Tech Review | China Bridges The Gap To Hong Kong, Greater Bay Area

Tech Review (TR 2018-07-14)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech investing news with commentary, analysis and opinion: Features • 1)  China Bridges The Gap To Hong Kong, Greater Bay Area, 2) The Hottest Tech IPOs in the Pipeline (podcast), 3) Investing: The Week, Investing Notes, 4) ICYMI Tech News.

1) China Bridges The Gap To Hong Kong, Greater Bay Area

Hong Kong's financial markets, Shenzhen's technology and Guangdong's manufacturing have the potential to turn the Greater Bay Area of China into an economic powerhouse according to FT.com in the video above published Jul 5, 2018.

Editor's note: Hong Kong is being subsumed into mainland China.

Greater Bay Area of China

Hongkong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge (HZMB) | wikipedia.org CC BY-SA 4.0

2) The Hottest Tech IPOs in the Pipeline


Tech IPOs, especially in the enterprise space, have had strong showings so far this year, paving the way for more to come. TheStreet.com’s Eric Jhonsa, Annie Gaus and Nelson Wang look at some of the most highly-anticipated new issues, from Sonos and Tanium to Uber and Airbnb. Podcast published July 12, 2018.

3) Investing

The Week: NASDAQ Composite +1.8% | S&P 500 Index +1.5% | DJIA +2.3% --Editor's note: the NASDAQ closed the week at a new record high, with large-cap tech stocks leading the market rally:

NASDAQ Composite

“In the absence of a recession, which still appears to be more than a year away (if not 2-3 years), the most important thing for investors to focus on is corporate earnings, which are set to increase by approximately 20% over last year”--Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer, Independent Advisor Alliance (independentadvisoralliance.com).

Wall Street's Charging Bull

Investing Notes:

The U.S. is 'winning' the trade war, says Mohamed El-Erian--CNBC.com: Mohamad El-Erian, chief economic advisor at Allianz, says the U.S. "will win the trade war" adding "one of the upside risks, is that you may end up changing, the global landscape in a way that favors the U.S." and:

"When people realize that at the end of the day, the US will prevail, because [China] is a less open economy, because [the US] is a more dynamic economy, that ultimately you may end up in a situation where the US' position in global economic terms is better off."

Safe Haven Asset: “The U.S. dollar is now the most popular safe-haven asset” says Cheuk Wan Fan, head of investment strategy for Asia at HSBC Private Bank. US$-based money market funds  now offer rates of about 2 percent, a level above seven-year Treasuries last September--Bloomberg.com 5 Jul 2018. Axios.com: Since the middle of June, China’s currency (RMB) has fallen more than 3% against the dollar, and the Chinese government has intervened to "limit the fall."

US Stocks: Freight Transportation Services Index is booming — and that’s bullish for US stocks, "signaling that the stock market and the U.S. economy are just fine"--Marketwatch.com. It’s time to go full MAGA in your stock picks, says Deutsche Bank--Marketwatch.com 10 Jul 2018. Five ‘mega trends’ are producing soaring stocks regardless of  'trade tariffs fears': Artificial Intelligence, E-commerce, Mobile Payments, Biotechnology, Gaming. 

Italian Bank Stocks Tumble as Savona warns of Euro break-up--zerohedge.com 10 Jul 2018.

Data & Stats: zombie stores in zombie malls are not being counted as “vacant” retail space because "they’re no longer being marketed as retail space" and presto! the square footage disappears from vacant retail space stats--WolfStreet.com.

Cryptocurrency: Half of ICOs Die Within Four Months After Token Sales Finalized reports bloomberg.com.

Politics & Finance: Scaramucci Says His Political Foray ‘Cost Me a Lot’--bloomberg.com--now aspires to double the assets at his SkyBridge Capital to $20 billion in the next five years.

4) ICYMI Tech News:

• Amazon Prime Day 2018 | Amazon.com/PrimeDay starts July 16 at 3pm EDT.
• CO2 Emissions Hit 67-Year Low In Trump's America, As Rest-Of-World Rises--zerohedge.com 10 Jul 2018.
• Google may face a new record penalty this month from EU and have to respond with big Android changes; sources: fine expected to range into billions of dollars--WashingtonPost.com.
• IP Theft: former Apple employee Xiaolang Zhang charged by FBI with alleged theft of trade secrets related to Apple's autonomous car efforts--macrumors.com.
• Paypal to spend $3 billion a year on M&A-reuters.com
• Xiaomi closed below the IPO price on the first day of trading in Hong Kong after pricing IPO at the bottom of the range at $2.17/share and raising $4.7B--cnbc.com.  
• Apple Music had ~21.5M US subscribers as of last week while Spotify had ~22.5M; Apple's service growing faster than Spotify's in UK and Canada--ft.com.
• Privacy: Congress asks questions--Android (pdf) and iOS (pdf)--about smartphone software.
• The Future of Retail: 2018 and beyond--ZDnet.com.
• CRM: Add 'Reply' To Your Mass Emails--campaignsandelections.com.
• Fortune Brainstorm Tech 2018: Watch the livestream of  Fortune.com's annual technology conference, July 16 to 18, from Aspen, Colorado--Livestream | fortune.com.
• Personal Tech: The latest Linux Mint desktop is still the best desktop around--ZDnet.com.

