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As Twitter continues its utterly comical march toward its own demise, we’re grabbing popcorn to watch the blazing blaze. In other news: Merry Christmas, guys! – Christine And Pilgrim
Top Techcrunch 3
- Well blue check you out: Twitter users with over 1 million followers got their blue checkmarks back, even if they didn’t pay for Twitter Blue, Ivan reports. It is interesting to note that many account holders were quick to separate themselves from being a subscriber. Perhaps it also has something to do with Twitter giving a gold checkmark to a fake Disney account. Ivan He has more on that.
- No, ai, nksHere’s what Snapchatters are saying about the “My AI” feature launched last week. pleasant He writes that the social media giant is seeing a spike in one-star ratings, which includes calling for its removal.
- to be near youAt a time when there is a wave of skepticism about cryptocurrency, Cosmose, a company that uses AI analytics to track in-store traffic and interact with online shoppers, is working on the digital currency. Rita Reports indicate that Cosmose, which recently closed in an undisclosed $500 million round of funding, is now working with a near-crypto solution. Even drop Stripe to do it. It’s a bold strategy, Cotton. Let’s see if it pays off.
Startups and VC
Super.com, formerly known as Snapcommerce, launched its SuperCash cashback card last October so card users can build credit, garnering 5 million customers worldwide who have collectively saved more than $150 million so far, according to CEO Hussain. preferred. Now she has her sights set on helping “average Americans” find deals and savings across multiple categories, including travel and shopping, via her superlative app, Christine reports.
Silicon Valley’s quest to automate everything doesn’t stop, which explains its latest obsession: Auto-GPT. In essence, Auto-GPT uses a variety of OpenAI’s latest artificial intelligence models to interact with online programs and services, allowing them to perform tasks such as X and Y “autonomously”. But since we learn using macrolanguage paradigms, this potential seems to be as wide as the ocean but as deep as a pond, Kyle reports.
Come on, another bunch for you:
- They just want to stay involved: Frederick Reports indicate that the Volvo Technology Fund is investing in the startup’s driver monitoring measures.
- I’ll give you a ring in a moment: Brian Big win reports Oura partnership Best Buy brings smart ring to 850 stores across US
- You build it, you get paidMore construction projects are being started, but payments to contractors and subcontractors continue to create a bottleneck in the normal course of project completion. Constrafor raises new capital to improve that, Christine reports.
- fierce competition: Woodoo creates decarbonized wood based reports and materials Roman.
- Last impressions matter: over TC+, Pilgrim For a planned presentation, he argues, last impressions count almost as much as first impressions.
- Make intellectual property an asset: also for TC+, Pilgrim He took a closer look at Aventurine, which helps early-stage founders make money from their intellectual property portfolios, in what the accelerator hopes will be a perpetual fund, backed by an intellectual property license.
10 Years of FinTech Failure: 3 Other Ideas That Failed to Live Up to the Initial Hype
Image credits: TommL (opens in a new window) / Getty Images
Remember P2P lending and on-demand insurance? If not, there’s a good reason: despite a lot of hype, they’re just two of the many fintech innovations that have fizzled out over the past decade.
For his recent TC+ column, fintech consultant Grant Easterbrook examined three other ideas that “at first seemed promising, but largely failed to transform the financial services industry.”
And according to Easterbrook, these misfits offer valuable lessons for today’s founders and investors: “Fintech entrepreneurs need to remember the basic principle that the average consumer doesn’t like to think about money and often wants someone else to take care of it.”
Three more from the TC+ team:
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BigTech Inc.
Merchants have a lot of things to deal with when it comes to running their business, but Shopify wants to take one thing off its plate. Shopify is working with B2B payments provider Melio to add direct invoice payments so they can consolidate invoices and pay their bills in a more automated way across the Shopify platform. Mary Ann He writes that this is the e-commerce platform’s “attempt to be a one-stop shop for financial technology for merchants.”
Ringing, ringing… guess who’s calling? It’s PhonePe, and the company is challenging Google’s dominance in India with its own app store. The Walmart-backed company “offers a premiere experience to millions of users with high-quality ads and personalized targeting, support for 12 languages and 24/7 live chat,” Manly… masculine reports.
And we have five more for you: