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War of the Words 🧑💻🥊
WordPress vs. WP Engine, Google Breakup?, Nobel Prize, Zoom AI Avatars
Newsletter
October 15, 2024
IS A BREAKUP OF GOOGLE INEVITABLE?
👀 TLDR
In this week’s What’s Appening, we look at the war between WordPress and WP Engine and how it impacted website owners across the globe. We also have takes on a potential Google breakup, Apple’s findings on AI, Zoom’s AI avatars, TikTok shedding employees in favor of AI, and more. Also, be sure to check out our App, Stat & Quote of the Week.
🎬 Our Top Take
🧑💻🥊 WordPress – Websites Suffer in Founder’s War of Words with WP Engine
Around 40% of the world’s websites use WordPress, so when there’s drama behind the scenes, it matters. How to explain the WordPress vs. WP Engine beef that’s gripped the tech community? It started with a blog, which saw WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg call WP Engine a “cancer.”. Mullenweg also criticized WP Engine’s use of the WordPress “WP” branding when it is a separate entity. WP Engine – a company that provides hosting services on top of the not-for-profit WordPress CMS – then fired back with a cease-and-desist letter, which in turn caused WordPress to ban WP Engine from WordPress.org, breaking a ton of websites in the process and preventing them from updating plug-ins and themes. At the time of writing, they seem to have buried the hatchet – to an extent. WP Engine has rowed back on its branding suggesting affiliation with WordPress, whereas the latter has permitted WP Engine access once again. #WPDrama Read more here.
📍 Meanwhile at 3Advance
Next week is DC Startup & Tech Week, and we couldn’t be happier. Kate and Cameca will fly in to join the DC home team to celebrate What’s Appening in DC’s thriving tech scene. This year, we’ll be having some fun, so look out for the What’s Appening Elevator Pitch frame! Perform a 30-second pitch for your startup or yourself; and win some great prizes🎁! The official schedule was just released, so if you’re not registered already, do it right away. Winners will be announced at the 3Advance booth at the Expo (in International Square) on Thursday. Paul’s panel is in the same building at 3pm Thursday, where the conversation is all about Product Development in the Age of AI. It’s not to be missed!
📲 App of the Week: DappleDoc
AI means the majority of skincare complaints can be diagnosed with a photo, and thus, DappleDoc was born to deliver “efficiency for doctors, simplicity for patients.”. We weren’t surprised to see DappleDoc take off, having learned about AI’s role in skin care in a previous episode of the What’s Appening Podcast with FaceGPT creator, Manny Movahedi, but we are impressed with DappleDoc’s underlying diagnostic product, the LLM-powered DappleBot. It’s a personal story, too, as founder Jon Friedman detected his mom’s skin cancer when testing the service. Find out more about DappleDoc here.
🧐 Stat of the Week: 10m
📈📉 LinkedIn – Millions Flock to Platform’s Freelancer Services Marketplace
There are now 10 million “freelancer services” pages on LinkedIn, representing a 48% rise in a year. Of note is the rise in tech freelancers (100,000 tech layoffs so far this year in the US) using LinkedIn’s Service Marketplace. With over one billion users on LinkedIn, however, the interest in its hiring marketplace remains niche. #LinkedInGigs Read more here.
🗞️ Other Stories
🙃 Artificial Unintelligence? Apple scientists released a paper that says LLM-based AIs are flawed because they lack basic human-like reasoning, raising questions about AI’s limits. Details here. 🧑⚖️ Google Breakup is Possible. Those lawsuits that deemed Google to have monopolies in search and advertising do matter. A DOJ source says breaking the company is “on the table.” More here. 🏆 AI Guys Get the Big Prize. Does AI fall under physics? We aren’t sure, but the Nobel Prize Committee decided to give the nod to John Hopfield and Geoffery “Godfather of AI” Hinton. More here. | 🤖 AI (Probably, Maybe) Won’t Take Your Job. TikTok owner ByteDance is reportedly laying off 100s of its workers, mainly in content moderation roles. Their replacement? AI tools. Story is here. 📽️ Show Your Employees You Care. Too stretched as a boss? Zoom has your back, allowing AI avatars of yourself to appear in meetings in your stead. Feels a bit weird, but ok. Story here. 🚫 Hands Off Our Stuff. Adobe launched the Content Authenticity Web App to protect users’ work. It’s like a food nutrition label for digital content, giving attribution and stopping misuse. Details here. |
🗣️ Poll: Do You Think Google Should Be Broken Up? |
✍️ Quote of the Week:
📣 Promos
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