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

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The Music Streaming Era: Consumers, Artists, Money (video)

Finding the Perfect Streaming Music Service

Wall Street Journal (wsj.com) video published Jun 25, 2018: You get tens of millions of songs for a few bucks a month no matter which you pick, but not all music services are the same. WSJ's David Pierce explains which is right choice for different types of music listeners.  Spotify, Apple Music, Youtube Music, or Amazon Music?

Where the Money is in Music: Can Artistry Survive the Streaming Era?

CNBC.com video published June 27, 2018.

source: Statista.com

source: Statista.com

source: Statista.com

source: Statista.com

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Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google - Fifth Horseman Spotify $SPOT?

Scott Galloway 2018's Fifth Horseman Prediction

L2inc.com video above published on May 24, 2018: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google have a combined market value greater than the GDP of France. What company has the potential to join them?

Editor's note: Last year Scott Galloway (speaker in the video) was touting Netflix, this year Spotify. Color me "skeptical," although a company can be very successful without becoming a "Fifth Horseman." If you are looking for a global "Fifth Horseman" consider the largely still untapped digital online streaming media potential of Disney $DIS (market cap $148.10B), or look at the potential beyond China for Tencent (WeChat) (market cap US$498.37B) already the world's fifth-largest internet company by revenue, or Alibaba $BABA (market cap $523.35B).

NYSE: SPOT (market cap 1 Jun 2018: $28.36B):

Spotify Technology
Principal domain: spotify.com
Headquarters: Stockholm, Sweden CEO: Daniel Ek (2006–) Founded: 2006, Stockholm, Sweden Subsidiaries: Spotify AB, Spotify USA, The Echo Nest, Tunigo AB, Spotify USA Inc, Spotify Singapore PTE. Ltd., Loudr, CrowdAlbum, Inc. Founders: Martin Lorentzon, Daniel Ek

Video sources:

(0:09) Yahoo Finance, May 2018. (0:09) “France GDP,” Trading Economics, 2016. https://bit.ly/2IJgqw2 (1:35) Yahoo Finance. (1:45) “4 in 10 Spotify Users Pay for Premium,” Statista, May 2018. https://bit.ly/2LrGYiU (1:53) “Spotify Misses On Revenue In First Earnings Report With 170M Users,” TechCrunch, May 2018. https://tcrn.ch/2xaG8E7 (1:59) “Apple Music Hits 48M Subscribers; Should Spotify Worry?” NASDAQ, April 2018. https://bit.ly/2GLt5Zz (2:25) Yahoo Finance, May 2018. (3:00) “Apple Music on Track to Overtake Spotify in U.S. Subscribers,” The Wall Street Journal, February 2018. https://on.wsj.com/2EEd5sV (3:18) “Spotify’s Losses Widen as Royalty Costs Pile Up,” Statista, March 2018. https://bit.ly/2jAKTjx (see below) (3:24:) L2 Analysis of CNBC, NASDAQ, Yahoo Finance Data.

