Welcome back! Redfin and Zillow have resorted to sneaky measures to make homes more attractive. Several users have reported old listing prices disappearing and price history curves getting smoothed out. Given interest rates are crushing home sales, I guess growth teams gotta try everything 🤔

Wait... They shipped what!?

Swarm, a SpaceX subsidiary, launched a satellite-based asset tracking product.

Backstory: Swarm was acquired by SpaceX last year, and is the only acquisition the Musk-owned company has ever made.

Details: Leveraging Swarm's low Earth orbit satellite network, the Asset Tracker lets users track equipment, vehicles, and other assets worldwide. Highlights include:

• Device is a small router-sized box that attaches to equipment

• $99 cost, setup within minutes, charge battery every 6 months

• Requires Swarm's $5 per month satellite data plan

Why it matters: There's lots of cheap asset tracking products that work within mobile network coverage areas, but outside of those regions (i.e. 90% of Earth surface area), things get trickier as customers rely on expensive legacy satellite products.

As such, the Swarm Asset Tracker is a gamechanger for logistics & transport companies who now have a cheap option to track equipment even in places like Antarctica.

Zooming out, SpaceX is trying to dominate the end-to-end satellite connectivity space. In addition to the Swarm launch, SpaceX also recently announced Starlink Aviation (internet for planes) and Starlink for RVs (internet for moving vehicles).

Features & products hot off the press

Big tech

• Twitter announced a feature letting users buy and sell NFTs through tweets 

• Twitter shuts down paid live audio conversations

• YouTube creates separate tabs for Shorts, live videos, and long-form videos

• Google Meet expands its enterprise offering to run on Android devices

• Apple confirms iPhones will be getting USB-C ports 

General and early-stage

• BuildBetter ships auto-call recording and AI moment extraction

• Boost Mobile launches a white-labeled financial services offering 

• ESPN+ streamed its first ever exclusive NFL game

• Telegram kills iOS paid posts after blowback from Apple 

• Valve ships a new version of Steam's Big Picture Mode in beta 

Getting 1% better at building product

• Goal setting - OKRs v NCTs v TBDs, by Tim Herbig

• User research - Getting user empathy without leaving your house, by Ami Vora 

Broader tech happenings

• Iron grip. India creates council which vetos social media content moderation 

• Instant recharge. Honda gets into battery swap stations

• Research vultures. Private equity firms take UserTesting private

• Back to DVDs. Walmart stores are adding "The Netflix Hub" to physical stores

• The bug spreads. Intel is planning to cut thousands of jobs in Q4

Courtesy of mindless Twitter scrolling

@shreyas

@Carnage4Life

And that’s a wrap for today. Stay tuned for more!

- Amol