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Atlassian says ‘hello’ to Trello, Uber gets moving, and Facebook does more monetizing with video. All that and more in The Daily Crunch for January 9, 2017.
1. Atlassian buys Trello for $425 million
Enterprise tech consolidation always seems to come with high price tags, and Atlassian’s acquisition of Trello is no exception. The owner of Hipchat picked up the project management SaaS tool for $425 million, of which $360 million is cash, today.
Trello should help round out Atlassian’s productivity offerings, and give it a line on new customers for the rest of its suite. Trello can also probably ramp growth and product development under its new owner, so this should be good for everyone – as long as the cost of using Trello on its own doesn’t go up for customers.
2. Uber is giving away one of its key assets
Uber announced Movement, a new website that’ll open up access to its ride data in cities. The information will be anonymized, but it will reveal demand flow according to traffic zones already in use by regulators in municipalities. Of course, even though Uber’s giving out this data, it’s not giving away its algorithms for processing the info – and if it really leads to improved infrastructure, Uber’s bottom line should benefit. Still, it’s a semi-unselfish act from Uber, which is a bit of a novelty.
3. Facebook will test mid-roll ads
Video on Facebook has been good for publishers, but also hard to monetize. Now, Facebook is set to debut a mid-roll ad test with a 55 percent revenue split for publishers. It also sounds like it might encourage more quality over virality, which could be great for helping to clean up the more unsavory elements of media on FB right now.
4. In a world where the iPhone never existed…
It’s the 10-year anniversary of the introduction of the iPhone, and John engages in some revisionist history to sketch out what life had been like if that seminal moment in technology history had never happened. Basically we sacrificed some choice in exchange for easy access to a huge range of services. Was it worth the trade? Probably.
Was CES underwhelming, or more relevant than ever at 50 years young? Depends on who you ask. Basically, the gadgeteers seem a bit underwhelmed, while people like me focused on mobility services and underlying technologies that span verticals felt like it was one of the most impactful shows in recent memory.
6. Netflix and Amazon won Golden Globes and HBO did not
Jeff Bezos was in attendance as two of his shows won Golden Globes last night. The ecommerce player is officially Hollywood now – and a publisher and the biggest retailer on the planet and the leading voice assistant etc, etc.
7. Waymo just revealed a big competitive advantage
Former self-driving Google car project Waymo has a big advantage over its competitors – it’s now making all its own hardware sensor. This is similar to how Apple wins by building its own processors and software for the iPhone. Huge for its drive to supply automakers with turn-key autonomous driving systems.
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