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Workday acquires Rallyteam to fuel machine learning efforts

Published June 8, 2018

Sometimes you acquire a company for the assets and sometimes you do it for the talent. Today Workday announced it was buying Rallyteam, a San Francisco startup that helps companies keep talented employees by matching them with more challenging opportunities in-house.

The companies did not share the purchase price or the number of Rallyteam employees who would be joining Workday .

In this case, Workday appears to be acquiring the talent. It wants to take the Rallyteam team and incorporate it into the company’s engineering unit to beef up its machine learning efforts, while taking advantage of the expertise it has built up over the years connecting employees with interesting internal projects.

“With Rallyteam, we gain incredible team members who created a talent mobility platform that uses machine learning to help companies better understand and optimize their workforces by matching a worker’s interests, skills and connections with relevant jobs, projects, tasks and people,” Workday’s Cristina Goldt wrote in a blog post announcing the acquisition.

Rallyteam, which was founded in 2013, and launched at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco in September 2014, helps employees find interesting internal projects that might otherwise get outsourced. “I knew there were opportunities that existed [internally] because as a manager, I was constantly outsourcing projects even though I knew there had to be people in the company that could solve this problem,” Rallyteam’s Huan Ho told TechCrunch’s Frederic Lardinois at the launch. Rallyteam was a service designed to solve this issue.

Last fall the company raised $8.6 million led by Norwest Ventures with participation from Storm Ventures, Cornerstone OnDemand and Wilson Sonsini.

Workday provides a SaaS platform for human resources and finance, so the Rallyteam approach fits nicely within the scope of the Workday business. This is the 10th acquisition for Workday and the second this year.

Chart: Crunchbase

Workday raised over $230 million before going public in 2012.

Facebook cuts down annoying ‘now connected on Messenger’ alerts

Published June 7, 2018

“‘You Are Now Connected On Messenger’ Is The Worst Thing On Facebook” BuzzFeed’s Katie Notopoulos correctly pointed out in a story yesterday. When you friend someone on Facebook or Messenger, or an old friend joins Messenger, you often get one of these annoying notifications. They fool you into thinking someone actually wants to chat with you while burying your real message threads.

Luckily, it turns out Facebook was already feeling guilty about this shameless growth hack. When I asked why, amidst its big push around Time Well Spent, it was sending these alerts, the company told me it’s already in the process of scaling them back.

A Facebook spokesperson gave TechCrunch this statement:

We’ve found that many people have appreciated getting a notification when a friend joins Messenger. That said, we are working to make these notifications even more useful by employing machine learning to send fewer of them over time to people who enjoy getting them less. We appreciate all and any feedback that people send our way, so please keep it coming because it helps us make the product better.

So basically, if Messenger notices you never open those spammy alerts to start a chat thread, it will skip sending some of them.

Personally, I think these alerts should only be sent when users connect on Messenger specifically, which you can do with non-friends outside of Facebook. The company forced everyone to switch from Facebook Chat to Messenger years ago, but some people are only now relenting and actually downloading the app. I don’t think that should ever generate these alerts, since they have nothing to do with your own actions. Similarly, if I confirm a Facebook friend request from someone else, I know I’m now connected on Messenger too, so no need to pester me with a notification.

But for now, if you hate these alerts, be sure not to open them so you send a signal to Facebook that you don’t want more.

Facebook does all sorts of this annoying growth hacking, like notifications about friends adding to their Story, “X, Y, and 86 other friends responded to events near you tomorrow,” and all the emails it sends if you stop visiting. If we can properly shame tech giants for the specifics of their most intrusive and distracting behavior, rather than just griping more vaguely about overuse, we may be able to make swifter progress toward them respecting our attention.

Facebook launches Fb.gg gaming video hub to compete with Twitch

Published June 7, 2018

Facebook wants a cut of the 3+ hours per week that young adult video gamers spend watching other people play. So today it launched Fb.gg — as in the post-competition courtesy of saying “good game” — a destination where viewers can find a collection of all the video games streaming on Facebook. Fb.gg will show video based on the games and streaming celebrities they follow, their Liked Pages and Groups, plus it will display featured creators, esports competitions and gaming conference events.

