Demand for Apple's HomePod stalls after hot start

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

It seems that demand for Apple's smart speaker has slowed down. The HomePod began shipping to customers in the US in February, and seemed to be grabbing a lot of attention during its news cycle. The device was praised for its stunning sound which was at a level of larger, more expensive hi-fi speakers. The HomePod, it seems, was just the smart speaker the Apple ecosystem was waiting for.

Two months later, however, it looks like the HomePod demand is going flat. Bloomberg reports that Apple has lowered manufacturing volume for the smart speaker. The same report says that there's a possibility a cheaper and smaller model will be coming soon.

I had reservations about the HomePod's value proposition a year ago, just after it was announced.

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Report claims Xiaomi is in interested in buying GoPro

GoPro has been scaling down its business due to financial issues. The company announced back in January that it was leaving the drone business because of this. GoPro’s CEO Nick Woodman has said in an interview with CNN before that he was open to selling the company. He said, “If there was an opportunity to merge GoPro with a larger parent company that could help us scale our business and provide a better return on investment… we would welcome the opportunity…”

Now there seems to be someone interested in buying GoPro. Bloomberg reports Chinese tech company Xiaomi is looking to purchase the action sports camera company. Xiaomi is known in Asia for its affordable, feature-packed phones but it has also delved into everything from robot vacuums, laptops, electric scooters, power banks, routers, and many more. Perhaps, it wants to boost its action camera segment or possibly get into drones. Not much is known about this potential deal at the moment but GoPro is being valued at around a billion dollars, according to the report from The Information.

You can now use GIFs in LinkedIn Messenger

Why you may ask? Why not LinkedIn asks? The now Google-owned Tenor will be exclusively providing GIF search for LinkedIn’s messaging platform. Tenor claims it powers over 12 billion GIF searches every month, which isn’t as surprising as the GIF tool is used by a number of different platforms, including Google’s own Gboard and Facebook Messenger. It has begun rolling out to 50 percent of users on LinkedIn and should come to the rest over time.

GIFs are an extremely popular way to convey messages these days as sometimes these succinctly put what you’ve been meaning to say. Does it have a place in what can be considered a more professional social platform? Probably not. But if you feel like you’d better express yourself through GIF form, go ahead. Just make sure you don’t send anything inappropriate to your boss and/or client.

Source: TechCrunch

Going Local: A third of Google searches are now location-related

Photo by Edho Pratama on UnsplashFollowing from a 2016 report from Hitwise, revealing that 60% of Google searches came from a mobile device, new data obtained from Search Engine Journal reveals that in 2018 almost a third of Google searches are location related. If you are looking for successful SEO, then you need to work on your local rankings first. This applies even to global companies. Google has gone very local recently, automatically placing local results first and giving more priority to Maps. The gradual rise of voice command searches has also helped to drive the growth of locally minded Googlers.

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