I’m back! As many of you know, I’d suffered a brain injury last year which kept me out of work for a long time. Sadly I had another concussion in mid-July, and have since needed to take some time off work and technology.

My recovery is slowly progressing and I’m now writing again as a way to help my rehabilitation. Hoping to get back to work in a few weeks – fingers crossed. Thanks as always for reading along!

🌶 Daily highlight 🌶

Spotify launched Showcase, an ad tool that lets artists pay to promote their music. These “sponsored recommendations” are prominently displayed on the Home feed, and artists are able to target specific types of listeners 🎯

Spotify’s recent vertical feed redesign has positioned it to create this type of new revenue stream. It’s worth noting that given labels don’t take a cut, this revenue will yield substantially higher margins than Spotify’s core business.

‘Above the fold’ on the home feed is prime real estate. After previously stating “we won’t guarantee placement to labels and artists”, it’s now evident that even for paying subs, Spotify sees ads as a key strategic lever 💵

♨️ Latest launches

Big tech

• Lyft lets drivers prioritize underrepresented matches

• Apple launches roadside assistance via satellite

• Amazon unveils generative-AI tools for product descriptions

• Adobe ships payments to contributors for training its AI models

• WhatsApp launches its Channels feature worldwide

• Alibaba opens public access to its AI model

General and early-stage

• Stability AI ships an AI-powered music generator

• Telegram adds a self-custodial crypto wallet

• Alza launches a banking product for immigrants

• Artifact ships a link sharing and discovery feature

• Unity to charge developers a flat rate per install

🔍 Other good finds

• Pros and Cons. To centralize or decentralize growth teams?

• Tech Truck. New F150 has built-in 5G and no surcharge for EV

• Red Eyes. SEC fines Stoner Cat for “unregistered NFT offering”

🧈 Twitter nugget

Thanks for reading! If you've got any comments or feedback, please hit reply - I'd love to hear from you :)

- Amol