Архив рубрики: Mobile

Amazon launches AWS Private 5G so companies can build their own 4G mobile networks

Amazon’s cash-cow cloud division AWS has launched a new service designed to help companies deploy their own private 5G networks — eventually, at least.
AWS first announced AWS Private 5G in early preview late last year, but it’s now officially available to AWS customers starting in its U.S. East (Ohio), U.S. East (N. Virginia), and U.S. West (Oregon) regions, with plans to roll it out internationally “in the near future.”
But — and this is a big “but” — despite its name, AWS Private 5G currently only supports 4G LTE.
“It supports 4G LTE today, and will support 5G in the future, both of which give you a consistent, predictable level of throughput with ultra low latency,” AWS chief evangelist Jeff Barr wrote in a blog post.
With AWS Private 5G, companies order the hardware (a radio unit) and a bunch of special SIM cards directly from AWS, and AWS then provides all the necessary software and APIs (application programming interfaces) to enable businesses to set up their own private mobile network on-site. This incorporates the AWS Management Console, through which users specify where they want to build their network and their required capacity, with AWS automating the network setup and deployment once the customer has activated their small-cell radio units.
Crucially, the AWS-managed network infrastructure plays nicely with other AWS services, including its Identity and Access Management (IAM) offering, which enables IT to control who and what devices can access the private network. AWS Private 5G also channels into Amazon’s CloudWatch observability service, which provides insights into the network’s health, among other useful data points.
In terms of costs, AWS charges $10 per hour for each radio unit it installs, with each radio supporting speeds of 150 Mbps across up to 100 SIMs (i.e. individual devices). On top of that, AWS will bill for all data that transfers outwards to the internet, charged at Amazon’s usual EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) rates.
So in effect, Amazon is promising industries — such as smart factories or other locations (remote or otherwise) with high-bandwidth requirements — instant, localized 5G, while shoehorning them onto its sticky cloud infrastructure where the usual fees apply.
Public vs private
It’s clear that 5G has the potential to transform many industries, and will be the bedrock of everything from robotics and self-driving cars to virtual reality and beyond. But public 5G networks, which is what most consumers with 5G-enabled devices currently rely on, have limited coverage and the bandwidth may be shared by million of users. On top of that, companies have little control over the network, even if their premises are within range of the network. And that is why private 5G networks are an appealing proposition, particularly for enterprises with mission-critical applications that demand low-latency data transfers round-the-clock.
AWS Private 5G uses Citizen Broadband Radio Service (CBRS), a shared 3.5 GHz wireless spectrum that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) authorized in early 2020 for use in commercial environments, as it had previously been reserved for the Department of Defense (DoD). So this update essentially opened CBRS to myriad use-cases, including businesses looking to build new 5G services, or extend existing 4G/LTE services.
At the same time, the FCC announced key Spectrum Access System (SAS) administrators who would be authorized to manage wireless communications in the CBRS band, a process effectively designed to protect “high priority” users (e.g. the DoD) from interference. Any device connecting to the CBRS spectrum needs authorization from a SAS administrator, which today includes Google, Sony, CommScope, Federated Wireless, Key Bridge Wireless and Amdocs.

How your company can adopt a usage-based business model like AWS

And this is a key component of the new AWS Private 5G service — it’s fully-integrated into the SAS administration process, with AWS managing everything on behalf of the customer, including taking on responsibility for interference issues among other troubleshooting tidbits relating to spectrum access.
So Amazon’s new private 5G offering is perhaps something of a misnomer as it stands today, insofar as it currently only supports 4G LTE. But the OnGo Alliance (then called the CBRS Alliance) completed its 5G specs for CBRS more than two years ago now, and the intervening months have been about setting the foundation to enable fully commercial 5G services — just yesterday, Samsung Electronics America announced a partnership with Kajeet to deploy a new private 5G network on CBRS.
But while “AWS Private 5G” is a nod to what it’s built to support in the future, the current branding may cause some consternation among interested parties seeking local 5G deployments today.
Amazon launches AWS Private 5G so companies can build their own 4G mobile networks

Meme-based dating app Schmooze allows matches to share memes with each other

Sharing a meme with someone you just met can be tricky, especially if you’re trying to flirt with them. Are they into wholesome puppy memes? Or maybe they like dark Homelander memes? Whatever the case may be, Schmooze, the meme-based dating app, is designed to match users with like-minded people who want to make each other laugh.
To use the app, a person swipes right to like, left to dislike, and up to love memes from a selection curated via artificial intelligence. Match suggestions will pop on the screen based on meme choices, and the person can select either “Snooze” or “Schmooze.” The algorithm takes into consideration what types of humor both you and the potential match enjoy or reject.
Today, Schmooze launched a new feature called “Schmooze Flirts” for users to share memes with their matches. “Schmooze Flirts” handpicks memes from the app’s algorithm that a match would likely laugh at and encourages a user to send meme to their match to spark a conversation. The user has 48 hours to message the other person or the chat will automatically disappear. The app also provides icebreakers to help you out before a match gets removed.
Users can now set a limit on the distance for the matches as well.
Image Credits: Schmooze
Additional features are coming to Schmooze next week, including meme pick-up lines and “Schmooze Ayooo,” a place on the app for people to post funny pictures from their own camera roll. Currently, the app doesn’t allow memes from users to enter its algorithm due to quality and appropriateness control concerns. Over the next two months, Schmooze plans to create a user-content platform and let users upload their own memes.
Schmooze is available on the App Store and Google Play Store, however, “Schmooze Flirts” and the upcoming features are only available for iOS users. There will be a delay of two to three weeks until the features are available on Android devices.
When setting up a profile, the user must answer what their “#MemeVibe” is by selecting options such as dark humor, puns, wholesome, relatable, NSFW, gaming, anime, among other topics and categories. They then add profile photos, a bio, their four favorite music artists, memes they like and their TV show binge list.
Note that while there are systems in place to catch fake profiles, extensive background checks aren’t done to eliminate people with a history of crime or violence. The target audience for Schmooze is Gen Z (17+), so users should always prioritize safety, especially when it comes to dating online.

Meme-based dating is here: Meet Schmooze

Vidya Madhavan and Abhinav Anurag founded the startup and beta-tested the Schmooze app at Stanford University. In March 2021, Schmooze came out of beta. The dating app has grown to over 50,000 users with more than 15 million memes swiped and 750,000+ matches made.
A few months ago, the company raised $3.2 million in seed funding, led by Inventus Capital and Silicon Valley Quad, with participation from Lightspeed and Graph Ventures.
Meme-based dating app Schmooze allows matches to share memes with each other

This Week in Apps: French developers sue Apple, time spent in apps grows, Instagram adds NFTs

