Techmeme
November 3, 2022, 7:45 PM

Top News

New York Times:
Sources: Elon Musk and his Twitter advisers discussed adding paid DMs, which would let users privately message “Very Important Tweeters”  —  The billionaire and his advisers have discussed adding paid direct messages, fees to watch videos and other features to the service.
Will Oremus / Washington Post:
Sources: Twitter staff have yet to receive a single official message since Elon Musk took over, relying instead on his tweets, media reports, and private chats  —  Workers follow new boss's tweets and share rumors on anonymous apps amid silence from leadership on firings, staff cuts and product changes.
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
Amazon pauses hiring for roles in its corporate workforce, after announcing in October plans to freeze hiring for corporate roles in its retail business  —  KEY POINTS  — Amazon is pausing hiring for roles in its corporate workforce, the company announced in a memo to staff Thursday.
Jennifer Surane / Bloomberg:
Memo: Stripe plans to lay off 14% of its staff this week, reducing its headcount by 1,000+ to almost 7,000, to trim expenses in preparation for “leaner times”  —  Stripe Inc., one of the world's most valuable startups, will cut more than 1,000 jobs as it seeks to rein in costs ahead of any economic downturn.
Wall Street Journal:
Dan Milmo / The Guardian:
TikTok plans to update its privacy policy on December 2 to confirm that its staff outside of Europe, including in China, can access the data of European users  —  Privacy policy update confirms data of continent's users available to range of TikTok bases including in Brazil, Israel and US
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
WhatsApp launches Communities, a structured discussion group feature for of up to 1,024 people, in testing since August 2022, worldwide over the next few months  —  WhatsApp today is officially launching Communities, the new feature offering larger, more structured discussion groups that first entered into testing earlier this year.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge:
Amazon plans to roll out the Matter over Wi-Fi standard to 17 Echo devices in December, starting with Android phones, covering smart plugs, bulbs, and switches  —  Amazon will start its Matter journey slowly, bringing support for the new smart home standard to 17 Echo devices in December.
James Vincent / The Verge:
Google unveils an AI model trained on 400+ languages with the largest “coverage seen in a speech model” and plans to support the 1,000 most spoken languages  —  Google has announced an ambitious new project to develop a single AI language model that supports the world's “1,000 most spoken languages.”
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Substack announces Chat, an opt-in feature letting writers host discussions with their subscribers, available in the Substack iOS app and coming soon to Android  —  Another company hoping to capitalize on Twitter's upheaval in the wake of Elon Musk's takeover is the newsletter platform Substack.
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Twitter cancels its Chirp developer conference set for November 16 in San Francisco as the team builds “some things that we're excited to share with you soon”  —  Twitter is canceling its developer-focused Chirp conference amid management transition, the company said late Thursday.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
In the coming weeks, Google will update Gmail to show live package tracking for order confirmation emails under the sender's name in the inbox  —  Google announced today a small but useful update to Gmail that will allow users to soon be able to track their upcoming package deliveries directly from their inbox.
Thomas Brewster / Forbes:
Police and other sources say Block's Cash App has become a primary payment tool for adult and children sex traffickers due to lax monitoring and user ID rules  —  The Twitter and Block billionaire made Cash App into a $700 million monster.  Now police officers, nonprofit critics and current …
TechCrunch:
Ajit Mohan, the head of Meta India who joined the company in January 2019, has left to become the president of Snap's Asia Pacific business  —  Ajit Mohan, the head of Meta in India, has left the firm and joined rival Snap, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Nelson Wang / CoinDesk:
Coinbase Q3: net revenue down 28% QoQ to $576M, net loss down 50% QoQ to $545M, subscription and services up 43% QoQ, and monthly transacting users down to 8.5M  —  The crypto exchange's transaction revenue fell 44% from the second quarter.  —  Crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN) …
Bloomberg:
Sources: Twitter aims to charge for verification as soon as November 7, give current verified users a multi-month grace period, and make the edit button free  —  Twitter Inc. aims to start selling blue verification badges for user profiles as soon as next week, part of a plan by new owner Elon Musk …

Sponsor Posts

Soxton:
Fast, affordable law for startups  —  Soxton automates startup legal so founders can move faster and sleep better.  We handle incorporation, advisor, employment and commercial contracts.  Join the waitlist for early access!
F5:
Accelerate AI Adoption at F5's AI Virtual Summit  —  Learn how to architect, secure, and scale AI for production with real-world insights from industry leaders on June 23.  Register now to save your spot.
Zoho:
Zoho RPA named a Leader in the 2026 RPA Technology Value Matrix by Nucleus Research  —  Zoho RPA has been named a Leader in the 2026 RPA Technology Value Matrix, published by Nucleus Research …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Access:
A top iPhone app developer reacts to Apple's new Siri
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Hard Fork:
'Hard Fork' Live, Part 1: Satya Nadella and Cindy Cohn
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
The Upstarts Podcast:
TBC's Alex Ksendzovsky: The Neurosurgeon Using Brain Cells To Build Better AI
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
BG2 Pod:
The SpaceX IPO, Fable 5, AI Capex Update & Market Check w/ Gavin Baker, Andrew Fox & Clark Tang
Open-source podcast on all things tech, markets, investing, and capitalism, hosted by Brad Gerstner.
Subscribe to BG2 Pod.
The Nick, Dick and Paul Show:
All about Interest Rates
Nick Bilton, Dick Costolo, and Paul Kedrosky pull back the curtain on AI, startups, and the future rushing toward us, all with healthy dose of irreverence.
Subscribe to The Nick, Dick and Paul Show.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
AI's Mythos Moment: Rishi Sunak on preparing governments for AI
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 7:45 PM ET, November 3, 2022.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Chloe Chaplain / The i Paper:

Earlier Picks

Kate Irwin / Decrypt: