The recent chatbot craze fueled by ChatGPT, which needs a good dose of cold water thrown on it, has led to renewed talk of search’s future. Microsoft’s investment in OpenAI led some to conclude that Google should be nervous. The thinking goes that the combination of Bing and massive language models will impact Google’s search dominance. I find such thinking rudimentary at best.

Much of the chatbot craze will fizzle out…

Movie theater operators can’t get out of their own way. Last week, AMC, the largest movie theater chain in the world with 950 theaters, unveiled variable seat pricing in the U.S. Customers will be charged based on where they sit in the theater. Seating will be split into tiers:

Meta is the latest company to take a ride on the Wall Street roller coaster. After a horrendous year in 2022 with shares trading down 65%, Meta turned heads last week with the stock popping 24% after reporting earnings. The wild swings left observers scratching their heads as to what may have changed. How could a company considered by some to be fatally wounded see its shares more than double in just…

The auto industry is in a weird place right now. Automakers have benefited from software’s inevitable march into their space. However, the auto space is nowhere near where the tech industry thought it would be by now. In the mid-2010s, autonomy was considered by many to be a problem that would be solved by 2020. Elon Musk positioned full autonomy as a “next year” goal for years although he interestingly stopped making…

Last week, Microsoft and Google joined Amazon and Meta in announcing layoffs. In total, 51,000 jobs will have been eliminated among the four companies in just the past two months.

This development has led pundits to run with various theories explaining the layoffs, ranging from Big Tech being in a recession to the pandemic contributing to something of a tech bubble…

The late 2010s was witness to one the largest head fakes in consumer technology: voice-first or voice only interfaces. Tech pundits and analysts fumbled over themselves with projections that we would converse with speakers positioned around the house instead of looking at screens. Such an idea even permeated through several tech giants including Amazon and Google.

Scott Galloway, who gained a following in tech circles for his bold predictions, said in 2018…

Last week, the largest tech trade show in the world was held in Las Vegas. At least based on my tech-oriented Twitter timeline, you wouldn’t have even known CES took place. For the past few years, CES was increasingly at the receiving end of jokes and mockery for what it has turned into. In what is a worrying sign for CES, this year was different as there weren’t even that many jokes…

Elon Musk continues to make unforced errors as he molds Twitter into his liking. Unnecessary controversies and illogical strategy moves are not only increasing stress and anxiety among some Twitter users, but also clouding what Musk has done correctly. Yes, there actually have been a few positive changes such as the “What’s happening” editorial trends coming to an end.

In finding the top tech story in 2022, the Musk/Twitter saga makes the…

It would be an understatement to say the past month has been an interesting one at Disney. At the request of Disney’s board, Bob Iger, who led Disney for 15 years during the 2000s and 2010s, made a dramatic return as CEO.

Iger’s return was met with sighs of relief and hope from various Disney stakeholders. Something of a Disney wish list materialized overnight. Iger would “fix” Disney parks, reinvigorate Disney animation…

The media loves its villains. While Elon Musk’s Twitter escapades took over much of November’s news flow, Musk is something of a known entity at this point. Sam Bankman-Fried now wins the award for fastest up-and-coming villain. Just a few weeks ago, his name (or SBF initials) only meant something to those in crypto circles. Today, fallout from FTX’s collapse, the crypto exchange that he founded in 2019, continues to grow and…

As Mark Zuckerberg contemplates some of his toughest business strategy decisions to date, Wall Street has already weighed in with its verdict on Meta: The company has about a decade left. While that dire prediction will likely morph with Wall Street’s always-changing mood, a closer examination of Meta’s valuation reveals several intriguing questions applicable to valuing Big Tech in general.

A quick check of stock prices would show that Big Tech has…

Paid video streaming has provided analysts and pundits plenty to talk about in 2022. Competition has intensified as Disney goes after Netflix for the subscriber crown (Disney has already won). Wall Street also turned sour on most streamers, driven by the higher competition and concerns with business model sustainability.

Set within this change and chaos, there is one theme that ended up being quite reliable: Subscription price hikes. In retrospect, higher subscription…

If there were still questions as to how Elon Musk was going to run Twitter, his tweeting a video of himself walking into an empty Twitter HQ carrying a bathroom sink to denote the change of ownership told us that this was going to be an unconventional transition. We were about to see the Musk show, and the first 12 days have certainly lived up to that description.

Unfortunately, much of the…

Judging by stock price moves, Wall Street experienced quite a few surprises last week. Consider the following price moves registered the day after reporting CY3Q22 earnings:  

The odd thing about these moves is that 3Q22 earnings contained very few surprises in Big Tech land. All of the major themes found in the numbers and on management conference calls have been on…

Snap positions itself as “a camera company.” It’s the first thing that a visitor to their website will likely see. On its Investor Relations page, the slogan can’t be missed. The aspirational messaging has served two functions for the company:

One of the major tech themes from the past ten years has been the giants increasing their bets on hardware. The moves, clearly aimed at catching up to industry-leader Apple, have been met with very few pockets of success.

Some companies, like Amazon, were able to get customers to bite out of the gate even though longer-term engagement trends have disappointed. Other companies, like Meta, have discovered just how expensive hardware is…

We are at the point where discussions taking place among the giants regarding TikTok need to be about how to survive against the company. It is too late to try to stop or slow TikTok’s momentum. Attempts at outflanking TikTok are also off the table.

YouTube Shorts has been Google’s response to TikTok and the overall rise of short-form video. Two weeks ago, Google unveiled its strategy for coexisting alongside TikTok: Appeal…

Having spent close to a decade covering the tech industry, I have always seen Disney occupy an interesting competitive position. The company isn’t in the same league as the giants from a software perspective. However, lumping Disney in with its content peers feels wrong. Netflix is no Disney although Netflix executives think otherwise.

Last month, the WSJ reported that Bob Chapek and company are exploring Disney memberships. Disney confirmed the reporting. Amazon…

We are at the point where we can begin writing Peloton’s eulogy. Last week, Peloton co-founder and former CEO John Foley stepped away from the company by resigning from the board. He had moved into the executive chairman role this past February after bringing in Barry McCarthy to fix his errors and miscalculations.

Peloton’s user trends continue to worsen. More importantly, the one thing that was always going to represent the core…

Last month, the sports and digital media worlds collided as the Big Ten chose the winners for its seven-year sports rights deal. Depending on your perspective, the $7 billion announcement was either a surprise or business as usual. The auction did a good job of highlighting where the media space is right now and the challenges / opportunities facing the tech giants when it comes to live sports programming.

The Big Ten’s…