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🤖 eCommerce news:

💰 PayPal adds Apple Pay support for small merchants using Advanced Checkout "PayPal is adding new tools for small business owners, including Apple Pay support at checkout, the option for customers to save their cards for this specific site and access to IC++ pricing. Small and medium businesses currently have two ways to integrate PayPal in the checkout flow. In addition to the Standard Checkout integration that lets you accept PayPal payments with little effort, the company also has an Advanced Checkout integration feature for companies that want more personalisations and payment features. Companies that have opted for the latter option can now accept Apple Pay payments from their customers. The checkout tool already offers multiple options to customers — they can make payments via PayPal, Venmo and PayPal Pay Later, as well as with credit cards."

📖 Audible is testing ad-supported access to select titles for non-members "Audible is testing ad-supported access to select titles for non-members, the Amazon-owned audiobook company revealed on a help page on its website. The company confirmed to TechCrunch that the test is very limited and does not apply to paid members. The news was first reported by Marketing Brew. The move indicates that the company may be exploring the possibility of an ad-based membership option. Audible declined to comment on any specific plans. The test includes audiobooks, podcasts and Audible Originals. Audible says the test applies to a limited subsection of titles on its platform."

🛍 Walmart-backed payments giant PhonePe makes e-commerce push "The Bengaluru-based startup, backed by retail giant Walmart, on Tuesday launched a hyperlocal commerce app, called Pincode, that is powered by the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), an Indian government initiative striving to democratize the e-commerce landscape by offering a zero-commission platform. Pincode will work with local shops and is going live initially in Bengaluru, PhonePe executives said at a press conference on Tuesday. The startup, which also counts General Atlantic and Tiger Global among its backers, plans to slowly expand to more cities and amass 100,000 orders a day by end of the year."

💬 Reddit Shares New Data on User Activity, Content Takedowns and Rule Enforcement “2022 was the biggest year of content creation on Reddit to date. Our passionate and increasingly global users created an eye-popping 8.3 billion posts, comments, chats, and private messages on the platform. The overwhelming majority – over 96% – of content shared across Reddit in 2022 respected Reddit’s Content Policy and individual community rules. The remaining ~4% of content was removed by moderators or admins for violating community rules or the Content Policy, with the overwhelming majority of admin removals (79.6%) being due to spam (e.g., karma farming, scams).”

📍Pinterest Announces Expansion of ‘Creator Inclusion Fund’ Program “Today, Pinterest is announcing the expansion of its Creator Inclusion Fund to five new countries: Canada, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and France. The Fund is Pinterest’s incubator program to elevate Creators from historically marginalized communities through financial and educational support.”

🐦 Twitter announces new API with only free, basic and enterprise levels "After weeks of stalling, Twitter finally announced its new API price structures on Wednesday. These three tiers include a bare-bone free level mostly meant for content posting bots, a $100 per month basic level and a costly enterprise level. The company said that subscribing to any level gets access to Ads API at no cost. Twitter mentioned that over the next 30 days, the company will discontinue old access levels, including Standard (for v1.1), Essential and Elevated (for v2), and Premium."

💻 Covariant’s robotic picking AI nabs another $75M “This investment allows us to further develop the Covariant Brain as a more capable foundation model and to apply the Covariant Brain to even more use cases across a wide variety of sectors,” Chen tells TechCrunch. “With eCommerce demand continuing to grow and supply chain resilience becoming more important, we’ve made tremendous progress with global retailers and logistics providers, and are looking forward to revealing more details on these partnerships soon.”

📈 UFC and WWE will team up to form a $21.4 billion sports entertainment company "WWE and the company that runs Ultimate Fighting Championship will combine to create a $21.4 billion sports entertainment company. A new publicly traded company will house the UFC and World Wrestling Entertainment brands, with Endeavor Group Holdings Inc. taking a 51% controlling interest in the new company. Existing WWE shareholders will hold a 49% stake. The companies put the enterprise value of UFC at $12.1 billion and WWE's value at $9.3 billion."

