Important Note

Tech Narratives was a subscription website, which offered expert commentary on the day's top tech news from Jan Dawson, along with various other features, for $10/month. As of Monday October 16, 2017, it will no longer be updated. An archive of past content will remain available for the time being. I've written more about this change in the post immediately below, and also here.

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    Essential Gets Additional Funding from Amazon’s Alexa Fund, Tencent (Aug 9, 2017)

    Essential, Android founder Andy Rubin’s fledgling smartphone outfit, has announced additional funding from companies including Tencent and Amazon, but still refuses to say exactly when its smartphone will go on sale, saying only that a date will be announced in a week or so. It’s also announced that Amazon and Best Buy will be the retail partners for launch, while Sprint was announced earlier as the exclusive US carrier partner. If you’ve read any of my previous pieces on Essential, especially the first one, you’ll know how skeptical I am that an effort like this can succeed. The market is so mature at this point and the distribution and other battle lines so clear that breaking in with yet another Android phone will be a real challenge, one further exacerbated by what’s going to be limited distribution on the weakest carrier in the US. The funding is therefore intriguing, because it suggests these backers see something in the phone that I don’t. Importantly, it’s Amazon’s Alexa Fund specifically that’s making that company’s investment, something the Journal piece I’m linking to here doesn’t dig into at all, but which suggests that the phone will major on Alexa integration, something hinted at earlier by Andy Rubin as part of a statement about the phone’s ecumenical approach to voice assistants, but not made explicit. And backing from both Foxconn and Tencent is intriguing in the context of a phone that’s mostly being launched in North America for now. Recent conversations I’ve had suggest Amazon’s smartphone sales business is going very well, but of course many of its sales are of the kind of low-end prepaid handsets people buy outright anyway rather than the higher-end premium hardware Essential will be selling. I continue to be very bearish on Essential, but at least it sounds like we might finally see the hardware hit the market soon.

    via WSJ


    Cablevision Owner Altice Said to be Considering a Bid for Charter (Aug 9, 2017)

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    Daily Podcast Episode 31 – August 8, 2017 (Aug 8, 2017)

    The daily podcast episode for August 8 is up now on SoundCloud and should be syncing shortly to iTunes, Overcast, and other podcast apps. As usual, the podcast spends about one minute on each of the items covered on the site today, and also points to a few other items in the news today which I didn’t cover but which are nonetheless interesting. You can find today’s episode on SoundCloud and all episodes on iTunes, Overcast, and so on. The additional items covered are below:


    Ming-Chi Kuo Backtracks on Earlier Claims iPhone Launch Would be Delayed (Aug 8, 2017)

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    Google’s Criteria for Acceptable Ads Failed by Several Big Web Publishers (Aug 8, 2017)

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    Facebook Attempts to Remove Accidental Ad Clicks from Reporting (Aug 8, 2017)

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    ★ Disney Reports Earnings, Will Acquire BAMTech, Launch Streaming Services (Aug 8, 2017)

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    Uber to Close Massively Loss-Making US Car Leasing Business (Aug 8, 2017)

    The Wall Street Journal reports that Uber is planning to shut down its US car leasing business, which was apparently losing $9,000 per car instead of the $500 Uber projected it would lose when creating the program. It sounds like Uber might have around $800 million in cars leased through the program, which Uber apparently holds titles to in trust rather than on its books, and it may have to sell many of them and the associated leases to get out of the business. The program and this outcome are indicative of Uber’s enormously aggressive expansion strategy and the huge sums it’s sometimes incurred in poorly thought out initiatives which have ended up significantly worsening its losses. Though it’s most common to see Uber’s losses attributed to its subsidies in ride sharing itself, a good chunk of its losses are made in these other aspects of its business and could be cut back significantly as it focuses on more rapid progress towards profitability. I suspect cutting the leasing program in particular wouldn’t dent growth much but would certainly go a long way towards improving margins. It’s also likely another example of an area where Uber might well do better to partner with a small number of large, reputable firms rather than taking such a direct role in the operation – in general, Uber seems far less willing to partner than Lyft, which is arguably holding it back in some areas.

    via WSJ


    GM’s Cruise is Running an Autonomous Employee-Only Ride Sharing Service in SF (Aug 8, 2017)

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    Facebook Kills Another of its Less Successful Snapchat Clones, Lifestage (Aug 8, 2017)

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    Didi Invests in Middle Eastern Ride Sharing Service Careem (Aug 8, 2017)

