Linked List: November 3, 2021

Wednesday, 3 November 2021

Meta Company 

Nate Skulic, founder of MetaCompany (a name they’ve been using since at least 2014):

On October 20th, 2021, during a phone call with Facebook attorneys, we declined their low offer and maintained our requirements. At this point, we presumed it was Facebook and identified them on the call. The attorney representing Facebook declared they would respect our existing right and registration.

On October 28th, 2021, Facebook decided to commit trademark infringement and call themselves “Meta”.

They couldn’t buy us, so they tried to bury us by force of media. We shouldn’t be surprised by these actions — from a company that continually says one thing and does another. Facebook and its operating officers are deceitful and acting in bad faith, not only towards us, but to all of humanity.

Looks like they’re going to fight Facebook for their name. Good for them.

It’s a common word, so it would be surprising if there weren’t existing companies using “Meta”. There’s also Meta.inc, founded by Andrew Wilkinson: “A long-term home for the world’s best digital agencies.”

What is surprising to me is that Facebook didn’t use their “infinite money” cheat code and just buy these names. I think that’s basically what Apple did with the “iPhone” trademark that was held by Cisco back in 2007. (I had forgotten that the prototype iPhones on display at Macworld Expo didn’t have “iPhone” printed on them.) There’s an entitled petulance at play here on Facebook’s part.

Alex Heath, reporting for The Verge:

On Wednesday, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook parent company Meta, announced that creators will soon be able to share custom web links directing their fans to pay them for subscriptions using Facebook’s native payments system. If a fan signs up through the link rather than Apple’s in-app subscription, the creator will keep all of the money minus taxes. Facebook subscription feature, which lets creators charge on a reoccurring basis for access to exclusive content, is available in 27 countries and accessible to creators who meet certain eligibility requirements.

Facebook is operating in a gray zone under Apple’s rules for the App Store, though a spokesperson said the social network believes its approach has always been allowed on iOS. The App Store currently forbids iOS apps from offering alternative payment options for purchasing digital goods, but in this case, it’s the creator, not Facebook, the app developer, that will be sending people to pay for a subscription on the web. The spokesperson for Facebook confirmed the social network isn’t removing the ability for users to sign up for a creator subscription using Apple’s native payments system.

Think: Substack or Patreon, but through Facebook.

Is this payment scheme going to fly with Apple? A year ago, I think Apple would have nipped the idea in the bud. It’s been a long year, though. Optically, Apple is pinned down here. Facebook is making a legit case that it’s scrappy independent creators who’d be paying these fees to Apple, not mega-profitable Facebook. And in spirit, this is a workaround Apple should have (and could have) allowed years ago: that in-app means “in the actual app”, and if you want to steer users out of the app to the web, fine. If in-app purchasing is so good as to justify Apple’s fees, let it compete with out-of-app purchasing flows on the web.

Facebook isn’t a “reader app”, but to me, allowing this would be aligned with the spirit of Apple’s settlement two months ago with the Japan Fair Trade Commission. It is about content creation and consumption.

As ever, stock up on the popcorn.

Instagram Brings Back Twitter Card Preview Support 

Aisha Malik, reporting for TechCrunch:

Instagram is bringing back support for Twitter Card previews starting today. Now when users share an Instagram link on Twitter, a preview of the post will be shown in the tweet. Prior to this change, when users posted an Instagram link on Twitter, the tweet would only display the URL of the Instagram link.

The social media platform made the controversial decision to remove Twitter Card support back in 2012. At the time, Instagram founder Kevin Systrom said the reason was that Instagram wanted to take control of its content and that the company wanted images to be viewed on Instagram, as opposed to Twitter.

Instagram even announced the change on … Twitter.

Alan Dye and Stan Ng Talk About the Design of Apple Watch Series 7 

David Phelan scored an interview about Apple Watch with Apple execs Alan Dye (VP of interface design) and Stan Ng (VP of product marketing for Watch):

When asked just how they decide how small a font or other element can go, Dye said: “I think everyone felt like we could go a bit larger in terms of the hardware, but we never wanted to compromise what is a foundation principle of the Watch which is the interchangeable strap system. It was quite a huge process to get those two goals to work in concert. Typography is something we obsess over. I’m lucky enough to have an amazing typography design team built into my team and we really started that with Apple Watch because we understood the huge challenge of getting as much content as possible on a small display. I think we had pretty good instincts on the team but we do work with others throughout the company, to get a feel for just how small we can go with the typefaces. You’d be surprised, some people really appreciate very small text. So, we kind of pushed the boundaries.”

Headlining this interview “Design Secrets of Apple Watch Series 7 Revealed” was a bit of a stretch, even by today’s clickbait-y standards for breathless headlines — but there are some interesting insights. Basically, the goal for Apple Watch Series 7 was exactly what we thought: to fit noticeably bigger displays into not-so-noticeably bigger watches.

Facebook to Drop Face Recognition 

Jerome Pesenti, VP of artificial intelligence at Facebook Meta:

In the coming weeks, Meta will shut down the Face Recognition system on Facebook as part of a company-wide move to limit the use of facial recognition in our products. As part of this change, people who have opted in to our Face Recognition setting will no longer be automatically recognized in photos and videos, and we will delete the facial recognition template used to identify them.

This change will represent one of the largest shifts in facial recognition usage in the technology’s history. More than a third of Facebook’s daily active users have opted in to our Face Recognition setting and are able to be recognized, and its removal will result in the deletion of more than a billion people’s individual facial recognition templates.

Interesting, to say the least. A billion people is lot of data.

US Puts Israeli Spyware Firm NSO Group on Trade Blacklist 

Aime Williams and Mehul Srivastava, reporting for The Financial Times:

The US has added NSO Group, the Israeli military spyware company that created software that has been traced to the phones of journalists and human rights activists, to a trade blacklist in a bid to tackle the growing surveillance threat posed by technology companies.

NSO and a smaller Tel Aviv-based company, Candiru, were among four companies added by the US commerce department on Wednesday to its so-called entity list, which would restrict exports of US technology to the companies.

I don’t know what the practical effect of this will be, but it feels justified.