Gadgetory

hey everybody welcome back it's a February's second episode 173 of the 359 podcast and today I am joined by Ben Fox Rubin and Roger Cheng I don't know why I just stuttered on that good morning guys yeah I'm pretty forgetful I get it it's so cool how's everybody doing today yeah good Thursday right it's thursday alright yeah what up the end of the week and devour week partners are falling over all right what are we talking about today we're going to continue earning season talking about Facebook which had a monster quarter talk about a couple problems that they're gonna have coming down the pike also a couple new interesting ideas for the Amazon Alexa they haven't come out quite yet but they will be here sometime soon or maybe not we'll end up finding out and then last we're going to talk about using social media to help disabled activists come out and protest as always send in your questions and comments and Brian will get to them at the end of the show all right hang on everybody we're going to record this podcast way back and join you in the chat and we'll hang out for a little bit so here we go in three two welcome to the 359 I'm Ben Fox Rubin Roger Cheng facebook posted another monster quarter with profit doubling and monthly users hitting 1.86 billion Wow with Abby yeah video has gotten folks to spend more time on Facebook too but lurking just below the surface are a handful of problems for the social media giant first up the company is running out of space to cram its ads especially on mobile you know because those are much smaller screens Sheriff so it's growth is expected to slow later this year so Roger how big of a problem do you think it's going to be for them in terms of maintaining his growth trajectory yeah it's gonna be a problem I think it's a problem that most sites have it's just the lack of real estate right lack of tolerance for these ads total I think we're all kind of getting annoyed with these ads and I don't know companies like Google Facebook are trying to make them more seamless or they try to make them less intrusive but the fact of the matter is yeah like when I'm on my phone and I'm quickly going to my feet like I don't need to get inundated ads and they're trying to do that especially as possible because that's how they make money right what was interesting about the facebook earnings they make over eighty percent of their revenue from mobile so and and there's much less real estate in that area so that's that's a bit of a problem for them second also this is related to Facebook oculus isn't really contributing to growth and was also found guilty in an intellectual property case costing for now they may appeal five hundred million dollars you know what's interesting is sort of the lack of reaction to it I feel like this was a huge controversy well for a while it was this thing that is over hang on on oculus just this looming threat yeah they essentially say the whole idea is to create the oculus rift but now that the ruling is out and there's 500 million dollar bounty like no one I don't think anyone really seems to care I think it's kind of overshadowed by the prophets and facebooking put out like 500 billion which is whatever from the money pot exactly know how the couch underneath grab a little change just they all probably still I would argue they probably still going to appeal at five hundred million dollars is nothing to sneeze at but right we'll see how big that ends up getting next your Alexa your Amazon alexa may someday rat you out if you're ditching class that's just one of several new ideas that were considered at a hackathon amazon helped host recently not so it's really interesting that amazon's kind of fostering you know further I guess use of the elects of the echo speaker I mean do you think this stuff is that is it all pie in the sky or is this actually are actually gonna see this stuff in elec so soon some of this stuff is going to come so the idea of what what you do is there's there's this platform that gets your attendance records and you would be able to have that port over to your echo so you walk in you know mom walks in and says like oh you know Billy you weren't in class today or you missed trigonometry or whatever that is certainly a possibility if a school is using that type of software it's not just schools right like what were some of the other applications at the second thought there was one like ticketmaster had this idea where you could say like what are some nearby concerts or bank right you could ask like what are some local mortgages so some of it is certainly possible but we might not see all of it right well lastly our own Maggie region did a profile or feature uh taking a look at the sort of the the way that activists are using social media facebook facebook groups it's really make it easier for the disability community to show up at these protests obviously between the women's marg some of the band that the protests over the immigration banned from this past weekend there have been plenty of opportunities for people but historically the disabled community has not really been able to go at the logistical reasons like in terms of lack of access sometimes it's difficult for people to stand up for a long time there are all these logistical issues but facebook and twitter has sort of made it a lot easier to created this sort of channel for people to talk and participate yeah definitely well check out Maggie's story if you want to read more about these check us out on cnet on Ben Fox Rubin i'm dr. Jenn thanks for listening and in the chat lovely be 35 says 30 hours a week on facebook wow that's all present there's a lot 30 hours continuously i'm assuming sprinkle to up today continuously would be paid that can't be in its entirety there's no way that was weird they're now in second with 30 hours a week that's pretty that sounds like a lot even for facebook yeah i mean people just spent a lot of time on that watching video use it as a second screen i suppose yeah i know my wife is her eyes are like when she's free she's she stopped watching TV and like regular media she watches mostly videos on facebook oh my wife umana Cruz's face off of montclair are a lot of my wife uses a lot of money groups but she also mostly uses it to stalk girls she knew from high school and see you know yet what because she is also you just told that you just added her as a doctor watches this podcast yeah my wife doesn't she did initially she stopped caring a long time ago and but we have you wonderful fan so thank you much thanks for joining us in contrast Naaman says a few minutes a day at less than 10 Wow okay to extremes yeah yeah i think i'd like to think that mine ebbs and flows heavily yeah i would agree and depending on the day like if I'm real busy here and I just want to go home and crash at night the last thing I want to do is look at some yeah stupid cat meme or something it you know what I it's it's hard for me to like count it up but I look at facebook maybe two minutes at a time every time I basically open up my phone right I'll just which is Elsa 30 out yeah I guess so I like I'll see an alert of like alright hit the alert see what one is one thing I've done recently is I've turned off alert just because I got tired of getting aggressive I'll go and address it when I can yeah i still have messages forwarded to me so if somebody directly needs to contact me they can still use that it's plateau get any other I'm not getting buzzes in my phone on the fly anymore that's kind of nice actually I think I mean I've cut down the number of Lords but I still do get them and i think that's that's what hooks me and everyone every time and then i'll spend like 10 two or three minutes on facebook they're one of the one of the things that facebook is trying to do to get people to spend even more time on facebook is to promote longer videos so we shall see some of that later this year and expect to you know i guess just sit there and watch stuff on Facebook the more alive videos or either live videos or just wondering yeah I think they're trying to go from a premium content right content wall street journal reported that they're working on a app for set-top boxes which doesn't surprise me at all it's a I was confused by this work on videos I was confused by that story was that for set-top boxes like Roku boxes or set-top boxes like your normal cable box I would assume it's for roku right that wouldn't be that hard of a hard to do is it no because it seemed like they just said television set-top box which isn't that clear anymore right that could totally be a cable that couldn't be a game like a channel on your cable box I didn't know your cable box could have apps maybe that's not well yeah it could be a channel i guess theoretically if it's on my Roku you know i'm gonna go on there every now and then so i don't think that's a bad idea for them it's yeah I spend with I spent a lot of time one only two that on the roku box so I can eat I can imagine watching watching this yes narcissist Tom big in the chat says not as much time as I spend on YouTube Oh bless your heart yeah there we go hey let out here we'll use there we go Jerry says no Facebook here I've got a life Wow very spesh that is no true I don't have a wide width I don't have a life good job good job fan there you go excuse me if I could if I could spend less time on Facebook obviously I would you guys are you like chained to it in some ways you know because of my job like you have to keep somewhat appraised of like what the newest features are what's going on on this stuff it's the same thing with Twitter we're like well that's altima same free content well no I want to ask like what what do you spend more time on Facebook or Twitter almost certainly Twitter yeah same here yeah and I had to like detox after the election I took some time off because I was just on it constantly there was so much news went out to the cabin for a while yeah it's some fishing I got to know me Shannon says basically all the time because Facebook seem so ubiquitous and video sucks me and fast yeah looks like there you go rude ok coming and Mark Zuckerberg loves you so I think you're gonna get to be a great customer for facebook moving forward yeah buddy and Ricardo they are in a gray area because they're spending 15 to 30 minutes a day but it's on Instagram but Instagram is owned by Facebook and Instagram has been doing more video too right yup so that is that's like video is getting really big number one and the ads are more expensive so they can make more money off of video and you can just you just can suck people in so yeah there's definitely this rabbit hole you can fall into with video what well the Facebook content in general but like video in particular like one after another it just it's kind of like YouTube right right let's change gears real quick cause I'm going to wrap it up soon kevin says I actively help him support the disabled people social media definitely have given them a way to express everything I've seen a lot of them go to rallies protests fundraisers social media is empowering and that's great absolutely one hundred truth right there ya know so specifically to this story I mean obviously was the women's march in DC this woman here that Maggie talked to actually created a special channel disability caucus the special Facebook page it's got an offshoot of the women's March movement and it was sort of it served as a resource for the disabled community in terms of like places to stay that are that they're more handicapped friendly right to make it to make it easier for folks that do want to protest action that say like cuz everybody deserves a voice exactly cuz it's you know the the easiest these excuse of the easy thing to say is like well you can just protest at home or on social media online that's everyone should have a fair share fair chance to represent is actually yeah physically voice their own opinion so absolutely yeah totally agree with that and I think you need to move on right you can or get out of here we got a short show today unfortunately everybody but thanks for joining us it was great to have you yeah well that's that's it for the week yes I think that's it for the week so we'll be back on Monday and thanks everybody for coming on and for your comments and questions and we'll see you next week the 359 is available on I do you really need to read the script that I wrote you go on Rises 173 m but I like doing it I like doing it this way yeah cuz it's so awkward Carrie like everybody's wondering why there's a line list of yes channels and outlets that the 359 s available is post on the wall place it on the wall that's why I'm gonna die Ben is and it's available at itunes to knit I like saying it really fast itunes tune in citrus soundcloud feedburner google play music and of course cnet.com there we go so on monday bye-bye everybody haha Oh