Techmeme
November 12, 2018, 1:10 AM

Top News

Dan Primack / Axios:
SAP announces it will buy user experience management platform Qualtrics, which had planned to go public later this month, for $8B  —  SAP on Sunday night announced that it will purchase Qualtrics, a U.S.-based maker of survey software that had been expected to go public this week, for $8 billion in cash,
Alex Konrad / Forbes:
Qualtrics had 2017 revenue of $289.9M; with the $8B acquisition, Accel and IVP's stakes are each worth $1B+, and the Smith family's stake is ~$2.6B after taxes  —  Utah-founded cloud unicorn Qualtrics was set to have one of tech's most hotly-anticipated initial public offerings this week.
CoinDesk:
A look at the heated debate raging in the Bitcoin Cash community ahead of the contentious hard fork that may split the cryptocurrency's blockchain on Nov. 15  —  “Do not come crying when you are bankrupt.”  —  Lobbed at those bitcoin cash enthusiasts supporting Bitcoin ABC …
Wall Street Journal:
A look at the tug of war between the data driven tech team and the relationship-oriented Hollywood team at Netflix  —  As the company plunges deeper into originals, its L.A. wing is doing the once-unthinkable: overriding the metrics  —  Netflix Inc.'s executives were torn.
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
Cloudflare launches Android and iOS apps for its privacy-focused DNS service 1.1.1.1  —  Months after announcing its privacy-focused DNS service, Cloudflare is bringing 1.1.1.1 to mobile users.  —  Granted, nothing ever stopped anyone from using 1.1.1.1 on their phones or tablets already.
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Microsoft XO18 roundup: Microsoft acquires game studios inXile and Obsidian, announces 91M+ MAUs for Minecraft, and says Minecraft Marketplace has 77 partners  —  Microsoft is throwing a big fan bash in Mexico City, and it made a lot of news announcements about new games, services, and acquisitions at its XO18 fan event.
Morgan Little / CNET:
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Facebook pressured Palmer Luckey to say he supported libertarian Gary Johnson despite his years-long support of Trump; Luckey's exit package was $100M+  —  Palmer Luckey, co-founder of virtual-reality pioneer Oculus, was ousted after his political activity sparked a furor within the social-media giant and Silicon Valley
Arjun Kharpal / CNBC:
Alibaba sold $30.8B worth of goods during the 24-hour Singles' Day shopping event, topping the 2017 Singles Day sales of $25.3B  —  - Singles Day got off to a strong start with sales hitting $1 billion in one minute and 25 seconds.  —  Alibaba on Sunday tore through last year's Singles Day sales record …
Daniel Oberhaus / Motherboard:
Researchers warn so-called “perceptual” ad blockers, which aim to visually recognize ads on a page to block them, are ineffective and create new attack vectors  —  Perceptual ad blockers will come out on the losing side in the war against internet advertisers and expose users …
Alfred Ng / CNET:
Waitlisting apps like Yelp's Nowait are increasingly popular with customers and businesses but critics wonder if the convenience is worth the privacy trade-offs  —  I hate having to wait.  But do I hate it enough to give up my privacy?  —  This dilemma popped up on a Wednesday night in October …
Iris Deng / South China Morning Post:
A ruling against a shareholder of Tencent's WeBank put 12.6M shares up for auction on Taobao, which, as of Nov. 2017, had processed ~610K such judicial auctions  —  - A court ruling against the fourth largest shareholder of WeBank has put 12.6 million shares in the private online lender up for auction on Taobao

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