Hi guys, welcome to the end of another week. We hope you all enjoyed the Sallah festival break. This week has also been filled with exciting stories like Twitter testing ways for users to interact with tweets they do or do not like to zoom letting you add third-party apps to your calls.
Do not worry, we have specially curated some exciting stories for you.
Social app Clubhouse is no longer invite-only
Clubhouse has finally removed its invite system which now makes it free for anyone to join the platform.
Previously, people had to be invited by an existing user or request to join a wait-list for the social app, which saw dramatic early growth during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Clubhouse said in a blog post, that the invite system has been an important part of their history. Even if it has always planned to become a free to join app for anyone later, the invite-only has been a way to grow in a measured way.
Part of Clubhouse’s decision to open up was also because of intense competition from other social media companies like Facebook and Twitter which have launched similar audio features like Twitter spaces.
The Social app has also seen a massive increase in users since it became available on Android in May. According to Sensor Tower’s estimates, the app had around 7.8 million global installs in June, up from 3.7 million the month before.
Salesforce acquires Slack for $27.7bn
Salesforce, the cloud computing giant has finally completed its acquisition of Slack in a $27.7 billion deal.
Salesforce who owns other enterprise apps like Tableau, Demandware, and Mulesoft will be adding slack to its suite without immediate change to functionality, branding or leadership.
“Together we’ll define the future of enterprise software, creating the digital HQ that enables every organization to deliver customer and employee success from anywhere.” – Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff
Slack co-founder and CEO, Stewart Butterfield, also said that Slack is ready to compete with giants like Microsoft after its acquisition by Salesforce as he believes emails are dying off in workplaces.
You may have heard there would come a day when Slack became a part of @salesforce, and it turns out that day is today!
What does this mean? We’re still the Slack you know and love—just a little better. https://t.co/Ak8bKx8wRl — Slack (@SlackHQ) July 21, 2021
However, catching up to Microsoft is not within reach anytime soon as the giant already has a massive head start especially in distribution around the world.
Zoom will now let you add third-party apps to your calls
Zoom is expanding its goal of becoming the go-to app for virtual meetings and events by introducing two new features: Zoom Events and Zoom Apps.
The Zoom apps help combine users favourite apps with the video call software. There will be over 50 apps available for the Zoom app including apps like Asana, Funtivity, Kahoot which will show up right in your Zoom calls.
“Zoom Apps are a critical component in Zoom’s transition from an app to a platform by enabling seamless integration of third-party apps within Zoom,” said Zeus Kerravala, Principal Analyst of ZK Research.
Zoom events provide everything you need to develop, host, and manage a virtual or hybrid event. The company claims it can handle any size sales meeting, unique customer experience, internal event, or corporate summit.
“Virtual events are a natural adjacency for Zoom, Zoom Events consolidates ticketing, managing, and hosting into a single, virtual event solution,” said Dave Michels, Principal Analyst and Founder of TalkingPointz.
Twitter is testing new upvote and downvote buttons on tweets
Twitter is now testing new buttons that let you upvote or downvote tweets. The buttons are notably similar to those on Reddit but unlike Reddit, the downvotes are not public at the moment, while the upvotes will be displayed as likes.
The buttons may appear in different styles to different users and while some might see a downvote button next to the conventional heart-shaped ‘like’ button, others might see thumbs up and down.
The company clarified that the downvote button is not categorically a dislike button and won’t change the order of replies on a tweet but rather an experiment to understand the type of replies a user does and does not find relevant in a conversation.
Furthermore, it’s unclear whether this will be a permanent feature, but last year, Twitter’s product lead, Kayvon Beykpour indicated on the site that the business was “exploring” dislikes so we’ll keep our fingers crossed.
The test is currently available on Twitter’s iOS app for some users.
Elon Musk says Tesla will ‘most likely’ accept Bitcoin again
Tesla CEO, Elon Musk has announced that Tesla will ‘most likely’ start accepting bitcoin again if the mining rate for cryptocurrency becomes more renewable by at least 50%.
This statement was made on Wednesday during the virtual panel discussion hosted by the Crypto council for innovation.
As of February, Bitcoin was an accepted form of payment at Tesla. The electric vehicle company purchased over $1.5billion worth of bitcoin before going back on its decision three months later claiming environmental concerns.
“This is inaccurate. Tesla only sold ~10% of holdings to confirm BTC could be liquidated easily without moving market. When there’s confirmation of reasonable (~50%) clean energy usage by miners with the positive future trend, Tesla will resume allowing Bitcoin transactions”.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 13, 2021
Bitcoin and Ethereum miners have been on the receiving end of a series of backlash because they use a lot of fossil energy. This even led to the crackdown of their activities in China. But while Ethereum miners have found a way to vastly reduce energy usage, Bitcoin miners still seem reluctant to make these changes.
While Elon has cited his concern over the environmental impact of mining several times, he has been met with defiance from the bitcoin community including Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey.
Dorsey who was present at the virtual meeting believes that Bitcoin can encourage people to switch towards sustainable energy resources.
As ambiguous as it may seem, Mr Musk’s statement is due to the fact that no one is really sure about how to measure the spread of renewable energy given how decentralized the grid is. He still wields a lot of control on Bitcoin prices though.
For instance, after reaching an all-time high of almost $63,000 in April, Bitcoin price plummeted below $30,000 on Monday but recovered after the wealthy founder provided more data about his and his companies’ interests at the virtual panel.
This is all we have for you this week. Make sure to catch up with next week’s update.
You can check out other news that happened during the week here. Have a superb weekend.
Technext Newsletter
Get the best of Africa’s daily tech to your inbox – first thing every morning.
Join the community now!