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy.
Global app spending reached $65 billion in the first half of 2022, up only slightly from the $64.4 billion during the same period in 2021, as hypergrowth fueled by the pandemic has slowed down. But overall, the app economy is continuing to grow, having produced a record number of downloads and consumer spending across both the iOS and Google Play stores combined in 2021, according to the latest year-end reports. Global spending across iOS and Google Play last year was $133 billion, and consumers downloaded 143.6 billion apps.
This Week in Apps offers a way to keep up with this fast-moving industry in one place, with the latest from the world of apps, including news, updates, startup fundings, mergers and acquisitions, and much more.
Do you want This Week in Apps in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here: techcrunch.com/newsletters
Top Stories
Mobile users are spending 4-5 hours per day in apps
Image Credits: data.ai
Looks like we’re all still addicted to our apps! A new report this week from data.ai (previously App Annie), found that consumers in more than a dozen worldwide markets are now spending four to five hours per day in apps. While the daily time spent in apps varies by country, there are now 13 markets where users are spending more than four hours per day using apps. These include Indonesia, Singapore, Brazil, Mexico, Australia, India, Japan, South Korea, Canada, Russia, Turkey, the U.S. and the U.K.
And, in three of those markets — Indonesia, Singapore and Brazil — mobile users are spending more than five hours per day in apps.
While the growth in app usage has slowed a bit from the second quarter in 2020, it’s worth noting that two years ago was the height of COVID lockdowns, which drove app usage to spike across all categories as users worked, shopped, banked, gamed and studied, and attended meetings, school and events from home. If anything, that means the slowdown in growth seen in a couple of the markets is only representative of a normalizing of trends, not a larger decline.
And some markets saw significant growth in app usage over the past two years. In the second quarter of 2020, Singapore users were spending 4.1 hours in apps. Now that’s grown to 5.7 hours. In Australia, users went from 3.6 hours to 4.9 hours from Q2 2020 to Q2 2022. Both represent a 40% rise in time spent.
French iOS developers sue Apple over App Store fees
Image Credits: TechCrunch
Apple is facing another antitrust lawsuit over its App Store fees, this time filed by a group of French iOS app developers who are suing the tech giant in its home state of California. The plaintiffs are accusing Apple of anti-competitive practices in allowing only one App Store for iOS devices, which gives it a monopoly in iOS app distribution and the ability to force developers to pay high commissions on in-app purchases.
The complaint argues that these commissions, on top of Apple’s $99 annual developer program fees, cut into developers’ earnings and stifle innovation — and yet developers aren’t permitted to offer alternative payment methods per Apple’s App Store rules, nor can they distribute their apps to iOS users outside of the App Store, despite Apple allowing this on Mac computers.
The case is now one of several antitrust legal battles Apple is facing, including the high-profile lawsuit with Fortnite maker Epic Games, which is under appeal, and another by alternative app store Cydia.
Developers involved in the class action include Société du Figaro, the developer of the Figaro news app; L’Équipe 24/24, the developer of L’Équipe sports news and streaming app; and le GESTE, a French association comprised of France-based publishers of online content and services, including iOS app developers.
Of note, the case is being led by U.S.-based Hagens Berman law firm, which last year won a $100 million settlement against Apple over App Store policies and recently filed a $1 billion case against Apple over antitrust issues with Apple Pay. The lawyer involved also previously secured a $560 million settlement against Apple regarding e-book price-fixing and a $90 million settlement on behalf of Android developers. In France, Paris-based antitrust lawyer Fayrouze Masmi-Dazi is helping manage the claims.
New data on in-app subscriptions shows the first month is key

Subscription management service RevenueCat took a deep dive into more than 10,000 subscription apps across iOS and Android to see how subscription renewal rates stacked up. It found that monthly subscriptions had a median first renewal rate of 56%, which would increase over time. In other words, customers who didn’t get value from the app would churn in the first month — an indication of how important it is to convince users of that value in their first days using the service. In subsequent months, renewals were higher — 75% or 81% for the second and third months, for instance.
The company analyzed its own customer base data for the analysis, but notes it’s not showing all renewals on RevenueCat, as that would bias the data toward larger customers, like VSCO. Instead, it looked at the median of each individual app’s renewal rates.
In addition, RevenueCat developer advocate David Barnard pointed out that a lower renewal rate may not necessarily be a bad thing, depending on the business. For instance, if the developer was acquiring users organically at a low cost, a lower rate could be better than a higher renewal rate with expensive customer acquisition costs.