Transcript (auto-generated, unedited)
00:00 [Music]
00:01 the four Amazon Apple Facebook and
00:04 Google have aggregated market
00:05 capitalization greater than the GDP of
00:07 France the accretion of stakeholder
00:10 value for consumers investors and
00:12 employees that these companies is
00:14 staggering five traits that identify a
00:17 company that can become a
00:18 trillion-dollar market capitalisation
00:20 company or as we refer to it the t
00:22 algorithm one their global an offer a
00:25 product that permeates cultural
00:27 boundaries to they apply machine
00:29 learning or AI or whatever you want to
00:31 call it agility network effects that
00:33 basically leverage behavioral data that
00:35 senses your tastes and tailors the
00:37 product to you they employ a Benjamin
00:39 Button effect unlike a car rolling out
00:42 the assembly line or a toothpaste tube
00:44 that has the cap twisted off they don't
00:46 decline in value they actually get more
00:48 valuable with you similar to Google the
00:51 search algorithm sees everything
00:53 everyone else is seeing or the algorithm
00:55 sees and every time you search the
00:57 algorithm gets one three billions better
00:59 for the next user they are likable as
01:01 companies we personify them and we
01:04 perceive them as friendly and is doing
01:06 good in the world a lot of debate around
01:07 how important likability is these days
01:09 lastly they're viewed as a career
01:11 accelerant the team of the best players
01:13 wins and you have to be seen as an
01:14 organization that abandons traditional
01:16 hierarchies and can give a twenty
01:18 five-year-old the responsibilities role
01:20 and compensation of a 35 year old in
01:22 2017 we posited Netflix would be the
01:26 fifth Horseman the firm had become the
01:27 operating system for the second most
01:29 valuable screen in our lives television
01:31 since we labeled Netflix the next 300
01:34 billion dollar firm the stock has
01:35 trebled in value so who's our 2018
01:38 prediction for the fifth Horseman
01:40 Spotify a firm with a hundred and
01:42 seventy million users seventy five
01:44 million of whom are premium subscribers
01:46 the firm registered a billion in revenue
01:49 last quarter representing thirty eight
01:51 percent year-on-year growth that's a
01:52 billion euros which I think's about 1.1
01:55 billion u.s. and Spotify accounts for
01:58 36% of premium music subscribers
02:01 globally young people spend an eighth of
02:03 their waking hours listening to music
02:05 just as real estate identified the most
02:07 valuable companies in the 20th century
02:08 whether were Sears or Walmart real
02:11 estate identifies the most valuable
02:13 companies of the 21st century
02:15 specifically whatever apps are on your
02:17 home screen
02:17 are typically companies were somewhere
02:19 between 100 and 900 billion yet there is
02:22 one with the best real estate on your
02:24 phone and it's only worth 28 billion for
02:27 now Spotify among music streaming
02:29 services Spotify as the best technology
02:31 merchandising and brand pandora was
02:34 first but has no social aspect and is
02:36 only available in the US and is
02:37 seriously uncool what's better than a
02:39 prophylactic having ad-supported
02:41 Pandora's you are about to get down you
02:43 are not going to have sex
02:45 bling ad-supported Pandora Apple music
02:47 should be number one given their
02:49 distribution advantage but Spotify has
02:51 more credits young people and
02:54 influencers and is a better platform for
02:57 discovering and sharing music Apple
02:59 music actually grew faster than Spotify
03:01 in the US last quarter why because Apple
03:03 has monopoly power is abusing that power
03:05 and should be broken up but that's
03:07 another talk show like most ambitious
03:09 digital players Spotify is investing
03:12 which is Latin for hemorrhaging money
03:14 Spotify lost 380 million euros on 4
03:17 billion in sales in 2017
03:20 Spotify currently trades at a hundred
03:22 and fifty dollars a share or twenty
03:24 eight billion dollars in value or five
03:26 times revenues that's an Amazon like
03:28 multiple so as Spotify worth twenty
03:31 eight billion dollars in its current
03:33 state maybe but maybe the better
03:35 question is is it worth fifty to a
03:37 hundred billion dollars to one or more
03:38 of the four and the answer is yes it's
03:40 hard to see why Amazon or Netflix
03:42 wouldn't endure seven and twenty five
03:45 percent Aleutians respectively and pay
03:47 fifty billion dollars plus to submit
03:49 their leadership position and what may
03:51 be the last media battleground music our
03:54 prediction Spotify stock doubles in the
03:57 next 12 to 24 months the next horsemen
04:00 Spotify my Spotify playlist includes
04:04 Katy Perry Arielle Grande and Britney
04:06 Spears or as I like to call it I'm gonna
04:07 get that pregnant list is that a hate
04:10 crime
04:12 we'll see you next week they don't what
04:15 is what what they don't know what is
04:17 what they just struck swish
04:21 [Music]

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Tech Review | European Union 'Going Gangster' On Big Tech? (video)

Tech Review (TR 2018-04-14)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech news with commentary, analysis and opinion: Features • 1) European Union 'Going Gangster' On Big Tech?, 2) Spotify $SPOT Direct Listing IPO--What We Learned, 3) Investing: The Week, Investing Notes, 4) ICYMI Tech News.

1) European Union 'Going Gangster' On Big Tech?

L2inc.com video above published Apr 12, 2018: In light of recent events, a revisit of Professor Scott Galloway's predictions about Facebook, regulation, and 'the Zuck'. Transcript here. See also Mark Zuckerberg Refuses to Admit How Facebook Works | Bloomberg.com: "The CEO and the social network appear uncomfortable with the bedrock of its business." [Editor's note: commercial exploitation of the personal data of its users is at the core of Facebook's business model.].

See also on Domain Mondo this week:

• Facebook Data Privacy Week On Capitol Hill: The $FB Fallout (video)

• European Union WP29 To Facebook $FB: "Sorry Is Not Enough"

• Hearing April 11: Facebook $FB Transparency and Use of Consumer Data

• News Review Update: Senate Hearing April 10 on Facebook Data Abuse

2) Spotify $SPOT Direct Listing IPO -- What We Learned:

The music streaming company Spotify opted for an unconventional direct listing, instead of a traditional initial public offering, and it was not a disaster--Financial Times video above published Apr 4, 2018--check current $SPOT price NYSE: SPOT.

See also: Spotify direct listing piles risks upon risks | Reuters.com

3) Investing

The Week: a) NASDAQ Composite b) S&P 500 Index  c) DJIA  -- the Dow, S&P, and NASDAQ end the week in the black.

Wall Street's Charging Bull, still running--

Investing Notes:

• High stakes, high expectations as [Q1 2018] earnings season heats up | Reuters.com.

• Were Trade Wars Inevitable? | blogspot.com:  Answer: Yes, or at least "Trade Re-negotiations"--"Globalized, financialized trade flows are neither "free" nor "fair," ... the major economies and their citizenry are finally facing the reality that trade is Darwinian, not win-win." 

• EU: Still in the Danger Zone | INSEAD.edu: "Nowhere in the EU, in the last decade – not even in Greece – have anti-European populist parties achieved as spectacular a breakthrough as in Italy last month (see table). For the second time since the end of the Cold War, the old political-party system in Italy has collapsed. This time anti-European populists have been the primary beneficiaries." See also: Yanis Varoufakis: ‘Greece is a debtors’ prison’--TheGuardian.com and Europe’s Slowing Economy Poses Challenge for ECB | WSJ.com.