📹 How Twitch lost its grip on, and way with, the streaming community At this point, it’s no secret that something is amiss at Twitch. As of the last two weeks, the company is down one CEOand 400 employees; if you believe the headlines, it’s also lost things like “its way” and “the battle for its soul.” Amid all the fracas, Twitch is also losingwhat was once arguably its most valuable asset: its role as a central hub for the streaming community. As Twitch grew massively during the COVID pandemic, it invested more resources into its ad offerings and fewer into community-building, and streamers have begun to feel like they have less of a voice as Twitch grows its business.

📈 Top trends:

📦 Amazon wants to boost ten generative AI startups around the globe 

"Announced today, AWS has created a10-week program for generative AI startups around the globe.Generative AI startup founders within the cohort can expect to have access to AI models and tools as well as machine learning stack optimization and custom go-to-market advice. There’s also a Demo Day in San Francisco at the end of the program. Accepted startups will receive up to $300,000 in AWS credits to help build their companies. Applications are open for the next two weeks and ten startups will be chosen, the company says."

💬 These Y Combinator-backed startups are trying to build ‘ChatGPT for X’.

"The hype around ChatGPT, OpenAI’s viral AI-powered chatbot, hasn’t reached a peak yet. That’s the vibe one gets from Y Combinator’s Winter 2023 batch, which features no fewer than four startups that claim to be building a “ChatGPT for X.” That new ventures are jumping on the ChatGPT hype train isn’t surprising, considering ChatGPT’s virality. Byone metric, ChatGPT is the fastest-growing app in the world, having reached 100 million users within the first two months of launch. Associating with an app that visible, particularly one that’s in the red-hotgenerative AIspace, is bound to get attention — a fact to which this article is a testament."

💰 Job postings in Europe have slowed

"Job postings have slowed in all large European economies, although so far this appears to be a correction, rather than a crash. The latest data from Indeed.com's Job Postings Index shows that postings remain well above pre-pandemic levels, although they have fallen from their 2022 peaks."

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🐦 Twitter thread of the week:

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💻 Interesting Linkedin posts:

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😂 Meme of the week:

🤝 Hot jobs:

Plutus - Director of Brand Marketing 

"Founded in 2015, Plutus has revolutionised the loyalty rewards industry.

Every time a user spends with their Plutus Debit Card, they earn 3-8% of the purchase value back in PLUTON ($PLU)- the world’s first crypto rewards token. Users track their rewards balances in an accompanying finance app with bank-like features and a secure Fiat-Crypto DEX (self custody is one of the core values of Plutus)We have created a robust business model and tripled our user base in 2022."

Body Shop - Head of Marketing & Campaign Analytics

"Provide marketing analytical thought leadership and ensuring best in class analytics and reporting to the Global Marketing Team and the wider business. Drive decision making across Global and Local initiatives by providing detailed marketing, campaign and customer insights. Develop marketing reporting and dashboards to improve insights and understanding across the business. Develop detailed plans to drive development and improvement of marketing and digital initiatives globally. Be responsible for supporting the acquisition and retention teams to understand the overall delivery of new customer acquisition and retention across the business. Take overall responsibility for leading on marketing and campaign insight - including analysing and interpreting data; understanding customer behaviour and developing customer segmentation strategy; making evidence-based recommendations; and delivering reports and presentations in accessible ways to business stakeholders to help meet business goals."

Ogilvy - Strategy Director

"Our vision is to inspire brands and people to impact the world. To create big ideas that make a significant contribution to the planet, society, and the bottom line. We believe in today’s world this is the best way for our clients to achieve sustainable growth.

We achieve this by breaking down the barriers that restrict talent and ideas, we call this Borderless Creativity. Which is why our teams work fluidly across 5 capabilities: Advertising, Consulting, Experience, PR and I, and Health. This allows us to not only operate but innovate at the intersection of capabilities and talent.  We believe impact and magic lie at this intersection. Ogilvy scales this by seamlessly connecting and accessing the deep and diverse cultural expertise of 132 offices in 83 countries in a way that celebrates our commitment to inclusion.  

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