Good morning, Today is my last day in San Francisco; I will have a Daily Update for tomorrow, but it may be a bit shorter than usual. I’m looking forward to getting back on my usual schedule next week. On to the update: Amazon Teases Smartphone Event From Bloomberg: Amazon.com Inc. is planning to introduceSubscribe […]
Daily Update: Apple Announces Beats Acquisition, Beats Music to Remain on Android, Square Launches Cash Advance
Good morning, I wouldn’t have published Why Apple is Buying Beats were I not pretty certain that the deal was done; that said, it sure took a long time to become final, but final it is. That piece I wrote still applies, as does this podcast. On to the updates: Apple Announces Beats Acquisition FromSubscribe […]
Daily Update: Lenovo Earnings, Windows 8 Banned, Google Buys Divide
Good morning, Only 49% of you opened yesterday’s email (it’s usually 80%+); I heard from several folks on Twitter that it got sent to spam, likely because of GroupOn, so please take a look and mark it as “not-spam” if that is the case. I’ll be writing about the Microsoft Surface announcements on Stratechery laterSubscribe […]
Daily Update: AT&T to Buy DirecTV, Google to Buy Twitch, Facebook Building Snapchat Competitor
Good morning, After a relatively slow week, lots of stuff happened this weekend, so let’s get to it: AT&T to Buy DirecTV Lots of folks are comparing this proposed deal to the Comcast-Time Warner merger, but I think it’s much more benign, both from an explanatory perspective as well as an impact one. One ofSubscribe […]
Why Apple Is Buying Beats
That’s a bit of a presumptuous headline: The sale is not yet confirmed UPDATE: The deal was confirmed on May 28 It’s likely no one outside of 1 Infinite Loop will ever likely know the true reasons Indeed, as Benedict Evans wrote in his weekly newsletter: The deal [is] something of a Rorschach Blot – […]
Apple and Beats, Box adds GE, Comcast Entering Online Ads
Hi all, Keep an eye out today for the Week in Daily Updates, especially if you would like to encourage others to subscribe (please do!). In addition, as I note below, I’ll almost certainly write something about Apple and Beats. Speaking of: Apple Reportedly Buying Beats The Financial Times had the scoop: Apple is closingSubscribe […]
Daily Email (2014-04-21): Social Platforms
Monday, April 21, 2014 – Social Platforms Good morning, First off, thank you for being a member of Stratechery. I really appreciate it. Second, in case you have not heard, this email will be the way in which I deliver your premium content. I explained my thinking last Friday in Free Stratechery and the DailySubscribe […]
The Social Conglomerate
When news of the Facebook/WhatsApp deal broke, a lot of people gave me credit for being prescient: after all, I had just written 1,568 words on why messaging was mobile’s killer app. WhatsApp, though, was all but absent from the article, meriting but a single mention, and in parenthesis at that! Viber does have strong […]
Google’s New Business Model
Excepting the patent and panic-driven Motorola deal, prior to yesterday’s acquisition of Nest for $3.2 billion, the previous largest deal Google’s history was DoubleClick for $3.1 billion 2006. Beyond the similar dollar figures, it’s a deal worth considering for what it says about Google then and now. With the acquisition of DoubleClick, Google solidified its […]
Facebook Acquires Onavo
Earlier this week Facebook acquired the mobile data analytics company Onavo. The original spin was that this was a great fit with Internet.org, given that Onavo’s apps are focused on monitoring data usage and maximizing the amount of data you get per kilobyte. Onavo said as much in their blog post announcing the acquisition: As […]