Business, Spoken

Latest Episodes:

Why Facebook Has Been Less Important to News Publishers Mar 12, 2018

Show notes

In January, Facebook said it will reduce the volume of news in its news feed, in favor of more posts from friends and family. In fact, Facebook’s role in distributing news has been falling dramatically for more than a year. Data from Parse.ly, which tracks visits to more than 2,500 publisher sites, shows that ahead of the 2016 US presidential election, more than 40 percent of traffic to those sites came from Facebook.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Apple's Swift Programming Language Is Now Top Tier Mar 12, 2018

Show notes

Apple's programming language Swift is less than four years old, but a new report finds that it's already as popular as its predecessor, Apple's more established Objective-C language. Swift is now tied with Objective-C at number 10 in the rankings conducted by analyst firm RedMonk. It's hardly a surprise that programmers are interested in Apple's language, which can be used to build applications for the iPhone, Apple Watch, Macintosh computers, and even web applications.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

These Women Could Lose Their Right to Work in the US Mar 09, 2018

Show notes

From the street, you can hear children at play. Inside the one-story house in Fremont, California, a fish tank gurgles by the front door. A plastic bin filled with Legos sits in the sun room. Renuka Sivarajan, 37, runs a home daycare here. Her path to this point has been like the stock market of late. When Sivarajan first came to the US from India, in 2003, she worked for a tech company in Phoenix.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The High Cost of Lab-to-Table Meat Mar 09, 2018

Show notes

Forget free-range, antibiotic-free, and grass-fed—tomorrow’s burger will be lab-cultured. Scientists are creating a new slaughterhouse-free food group called clean meat: edible animal protein grown in a vat. Stem cells are extracted from animals, brewed in a bioreactor, fortified with nutrients like amino acids and glucose, and structured around collagen “scaffolds.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bill Would Let Publishers Gang Up Versus Facebook and Google Mar 08, 2018

Show notes

On stage at a tech conference last month, Campbell Brown, Facebook’s head of news partnerships, fired a warning shot to publishers who think they get a raw deal from Facebook. ”My job is to make sure there is quality news on Facebook and that publishers who want to be on Facebook … have a business model that works,” Brown said. “If anyone feels this isn’t the right platform for them, they should not be on Facebook.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This Publisher Foresaw an Internet of Fiction Mixed With Fact Mar 08, 2018

Show notes

Facebook has had a bumpy couple of years. It makes money in torrents, but the way it's handled the manipulations of its platform has led critics to charge it was being irresponsible and craven. In recent months it's finally begun to signal it understands that criticism and to make specific and potentially meaningful changes. But competitors, especially Rupert Murdoch and his News Corp CEO Robert Thomson, have no intention of letting this crisis go to waste.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Millennial Viagra Startup Hims Is Now Worth $200 Million Mar 07, 2018

Show notes

Hims, a San Francisco-based e-commerce startup selling men’s wellness products, has raised $40 million in funding from venture firms IVP and Redpoint Ventures, according to sources familiar with the deal. The new round values Hims at $200 million not including the funding, the sources said. Launched in late 2017, Hims has already sold around $10 million worth of products for baldness and erectile dysfunction, according to a source.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Recognizing the Women Behind the Web Mar 07, 2018

Show notes

Claire L. Evans has discovered the solution to our social media woes: “Go back to BBS.” She means bulletin board systems, those grunge-era digital hangouts, like the Well and Echo, where users linked up based on mutual interests and supported one another. (So civilized.) Earlier this year, Evans even installed BBS server software on her Raspberry Pi to test her theory. “That kind of small-scale, self-policed social media could serve as a balm to us all,” she says.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Future of 'Fab Lab' Fabrication Mar 06, 2018

Show notes

In 1965, tech pioneer Gordon Moore noticed a trend: The number of components on an integrated circuit was doubling every year. He predicted this would continue, resulting in wildly powerful digital devices. It was an audacious forecast (he later revised the interval to every two years), but Moore’s law more or less held for five decades, shrinking the computer from room-sized appliance to pocketable smartphone. The world of bits was transformed.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Decentralized Internet Is Here, With Some Glitches Mar 06, 2018

Show notes

I usually write in Google's online word processor Google Docs, even when noting the company's shortcomings. This article is different: it was drafted in a similar but more private service called Graphite Docs. I discovered it while exploring a nascent and glitch-ridden online realm known as the decentralized internet.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected