Just don’t bring it up.
Last week was Back To The Future Day, but the Internet went and ruined it, so we’re not going to talk about it. But we are going to talk about YouTube Red, Amazon taking on reviews for hire, laser razors, and LogMeIn buying LastPass.
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THE RUN DOWN
Don’t buy YouTube Red on your iPhone
YouTube has decided to launch a premium service. For $10 a month, you can watch YouTube videos without any ads, plus you get streaming music from YouTube Music and access to exclusive original content.
If that does sound like something you’re interested in, don’t buy your subscription on your iOS device.
That might sound crazy, but as you may know, Apple takes 30 percent of in-app purchases. Most companies just bite the bullet and eat that loss because the convenience of being able to pay right on your Apple device, and some companies, like Amazon, decided they weren’t going to pay, and pushed the checkout page to a website. Google is trying something different. Instead of eating the cost of Apple’s commission, or potentially losing a sale by sending the customer to a website, Google is passing the cost on to you! If you buy a subscription to YouTube Red on an iOS device, you will pay $13 instead of $10. So, come October 28th when YouTube Red launches, make sure to go to YouTube.com to sign up to save yourself $3.
Advertisers say they broke the Web
The Washington Post reports that the online advertising industry is saying, ?We?re sorry.? Or at least, the part of it which is represented by the Interactive Advertising Bureau. In a recent blog post, Scott Cunningham, a high level exec for the Bureau wrote, ?We messed up.? He said that the systems that allowed marketers to track and target advertisements “have slowed down the public internet and drained more than a few batteries.? He attributed this to plumbing that was, quote, over-engineered.
In case you are wondering why the online advertising is suddenly waking up to the fact that they have been annoying users and slowing down web pages after all this time, the answer is two little words: ad blockers.
Ad blockers have become hugely popular on desktop browsers and now are beginning to come to mobile as well. The latest version of iOS opens the iPhone up to adblocking. Advertisers are, well, concerned.
In Cunningham?s blog post, he announced that the IAB is developing a new ad system called LEAN, which stands for Light, Non-invasive, Ad-choice supported and Non-invasive. If its ads really are all those things that will be a welcome change.
Amazon goes after fake reviewers
Amazon has filed a lawsuit against more than a thousand people they say have offered to write fake reviews for money.
As Mashable reports, Amazon is going after people on Fiverr.com, a website that lets people do tasks for as little as $5, who offered to write and post five-star reviews for products in exchange for payment from the sellers or manufacturers of said products.
This follows a similar lawsuit Amazon filed in April of this year against a group of sites that offered to write Amazon reviews, including buy-amazon-reviews.com and buy-reviews-now.com.
As Amazon says in the claim, “While small in number, these reviews threaten to undermine the trust that customers, and the vast majority of sellers and manufacturers, place in Amazon, thereby tarnishing Amazon?s brand.?
Fortunately, Amazon is not going after funny reviews.
A razor with “frickin’ lasers attached to its frickin’ head”
Crowdfunding can often be like a bug zapper drawing people into something that they probably should be staying away from and definitely shouldn’t be investing in. There have been quite a few Kickstarter and Indiegogo projects that have been successfully funded but never materialized. Kickstarter and Indiegogo have been fighting this since their inceptions.
Well, Kickstarter took some action recently to prevent it from happening again. The Skarp Laser Razor got the boot from Kickstarter after having raised just over $4 million from backers.
Now, as the name of the product specifically states, the Skarp Laser Razor has a “frickin laser attached to its frickin’ head.” In other words, you can shave your face with a laser beam.
Why did Kickstarter kick them off their site? Well, Kickstarter says it’s because of one pesky little fact. Kickstarter says Skarp doesn’t have a working prototype. Kickstarter said, that the laser razor was ?in violation of our rule requiring working prototypes of physical products that are offered as rewards.?
If you watch the promotional video you will see a “prototype.” I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t use that thing on my face, and not just because I have a long, luxurious beard, but because I want to keep my face.
Not surprisingly, Skarp has setup shop over at Indiegogo and has raised a measly $400,000.
Arstechnica reports that LastPass is being acquired by LogMeIn, which makes remote desktop management and support software for individuals and businesses. LogMeIn will pay $110 million for LastPass.
If you?ve never heard of LastPass (and really, how could you listen to this show and not have heard about it? We talk about it all the time) it?s a password manager that generates strong passwords and stores them in an encrypted vault. It offers extensions and apps for desktop and mobile browsers that will automatically fill in password fields once you?ve logged in with your master password – the LAST PASSword you?ll ever have to remember. They currently offer free, premium and enterprise versions of the software.
LogMeIn actually bought another company last year called Meldium, which makes a password manager for teams and businesses. It looks like those features will be integrated into LastPass once the deal goes through.
As you probably remember, last month Google restructured itself under a new parent company called Alphabet. Jazzed about their new name, Google ran to snap up Alphabet.com but – whoops! It was already owned by BMW, and they weren?t selling.
So, Google decided that if it couldn?t own Alphabet, it would buy THE alphabet. It has officially purchased abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz.com.
Right now the domain name leads to an inactive website. You can still learn all about Google/Alphabet at abc.xyz.
We promised our listeners last time we would talk about the new Nexus phone, which is of course Google?s flagship. Well, actually there are two of them as it turns out: they are called the 5X and the 6P, respectively.
The 5X is the smaller, cheaper phone, and it is made by LG. It has a 5.2? 1080p screen, a 12.3 MP rear camera with laser autofocus, and a 2700 mAh battery. The phone starts at an affordable $379 for the 16 GB version.
The 6P is made by Huwai and supposedly the ?P? stands for premium. It does feature an anodized aluminum case whereas the 5X is pure plastic. It has a 5.7? screen that has some sort of super ultra mega high density Samsung display. It also rocks a 12.3 MP camera but the battery is a whopping 3450 mAh. This phablet is a little pricier, starting at $499 for the 32 GB version.
Both phones ship with Android Marshmallow on them and have fingerprint sensors.