Xorte logo

News Markets Groups

USA | Europe | Asia | World| Stocks | Commodities



Add a new RSS channel

 
 


Keywords

2025-01-29 00:30:00| Fast Company

Launched 16 years ago with only 500 apps, Apples App Store revolutionized how we interact with our devices. As of 2023, the App Store had nearly 1.8 million apps, spanning categories like gaming, fitness, productivity, social media, and much more. The phrase Theres an app for that has never been more true. But with so many apps available, users face a new challenge: app fatigue. With millions of choices, users can easily become overwhelmed. Even when someone chooses to download an app, they can be bombarded with notifications urging them to engage, upgrade, or subscribe. With many apps competing for users attention and wallets, this can push them to ignore or even delete an app altogether. This creates a dilemma but also presents a unique opportunity for developers. By rethinking app monetization and adopting innovative models, the industry can evolve into a healthier, more rewarding space for users and developers alike. Developers can lead the charge here while still prioritizing app quality, accessibility, and user satisfaction. The impact of app fatigue The App Store growth has created a paradox of choice for users. Users now have an average of 18 apps downloaded on their smartphones, and this number is predicted to decrease by 1% each year. Meanwhile, churn ratesthe percentage of users who stop using an apphave skyrocketed over the past four years, with 96.3% of iOS app downloaders becoming inactive by day 30. This environment leaves developers scrambling to compete. Because users have millions of apps to pick from, very few apps actually turn a profit. This pressure has led many developers to adopt aggressive monetization strategies like subscription models, prioritizing short-term revenue over user experience. Subscription models can be useful tools when used thoughtfully, providing a steady source of revenue that allows developers to maintain and improve their apps. The issue arises when subscriptions become the default or sole app monetization model, which is occurring more frequently. When useful functionality is hidden behind paywalls and payment options for apps are limited to recurring charges, users can become frustrated with their app experience. This can alienate users and lead to higher churn rates, creating a cycle where neither users nor developers truly benefit. Explore user-centric alternatives With the surge in app numbers and the widespread adoption of subscription models, its no surprise that many users feel overwhelmed. However, alternative strategies can mitigate app fatigue, offering a better user experience and sustainable options for developers. Pay-per-use, where users only pay when engaging with specific features, has become common in sectors like ride-sharing, food delivery, and online education. This model eliminates the need for ongoing subscriptions and gives users the ability to pay solely for the features they use. Ultimately, this eliminates the pressure of recurring charges. Additionally, all-you-can-eat models give users the freedom to use many features for a single price, providing a streamlined user experience and eliminating the need for constant upgrades and hidden fees. This makes app usage more enjoyable for users. For developers, it ensures a steady revenue stream that is distributed fairlyincentivizing quality and innovation. Yet, while these models offer exciting alternatives to traditional subscription models, they can only succeed if apps themselves evolve. Monetization is just one piece of the puzzle; the design and ecosystems behind these apps must also be reimagined. A new era of software The app industry must move behind incremental fixes. Users need tools that help them create, innovate, and build a meaningful legacy for a reasonable and fair price. Platforms like the Apple Arcade hint at whats possible by offering an integrated, curated marketplace with a streamlined user experience and efficient all-you-can-eat format. Similarly, the rise of super-apps in markets like Asia highlights another approach: consolidating multiple servicessuch as messaging, payments, and e-commerceinto a single platform to reduce friction and simplify daily life. These examples illustrate the growing expectation for apps to deliver cohesive solutions that adapt to users needs, whether through curated marketplaces, multifunctional platforms, or interconnected standalone tools.  Its becoming clear that single-purpose apps are quickly becoming obsolete. The future belongs to apps that are proactive, not reactivedynamic tools that evolve with users needs, offering a holistic, personalized experience. Developers must create on-demand solutions that instantly adapt to fulfill user needs. If a user, for instance, wants to combine notes, set reminders, and draft a report, the app should seamlessly generate the tools or interface in real time, eliminating the need to switch between multiple apps or perform repetitive tasks. The tools to make this happen are already here; technologies such as generative AI will lay the groundwork for even more advanced app solutions in the future. As the industry looks ahead, the key to success lies in seeing the bigger picture: smarter, more integrated solutions for users and robust ecosystems that empower developers. By rethinking how dynamic app services are designed and how they interact within larger platforms, we can move toward a future where software adapts to usersnot the other way around. Oleksandr Kosovan is founder and CEO of MacPaw.


Category: E-Commerce

 

LATEST NEWS

2025-01-29 00:00:00| Fast Company

Recently, Donald Trump was once again inaugurated as President of the United States, and the start of what I anticipate will be a pivotal year for our nation. And while its increasingly difficult to know exactly what to expect, there is one thing I believe has become incredibly clear over the past year: The most important issues facing our country wont be solved with more incessant bickering and polarization. I dont come to this conclusion out of some perceived sense of moral superiority. I, too, have found myself taken in and even angered by recent political dramas. The fact is that division can be intoxicating, particularly when it relates to issues that were passionate about. However, passion alone wont help our struggling neighbors, and remaining divided will only prevent holistic solutions to fixing inequality and uplifting those in our communities who need it most. Understand the issues at hand For decades, socioeconomic inequality has continued to impact tens of millions of Americans and has remained one of our countrys most difficult challenges. And make no mistake, this is an issue that impacts people on all points of the political spectrum, and that will need to be addressed with increasing urgency regardless of which party is in power. According to the Federal Reserve, the wealth gap in this country continues to widen. Within the second quarter of 2024, the top 10% of households by wealth had an average of $6.9 million each, holding 67% of total household wealth. Meanwhile, the bottom 50% of households by wealth had an average of $51,000, only holding 2.5% of total household wealth. In parallel, housing affordability in this country is also getting worse, with the National Low Income Housing Coalition estimating a current shortage of more than 7 million affordable homes for the nearly 11 million extremely low-income families in the U.S. Given these statistics, it should come as no surprise that the incumbent Democratic administration ended up losing the working class vote. Whether you blame that on post-pandemic inflation or weak policies around workforce development, it doesnt change the fact that the overall economy was a major motivating factor for American voters and instrumental in ushering in a leadership change. Change isnt achieved through division To say that Donald Trump has traditionally been a polarizing figure would be an understatement. For years, his spontaneity on social media alone has reliably drawn the criticism of politicians and business leaders of all political affiliations, and on occasion even resulted in Trump being banned from multiple platforms. However, judging by a slew of public endorsements and financial contributions from prominent tech leaders, it appears that at least one industry is willing to put their differences aside in the name of progress. More specifically, weve learned of several hefty contributions to Trumps inaugural fund. Influential leaders like Mark Zuckerberg are signaling a growing recognition that remaining divided is a poor strategy for driving change. While there are many conclusions that can be taken from this development, I think the most important lesson here is that real progress requires having allies in political leadership, not adversaries. Weve seen how these prominent leaders can drive social and economic change in the U.S., including but not limited to tech, innovation, philanthropy, and more. So when it comes to addressing inequalities, I believe these are the leaders who will catalyze real change and we need them in our corner. Come together to drive progress As a career entrepreneur and nonprofit philanthropist, Ive been privileged to witness first-hand how providing a hand up to our neighbors can uplift an entire community, which we do at Business for Good each day. But Ive also come to understand that positive change is much more readily achieved through unification rather than division. In fact, after years of working with hardworking business owners from marginalized communities, I can say with confidence that most care far less about political divisiveness than they do about action and results. Additionally, and perhaps more than anything, what these communities wantand needis simply for their voices to be heard. We can see this truth clearly reflected in how certain demographic groups voted this election, particularly young, working-class Black and Latino men. Citing everything from the benefits of Trumps tax policies for small businesses to the inability of Democrats to truly deliver on their promises to minority communities, both demographics went for Trump even more confidently than in 2020, with Trump earning close to double the share of votes from Black men under 45 than he did in the previous election. So, as we look to move forward to the next phase of Business for Good, the focus will remain on addressing inequities, but on a bigger scalehoning in on the housing crisis, economic equality, and broader community development. With Inauguration Day in the rear-view mirrorand most leaders would probably agreeI dont believe that this second Trump term will be all forward progress; there are still a lot of unanswered questions and uncertainty about the actions he will take over the next four years. What I do think, however, is that solving the socioeconomic challenges of our time isnt about being a Democrat or a Republican, but rather about working across party lines with the shared recognition that unification is needed now more than ever to drive meaningful change, and that the path toward a better future for all Americans will be far better undivided. Ed Mitzen is cofounder of Business for Good.


Category: E-Commerce

 

2025-01-28 23:55:00| Fast Company

Recently, Chinese startup DeepSeek created state-of-the art AI models using far less computing power and capital than anyone thought possible. It then showed its work in published research papers and by allowing its models to explain the reasoning process that led to this answer or that. It also scored at or near the top in a range of benchmark tests, besting OpenAI models in several skill areas. The surprising work seems to have let some of the air out of the AI industrys main assumptionthat the best way to make models smarter is by giving them more computing power, so that the AI lab with the most Nvidia chips will have the best models and shortest route to artificial general intelligence (AGIwhich refers to AI thats better than humans at most tasks).  No wonder some Nvidia investors are questioning their faith in the unlimited demand for the most powerful AI chips in the future. And no wonder some in AI circles are questioning the world view and business strategy of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, the biggest evangelist for the brute force approach to ever-smarter models.  The assumption behind all this investment is theoretical . . . the so-called scaling laws where when you double compute, the quality of your models increases in kind of the same wayits kind of a new Moore’s Law, says Abhishek Nagaraj, a professor at the University of CaliforniaBerkeleys Haas business school. (Moores Law said that software developers could expect microchips to become predictably more powerful as chipmakers packed more transistors into their microchips.)  And so if that holds, it effectively means that whoever controls the infrastructure will control a lot of the market, adds Nagaraj. Thats why companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and X are building data centers as fast as they can. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman last year said he needs to raise $7 trillion to build the data centers needed to reach AGI. OpenAI, Microsoft, Softbank, and Oracle said recently theyll spend up to $500 billion over the next five years to build new data centers for AI in Texas.  Attracting the money to do that, however, is something only closed-source companies like OpenAI can do, Nagaraj points out. OpenAIs private equity backers (such as Andreessen Horowitz) and big tech backers (such as Microsoft) are willing to bankroll the AI infrastructure (chips, software, data centers, electricity), which OpenAI says it needs, if it keeps the recipes of its models secret. Thats the moat around their investment, after all. Establishing such a moat was the main reason OpenAI stopped being an open AI company back in 2019.  DeepSeek shares the weights of its models (the mathematical calculations at each connection point in their neural networks) and allows any developer to build with them. After essentially giving away its research and eschewing a moat, DeepSeek was never going to attract the private equity funding needed to bankroll hundreds of thousands of Nvidia chips. Adding to its challenge were the U.S. chip bans that reserved the most powerful AI chips for U.S. companies. So DeepSeek found ways to build state-of-the-art models using far less computing power. In doing so, it appears to have collapsed Altmans assumption that massive computing power is the only route to AGI. Not everybody thinks so, of course. Particularly in OpenAI circles. I would never bet against compute as the upper bound for achievable intelligence in the long run, says Andrej Karpathy, one of the original founders of OpenAI, in an X post. Not just for an individual final training run, but also for the entire innovation/experimentation engine that silently underlies all the algorithmic innovations. Altman, too, seemed undeterred. We will obviously deliver much better models and also it’s legit invigorating to have a new competitor! We will pull up some releases . . . , he posted breezily on X. But mostly we are excited to continue to execute on our research roadmap and believe more compute is more important now than ever before to succeed at our mission. OpenAIs mission is AGI.  Lots of powerful chips will be needed, if only because the general demand for AI services is going to grow exponentially. More data centers will be needed just to respond to calls from millions of AI-infused apps built on OpenAI APIs, he added.  Some have suggested that DeepSeeks discovery of ways to build more compute-efficient advanced AI models could reduce the barrier to entry and allow far more developers to build such models of their own, therefore pushing up demand for AI chips. For example, DeepSeeks most recent model, DeepSeek-R1, provided the open-source world with a reasoning model that appears to be comparable to OpenAIs state-of-the-art o1 series, which applies more computing power at inference time, when the model is reasoning through various routes to a good answer. In a statement Monday, Nvidia gives DeepSeek props for creating reasoning models using widely available Nvidia GPUs, and adds that such models require significant numbers of the GPUs as well as fast chip-to-chip networking technology.  The latest DeepSeek models have only been available to developers for a short time. Just like when Meta introduced its open-source Llama models, it will take some time to understand the real economics of building new models and apps based on the DeepSeek models. Its possible that more widely distributing the ability to build cutting edge models could put more brains to work on finding novel routes to AGI and, later, superintelligence. Thats the good news. The bad news may be that powerful models, and the means to build them, will become more available to people who might use them maliciously, or who may not be fastidious about using accepted safety guardrails.  But DeepSeek is not perfect. The DeepSeek chatbot has in anecdotal cases emphatically misidentified itself as the creation of OpenAI or Microsoft. Nor can the chatbot speak freely on all subjects. Like all Chinese AI companies, DeepSeek operates within the Peoples Republic of China’s regulatory framework, which includes restrictions on how language models handle politically sensitive topics, says David Bader, a professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. These constraints are evident in how their models respond to queries about historical events and government policies. If you ask the chatbot about the Tiananmen Square protests, for example, it responds with, Lets talk about something else.  


Category: E-Commerce

 

Latest from this category

30.01How execs can bridge the AI knowledge gap
30.013 ways smarter design can solve the noise problem
29.01The architecture industry may soon be unrecognizable
29.01NASAs returned Bennu asteroid samples contain the building blocks for life
29.01Advertising in the Super Bowl hits a new record, Fox says
29.01RFK Jr. confirmation hearing: Kennedy was grilled on his abortion flip-flop. Heres what he said
29.01Amazon secretly tracked Californian consumers via cellphones, lawsuit alleges
29.01This group is playing Dungeons & Dragons to help L.A. fire victims, and you can join in
E-Commerce »

All news

30.01Elon Musk says Tesla will launch a robotaxi service in Austin this June
30.01Forget implants! New drug can regrow human teeth naturally, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw shares a video of how medicine works
30.01Stay away from high-beta stocks ahead of Budget: Ankit Mandolia of Motilal Oswal
30.01Thursday Watch
30.01ETMarkets Smart Talk: Gautam Chhaochharia of UBS expects no structural tax changes but possible relief for middle-class
30.01Tata Motors shares in focus after Q3 profit misses estimates
30.01Passenger jet collides with Army helicopter while landing at Reagan Washington National Airport, FAA says
30.01Q3 results today: L&T, Adani Enterprises among 133 companies to announce earnings on Thursday
More »
Privacy policy . Copyright . Contact form .