Aggregating gaming content could make sure it doesn’t get lost in the fast-moving News Feed. It could be especially useful for people whose Facebook friends aren’t into the gaming niche. The personalized recommendations based on Facebook activity could help the social network out-curate video-only sites like YouTube and Twitch . And if game streamers feel like they can build a big audience on Facebook, they’ll share there. Still, Facebook is getting a late start here.

Facebook Stars tipping currency

Meanwhile, Facebook is opening up its new monetization option to more gaming broadcasters. Facebook is launching the Level Up program for emerging gaming content creators. Available in the next few months, those with access will be able to take monetary tips from their stream viewers in the form of virtual currency.

Facebook first announced its monetization program for streamers in January, but now the virtual currency is called Facebook Stars. For each Star a streamer receives, Facebook will pay them $0.01. We’ve reached out to see if Facebook will be taking a cut of these tips. Stream viewers on desktop can now give Stars to any creator in the Level Up program. Facebook is also rolling out its Patreon-style monthly subscription fan patronage feature test to more gamers in the coming weeks.

Those admitted to Level Up will also get special custom support, HD 1080p 60fps transcoding and a special badge on their profile. Plus, they’ll receive early access to new Facebook live-streaming features and tips on how to build their fan base. Gamers can check out the eligibility requirements for these programs here. Those include having a Gaming Video Creator Facebook Page with at least 100 followers and broadcasting at least 4 hours with sessions on at least 2 days in the past 2 weeks.

Gamers have plenty of options to earn money from YouTube ad revenue shares and Twitch’s tipping options. Facebook needs to ramp up these monetization efforts quickly to capitalize on the sudden surge in game streaming. If Facebook can convince streamers it’s not just a place for Pong-aged people, it could turn the video ads on game broadcasts into a nice little revenue generator.

Speech recognition triggers fun AR stickers in Panda’s video app

Published June 7, 2018

Panda has built the next silly social feature Snapchat and Instagram will want to steal. Today the startup launches its video messaging app that fills the screen with augmented reality effects based on the words you speak. Say “Want to get pizza?” and a 3D pizza slice hovers by your mouth. Say “I wear my sunglasses at night” and suddenly you’re wearing AR shades with a moon hung above your head. Instead of being distracted by having to pick effects out of a menu, they appear in real-time as you chat.

Panda is surprising and delightful. It’s also a bit janky, created by a five person team with under $1 million in funding. Building a video chat app user base from scratch amidst all the competition will be a struggle. But even if Panda isn’t the app to popularize the idea, it’s invented a smart way to enhance visual communication that blends into our natural behavior.

It all started with a trippy vision. Panda’s 18-year-old founder Daniel Singer had built a few failed apps and was working as a product manager at peer-to-peer therapy startup Sensay in LA. When Alaska Airlines bought Virgin, Singer scored a free flight and came to see his buddy Arjun Sethi, an investor at Social Capital in SF. That’s when suddenly “I’m hallucinating that as I’m talking the things I’m saying should appear” he tells me. Sethi dug the idea and agreed to fund a project to build it.

Panda founder Daniel Singer

Meanwhile, Singer had spent the last 6 years FaceTiming almost every day. He loved telling stories with his closest friends, yet Apple’s video chat protocol had fallen behind Snapchat and Instagram when it came to creative tools. So a year ago he raised $850,000 from Social Capital and Shrug Capital plus angels like Cyan (Banister) and Secret’s David Byttow. Singer set out to build Panda to combine FaceTime’s live chat with Snapchat’s visual flare triggered by voice.

But it turns out, “video chat is hard” he admits. So his small team settled for letting users send 10-second-max asynchronous video messages. Panda’s iOS app launched today with about 200 different voice activated stickers from footballs to sleepy Zzzzzs to a “&’%!#” censorship bar that covers your mouth when you swear. Tap them and they disappear, and soon you’ll be able to reposition them. As you trigger the effects for the first time, they go into a trophy case that gamifies voice experimentation.

