Tag Archives: News
Shopify revenue grew 47% in Q4 as merchants take advantage of new marketing capabilities
The e-commerce provider reported annual revenues of $1.57 billion and continues to invest in new technology. E-commerce provider Shopify reported [PDF] $505.2 million in revenue for the fourth quarter of 2019 on Wednesday, an increase of 47% compared to the fourth quarter of 2018. Annual revenues topped $1.57 billion in 2019, up 47% from 2018. […]
Amazon Music passes 55M customers, still lags behind Spotify and Apple
Amazon Music, the streaming music service from the e-commerce and cloud giant that competes against the likes of Spotify and Apple Music, announced a milestone in its growth today: it has passed 55 million customers across the six different pricing tiers that it offers for the service, ranging from $15 per month through to a […]
ByteDance Readying Assault on Tencent’s Mobile Gaming Kingdom
ByteDance Inc. is preparing a major push into the mobile arena’s most lucrative market – a realm Tencent Holdings Ltd has dominated for over a decade. The world’s most valuable startup has rapidly built a full-fledged gaming division to spearhead its maiden foray into hardcore or non-casual games, according to people familiar with the matter. […]
Tencent to grow gaming empire with $148M acquisition of Conan publisher Funcom in Norway
Tencent, one of the world’s biggest video and online gaming companies by revenue, today made another move to help cement that position. The Chinese firm has made an offer to fully acquire Funcom, the games developer behind Conan Exiles (and others in the Conan franchise), Dune and some 28 other titles. The deal, when approved, […]
Amazon’s booming ad business grew by 40% in 2019
With plenty of runway ahead, Amazon quarterly ad revenues surpassed $4 billion for the first time in the fourth quarter. Amazon had anticipated a good holiday season, and it got it. The company reported $87.4 billion in net sales for the fourth quarter of 2019, up 21% from the same period the prior year. On […]
Microsoft’s Xbox boss says Amazon and Google are ‘the main competitors going forward’
Sony and Nintendo aren’t the main competition in the cloud world. Microsoft’s head of gaming and Xbox, Phil Spencer, has revealed that the company sees Amazon and Google as its main competition for the future. Speaking in an interview with newly launched technology publication Protocol, Spencer dismisses Sony and Nintendo’s ability to create a cloud […]
Diageo eyes ‘real growth opportunity’ in no-ABV sector
After taking a majority stake in non-alcoholic ‘spirit’ brand Seedlip, Diageo said it sees a “real growth opportunity” for the group and will continue investing in the alcohol-free category. UK drinks giant Diageo increased its shareholding in booze-free Seedlip to a majority stake in August 2019. At the time, the group said it “will be […]
Google’s New Meena Chatbot Imitates Human Conversation and Bad Jokes
Google announced the creation of Meena in a new research paper, claiming that it is the most advanced, chatbot ever built. According to Google, Meena can carry on a conversation at a level that feels far more like talking to another person than any existing chatbot. To prove it, Google’s researchers also created an entirely […]
Maybe Information Actually Doesn’t Want to Be Free
Jessica Lessin’s online tech publication costs $399 a year and has no ads. Silicon Valley’s elite is eating it up. Jessica Lessin thinks the biggest story of the moment — how tech is swallowing the universe — is hopelessly under-covered by the news media. The issue is “massive,” she said not long ago in her […]
Newsonomics: Here are 20 epiphanies for the news business of the 2020s
It is the best of times for The New York Times — and likely the worst of times for all the local newspapers with Times (or Gazette or Sun or Telegram or Journal) in their nameplates across the land. When I spoke at state newspaper conferences five or ten years ago, people would say: “It’ll […]