• More reasons why UK banking and finance will thrive post-Brexit: By Jan 1, 2019, all major UK banks must ring fence their core banking business from their investment banking ops — a measure authorities in the EU refuse to even contemplate. Note also:

Avast chooses London over New York for $4bn listing https://t.co/N3cRnsmPHd

— Financial Times (@FT) April 12, 2018

• As Malls Get Crushed, Commercial Real Estate Prices Fall to Lowest in Nearly Two Years | WolfStreet.com: "Leverage is why the Fed has been worried about the bubble in CRE." See also Google Saves Manhattan Office Market. Chinese Buyers Vanish | WolfStreet.com.

• How Southern California Became Home to Bond Kings | Bloomberg.com money quote: "... the system is averse to change because so many of its key players continue to profit from its complexity and lack of transparency."

4) ICYMI Tech News:

• No Sympathy for Amazon $AMZN | NewRepublic.com: "Trump's attacks on the company aren't nearly as alarming as the government largesse that helped it become a tech behemoth."'
• Google Chromebooks fight malware, get security experts' approval | CNET.com: "Chrome OS has provided one of the most robust cases of “usable security” available ... Chromebooks are a smash success. Nearly three out of every five machines used in schools run the Chrome OS, according to researcher Futuresource Consulting ..." See also Google employees organize to fight cyber bullying at work | Reuters.com.

• Google Developers Blog: Browse the updated Google I/O 2018 schedule and reserve seats for Sessions | developers.googleblog.com

• Coinbase is launching Coinbase Ventures, a $15M seed-stage fund to invest in cryptocurrency and blockchain startups. See also: Cryptocurrency-mining malware: Why it is such a menace and where it's going next | ZDNet.com.

• Apple $AAPL: Piper Jaffray reports 82% of American teenagers currently own an iPhone, up from 78% last year, and 84% say their next phone will be an iPhone--BusinessInsider.com. See also Apple says all its facilities now powered by clean energy | Reuters.com. Note also: "Apple ended 2017 with a cash balance of $285 billion and a debt position of $122 billion for a net cash position of $163 billion."--Apple: Time For The Cash Flood  | SeekingAlpha.com. Leaked Apple memo says it found 29 ‘leakers’ last year, 12 arrested--Bloomberg.com.

• Calling Out China's Dishonest Discourse about "Free Trade and Tariffs"--A Rebuttal of Jack Ma's Op-Ed Piece on China Being Open | Bloomberg.com: "[Jack Ma says]: "It is therefore ironic that the U.S. administration is waging a trade war at a time when the largest potential consumer market in the world is open for business."  That's not the case ..." But see also China takes the lead in pioneering retail | Axios.com.

• Facebook: Why Investors Should Pay Attention To Indonesia - Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) | SeekingAlpha.com: "Indonesia currently makes up 6% of Facebook's user base, but only 3.0% of revenue. This could change rapidly. Indonesia and India combined could make up 15-18% of earnings in a few years and be a source of positive surprise."

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

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Tech Review | How Facebook $FB Pays So Little Tax In India (video)

Tech Review (TR 2018-03-03)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech news with commentary, analysis and opinion: Features • 1) How Facebook $FB Pays So Little Tax In India, 2) Twitter Exec On The Future Of Streaming Sports, 3) Investing: The Week: Beware Wall Street's Charging Bull, Investing Notes, 4)ICYMI Tech News.

1) How Facebook $FB Pays So Little Tax In India

India last year became Facebook’s biggest user base with 241 million accounts, but reported revenue was just 0.2 per cent of its global total. Now the Indian government is targeting US tech giants for a revenue grab. Financial Times (ft.com) video above published Feb 22, 2018:

2)Twitter Exec On The Future Of Streaming Sports

Laura Froelich, Twitter’s global director of sports partnerships, discusses the streaming media landscape among the major sports leagues with CNBC.com’s Eric Chemi.

3) Investing

The Week--S&P 500--Beware Wall Street's Charging Bull:

Tech Stocks Thumb Nose At Trump Trade War Fears As These 4 Industry Sectors Rock | investors.com March 2, 2018: "Perhaps more importantly, the Nasdaq is finding bullish support at its still-rising 50-day moving average. The market value-weighted index, boosted no doubt by strength in FANG stocks and other tech giants, is up 4.4% year to date."

Trade Wars? Trump tweeted Friday:“When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win. Example, when we are down $100 billion with a certain country and they get cute, don’t trade anymore-we win big. It’s easy!" German Stocks Crash Near 1-Year Lows On Trade Fears | ZeroHedge.com: "As Bloomberg notes, "the threat of a trade war was always likely to hit the export driven German economy hardest.""

"Don't Try To Make Sense Of This": Major Bank Gives Up On Today's Market | ZeroHedge.com Feb 28, 2018. 