On the @RevenueCat blog today, my colleague Traci shares some benchmarks around monthly subscription renewal rates from 10k+ apps. With the dam finally (!!!) broken, we’re hoping to publish benchmarks more regularly from here on out. https://t.co/1BqTLFU6b1
— David Barnard (@drbarnard) August 2, 2022

Weekly News
Platforms: Apple
Apple is expanding its App Store ads. The company previously offered two ad slots, on the main Search tab and in the Search results. The new ad slots will be available on the App Store’s Today tab and at the bottom of individual app pages in the “You Might Also Like” section.
Bloomberg reported that iPadOS 16 will be delayed about a month as Apple works on its multitasking features. The report says this would put the release in October, alongside macOS Ventura.
A new report indicates iOS has lost 4% of ad spend market share since the launch of ATT, which makes targeting advertising more difficult for iOS developers. Its share dropped from 34% in April, down 4% YoY according to Adjust.
Digiday reports Apple may be building its own demand-side platform, based on a job posting looking for a senior manager for a DSP in its ads platform business. Apple’s DSP may be focused on serving ads on its own properties, like the App Store, but the company declined to confirm details.
Platforms: Google
Google revealed the finalists for the Indie Games Festival, which highlights some of the best games on Google Play. This year, the company is hosting the Festival in South Korea, Japan and Europe for local developers on September 3. At the European finals, Google will also reveal the 2022 class joining the Indie Games Accelerator, a program that provides indie game devs with training and mentorship.
Google offered a guide to Android developers as to how to support predictive back gestures, as it’s making an early version of the UI available for testing with Android 13, Beta 4.
E-commerce
Facebook’s live shopping feature is shutting down on October 1 to shift the company’s focus to Reels. After this date, users will no longer be able to host new or scheduled live shopping events, but they’ll still be able to use Facebook Live for other live events — but won’t be able to create product playlists or tag products in those streams.
Fintech
Coinbase partnered with BlackRock, which oversees $10 trillion in assets, to provide its institutional clients with access to cryptocurrency.
Starbucks Rewards, the coffee company’s loyalty program that doles out perks for customers’ purchases, will expand to include NFT rewards as part of a broader web3 push. The company said it’s being advised by Starbucks Mobile Order & Pay architect Adam Brotman on the effort, where NFT rewards will translate into exclusive content and “one-of-a-kind” experiences.
The SEC is probing trading app Robinhood’s compliance with short selling rules. The SEC has been investigating since October 2021 and requested additional info from the company in Q2 2022. Robinhood also announced headcount reductions of 23% after posting a $295 million quarterly loss. In addition, New York’s State Dept. of Financial Services fined Robinhood’s crypto unit $30 million for violating anti-money laundering and cybersecurity regulations.
An exploit in the Slope mobile wallet was possibly to blame for a major network attack that saw thousands of wallets drained of millions of dollars.
iOS 16 beta 4 added support for Apple Pay in non-Safari browser apps including Chrome, Firefox and Edge, likely in response to the EU’s Digital Markets Act.
Social
Image Credits: Instagram
Instagram expanded support for NFTs to more than 100 countries in Africa, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and the Americas after first launching a test of the new feature in May. Users will be able to connect their digital wallet, and share NFTs to the Feed, Stories or in messages. They can also automatically tag creators and collectors for attribution. The feature relies on Coinbase Wallet and Dapper integrations and the Flow blockchain.