Panda is fun to play around with yourself even if you aren’t actively messaging friends, which is reminiscent of how teens play with Snapchat face filters without always posting the results. The speech recognition effects will make a lot more sense if Panda can eventually succeed at solving the live video chat tech challenge. One day Singer imagines Panda making money by selling cosmetic effects that make you more attractive or fashionable, or offering sponsored effects so when you say “gym”, the headband that appears on you is Nike branded.

Unfortunately, the app can be a bit buggy and effects don’t always trigger, fooling you that you aren’t saying the right words. And it could be tough convincing buddies to download another messaging app, let alone turn it into a regular habit. Apple is also adding a slew of Memoji personalized avatars and other effects to FaceTime in its upcoming iOS 12.

Panda does advance one of technology’s fundamental pursuits: taking the fuzzy ideas in your head and translating them into meaning for others in clearer ways than just words can offer. It’s the next wave of visual communication that doesn’t require you to break from the conversation.

When I ask why other apps couldn’t just copy the speech stickers, Singer insisted “This has to be voice native.” I firmly disagree, and can easily imagine his whole app becoming just a single filter in Snapchat and Instagram Stories. He eventually acquiesced that “It’s a new reality that bits and pieces of consumer technology get traded around. I wouldn’t be surprised if others think it’s a good idea.”

It’s an uphill battle trying to disrupt today’s social giants, who are quick to seize on any idea that gives them an edge. Facebook rationalizes stealing other apps’ features by prioritizing whatever will engage its billions of users over the pride of its designers. Startups like Panda are effectively becoming outsourced R&D departments.

Still, Panda pledges to forge on (though it might be wise to take a buyout offer). Singer gets that his app won’t cure cancer or “make the world a better place” as HBO’s Silicon Valley has lampooned. “We’re going to make really fun stuff and make them laugh and smile and experience human emotion” he concludes. “At the end of the day, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with building entertainment and delight.”

Google Cloud announces the Beta of single tenant instances

Published June 7, 2018

One of the characteristics of cloud computing is that when you launch a virtual machine, it gets distributed wherever it makes the most sense for the cloud provider. That usually means sharing servers with other customers in what is known as a multi-tenant environment. But what about times when you want a physical server dedicated just to you?

To help meet those kinds of demands, Google announced the Beta of Google Compute Engine Sole-tenant nodes, which have been designed for use cases such a regulatory or compliance where you require full control of the underlying physical machine, and sharing is not desirable.

“Normally, VM instances run on physical hosts that may be shared by many customers. With sole-tenant nodes, you have the host all to yourself,” Google wrote in a blog post announcing the new offering.

Diagram: Google

Google has tried to be as flexible as possible, letting the customer choose exactly what configuration they want in terms CPU and memory. Customers can also let Google choose the dedicated server that’s best at any particular moment, or you can manually select the server if you want that level of control. In both cases, you will be assigned a dedicated machine.

If you want to play with this, there is a free tier and then various pricing tiers for a variety of computing requirements. Regardless of your choice, you will be charged on a per-second basis with a one-minute minimum charge, according to Google.

Since this feature is still in Beta, it’s worth noting that it is not covered under any SLA. Microsoft and Amazon have similar offerings.

Devo scores $25 million and cool new name

Published June 7, 2018

Logtrust is now known as Devo in one of the cooler name changes I’ve seen in a long time. Whether they intended to pay homage to the late 70s band is not clear, but investors probably didn’t care, as they gave the data operations startup a bushel of money today.

The company now known as Devo announced a $25 million Series C round led by Insight Venture Partners with participation from Kibo Ventures. Today’s investment brings the total raised to $71 million.

The company changed its name because it was about much more than logs, according to CEO Walter Scott. It offers a cloud service that allows customers to stream massive amounts of data — think terabytes or even petabytes — relieving the need to worry about all of the scaling and hardware requirements processing this amount of data would require. That could be from logs from web servers, security data from firewalls or transactions taking place on backend systems, as some examples.

The data can live on prem if required, but the processing always gets done in the cloud to provide for the scaling needs. Scott says this is about giving companies this ability to process and understand massive amounts of data that previously was only in reach of web scale companies like Google, Facebook or Amazon.

