Thursday 25th

Microsoft in talks to buy Discord for more than $US10 billion

Discord and Microsoft Said to Discuss Deal That Could Top $10 Billion

• Popular chat client Discord is potentially up for sale, with Microsoft a potential buyer, according to those in the know
• The Slack-like service is incredibly popular with gamers, and could easily slot into Microsoft’s Xbox gaming environment, on consoles and PCs
• Microsoft has another Slack-like chat product in Teams, but that has never really taken off outside of the enterprise - so there wouldn't be much overlap between the two clients
• The only other tech giant that seems like a suitable purchaser would be Amazon, who could roll Discord into its Twitch game streaming service.
• Or, this could all just be rumours to get Discord re-valued for an upcoming IPO

Airtasker goes public

• The platform you turn to when none of your friends will help you move is worth more than $400 million dollars.
• Airtasker listed on the ASX on Tuesday with a market valuation of $255.4 million. By the end of the day, it was valued at $412.5 million.
• CEO Tim Fung, who co-founded the company in 2012, held onto his 12.7 per cent stake in the business through the IPO. His share is now worth more than $52 million.
• One of the biggest things the company has going for it? Name recognition. In 2020, 99% of Airtasker’s new customers came from non-paid marketing channels.
• That means they don’t need to pay the Google & Facebook tax.

YouTube to auto-detect products in videos, serve related links

• Youtube has a new experimental feature to detect products within a video, and generate links to the websites
• The system is a bit of a twofer - training Google’s algorithms on image analysis, and also providing more ways to monetize youtube content.
• This seems to be the holy grail of tv marketing, I’ve read similar experiments over the years from network television, smart tvs, Instagram and even youtube in the past
• Youtube is already messy enough, do we really want more links and overlays in the service?

Prince Harry appointed chief impact officer at Silicon Valley start-up

• Fresh from his separation from the Royal family, Prince Harry is sprucing up his resume.
• The royal has been appointed the chief impact officer of BetterUp, a Silicon Valley start-up that provides coaching and mental health assistance for corporate employees.
• Harry, who has been vocal about his struggles with mental health, used the company’s app prior to joining it.
• In his new role he will “focus on driving advocacy and awareness for mental fitness” and “diversify Betterup’s community of coaches and customers through strategic planning”
• Which famous person would you hire for your start-up and what role would you give them?

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