Instagram head Adam Mosseri is temporarily moving to London to work from Meta’s King Cross offices as the company rethinks how to shape its plan to take on TikTok with Reels.
TikTok is on track to overtake Facebook in influencer marketing spend in 2022, and will overtake YouTube by 2024, per an analyst report. However, Instagram this year will still capture 3x the influencer marketing dollars as TikTok, or $2.23 billion versus TikTok’s $774.8 million.
The Washington Post reported video entertainment app Triller failed to make promised payments to a number of Black creators. Triller denied the claims.
Discord announced it will finally bring its Android app into parity with its iOS counterpart. The new Android app has been rebuilt with React Native, which will allow it to expedite new feature releases and bug fixes.
Pinterest missed on earnings and delivered zero user growth in its most recent quarter — it’s stuck at 433 million MAUs. The company cited a combination of factors for its issues, including the lingering impacts of the pandemic, reduced traffic from search engines, the rise of TikTok and — like many companies reliant on digital advertising, the broader economic environment. Still, the stock popped on the news (up 20% after hours) as revenue was close to expectations ($664.9 million) and the company was praised by new investor Elliott Investment Management.
Pinterest also began testing a new app, Shuffles, for collage-making and leaderboards. But the app, which includes image cut-out features and animation, requires an invite for the time being.
A top anonymous social app, NGL, which hit the top of the App Store earlier this summer, was forced to adjust its app to stop tricking users into thinking they had received messages from friends, when really a bot was delivering them. Both it and rival Sendit also changed their subscriptions to include more features than just “hints” about who was sending the messages.
Dating
Match Group said Tinder CEO Renate Nyborg is leaving after less than a year and it’s reorganizing the app’s management team after disappointing earnings. It also said it’s not moving forward with plans for Tinder Coins, its virtual currency, nor its plans for a dating metaverse. The company wanted to characterize this stoppage as merely a pause, but did not offer any sense as to if or when it would revisit these ideas. Instead, the company spoke of plans to introduce shorter-term subscriptions on Tinder while it tries to figure out why it couldn’t convince new people to try dating apps.
TikTok-style dating app Desti launched to match up users by fav date destinations, initially in its debut market of Austin.
Messaging
Kakao blamed Google’s new payment policies for a decline in the number of emoji subscription purchases on the messaging app KakaoTalk. The figure dropped by a third over the year, the South Korean app maker said in its quarterly earnings call Thursday.
Google is merging its Meet and Duo apps. Duo is being rebranded as Meet (the mobile app will be updated with the new branding). This will include features from both of the apps. Meet will be called Google Meet (original) and will be eventually phased out in favor of the new Meet. Not confusing at all!
Brazilian prosecutors asked WhatsApp to delay the launch of the Communities feature in Brazil until January in order to avoid spreading misinformation about the October election.
Streaming & Entertainment
Image Credits: Spotify
Spotify updated its app to address a long-standing user complaint with music playback — but it’s asking customers to pay for the fix. The company announced it will introduce a separate Play Button and a Shuffle Button at the top of albums and playlists to make it easier to play the music the way you like. This replaces the combined button available before. However, the new button is only being offered to Spotify Premium subscribers, despite arguably being a UI/UX issue that should be available to all.