But it involves more than simply collecting the data. “It’s the combination of us being able to collect all of that data together with running analytics on top of it all in a unified platform, then allowing a very broad spectrum of the business [to make use of it],” Scott explained.

Devo dashboard. Photo: Devo

Devo sees Sumo Logic, Elastic and Splunk as its primary competitors in this space, but like many startups they often battle companies trying to build their own systems as well, a difficult approach for any company to take when you are dealing with this amount of data.

The company, which was founded in Spain is now based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and has close to 100 employees. Scott says he has the budget to double that by the end of the year, although he’s not sure they will be able to hire that many people that rapidly

Mode emerges from stealth with new approach to software-defined WANs

Published June 7, 2018

Mode, a San Francisco-based startup, came out of stealth today with a new approach to software-defined wide area networks they call software-defined core network (SD-CORE), which they say will dramatically reduce the cost of running these networks over traditional methods.

The company also announced a total of $24 million in funding led by GV and NEA to build on that vision. That vision, according to CEO Paul Dawes, involves spinning up private networks very quickly at a much lower price point than traditional networking typically offered by telcos for a high fee.

“Traditional hardware-defined private networking solutions like MPLS guarantee reliability, but are inelastic, hard to manage and costly. Mode Core was built to enhance SD-WAN, leveraging our breakthrough in routing efficiency to deliver the performance and reliability of networks like MPLS, but with the flexibility, elasticity and affordability of a cloud service,” Dawes explained in a statement.

Some use cases that could benefit from this approach include interactive streaming, multiplayer gaming, real-time machine learning and remote command and control, according to the company.

The company was formed after a research breakthrough by a couple of researchers at Cornell, Kevin Tang and Nithin Michael. They figured out how to characterize network traffic in mathematical terms, which up to that point was thought to be impossible. “Michael came up with the first math-based description of how a packet-switched network works,” Dawes explained.

This allowed him to build a software-defined, automated way to route traffic on each node on the network. “It doesn’t need any intervention from anybody to tell it how to route packets,” he said. Once he had that figured out, it removed the need for more complex and expensive solutions.

This caught the attention not just of networking theorists, but of investors who saw tremendous business potential in their approach. “A number of VCs familiar with networking problems approached them [and encouraged them] to productize it” he said. NEA was the lead investor on the $8.3 million A round and they also got a grant from the National Science Foundation. More recently they got a $16 million Series B for a total of $24.3 million to date.

To make this all work because they aren’t a telco, they built Mode Core and partnered with Ericsson UDN and 100 other partners to provide that networking power that they lack as a startup. You could think of it as a cloud service for wide area networking, allowing companies access to this kind of advanced networking for a price closer to business internet than private WANs.

Instagram plans to launch Snapchat Discover-style video hub

Published June 6, 2018

Instagram is preparing to unveil a home for longer-form video — a YouTube competitor and its take on Snapchat Discover. According to multiple sources, Instagram will offer a dedicated space featuring scripted shows, music videos and more in vertically oriented, full-screen, high-def 4K resolution. Instagram has been meeting with popular social media stars and content publishers to find out how their video channels elsewhere would work within its app. It’s also lining up launch partners for an announcement of the long-form video effort tentatively scheduled for June 20th.

The public shouldn’t expect Netflix Originals or HBO-level quality. This is not “InstaGame of Thrones.” Instead, the feature is more focused on the kind of videos you see from YouTube creators. These often range from five to 15 minutes in length, shot with nice cameras and lighting but not some massive Hollywood movie production crew. Average users will be able to upload longer videos too, beyond the current 60-second limit.

Instagram intends to eventually let creators and publishers earn money off the longer videos, though it hasn’t finalized how accompanying ads like pre-rolls and mid-breaks or revenue splits would work. It is not paying creators up-front for shows like Facebook Watch, either. But the videos will each feature a swipe-up option to open a link, which creators can use to drive traffic to their websites, e-commerce stores or event ticketing. Thanks to Instagram’s 800 million-plus users, the video section could be a powerful marketing tool beyond generating cash for creators directly.