Gartman Stopped Out On Market Short | ZeroHedge.com: "... we have been wrong in being short of equities, for there comes a time when the action of the market tells us that we have to admit the error of our ways ... facts make no difference for prices are higher…"

Beware Wall Street's Charging Bull:

Investing Notes:

• Buffett says 'terrible mistake' for long-term investors to be in bonds | Reuters.com

• Byron Wien Market Commentary | Blackstone.com: "... I still expect that the Standard & Poor’s 500 will close above 3000 sometime in the second half ..."
• Fed’s QE Unwind Marches Forward Relentlessly | WolfStreet.com: "This Fed isn’t going to try to bail out every whiner on Wall Street. It has been clear about that. It won’t take Wall-Street whining seriously until credit starts freezing up – and the credit markets are far away from that."

• Deutsche Bank credit strategist Jim Reid: "rates and yields will continue to structurally move higher in the quarters and years ahead regardless of any short-term moves, and we hope policymakers won't be derailed by the inevitable macro issues that this will bring."

• Eurozone: The gulf separating the two camps of eurozone reformists | ft.com: "The German-led group remains opposed to the France and Italy contingent on sovereign debt."
• Eurozone reformers act as if the crisis never happened | .ft.com: "Here is a recipe for disaster. You start off by taking the two most toxic financial instruments of the past 20 years, and then merge them ..." See also Markets unprepared for a Europe without Draghi and Merkel | South China Morning Post | scmp.com: "International investors have a blind spot: the looming departure of the two dominant figures in European politics and finance"--Mario Draghi, the ECB’s president, steps down in October 2019.
• Eurozone: A New Cunning Plan to Allay Banking Jitters but "there’s a problem ... Spain’s Deposit Guarantee Fund (DGF) doesn’t have nearly enough funds in its coffers to cover large institutional deposits." [Likewise severely insufficient funding in Italy, Ireland, Netherlands, France and Germany]--WolfStreet.com.
• Italian elections Sunday, March 4, 2018--what the polls say--general expectation is for a three-way stalemate between Berlusconi’s center-right, a progressive PD-led alliance and M5S--top issues: unemployment, immigrants, Euroskepticism.

• "CalPERS Is Near Insolvency; It Needs A Bailout Soon" | ZeroHedge.com: "... deepest fissures in US society: between public and private workers, between taxpayers and benefits recipients, between the young and old, [may] all bubble to the surface at the same time ..." Editor's Note: Who's going to 'bail out' California's Democratic Party & Public Unions' created problem? Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters and Adam Schiff? LOL!
• Trump Is Winning | POLITICO.com: "Donald Trump is on track to win re-election to the presidency of the United States ... He’s cut taxes. He’s rolled back regulations. He’s put ISIS on its heels. The economy and the stock market are humming along again ... " See also Brad Parscale Will Be Donald Trump's 2020 Campaign Manager | WIRED.com.

• Your First Thought Is Rarely Your Best Thought: Lessons on Thinking | fs.blog

4) ICYMI Tech News:

• YouTube [Owned by Google / Alphabet $GOOG $GOOGL] Hiring for Some Positions Excluded White and Asian Men, Lawsuit Says  | WSJ.com: Former recruiter sues Google, says YouTube set minority hiring quotas, stopped hiring white and Asian males last year for tech jobs, and fired him for complaining.
• Despite the toxic pollution, oppressive government, and closed internet (The Great Firewall), Beijing, China, is trying to lure foreign talent to its version of Silicon Valley reports Reuters.com. But Beijing's Z-Park only has a little over 10,000 foreign hires, whereas in Silicon Valley, a third of the population comprises tech talent from all over the world.

• Is Facebook At A Tipping Point?  (NASDAQ:FB) | SeekingAlpha.com

• Google: How YouTube TV Gets To $10 Billion - Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) | SeekingAlpha.com. But "You can have a million views a month and still not be able to make rent"--‘Success’ on YouTube Still Means a Life of Poverty | Bloomberg.com: top 3% of most-viewed YouTube channels receive around 85% of all views, attract 1.4M+ views/month, but only earn about $17K per year each in advertising revenue.
• EU gives Facebook and Google three months to tackle extremist content | TheGuardian.com

• Spotify (NYSE: SPOT) files for its unusual IPO | Axios.com

• Qualcomm swallows the poison pill--SeekingAlpha.com. But also read Qualcomm proposes further price talks with Broadcom: “We are willing to jointly select a law firm with antitrust expertise that you would fully brief on your licensing plans”--Qualcomm
• One thing that can go horribly wrong for Amazon's HQ2 search | South Florida Business Journal | bizjournals.com
  .
• Ford is setting up for an autonomous ride-hail and delivery business in Miami | Recode.net: "The company is testing its cars in a delivery service, mapping out the streets for a driverless ride-hail service and setting up a fleet-management center."
• SEC Launches Cryptocurrency Probe | WSJ.com: "subpoenas to parties engaged in booming market for initial coin offerings"

• Huawei boasts its next smartphone will be 'much better' than iPhone X and aims to leapfrog Apple in a year | cnbc.com

• US, Britain in cybersecurity divide over Chinese tech firm Huawei | FoxNews.com

• Statement by Acting FTC Chair on Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Ruling in FTC v. AT&T Mobility, LLC | Federal Trade Commission: “I welcome the Ninth Circuit’s ruling as good news for consumers. It ensures that the FTC can and will continue to play its vital role in safeguarding consumer interests including privacy protection, as well as stopping anticompetitive market behavior.”
• T-Mobile and Sprint name first 5G cities, as race to build next-gen network intensifies | GeekWire.com

• Android Oreo vs Android One vs Android Go: All their differences, explained | ZDNet.com

• ZTE's first Android Go phone, Tempo Go, costs $80 | CNET.com

• 'It's going to end in tears': Reality check is coming for subscription-thirsty publishers | Digiday.com: Publishers are pivoting to subscriptions, as they did to video, but industry execs warn reader revenue is a difficult business model to implement.
• Best Buy will close all of its 250 mobile phone stores in the US by end of May--WSJ.com.