Spotify wants users to pay for separate ‘Play’ and ‘Shuffle’ buttons

Clubhouse began beta testing a new feature, private communities called Houses, which allow a group of friends to hang out, catch up, hop from room to room and more. The Houses can be kept private and closed or users can each nominate a few friends to join.
Spotify’s biggest playlist is getting its own video podcast. The company said Brandon “Jinx” Jenkins, the podcast host of “Mogul” and “No Skips,” will host the new “RapCaviar Podcast.” The new video podcast will explore the rap genre and include panels of guests.
SoundCloud announced it was laying off 20% of its global workforce due to the challenging economic environment. Staff in the U.S. and U.K. will be informed if they’re impacted.
TikTok has been filing “TikTok Music” trademarks in global markets, suggesting the company is considering a launch of some sort of music streaming service similar to its existing service in select markets known as Resso.
Gaming
Image Credits: Sensor Tower
A new report indicates most mobile gaming genres saw revenue declines in the U.S. during the first part of the year. According to Sensor Tower, Arcade and Tabletop games were the only categories with revenue growth. Arcade was the fastest growing genre, with player spending up 14.8% year-over-year to approximately $176 million. Top games included Clawee, Gold & Goblins and Idle Mafia. Tabletop grew 1% YoY to $388.8 million. However, in terms of revenue, Puzzle was the largest with $2.3 billion, down 8.8% YoY. It was followed by Casino ($2.2 billion) and Strategy ($2 billion). Gaming downloads also declined 2.5% YoY to 2.4 billion.
Apple Arcade added a handful of new games to the service, including the popular Jetpack Joyride, as well as Amazing Bomberman, My Talking Tom+ and Love You to Bits+. The company also recently pulled 15 games from the subscription service.
Blizzard and NetEase scrapped plans for a World of Warcraft mobile game after a disagreement over financial terms for the title, Bloomberg reported. NetEase disbanded a team of more than 100 developers tasked with creating content for the game — only some of whom were given internal transfers.
Amazon’s cloud gaming service, Luna, which allows users to play on mobile, tablet, PC or Mac, now supports Samsung Gaming Hub on Samsung’s smart TVs and monitors.
Transportation & Travel
Uber partnered with the Berlin-based travel service Omio in order to test train and bus bookings in its U.K. app. Omio’s inventory includes more than 1,000 transport providers.
Utilities & Productivity
Google Maps and Search apps now allow merchants to label their businesses as “Asian-owned,” following similar additions that allowed labeling businesses as Black-owned, Latino-owned, veteran-owned, women-owned or LGBTQ+-owned.
Microsoft launched a new Outlook Lite app for low-powered Android phones aimed at users in emerging markets.
Government & Policy
The European Commission is investigating Google Play’s policies over possible antitrust issues, according to Politico. Specifically, the investigation is looking into billing terms and developer fees, the report said.
Security & Privacy
Security researchers found an error in more than 3,200 mobile apps, which would allow them to take full or partial control of Twitter accounts. The names of impacted apps have not yet been disclosed.
A ruling by European Union’s top court may have major implications for online platforms and apps that use background tracking and profiling to target users with behavioral ads or for personalizing content. It set a precedent that even this inferred data derived from things a company learned about a user could be considered personal data.
Funding and M&A
Dating app Desti raised $1 million in early-stage funding in July at a $5 million valuation. The company also makes a related app for friends, Besti.
Uber to sell stake its 7.8% stake in the food delivery app Zomato for $350 million+ after taking a $707 million loss on the deal in H2 2022.
Locket, a popular app that lets you post photos to your friends’ homescreens, raised $12.5 million in seed funding from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Sugar Capital, Costanoa Ventures, along with Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger and Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo.
Downloads
Banish

A new app for iPhone users can help you browse the web without being constantly bothered by pop-up panels that beg you to use the company’s app instead. The app, called Banish, is a Safari extension that helps remove the “open in app” banners from various websites and other popups that block content across a number of sites, like Reddit, TikTok, LinkedIn, Twitter, Quora, Medium, Yelp and some Google sites, to name a few.
While there are a number of similar Safari extensions for blocking cookie banners and ads, the scourge of the “Open in App” banners is often not addressed by existing solutions.
To use Banish, you’ll first install the app to your iPhone, then configure it in the Settings. This involves a few key steps for Banish to function properly. There are two places where Banish needs to be enabled, under Safari Extensions — you need to toggle on the switch next to Banish under “Allow These Content Blockers” and “Allow These Extensions.” Then you need to set the “Allow” permission to “All Websites” below. You can read more about Banish here on TechCrunch or download it from the App Store for $1.99.
 

This Week in Apps: French developers sue Apple, time spent in apps grows, Instagram adds NFTs

