What's Appening: Microsoft’s Notion-Killer 📝➰

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👀 TLDR:

In this week’s What’s Appening, we take a look at Loop, Microsoft’s new collaboration tool that’s positioned as a rival to Notion. Loop launched in public preview last week, and it looks like it’s gonna be a major player among workspace collaboration apps. Of course, as with everything Microsoft is doing at the moment, AI will play a huge role in Loop. We are also covering AI’s role in GitHub this week, as the developer platform launches Copilot X, an OpenAI-backed tool that will help devs code smarter and faster. There’s also some news on ChatGPT plugins, which will give the chatbot real-time access to websites, allowing it to do everything from check a flight time to order your takeout. Our Stat of the Week looks at Twitter’s current valuation (spoiler: a lot less than what Elon Musk paid for it). And What’s dAppening hails the roll-out of Polygon’s zkEVM, a game-changing platform that will help scale Ethereum.

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Takes 🎬️

➰📔Loop – Microsoft Launches Its Notion Rival In Public Preview

We’ve always been big fans of Notion here at 3Advance: in fact, it’s the collaboration tool we used to build this newsletter today. We aren’t alone either, with around 20 million businesses using the workspace app. Notion, like other remote collaboration tools, saw turbocharged growth during the height of the pandemic, and it was back then that Microsoft decided it wanted in on the action. Just over two years later, it has just launched Loop, which is very much a Notion competitor, in public preview. Of course, Loop isn’t Microsoft’s first collaboration tool rodeo; it has had several others, with SharePoint being the most comprehensive. But Loop looks like the most likely to make a dent in a market dominated by brands like Notion, Google Workspace Spaces, and Evernote. As for the public preview, we can say there’s much to like about Loop, including its design, its clever compartmentalization, and the fact up to 50 people can edit a workspace at once. But it’s also far from being the finished article, with Microsoft promising many new features that aren’t yet ready. That includes an upcoming integration with Microsoft 365 Copilot, an AI-powered tool that can make suggestions and share them with integrated apps like Teams and Outlook. We should also point out that Notion has not sat idly by taking its users for granted. It has already integrated AI, which can act to take notes, summarize meetings, and so on. Loop certainly looks promising though, and it will certainly benefit from Microsoft’s vast ready-made user base. It will also likely benefit from the fact that the reputation of Microsoft’s products has risen dramatically in light of its adoption of ChatGPT and other tools from OpenAI. If Bing can soar like a phoenix from the flames after years of being a laughing stock, then there’ll be a lot of faith that Microsoft can get Loop right too. #NotionKiller Read more here.

🏗️🤖 GitHub – Introduction of Copilot X Integrated with OpenAI’s GPT-4

GitHub, the online platform that brings together millions of developers to build and collaborate on software projects, has always been ahead of the game when it comes to AI. In fact, it has been partnering with OpenAI on Copilot since the summer of 2021, and today its AI tools are already writing an estimated 46% of all code and helping developers code up to 55% faster. But it’s now taken the next step with Copilot X, which features GPT-4 technology. Not only will the engine powering the AI be smarter and faster, it will also incorporate chat and voice controls. In the simplest terms, this will allow devs to hold a conversation using the ChatGPT-like interface, prompting the AI for suggestions, feedback, or to autocomplete coding tasks. GitHub calls Copilot X “contextually aware”, meaning devs can have a natural conversation as they collaborate with it. It is, as we have reiterated several times in this newsletter, further proof that AI isn’t going to steal your job as such, but rather it will empower those who recognize that it will help you do your job smarter. GitHub is where the future of software is planned and built, and it’s now getting a huge assist from AI. #CopilotXReady Read more here.