• Wipeout--Easy Come, Easy Go--Twitter has written down $66.4 million of its $70M SoundCloud investment: "SoundCloud finally secured a Hail Mary deal that included $170 million of new funding from the Raine Group and Singapore’s Temasek in August of 2017. However, that deal came with a corporate restructure that wiped out many of the start-up’s early investors, and ultimately also forced out SoundCloud’s founding CEO Alexander Ljung."--Variety.com.

From the Reuters.com feed:

• EU plans new tax for tech giants up to 5 percent of gross revenues

• U.S. to overtake Russia as top oil producer by 2019 at latest: IEA

• Big Corn, Big Oil square off in White House biofuels meeting

• Nokia CEO sees big 5G rollouts nearly a year ahead of schedule | Reuters.com: "Far and away, the U.S. and China activity will dwarf Europe ..."
• Comcast's $31 billion Sky bid crashes Murdoch and Disney show

• China pushes back against criticism of plan for Xi to stay in power: President for life?

• Big pharma, big data: why drugmakers want your health records

• U.S. telecom agency [FCC] plans new spectrum auction to speed 5G networks

• NRA honors FCC chair with rifle for repealing 'net neutrality' [Editor's note: You can't make this stuff up!]

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

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Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google: Let's Play Monopoly (video)

Let's Play Monopoly

L2inc.com video above published Feb 22, 2018: "Pass Go, collect $200, and go bankrupt as big tech buys all the properties"--Scott Galloway.

Sources:
(0:17) “Amazon To Launch Delivery Service That Would Vie With FedEx, UPS,” The Wall Street Journal, February 2018. https://goo.gl/9cSryV
(0:25) Yahoo Finance.
(0:36) “Amazon's New Delivery Program Shouldn't Hurt FedEx, UPS,” CNET, February 2018. https://goo.gl/etwxfU
(0:47) “FedEx: Long-Term Financial Goals Pre-Fiscal 2Q18 Earnings,” Market Realist, December 2017. https://goo.gl/jqFT16
(0:47) “Amazon's New Delivery Program Shouldn't Hurt FedEx, UPS,” CNET, February 2018. https://goo.gl/etwxfU
(1:07) “Amazon Starts Flexing Muscle in New Space: Air Cargo,” Reuters, December 2016. https://goo.gl/tzcqF9
(1:54) “Apple Music on Track to Overtake Spotify in U.S. Subscribers,” The Wall Street Journal, February 2018. https://goo.gl/vzP6fh
(2:00) “Apple Music Struggles to Keep Pace With Spotify’s Growth,” Statista, February 2018. https://goo.gl/Q1peih
(2:06) “1 Billion Apple Devices Are in Active Use Around the World,” The Verge, January 2016. https://goo.gl/vQhS2j
(2:17) “Apple’s New App Store Rules a Big Boon for Netflix, Hulu & Co.,” Variety, June 2016. https://goo.gl/vNErjw
(2:22) “Paying For Spotify Through Apple,” Spotify. https://goo.gl/tbHmzR
(2:30) “Spotify Says Apple Won’t Approve A New Version of Its App Because It Doesn’t Want Competition for Apple Music,” recode, June 2016. https://goo.gl/93R5Y8
(3:07) Census Bureau.
(3:11) “The U.S. Listings Gap,” Credit Suisse, U.S. Global Investors.
(4:00) U.S. Senate, Commerce, Science And Transportation Committee Hearing, February 14, 2018