Top anonymous social app NGL forced to stop tricking its users

A popular anonymous social app that was misleading its users with fake messages has been forced to change. The top-ranked app NGL, which became the No. 1 app on the U.S. App Store in June, quietly rolled out an update yesterday that sees it now informing users when they receive messages that aren’t from their friends — as users had been previously led to believe. Before, NGL sent these fake messages as a means of creating engagement, then charged for “hints” about the message’s sender.
The app has also now lowered its subscription pricing, which promises to reveal details about who is behind the anonymous messages.
NGL is one of a handful of anonymous social apps that had recently shifted their attention to Instagram after Snapchat cracked down on apps of this nature using its developer tools, as part of Snap’s broader efforts to reduce harm to minors.
To use NGL, users would tap a button in the app to copy a unique URL they could share with friends and followers across the web.
Image Credits: NGL App Store listing
While Snap could prevent direct integrations with its own developer tools, NGL users could still copy and paste the special link into their Snapchat Stories or wherever they chose — like Twitter or any other app. However, a “Share” button in the app made it easy to post directly to Instagram Stories. Then, when others saw the link on their friend’s Story or post, they could click it to anonymously ask that person a question. These questions would appear as messages in NGL’s in-app “Inbox” for users to read and respond to.
However, NGL had a trick up its sleeves. If users didn’t get any engagement on their shared link, the app itself would generate messages automatically. Users had no real way of knowing that these messages were actually fake questions the app was sending them. But many suspected that was the case as the questions sounded like things their friends wouldn’t ask. (We confirmed the messages were fake by generating an NGL link but not sharing it. We then received messages).
NGL’s app reviews have been filled with complaints that its questions seemed to be coming from bots. What’s worse, the app developer was charging users for “hints” to learn more about who was asking the question. This means users were paying, in some cases, for hints about bots!  This could be considered fraud. (We’d advise impacted users to request refunds from Apple.)
The NGL app got its ideas from rival Sendit, a similar social app that also offers a variety of Snapchat games. In fact, Sendit’s maker is now suing NGL for stealing its ideas — the NGL developer previously worked on Sendit before realizing the potential in simply cloning the idea and raking in the money himself. As it turns out, there is some business to be had here. By July, NGL had topped 15 million downloads and had pulled in  $2.4 million in revenue by selling its subscriptions.

Anonymous social app NGL tops 15M installs, $2.4M in revenue as users complain about being scammed

TechCrunch had called out NGL for its misleading tactics and, apparently, someone was listening. (Actually, we do understand there was a discussion between the developer and Apple about this). NGL has not commented.
Yesterday, NGL issued an update that now sees it labeling its fake messages with a tag that reads “sent with from the NGL team.” This is meant to indicate the message is not from a friend but from the app itself. (Arguably, the wording could be clearer. Some users — particularly among its target market of young adults —  could interpret this tag to mean the message is simply being delivered by the app.)
These messages also don’t show a subscription prompt. In addition, the subscription cost was lowered a bit, from $9.99/week to $6.99/week and now includes other features beyond “hints.” For instance, it touts users will get “early access” to exclusive games besides the anonymous Q&A. One of the paid games is already included — an anonymous confessions game.
The app’s rival Sendit’s Q&A feature had worked in much of the same way and it, too, just updated its subscription. Now, instead of just charging for hints, Sendit “Diamond members” can reveal the name and Bitmoji of the sender (in some cases), access exclusive games, unlock a custom icon and remove ads from the experience, the app claims. However, its pricing still remains $9.99 per week.
Though the viral buzz around these apps has since died down a bit, they still remain highly ranked. NGL is the No. 9 app on the U.S. App Store’s Lifestyle charts and Sendit is No. 12 among Social Networking apps.
Top anonymous social app NGL forced to stop tricking its users

Starbucks to unveil its web3-based rewards program next month

Starbucks will unveil its web3 initiative, which includes coffee-themed NFTs, at next month’s Investor Day event. The company earlier this year announced its plans to enter the web3 space, noting its NFTs wouldn’t just serve as digital collectibles, but would provide their owners with access to exclusive content and other perks.
At the time, Starbucks was light on details as to what its debut set of NFTs would look like, specific features they’d provide or even what blockchain it was building on. It said the plan was likely to be multichain or chain-agnostic, hinting at plans that weren’t yet finalized.
Overall, the coffee retailer kept its web3 news fairly high level, explaining simply that it believed digital collectibles could create an accretive business adjust to its stores and that more would be revealed later in 2022.

