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🏠 Down Goes Spotify!

🏠 Down Goes Spotify!

TikTok Music is coming in hot.

Stephen Flanders
August 21, 2023

Gm. Happy Monday everyone! I don’t know about you all, but Monday is my favorite day of the week. It’s just when I have the most energy. Unfortunately, it looks like I’m in the minority here, with a quick Google search showing that 58% of America finds Monday the worst day of the week. So, I ask all of you beautiful and brilliant people, what’s your opinion on Monday? Let me know in the DMs 👇

— Stephen Flanders

🏠 TECH

Some More Details On TikTok Music

Last month, we wrote about TikTok’s aspirations of going from the greatest music discovery platform on planet Earth (which it is) to a powerhouse streaming service in the mold of Spotify and Apple Music.

At the time, all we knew about TikTok’s music efforts were that the streaming service would:

Work basically the same as Spotify and Apple Music.
Allow people to scroll through song recommendations, just like you would on TikTok’s For You Page.
Have a built in Shazam-like feature.

But now, thanks to a Semafor interview with the global head of music development at ByteDance (TikTok’s parent company) Ole Obermann, we have some more details on what exactly the Tok is cooking up:

TikTok is getting involved in every step of the musical process, as seen in their recent launches of the music marketing platform SoundOn, the emerging artist discovery program Elevate, and the music creation app Ripple.
They’ve recently partnered with Apple Music, which is a bit strange considering it’s a competitor. The stated reason? They want users to listen where they are most comfortable.
The songs that TikTok Music recommends you will be heavily influenced by what you watch on TikTok.

So, not the most revealing interview ever given, but it is still interesting to hear that TikTok is getting involved in each part of the musical process.

At the end of the day, music is an industry in desperate need of disruption. And due to its random and more meritocratic method of song discovery, TikTok has the potential to be the agent of disruption.

It’s A Copycat World: Even if TikTok fails to change the music industry, it’s more than possible that one of the TikTok copycats will be able to.

🏠 FUTURISTIC

Halo Is Freaking Dope

If you’ve ever thought to yourself, “I wish I could just type this email with my mind”, then you’re in luck. Really we’re all in luck, because this is the coolest thing I’ve seen in a long time.

AI translation company Unbabel has created Halo, a wearable device that allows us to communicate with just our thoughts.

In other words, Halo allows me to text my friend without moving or opening my mouth.

The way it works is the way seemingly anything cool works these days: with AI. However, besides that, the way Halo works is actually pretty simple.

What Unbabel does is take an electromyography (EMG) sensing armband that measures how it reacts when people think of a word. Then it takes these signals and feeds them into an LLM, which then translates your signals, double-checks with you to make sure it’s right, and then puts it into words via either voice or text.

Besides being super cool, Halo has a whole multitude of medical applications. Anybody who has issues speaking could benefit from Halo. It’s easy to imagine how beneficial Halo would be for people with ALS, Parkinson’s, Cerebral Palsy, or recovering from a stroke.

But first, Halo has to continue to improve. It can currently translate 20 words per minute, and the target for consumer use is 60.

The Big Picture: Although devices that translate your thoughts are scary from a privacy perspective, they are incredibly interesting from a medical perspective.

🏃‍♀️ QUICKIES

What else is going on?

Elon doesn’t care if you like to block users on X.
Amazon’s employees REALLY don’t want to go back to the office.
Russia’s first lunar mission in decades did not go as planned.
Cruise has been ordered to reduce its robotaxi fleet by 50% because of a crash.

Stat: $25: How much Amazon is offering influencers to make videos for its TikTok style “Inspire” shopping feed. I don’t know what influencers they are going for, but the ones I know charge a hell of a lot more than $25.

Rabbit hole: How Modernity Made Us Allergic (Noema)