Auto-generated transcript via YouTube.com:
00:00 [Music]
00:01 in this week's winners and losers we
00:05 talk about monopoly monopolies the
00:11 latest sector that Amazon has put in
00:13 jail
00:14 the shipping sector Amazon announced it
00:16 was getting into delivery of goods
00:19 immediately UPS and FedEx stocks crashed
00:21 five percent on opening bell or about
00:24 eight billion dollars market
00:26 capitalization continuing a pattern of
00:28 cascading stock prices within hours of
00:30 Amazon announcing interest in any given
00:32 sector analysts claim the threat is
00:34 overblown pointing to UPS and FedEx
00:37 complex infrastructure and that Amazon
00:39 accounts for approximately just five
00:41 percent of total revenue and pointing to
00:44 all the capex expenses about five
00:46 billion each for FedEx and UPS in the
00:48 most recent year last year we correctly
00:50 predicted that Amazon would get into
00:53 this business if Beezus tamal said we
00:55 see overnight delivery as a huge
00:57 opportunity
00:58 150 billion dollars a market cap of DHL
01:00 FedEx and UPS would begin leaking to
01:02 Amazon Amazon claimed last year when
01:05 they started leasing airplanes and
01:07 buying tractor trailers that they were
01:08 only supplementing holiday demand
01:10 well it appears that FedEx and UPS
01:12 should get ready to be supplemented it
01:14 doesn't matter what the reality is the
01:17 perception that Amazon will win is a
01:19 self-fulfilling prophecy as they will
01:21 begin choking access to the mother's
01:23 milk of business Capital prediction
01:26 FedEx and UPS regardless of the reality
01:30 will lose 20% of their value in the next
01:32 six months and Amazon will increase its
01:35 market cap by about sixty billion
01:38 dollars as analysts begin to sharpen
01:40 their pencil and look at a new gangster
01:42 in town and shipping Amazon another
01:45 player with billions of hotels on any
01:47 property you might land on Apple Apple
01:50 music is now growing faster than Spotify
01:52 in the US Apple music is gaining
01:54 subscribers at a rate of five percent
01:56 per month versus Spotify
01:58 2% growth Spotify still has twice as
02:00 many subscribers but Apple has a
02:02 built-in advantage as it comes
02:03 pre-loaded on 1 billion iOS devices I
02:07 get in my car and Apple music begins
02:10 automatically playing by the way Apple
02:12 has literally
02:13 ruin to YouTube for me i can't turn that
02:15 up Apple takes a 30% cut of all
02:18 subscriptions sold through its App Store
02:20 Spotify decided to avoid the charge by
02:22 preventing new customers from
02:24 subscribing to Spotify Premium through
02:26 the App Store Apple retaliated by
02:29 blocking the Spotify update when you're
02:31 building a platform and you unfairly
02:33 restrain the competition that's direct
02:35 evidence of Monopoly abuse what is the
02:39 growth engine of our economy tech tax
02:41 cuts no it's small business if you look
02:45 at the front page of any business
02:46 section however or turn on CNBC you
02:49 think thousands of businesses were being
02:50 formed every day and night by shiny
02:53 grads from Berkeley Stanford and MIT not
02:55 to mention all the dropouts starting
02:57 billion-dollar companies but what's the
02:59 reality startups are in freefall
03:01 specifically over the last four decades
03:03 new business formation has been cut in
03:06 half the number of public companies has
03:09 also declined dramatically why there's
03:11 some macro reasons people have more debt
03:13 coming out of school and because they
03:14 have to pay to listen to this book so
03:16 they're less inclined to start a
03:18 business maybe because of the housing
03:19 crisis they're less likely to move
03:21 however we would argue that the real
03:23 reason here is it's harder to get
03:25 funding small businesses can't compete
03:27 with big tech when I'm in VC meetings
03:30 and I'm in a lot of them budding
03:31 entrepreneurs have to adopt a basic
03:33 narrative and that is we don't compete
03:35 with Amazon Apple Facebook or Google but
03:37 we make great acquisitions which is
03:40 effectively an oxymoron so if there's a
03:43 shot you'll be bought by an enormous
03:44 company you can raise billions at the
03:46 same time as not compete with them
03:47 however every other good idea raises
03:50 zero it has never been easier to be a
03:52 billionaire and never been harder to be
03:55 a millionaire under the category of
03:57 strange bedfellows this morning Ted Cruz
03:59 just that Ted Cruz senator from Texas
04:01 referenced an article that we wrote in
04:03 Esquire how do we feel about it kind of
04:05 like kissing our hot cousin a mixture of
04:08 very conflicted emotions or better yet
04:10 some of the dreams I've been having
04:12 about magnum p.i specifically a physical
04:15 encounter with Tom Selleck initially a
04:18 bit off-putting but then I find I start
04:20 to like it and then he screams out I'm
04:23 Magnum 3.14 which really gets the ball
04:26 rolling if you know what I mean
04:30 [Music]

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What Your Wireless Carrier May Not Be Telling You, U.S. Mobile Data Usage

What your wireless carrier may not be telling you?

1. When it comes to phones, you have a choice: see the list of All Phone Manufacturers | PhoneArena.com. It's not just Apple or Samsung. Order an unlocked phone online (preferably GSM which works on AT&T and T-Mobile in the U.S.) and save money ($$$). Your wireless carrier will provide you with a SIM card. For example, just search for best unlocked smartphones on Amazon.com, and look at your options. Among our current favorites: BLU Life One X2 (64GB+4GB RAM) $199.99 at Amazon which uses Qualcomm.com components and Corning.com gorilla glass.
2. Wireless carrier plans or terms are, for the most part, confusing and change regularly. We suggest first using opensignal.com to determine which carriers provide adequate coverage for your needs, and then determine how much voice, text, and data you actually need from your wireless carrier--don't pay for more than you need (e.g., where a wi-fi network instead suffices in meeting connectivity needs). Also consider using Google Voice or Hangouts, or other voice app, for wi-fi calling. Of all the carriers in the U.S., here's what we like best in the budget-friendly category: T-Mobile.com, including their $30 a month and $3 a month plans (get these online at t-mobile.com). Also consider (particularly for a secondary phone, second SIM or international travel phone), global MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) LycaMobile.com based on this recommendation for its voice & text Pay As You Go $0.05 a minute voice, $0.05 per SMS in the U.S. (rates vary for other countries). In the U.S., LycaMobile uses the T-Mobile network. According to the recommendation source above, you simply load up $10 onto your LycaMobile SIM and "make calls as needed and they (LycaMobile) will charge you on a per minute and per text basis. Your balance should never expire as long as you have some sort of [$0.05 minute voice or $0.05 text] activity every 90 days," and when your balance gets down to $1.00, simply load another $10 on the SIM.
3. Does Your Wireless Carrier 4G LTE Data Cap Limit Include OR Exclude Video Streaming?

T-Mobile.com has expanded its customer base by "zero-rating" (free of cap limit) video streams via popular apps like Netflix and Spotify, see complete list here. Those video streams do not count against a user's data cap. As a result, the infographic below shows T-Mobile's customers are consuming far more mobile data than competitors' customers in the U.S.

Chart below shows average data used per day and usage time per person on U.S. cellular networks in 2016, according to Statista:

Binge On | Video Streaming without Using Your 4G LTE Data | T-Mobile.com: "... you can stream all you want for FREE without using your data. With Binge On, Simple Choice users on a qualifying plan are FREE to stream unlimited video on your favorite services like YouTube, Netflix, HBO NOW, and many more without using a drop of your high-speed data. Nothing to configure – all automatically applied to your qualifying plan ..." [go to link above for more, including terms of the offer].

T-Mobile shares | NASDAQ: TMUS up over 40% the past year, as of Thursday close 17 Nov 2016:

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Digital Winners: Amazon, Facebook; Losers: Snapchat, Apple Music (video)

Scott Galloway: Snapchat is a Loser:

Video above published Nov 3, 2016, by L2inc.com. NYU Stern marketing professor Scott Galloway presents his take on this week's biggest winners and losers in digital:

• What do winning companies have in common? They don't just have a lot of users - they also glean data about those users' behavior and use it to improve the consumer experience. 
• The biggest winner here: Amazon.com, which could soon be the first trillion-dollar company. The site's algorithm constantly looks at what you're shopping for and displays the most relevant products, in addition to ensuring that prices are the most competitive on the Internet. Compare to lame Walmart.com.
• A loser: Snapchat.com. While the platform is innovative, they're not using their algorithm to personalize the experience--watch out for Facebook.com's Instagram.com.
• Another surprising loser: Apple.com. The company's music algorithm has changed little since the early days of iTunes, opening the door for Pandora.com and Spotify.com.

YouTube.com auto-generated transcript:
0:00 what do winning companies have in common
0:04 we think a lot about that here at l2
0:06 eight of the 13 companies that have
0:08 outperformed the S&P 500 years straight
0:11 have a few things in common specifically
0:13 they don't just have a lot of users they
0:15 also clean data about those users
0:17 behavior and use the data to improve the
0:19 consumer experience seamlessly the
0:22 combined receptors their number of users
0:24 with intelligence to implicitly inform
0:27 and improve the product google pioneered
0:29 this concept of the original gangster
0:32 here every time you conduct a search you
0:34 make the algorithm point 000000 three
0:40 percent better
0:42 so who's the biggest winner here who
0:43 brings together receptors and
0:45 intelligence like no one else
0:47 amazon the platform's algorithm constant
0:49 looks of what you're shopping for and
0:51 then displays the most relevant products
0:53 for you these three users see vastly
0:56 different home pages due to differences
0:58 in their shopping behavior and contrast
1:00 here's the homepage for the same users
1:03 on walmart what you see the exact same
1:06 thing it's similar in a bad way amazon's
1:08 algorithm also caused millions of sites
1:10 to ensure the details prices are the
1:12 most competitive best buy and walmart
1:14 change prices 50,000 times per month in
1:18 comparison
1:19 amazon changes prices across categories
1:21 more than two-and-a-half million times
1:23 each day prediction amazon will be the
1:26 first trillion dollar company and will
1:28 reach this milestone in 2018 based on
1:32 our algorithm we believe snapchat is
1:34 going to decline in value in 2017 their
1:37 innovative no doubt but they're not
1:39 using their algorithm to push content or
1:42 personalize the experience a lot of
1:44 receptors but not a lot of intelligence
1:46 here meanwhile rival Instagram recently
1:48 changed its news feed from chronological
1:50 to algorithmic Instagram also reaches
1:53 more people Nikes most viewed snap got
1:55 around 70,000 views while the company's
1:58 Instagram story racked up a whopping
2:00 800,000 views and its first 24 hours
2:04 unless snapchat can come up with a
2:05 smarter way to leverage user data
2:08 facebook is going to steal it standard
2:11 the world is going to fail
2:13 facebook and google so who is losing
2:16 when you look at companies through this
2:17 lens of receptors times intelligence
2:20 apple itunes 2001 large brought Apple a
2:24 huge surgeon value but the platform's
2:26 algorithm is not involved opening the
2:28 door for Pandora and Spotify Spotify is
2:31 implicit intelligence is more robust and
2:33 introducing listeners to new music as a
2:35 result Spotify has 40 million
2:37 subscribers more than double the
2:39 subscribers of apples music offering
2:42 they're also better targeting ads here's
2:44 what Pandora no joke serves me and over
2:47 40 have you tried to GNC award-winning
2:50 innovation designed to invigorate your
2:51 body and increase your libido
2:53 we'll see you next week

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