Techmeme
November 5, 2022, 4:10 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: TechCrunch, The Guardian, The Irish Times, Gizmodo, Mercury News, New York Times, NBC News, Politico, Gizchina, Mashable, Cryptopolitan, Bloomberg, Insider, The Hill, Silicon Valley Business …, and Wired
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Twitter rolls out its new Blue subscription, which offers a blue checkmark for $8/month, on iOS and Android in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and 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.
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 …
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: USA Today, Wall Street Journal, TIME, The Verge, Adweek, CNBC, SlashGear, Mercury News, Forrester, The Information, Bloomberg, Insider, VICE, Watcher Guru, Android Central, Associated Press, and NBC News
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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.
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Filing: Apple settles its lawsuit against an ex-employee accused of stealing trade secrets and sharing them with the media; he will pay Apple an undisclosed sum  —  Apple has settled its lawsuit against Simon Lancaster, a former design architect, who the company accused of stealing trade secrets and sharing them with a journalist.

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