The long-form video section will spotlight a collection of popular videos, and provide a “continue watching” option since users might view long clips over the course of several sessions. Users will also see the long-form clips featured on authors’ profiles near the Stories Highlights bubbles. Creators won’t be able to shoot and post long-form videos, as the section will only allow pre-made video uploads.

Instagram has previously offered Spotlight Collections that assemble multiple videos into a non-stop viewing experience

This new information from TechCrunch’s sources comes after a brief initial report by The Wall Street Journal yesterday that Instagram was talking to content publishers about a vertical video feature. The WSJ’s article focused on the ability for average users to post up to hour-long clips, but the real story here is Instagram launching a professionally produced video entertainment hub. Instagram declined our request for comment.

It’s unclear what the new video feature will be named, or where it will appear. It could possibly live in the Explore tab, get its own tab or even be spun out into a separate app. Our sources didn’t know how the videos would work with the main Instagram feed, where they could appear full-length or show up as previews to alert a publisher’s fans to their newest long-form clip. The announcement date or feature details could still potentially change.

Facebook’s Watch section of long-form video hasn’t proven popular

Facebook hasn’t had much luck with its own original long-form video section it launched in August 2017, Facebook Watch. Mediocre, unscripted reality shows and documentary clips haven’t proven a draw for the social network, which is now expanding into scripted programs and news shows. Instagram may prove a more natural home for lean-back entertainment content.

InstaTube

The Instagram long-form video section will be Facebook’s answer to two competing social video destinations it’s yet to successfully clone.

Snapchat’s Discover section offers exclusive, professionally produced vertical video shows from an array of publishers as an alternative to shaky user-generated Stories. But with sagging user growth endangering viewership, backlash to the redesign that buries Discover and a policy shift to stop paying Discover publishers up front, Instagram and its massive user count may be able to seduce publishers to bring longer videos to its app instead.

YouTube is the stronger foe. Its ad revenue sharing agreements and massive engagement have made it the go-to platform for video makers. Still, creators are always looking to build their fan bases, earn more money and promote their other online presences. Instagram’s wildfire growth and the familiarity of following people there could make the long-form video section worth embracing.

The feature has big potential as long as it’s not too interruptive of people’s entrenched feed-scrolling and Story-tapping behavior patterns. Instagram will also have to convince creators to shoot their content vertically or find ways to gracefully crop it, and some may be apprehensive if they typically shoot in landscape for traditional video players.

The Facebook family of apps might never be able to match the breadth and depth of YouTube’s video catalog. But Instagram has an opportunity here to skim the best content off the top of the sprawling creator/publisher ecosystem and curate it coherently for casual audiences. That could get us spending more time with Instagram, even if our friends are boring.

Valve says removing controversial games from Steam is hard so it’s not going to

Published June 6, 2018

Internet platforms removing objectionable content from their sites has been one of the more difficult challenges for tech companies in recent years. Valve has also determined that it’s a pretty difficult challenge in their Steam gaming store, but unlike some of the other major platforms on the web, they’ve decided they’re not going to do anything unless the content is actually illegal or, as they put it, “straight up trolling.”

The company has also asserted that “the games we allow onto the Store will not be a reflection of Valve’s values…”

Here’s exactly what else Valve employee Erik Johnson said in a company blog post, which you should read in full here:

Valve shouldn’t be the ones deciding this. If you’re a player, we shouldn’t be choosing for you what content you can or can’t buy. If you’re a developer, we shouldn’t be choosing what content you’re allowed to create. Those choices should be yours to make. Our role should be to provide systems and tools to support your efforts to make these choices for yourself, and to help you do it in a way that makes you feel comfortable.

This post is largely in response to the company’s actions regarding a school shooting simulator (pictured above) that caused the ire of many. Valve removed the title from the store, but said it did so because the creator was previously banned and was a “troll.”

There are certainly plenty of those in the gaming community who would hold tightly to the idea that people will buy what they want to and Valve shouldn’t decide which content makes it onto their PC. Honestly, that could be a pretty ideologically defensible position if you didn’t think about the money changing hands here. The problem is Valve takes a pretty big cut of the revenue from titles sold through the store, so when it says that it doesn’t agree with content, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t want the money it makes from it.