✈️ 🔌ChatGPT – OpenAI Announces Initial Support for Website Plugins

Another week, another great leap for AI. OpenAI announced support for plugins for ChatGPT, which gives the AI chatbot access to real-time information from the wider internet. In short, plugins give ChatGPT permission to surf the web as a ‘semi-real’ user. A good example is Expedia, with the travel site being one of the first adopters of a ChatGPT plugin. You can ask ChatGPT to retrieve specific information from Expedia – flight times, the best hotels with a swimming pool in NYC, the cheapest car hire on specific dates – and it comes back with the information. Of course, you can gather what will come next – asking ChatGPT to book those flights, order groceries, buy movie tickets, etc. Critics contend that this will have a detrimental impact on the traditional website economy, ranging from travel agents to price comparison sites to news platforms. Why, for example, would you spend ages browsing Expedia when you can get ChatGPT to almost instantly retrieve the exact information you want? It is, as we said, part of a great wave of tech disruption, and it’s coming at us at the speed of light. The winners will be brands, such as Expedia, who recognize the key is to embrace this awesome new tech, not ignore it. #ChatGPTPlugins Read more here.

🧐 Stat of the Week: 55% Dro

💸↘️ Twitter – Musk Email Claims that Platform Is Worth Just $20 Billion

An internal Twitter email sent by Elon Musk and seen by the New York Times warned that the company is still in a precarious position. Indeed, despite Musk constantly claiming Twitter was better and ‘busier’ than ever, the email stated that it was now valued at $20 billion - a 55% drop on the $44 billion he paid for it. In the email, Musk claimed all the changes to the platform were necessary for its future existence and profitability. Some of those changes will be implemented in mid-April, when ‘legacy’ verified accounts will lose their status if they do not pay for a Twitter Blue subscription. As you might imagine, that’s gone down like a lead balloon with the great and the good on the platform. #TwitterBlues Read more here.

🕸️ What’s dAppening?

A dApp is a decentralized app. Here’s the latest in web3, NFTs and blockchain apps.

🔎💰 Polygon – Next Chapter for Ethereum Arrives with Launch of zkEVM Beta

On Monday, we got to see one of the biggest bets in web3 start to pay off as Polygon – a kind of Swiss-army knife for scaling and interacting with the Ethereum ecosystem – launched the mainnet beta for its zkEVM (Zero Knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine). The project, which saw an investment of $1 billion by Polygon to develop the technology, is among several that aspire to be the Holy Grail of Ethereum scaling, with Polygon winning the race (at least to get in front of the queue). The idea of a zkEVM is that it will allow developers to access the same tools and applications they would on Ethereum but with much faster and cheaper transactions. Why is this important? Well, if you – like many – consider Ethereum to be the next iteration of the internet and the backbone of web3, you’ve also got to recognize that Ethereum isn’t capable of doing that on its own. This is often referred to as the trilemma of security, decentralization, and scalability problems. Solutions like zkEVM solve the trilemma. It’s a remarkable achievement to have this rolled out within two years – many thought that zkEVM technology would take a decade to perfect (chucking $1 billion at it helped). Some are proclaiming the zkEVM mainnet launch day of March 27th to be one of the most important moments in the history of web3 thus far. Ethereum’s creator, Vitalik Buterin, was given the honor of sending the first transaction via zkEVM on Monday’s launch day. Its impact could be felt for years to come. #ZKEVMPolygon Read more here.

Meanwhile at 3Advance…

3Advance Server Lead, and resident world-traveler, Matt, recently took an incredible trip to Colombia. Let’s hear more about it!

1. First up, how was your trip? Awesome, I had never been to South America before so loved getting to experience a new continent. 🗺️

2. What were your favorite things to do? La Candelaria, the historic downtown area, was really fun to walk around. Lots of narrow cobblestone streets and cool colonial architecture and lots of beautiful murals and other street art. 🖼️

3. How was the food? The food was excellent and very affordable. Most of my meals were around $2-3. The must-tries are Arepas, which are sort of like Empanadas, and Bandeja paisa which is a platter with lots of different things like beans, rice, egg, chicharron, plantains, avocado, and chorizo. 🌮

4. Any tips for traveling to Colombia? Don’t expect people to speak any English at all. I wish I had done a better job bruising up on Spanish ahead of time. The Google Translate app is incredibly powerful though and you can have full-on conversations with people in the right setting. Ubers are technically illegal but lots of people still use them. I read beforehand that the driver might get out of the car and give you a hug to make it seem like you’re friends and they’re just giving you a ride. 🚙 🤝

5. Where to next? My brother lives in Korea and we’ve been talking about meeting up half the distance between us in Istanbul, Turkey! 🇹🇷

Cheers, Matt! We’re so glad you had a blast.

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