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    Daily Podcast Episode 30 – August 7, 2017 (Aug 7, 2017)

    The daily podcast episode for August 7 is up now on SoundCloud and should be syncing shortly to iTunes, Overcast, and other podcast apps. As usual, the podcast spends about one minute on each of the items covered on the site today, and also points to a few other items in the news today which I didn’t cover but which are nonetheless interesting. You can find today’s episode on SoundCloud and all episodes on iTunes, Overcast, and so on. The additional items covered are below:


    Qualcomm is Working Closely with Chinese Government to Win Favor (Aug 7, 2017)

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    CBS Reports Strong Q2 Earnings, Partners with DirecTV Now, Expands All Access (Aug 7, 2017)

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    Tesla Raising $1.5 billion in Debt to Fund Model 3 Production (Aug 7, 2017)

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    ★ Netflix Acquires Millarworld Comic Book Company to Hedge Against Loss of Marvel (Aug 7, 2017)

    Netflix is (somewhat remarkably) making its first ever acquisition, buying comic book company Millarworld, which was started by Mark Millar and some former colleagues  who had all written comic books for DC and Marvel and wanted a bigger stake in their creations, nearly 15 years ago. The terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed, so it’s far from clear what the immediate financial impact on Netflix will be, either in terms of the acquisition price or the revenue or profits from adding this first bit of diversification to the business. The whole announcement from Netflix reads like a subtle dig at Marvel, which is interesting given the close relationship the two companies currently enjoy. Millar is described as a “modern-day Stan Lee”, when of course Stan Lee himself is still alive and actively involved in the community if not actively creating new content, while the release also says that Millar was behind a number of the characters whose stories have been turned into movies by Marvel Studios over the last few years. Clearly, the claim here – somewhat farfetched – is that Millarworld is the new Marvel. Several of its characters and stories have already been turned into movies in recent years, and with some success, so it’s not a totally absurd claim. But overall few of them have the mass-market name recognition of Marvel or DC’s characters, and some quick feedback from people on Twitter who are more into this world than I am suggest that as a competitor it’s a pretty distant third behind the big two. This is clearly an attempt to secure more original content for Netflix, but also something of a hedge against the time that Netflix’s deal with Disney and therefore Marvel goes away, though on the latter point the acquisition also likely raises the risk that deal does go away, so perhaps Netflix has already had signals (or has simply decided independently) that it won’t renew. But it doesn’t sound like it’s going to provide anything like the same quality or quantity of content for Netflix that the Marvel deal does.

    via Netflix (PDF)


    Travis Kalanick May be Prepping for a Shareholder Battle at Uber (Aug 7, 2017)

    Another week, another story about erstwhile Uber CEO refusing to go gently into that good night. The Information is reporting that Travis Kalanick has been quietly building up a bloc of shareholders who will back him in a potential fight over the course of several years, while also sounding out employees recently on whether they would support him in that eventuality. Though the details here are new, the broad thrust is similar to the reporting last week that Kalanick was hoping to be able to get back into an operational role at Uber sooner rather than later, something many in leadership at Uber don’t want, and also a situation that’s likely to put off potential new CEOs, which is presumably part of Kalanick’s motivation here. That he still doesn’t see how central his behavior has been to Uber’s struggles, and how badly it needs to operate for at least some time without him, is the biggest possible sign that Kalanick hasn’t actually changed and isn’t actually sorry for any of what he’s done, which is in turn the best possible signal that he shouldn’t come back. But it seems he has enough supporters left at Uber that he’s convinced himself it’s worth trying anyway. Update: later in the day, an internal email from Uber co-founder and board member Garrett Camp was leaked, in which he said Kalanick would not be returning as CEO, apparently attempting to defuse some of this speculation and even the push to get him back.

    via The Information


    Amazon Has Over a Dozen Unmarked Private Label Brands (Aug 7, 2017)

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    Google Employee Pens Memo Arguing Against Diversity Initiatives (Aug 7, 2017)

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    Daily Podcast Episode 29 – August 4, 2017 (Aug 4, 2017)

    The daily podcast episode for August 4 is up now on SoundCloud and should be syncing shortly to iTunes, Overcast, and other podcast apps. As usual, the podcast spends about one minute on each of the items covered on the site today, and also points to a few other items in the news today which I didn’t cover but which are nonetheless interesting. You can find today’s episode on SoundCloud and all episodes on iTunes, Overcast, and so on. The additional items covered are below: