Platform Wars

Meta’s firehose (or: the wrong lesson from Threads’ 100MM users)

Threads, Meta's new text-based social media app, reached 100MM registrations today, just five days after being officially made available. While…

Can Meta’s Threads app reach 100MM DAU this quarter?

I built a simple model to project DAU for Meta's new Threads app. Like all models, it is a work…

Meta’s Twitter competitor: can this time be different?

Given its track record, can Meta launch and scale a new app to meaningful commercial traction? Operating services at scale…

Meta to launch direct-to-install ads for Android. Will they work?

The Verge reports that Meta will launch a direct-to-install app advertising product for Android under the auspices of the EU's…

Three insights from the EU’s antitrust allegations against Google

Yesterday, the European Commission sent a Statement of Objections to Google, declaring "its preliminary view that the company breached EU…

Unpacking Amazon’s potential foray into ad-supported streaming with Prime Video

The WSJ reported yesterday that Amazon is considering introducing an ad-supported subscription tier for its Prime Video streaming service. From…

Generative AI, advertising, and hidden personas

Last week, WPP, the world's largest advertising agency, announced a partnership with NVIDIA that will empower advertising creative production through…

Privacy, Digital Deglobalization, and the Three Internets

The concept of "the three internets," represented by the digital ecosystems encircled by regulatory borders erected by the United States,…

Social media subscriptions and the internet’s grand bargain

As a rebuttal to the "if you don't pay for the product..." aphorism, I propose that social media platforms engage…

February 20, 2023

The Third Browser War

Last week, The Register reported that Google's Chromium team has begun developing an iOS browser based on the open-source Blink…

February 8, 2023