit now. You are successful, and I am successful, and I’m wondering: Are you happy?” Bourdain wrote in an email, and an AI algorithm later narrated an approximation of his voice.

You can hear the line in the documentary’s trailer linked below, right around the 1:30 mark. The algorithm’s generation of Bourdain’s voice is especially audible when it says, “and I am successful.”…to listen and read more.

Canadian New Vehicle Sales Print The Second Worst May In Over Two Decades

Canadians are suddenly pulling back on their new vehicle buying binge. Statistics Canada (Stat Can) data shows new vehicle sales grew on an annual basis in May. Sadly, it wasn’t because the market was experiencing robust growth. It was due entirely to the base effect of comparing sales to an early pandemic month. Zooming out, it was the second slowest May since 1997.

Why Do I Care About New Vehicle Sales?
New vehicle sales are a huge signal for the economy. For someone to buy a new vehicle, they have to be confident in their ability to pay for it. If someone is confident about their ability to buy an expensive item, they have job stability. People confident in their future income continue to spend and borrow.

A similar observation can be made about truck buying and the housing industry. In a building boom, more contractors need more vehicles. If they’re being squeezed on margins because, oh, I don’t know, lumber made it unprofitable. They tend to stick with their own vehicle. That’s in addition to auto manufacturing being a large industry. A slowdown (or ramp up!) of new vehicle sales can actually tell us a lot.

Canadian New Vehicle Sales Had The Second Weakest May Since 1997
Canadian new vehicle sales are slowing, though the base effect muddles the numbers. There were 151,912 new vehicles sold in May, down 8.9% from a month before. Compared to a year before sales are 30.8% higher, though last year was extremely low, due to the pandemic…read more.