If Valve wants to find objectionable content and then forego their cut while keeping the games available for download that’s one thing, and they can probably stick by the words in their blog post a bit more as a result.

Finding the line in terms of what is okay and what isn’t in gaming is admittedly painfully difficult. You can kill cops and mow down pedestrians in Grand Theft Auto V, which has brought in billions of dollars in revenue single-handedly, but ultimately I think its maker, Rockstar Games, would at least say that they can stand by their game. If Valve isn’t willing to stand by the games they sell as part of their “values,” do they even have values as a company that… sells games?

YouTube is having what seems to border on an existential crisis right now as they have to decide how to monetize videos on their site that contain “objectionable content.” Valve can hide from this kind of a crisis, but they can’t avoid it. Ad-supported models tend to obscure the money exchanging hands, but when someone buys a game on Steam, money goes directly to Valve as an effect.

Valve can ultimately do what it wants here; they can decide that they want to allow ugly content on their store or not, but they can’t act like Steam is just some giant bucket inside of which games just sit. Valve is a multi-billion-dollar business that inhales revenues from every paid title it sells.

Free expression on the web is an awesome thing, even if it seems to suck sometimes, but stores should be responsible for the items they stock on their shelves.

Facebook finally monetizes Marketplace with ads from users and brands

Published June 6, 2018

Twenty months after launching its Craigslist competitor, Marketplace, and relentlessly promoting it with placement in the main navigation bar, Facebook will start earning money off its classifieds section. Facebook today begins testing Marketplace ads in the U.S. that let average users pay to “Boost” their listing to more people through the News Feed. While they’re easy for novices, requiring buyers to only set a budget and how long the ads will run, there are no additional targeting options beyond being shown to age 18+ users in nearby ZIP codes.

Meanwhile, yesterday Facebook announced that it’s launching product ads from businesses that appear within Marketplace. After quietly opening in the U.S. in January and testing in Canada in May, Marketplace ads are now official, and can be bought in those two countries plus New Zealand and Australia. Businesses can extend their existing News Feed, video, Instagram, Messenger and other ad campaigns to Marketplace, and more types of objective-based campaigns will open to the classifieds section soon.

Facebook lets brands show ads within Marketplace

The Boost ads could be a big help if you need to rapidly liquidate your furniture before moving out, or if you’re trying to sell something big at a high price, like Marketplace’s new car, housing, jobs and home services offerings. Yet they seem inefficient, since the lack of targeting means your listing for men’s jewelry might show up to women, or your rock climbing gear ads could show up to senior citizens.

Facebook’s new Boost ads let average users pay to show their Marketplace listings to more people

But Facebook does tell me that ads will be auto-optimized for clicks, so when people start to click your ads, Facebook will show them to people of similar demographics. It will also immediately pause your ad campaign if you mark your item as sold. Boost ads get entered in alongside traditional bids in Facebook’s auction system, which then display what it predicts will be the most appealing ads.

“Many Marketplace sellers have told us that they want the ability to show a listing to more people in their local area, especially if they’re trying to sell it quickly,” Facebook product manager Harshit Agarwal tells TechCrunch. “We’re starting to test a simple way for sellers to boost their listings and help them find a buyer.” For comparison, Craigslist doesn’t run any ads, but charges sellers $5 to $10 for certain product listings for cars and brokered apartments.

One interesting quirk is that Facebook says it won’t allow boosting of listings of political products such as a Bernie Sanders for President t-shirt, as its political advertiser verification and labeling system only works with Pages and not individuals right now.

The Boost ads will only appear to a small percentage of U.S. users and Facebook says it’s too early to know if it will roll them out further. But as the company seems bent on swallowing up every other essential part of the internet, anything that makes Marketplace more useful to sellers and lucrative for the tech giant seems like a good bet for an official launch.

Together, the two formats could unlock new revenue streams for Facebook at a time when it’s starting to run out of ad inventory in the News Feed. The company either needs to open new surfaces like Marketplace to ads, or get people and businesses to pay more to fill its dwindling feed space if it wants to keep Wall Street happy.