Techmeme
November 5, 2022, 3:05 PM

Top News

Platformer:
Sources detail Twitter after mass layoffs: key teams gutted, severance packages account for the WARN Act, and an ad hoc Google Docs directory of remaining staff  —  I. The Snap  —  The email went out at 5:21 PT PT on Thursday.  —  For a full week, Twitter employees had waited in hopes …
Financial Times:
Current and former Twitter staff shed light on Elon Musk's “War Room”, which includes Jason Calacanis and David Sacks, tasked with fixing the stagnant business  —  In his first week as owner, billionaire axed management, began mass job cuts and launched new products
Faiz Siddiqui / Washington Post:
More: The Guardian, Mercury News, TechCrunch, The Irish Times, Gizmodo, New York Times, The Hill, NBC News, Politico, Gizchina, Mashable, Cryptopolitan, Insider, Silicon Valley Business …, Wired, Washington Post, Bloomberg, and CNBC
CNN:
Sources: 1,300 Starlink units in Ukraine went offline as SpaceX and the US DoD negotiate funding despite Elon Musk claiming the company will continue “for free”  —  Ukraine's fears that its troops  may lose access to Elon Musk's crucial Starlink internet service deepened …
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Twitter rolls out its new Twitter Blue subscription, which offers a blue checkmark for $8/month, on iOS in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK  —  Twitter is officially rolling out its new Twitter Blue subscription service, which offers “blue check” verification to everyone for $8/month.
Brian Morrissey / The Rebooting:
Elon Musk's focus on Twitter Blue is part of a trend in which consumer tech platforms pivot away from advertising to recurring revenue through subscriptions  —  Tech's marriage of convenience to the ad industry hits the rocks  —  Request: Please fill out this survey as I think through what a Rebooting membership plan would look like.
Nilay Patel / The Verge:
Q&A with telecom reporter Karl Bode about Gigi Sohn's nomination to the FCC as Comcast and Fox Corp. team up to lobby swing votes in the Senate against her  —  How often do the parent companies of Fox News and MSNBC team up? … Today, we're just talking about a problem.
Wall Street Journal:
Elon Musk says Twitter suffered “a massive drop in revenue” due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, despite doing “everything” to “appease the activists”  —  Chief of social-media company cites activist groups pressuring advertisers, as many staffers brace to lose jobs
More: Wall Street Journal, TIME, The Verge, Adweek, CNBC, The Information, Mercury News, SlashGear, Forrester, Bloomberg, Insider, VICE, Watcher Guru, Android Central, Associated Press, NBC News, CNBC, and Variety
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J.D. Capelouto / Semafor:
Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is building a live TV ad network and talking to ad partners as part of its deal to stream Major League Soccer games starting in February 2023  —  Apple Inc. is building an advertising network for live television as part of its deal to stream Major League Soccer games next year …
Zeke Faux / Bloomberg:
El Salvador's Bitcoin “revolution” is failing miserably and behind the debacle are crypto evangelists from wealthier countries who cheered on President Bukele  —  On an estuary along the coast of El Salvador, a few miles west of the Conchagua volcano, about 70 families live in a settlement called Flor de Mangle.
Jordan Pearson / VICE:
As chess explodes on Twitch, a look at Chess.com's Global Championship, its first in-person event since 2018, and “fair play” measures amid a cheating scandal  —  Cheating allegations have changed how chess is played, just as the game is shifting into looking a lot more like esports.

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More News

Deepsekhar Choudhury / Moneycontrol:

Earlier Picks

Jonathan Greig / The Record:
Reed Albergotti / Semafor:
Casey Newton / Platformer: