Is the world ready for foldable phones?
At its Galaxy Unpacked 2019 event, Samsung showed off its first foldable phone. Starting at $1,980, the phone will be available in the US starting in April.
The Fold is a massive phone. It as a 4 inch display when folded, but when you unfold it, it gets a 7 inch display. This phone seems amazing.
Vice Media has become one of the latest media companies to lay off significant numbers of staff members in 2019. Recently, BuzzFeed and HuffPost both laid off massive amounts of staff members.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Vice Media has let 250 people go from their staff. That is about 10% of their total staff. Writers, producers, and production staff were all included in this round of layoffs.
“Having finalized the 2019 budget, our focus shifts to executing our goals and hitting our marks,” CEO Nancy Dubuc wrote in a memo sent to staff on Friday morning that was shared with THR. “We will make Vice the best manifestation of itself and cement its place long into the future.”
The Hollywood Reporter
Vice Media on Friday, February 7, 2019 also let go around 30 members of their Vice India team, including the Editor in Chief.
Spotify has been pushing forward to produce more original podcasts for their platform. Now, they are deep in talks to buy the podcast producers GIMLET Media.
GIMLET Media went on a capital fund raising round in 2017 and was able to raise $70 Million. Spotify is offering to buy the company for $200 Million.
GIMLET has recently began to produce television shows as well. GIMLET turned one of their podcasts, Homecoming into an Amazon Prime show starring Julia Roberts.
In a new trend, Digital Media Companies have begun to lay off big chunks of their staff. Yesterday, it was announced that BuzzFeed would be laying off 215 staff members. Today, it was announced that HuffPost would be laying off a chunk of their staff as well.
HuffPost is owned by Verizon Media which announced that due to massive revenue misses, the division would laying off 7% of its staff. Verizon Media reported a $4.6 Billion write-down on the division.
According to HuffPost’s Editor In Chief, Lydia Polgreen, the outlet will be focusing its talent and financial investments on content that has higher engagement with their readers.
“It’s a tough day for HuffPost, and we’re losing some talented and beloved colleagues,” Polgreen said Thursday. “We are deeply committed to quality journalism that reflects what matters most to our diverse audiences across the globe. HuffPost is aligning its talents and investments to areas that have high audience engagement, differentiation and are poised for growth at a time when our mission means more than ever.”
Comedy stand-up specials were once a corner stone for traditional cable outlets like HBO, Showtime, and Comedy Central. Now, they’ve become big game changers for streaming giant Netflix. Kevin Hart, Ellen Degeneres, Jerry Seinfeld, Dave Chappelle, and others have all had extremely successful stand-up specials on the streaming platform.
Amazon Prime is now looking to compete with Netflix in the stand-up special space by signing Jim Gaffigan to a deal that includes a special to be filmed in March.
Gaffigan’s new stand-up special, Quality Time, will be the streaming platforms first special. Quality Time will be filmed on March 9 in Minneapolis’ State Theatre.
I am so honored to be Amazon’s first original stand-up special. This is going to be exciting,” Gaffigan said
Gaffigan has an established relationship with Amazon already as he is the co-star on Troop Zero with Viola Davis and Allison Janney.
BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti announced to his staff that he plans to lay off 15% of his staff (or close to 215 employees). In the memo titled “Difficult Changes”, Peretti said that the company’s attempt at growing revenue failed.
A spokesperson for Buzzfeed said that the layoffs would allow the company to move faster toward profitability.
This isn’t the first time that Buzzfeed has done layoffs. In 2017 they let go of over 100 employees. Granted, the last time they let go of employees, it was mainly advertising employees.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
Verizon Wireless’ unlimited Data plan just got a whole lot better. The wireless carrier now offers free Apple Music to its top tier unlimited data plan.
If you have a Beyond or an Above unlimited plan with Verizon, you will get free Apple Music with your subscription. This doesn’t extend to the company’s GO Unlimited plan.
Verizon isn’t the only carrier offering some sort of streaming service with their unlimited plans. TMobile currently offers Netflix and Sprint offers a Spotify membership. I mean, why not include a service that you can use up that unlimited data on!
Are you likely to switch to Verizon for this perk? I am thinking about it.
Elon Musk has done some good in the world – he donated money to Flint, MI’s school system for water filtration systems.
Musk made sure that every school in Flint had access to clean drinking water. This move once again shows that private money will always work faster and better than any form of government money.
“The new water filtration systems will be instrumental in helping our students return to the normalcy of what should be a fundamental right: having access to safe, clean water from water fountains in their school,” said Flint Community Schools Superintendent Derrick Lopez.
We are happy to hear that Musk is putting his money toward a good cause.
In 2018, my friends and I all jumped into the MoviePass bandwagon. We went to, on average, 3 movies a week and saw films that we never thought we’d pay a dime for. We racked up rewards points at almost all theatre chains and we had a blast.
MoviePass was a great deal. We bonded over movies and we were able to see many more films in one week than we had in a few years. However, in the back of our minds, we knew that eventually the gravy train would come to an end and we would no longer be using the service. In all fairness, I gave up on the service much quicker than my friends did.
MoviePass changed their plan from unlimited movies a month to 3 movies a month. Then, they stopped showing the big films. Eventually, they made it impossible for us to see any film because the only theatres showing films were 20+ miles away.
We jumped to AMC A-List and haven’t looked back. AMC A-List has problems as well, but for the price and the availability, you really can’t beat it. 3 movies a week for $20 a month. AMAZING.
So what happened to MoviePass? Well, according to BusinessInsider.com, they lost over half their paid members. Not sure if they lost their members to AMC A-List or just completely off the market but it’s a devastating number to think about.
MoviePass at one point bragged that they had 3 Million paid users. That would mean that now, they have less that 1.5 million users. They are currently brining in about $15 Million a month from paid users.
I hope this company can survive 2019. More competition the better.
Elon Musk was on CBS’ This Morning to showcase his new Boring Company underground tunnels. Check out the video above.
The test tunnel runs a mile underground in Hawthorn and will run you about 4 minutes from launch to end of test ride.