Starbucks to launch NFTs this year, offering access to ‘unique experiences and benefits’

While some companies jumped on the NFT bandwagon without much thought as to how their investments would fit in with their larger business goals, Starbucks seems to be attempting a different approach. It sees the collectibles as an extension of customer loyalty. The company brought in Adam Brotman, the architect of its Mobile Order & Pay system and the Starbucks app, to help serve as a special advisor on the project.
Mobile Order & Pay has been one of Starbucks’ biggest successes, in terms of tech innovations. The company was one of the first to introduce the concept of a digital wallet, even before Apple Pay became ubiquitous. And as broader mobile payment adoption has grown, Starbucks mobile ordering has, too. In the past quarter — Starbucks’ fiscal Q3 — mobile orders, delivery and drive-through combined drove 72% of Starbucks’ U.S. revenue. In addition, the mobile ordering sales mix grew to a record high of 47%, up 13% year-over-year, following COVID-driven changes in consumer behavior, the company said.
Starbucks founder and interim CEO Howard Schultz, who returned to the company in April, teased its forthcoming web3 initiative during this week’s earnings call with investors.
“We have been working on a very exciting new digital initiative that builds on our existing industry-leading digital platform in innovative new ways all centered around coffee and most importantly, loyalty, that we will reveal at Investor Day,” Schultz said.
The company had previously announced its plans to host its 2022 Investor Day in Seattle on September 13, 2022.
Schultz continued, “we believe this new digital web3-enabled initiative will allow us to build on the current Starbucks Rewards engagement model with its powerful spend to earn stars approach while also introducing new methods of emotionally engaging customers, expanding our digital third place community, and offering a broader set of rewards, including one-of-a-kind experiences that you can’t get anywhere else, integrating our digital Starbucks Rewards ecosystem with Starbucks-branded digital collectibles as both a reward and a community building element.
“This will create an entirely new set of digital network effects that will attract new customers and be accretive to existing customers in our core retail stores,” he added.
Though the details aren’t yet fleshed out, the approach here sounds potentially interesting — at least compared with some other corporate NFT projects (an admittedly low bar). The company hadn’t before clarified that the NFTs would be tied directly to Starbucks Rewards.
Currently, customers earn Stars with purchases in the app or at Starbucks stores, which can then translate into tangible rewards — like free drinks. It appears that the new NFTs will now be incorporated into part of this loyalty program, somehow. If customers were to “earn” the collectibles through everyday purchases, perhaps, that could potentially onboard more people to the web3 ecosystem. This is one of the challenges the space faces today, where purchases of digital art and collectibles often come at high costs and with sizable fees. What’s more, the digital program could give customers a reason to care about NFTs, if the rewards and so-called “one-of-a-kind” experiences ended up being something actually worth earning. (Of course, that remains to be seen.)
There is some indication that consumers are interested in easier ways to enter the web3 space, however. For example, the crypto rewards app Sweatcoin has become a breakout hit thanks to how it rewards users with “Sweatcoins” for every 1,000 steps they walk. The app this past quarter was No. 4 by global downloads and No. 6 by monthly active users on data.ai’s list of “Top Breakout Apps” — meaning, those that saw the largest absolute growth in downloads in the quarter. There’s also now a good handful of games offering play-to-earn models, which aim to tie a fun activity like gaming to cryptocurrencies or NFTs. These have seen more mixed success as some gamers are opposed to the idea.
During the call, Schultz also stressed the value of catering to the younger consumer. Though his comments were more of a reflection of Gen Z’s demand for Starbucks’ cold drinks and iced shaken espresso — which drove sales in the quarter — a web3-based loyalty program could serve as another way to attract younger consumers to the brand.
“We don’t want to be in a business where our customer base is aging and we have a less relevant situation with younger people,” Schultz said, before touting that the company has “never been, in our history, more relevant than we are today to Gen Z.”
“To me, that cohort is so powerful, and the attachment rate that we have with them and the loyalty is just building,” he added.
Starbucks posted strong earnings in the quarter, beating Wall Street’s expectations despite the economic challenges. The company reported revenue of $8.15 billion versus $8.11 expected, and earnings per share of 84 cents adjusted versus 75 cents expected.
Starbucks to unveil its web3-based rewards program next month