Mission Everywhere

Anne VanderMey / Bloomberg : How Jeff Beacher, owner of a Las Vegas nightclub frequented by celebs, helped build Airbnb's celebrity marketing program in 2015, making it into a luxury brand   —  For one week in the summer of 2015, consumers of celebrity gossip news couldn't escape Mariah Carey's trip to Malibu, California. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2qRWlMp

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch : Adobe: Black Friday online sales grew 19.6% YoY to $7.4B, as Thanksgiving sales rose 14.5%, to $4.2B; Cyber Monday sales are expected to reach $9.4B, up 18.9%   —  Following swiftly on the heels of a Thanksgiving that broke records with $4.2 billion in online sales, Black Friday also hit a new high … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/37Vyqfk

Following swiftly on the heels of a Thanksgiving that broke records with $4.2 billion in online sales, Black Friday also hit a new high, although it just fell short of predictions. According to analytics from Adobe , consumers spent $7.4 billion online yesterday buying goods online via computers, tablets and smartphones. The figures were up by $1.2 billion on Black Friday 2018 , but they actually fell short of Adobe’s prediction for the day, which was $7.5 billion. Salesforce, meanwhile, said that its checks revealed $7.2 billion in sales (even further off the forecast). Popular products included toys on the themes of Frozen 2, L.O.L Surprise, and Paw Patrol. Best selling video games included FIFA 20, Madden 20, and Nintendo Switch. And top electronics, meanwhile, included Apple Laptops, Airpods, and Samsung TVs. A full $2.9 billion of Black Friday sales happened on smartphones. These conversions are growing faster than online shopping overall, so we are now approaching a tipping po...

Hulu + Live TV offers over 60 live channels including CBS, Food Network, ESPN, and Disney, plus Hulu's entire streaming catalog, starting at $44.99 a month. Upgrade to Hulu Premium + Live TV for only $6 more a month to experience Hulu's streaming catalog ad-free. It comes with the ability to record live TV to stream on-demand with up to 50 hours of storage at no additional cost. If you're new to Hulu, take advantage of  Hulu's Black Friday deal  running through December 2. Your first year's subscription will cost just $1.99 a month. Hulu + Live TV recently saved my life. Well, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but it definitely saved my Shark Week. Shark Week is a huge deal in my house. My partner and I dedicate our whole week to observing these majestic creatures in their natural habitats and cheering on the brave and dedicated scientists, researchers, and divers who make it all possible. This year was to be no different. But we'd recently mo...

Digital transformation has arrived. Not a single industry is safe from the unstoppable wave of digitization that is sweeping through finance, retail, transportation, and more. And in 2019, there will be even more transformative developments that will  our businesses, careers, and lives. Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has put together a list of 40 Big Tech Predictions for 2019 across Apps and Platforms, Digital Media, Payments, The Internet of Things, E-Commerce, Fintech, Transportation & Logistics, and Digital Health. Some of these major predictions include: Amazon will launch an Alexa-powered car product similar to Apple's and Google's. Amazon will buy Snapchat as the social app struggles to add users, compete with Instagram, and make money. Despite the hype around the Chase-Visa deal, it alone won't mark an inflection point for contactless payments in the U.S. Smart speaker prices will hit $20 for the newest m...

Since it’s a holiday week for those of us in the United States, we’ve put together an (even more) unstructured episode of the Original Content podcast . Among other things, this gives us a chance to update our initial review of “The Mandalorian” by acknowledging the Disney+ show’s breakout character, known unofficially as Baby Yoda — maybe that counts as a spoiler, but he’s all over social media already, and he’s even the subject of new Disney merchandise that seems to have been rushed into production . Beyond our “Mandalorian” catch-up, Star Wars comes up again during our discussion of things from the streaming and entertainment world that we’re thankful for. Despite some behind-the-scenes turmoil, the Disney era at Lucasfilm has brought us some delightful films, particularly “The Force Awakens” and “The Last Jedi.” It might seem kind of redundant to praise two of the most commercially successful films of all time , but it’s also an opportunity to address the online backlash and c...

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the Extra Crunch series that recaps the latest OS news, the applications they support and the money that flows through it all. What are developers talking about? What do app publishers and marketers need to know? How are politics impacting the App Store and app businesses? And which apps are everyone using? This week, we’re discussing the impact of the CFIUS investigation into TikTok, the further fallout of Apple’s vaping app ban, updates to Apple Arcade and Google Play Pass subscription-based app stores, Apple’s breaking changes that rolled out without warning (thanks, Apple!) and a shady app that reached the top of the App Store thanks to a big Kardashians-led endorsement, among other things. Headlines TikTok separates further from its Chinese parent One of the world’s most downloaded and used apps, TikTok, is under a national security review in the U.S. because of its Chinese roots. TikTok parent company, ByteDance, is a China-based operation —...

Venture capitalists are the startup experts, the ones who have their finger on the pulse of which fledgling companies will boom and which will bust. As part of Business Insider Prime's comprehensive coverage of the startups that will strike gold in 2019, we asked VCs to name the startups they think are going to be hot this year. They told us about companies they currently have in their portfolios, as well as ones they haven't put any money into yet but are at the center of positive news. And from those discussions, one particular group of startups came up repeatedly: those that specialize in artificial intelligence tech. From AI robots to software that uses machine learning to automate tasks, Silicon Valley is chock full of AI-focused startups. Take, for example, Transfix, a freight marketplace that companies use to hire trucks from carriers. The startup is trying to transform the $800 billion trucking industry by using AI to match loads with carriers. It's raised $131...

Fathin Ungku / Reuters : Facebook complies with Singapore's fake news law and adds a label that is visible to local users, under the users' post, saying the post contains false info   —  SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Facebook (FB.O) said on Saturday it had issued a correction notice on a user's post at the request … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2L8mDR4

As the Holiday Season approaches, new jobs for players in the tech ecosystem beckon. And this is no less true for investors. Two notable moves have recently happened that are worthy of note in the European scene. The first is that GR Capital , a pan-European VC, is opening an office in London and has lured Jason Ball , who, earlier this year, left Qualcomm Ventures where had been European Managing Director for over a decade. Bad spent ten years as a mentor at Seedcamp and individually invested in more than ten companies. He was understood to be looking for new challenges, either building a new fund or joining another – so now we have our answer as to what he decided. Founded in 2016 by Roma Ivaniuk in Ukraine, GR Capital specializes in late-stage VC investments. It has over $70M under management and has invested in Lime, Azimo, WeFox, McMakler, Glovo and Meero among others. The fund has traditionally been known for investing in Eastern Europe, but with a London office and the extreme...

Apple is at a tipping point. The tech giant’s fiscal Q1 2019 represented the first time in more than a decade the company saw declines in both revenue and profit during a holiday season. Apple’s peripheral segments — 'Services' and 'Wearables, Home, and Accessories' — were two bright spots for the company. And Apple’s latest event marked a shift in the company’s approach, with a focus on news, games, videos, and other content. Business Insider Intelligence has outlined the road ahead for the tech giant in   The Future of Apple . To get your copy of this exclusive report absolutely FREE, simply click here . Join the conversation about this story » from Tech Insider https://ift.tt/2rSdohp