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Friday, July 22, 2016

Reddit's rocky road continues: It's The Daily Crunch

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THE DAILY CRUNCH
FRIDAY, JULY 22 2016 By Darrell Etherington

The Daily Crunch 07/22/16

Reddit's relentless woes persist while Pokemon occupy every McDonald's in Japan and drones rain Slurpees down upon our heads. All that and more in The Daily Crunch for July 22, 2016.

1. Reddit's problems aren't over

Not by a long shot. The site that still claims the title of 'front page of the internet' is bleeding executives on the backend, with recent departures including a VP of marketing and an editorial director. Reddit claims it's part of a concerted re-org effort, but a lot of the recent departures are women and people of color – which is troubling considering Reddit's general bad rep regarding sexism and racism. Plus, the last time Reddit revealed visitor numbers, they were going down, not up.

2. Pokemon Go finally makes its Japanese debut

It may have taken an extra day or two, but Pokemon Go is now out in Japan. And the game also has its first official sponsor: McDonald's, which turned all 3,000 of its restaurants in the country into in-game gyms. Japan is the Ur-locale for Pokemon as a thing, so this is likely to result in a whole new set of wacky tales of trainer antics. More importantly, though, it'll provide our first glimpse at what Pokemon's tremendous network effect can do when paired with the commercial footprint of a brand like McDonald's.

3. Facebook can't replicate Snapchat's swag

Facebook has tried to wear the high-wasted jeans of today's youth, but it doesn't seem to be getting anywhere. "Quick Updates," a feature that was previously in testing with a small group of users and which let people post updates that expire after 24-hours, is confirmed dead. Josh Constine guides you through a brief history of aborted attempts from Facebook to steal Spiegel's spotlight, including features for Messenger and that weird, brief Poke revival.

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4. Smartwatches may have already peaked

I was just telling someone the other day that I see a lot more smartwatches (read: Apple Watches) in the wild than I used to, but IDC claims my anecdotal experience doesn't represent the general trend. The research firm found that smartwatch shipments declined 32 percent year-over-year, with only a relatively paltry 3.5 million units shipped in total. Great timing on your smartwatch-specific RPG announcement, Square-Enix.

5. Startup is using drones for a noble purpose – sending you Slurpees

Drone delivery will come to pass, for Bezos has declared it will be, and what Bezos declares is the totality of the real for retail. 7-Eleven knows this, so they teamed up with Flirtey, a drone operation startup in Nevada, to pilot delivery from the convenience retailer. Flirtey and 7-Eleven did a pilot run on July 10, and on that day, Slurpees did fly my friends.

6. Dyson's future plans have real vision

Dyson's new robot vacuum is finally coming stateside with a launch next week. I got to go look at some going about their botly business yesterday at the Toronto launch, and I also spoke to Dyson's head of robots Mike Aldred. When I asked him what other applications Dyson was looking at for all the investment they put into computer vision systems to make the 360 Eye, I think he very much wanted to say "cars," but he did not say "cars."

7. Libertarian Thiel's RNC speech calls for... more government spending?

Billionaire investor Peter Thiel had a few words to share at the Republican National Convention yesterday – but literally just a few. What he did say was noteworthy, however: He's the first gay man to proudly and openly identify as such on stage at the RNC, for one. And he also harkened back longingly to a time when government spent big on projects like the Internet and space exploration. Which is a bit weird coming from someone generally in favor of keeping the role of government small.

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