In a press release written with help from ChatGPT, Match Group announced an enterprise agreement with the AI chatbot’s maker, OpenAI.
The AI tech will be used to help Match Group employees with work-related tasks, the company says, and come as part of Match’s $20 million-plus bet on AI in 2024.
It even offered a quote from ChatGPT itself: “I’m thrilled that Match Group matched with me.
To keep its corporate data protected, only trained and licensed Match Group employees will have access to OpenAI’s tools, it noted.
Before being able to use these tools, Match Group employees will also have to undergo mandatory training that focuses on responsible use, the technology’s capabilities, as well as its limitations.
Apple today is continuing its investment in sports and subscriptions business with the launch of a new app for iPhone users, Apple Sports.
While the app itself is free to use, it can help Apple direct customers to its other subscription offerings in live sports, via its Apple TV app where users can watch live games from Apple and their other apps.
Last year it also began offering the MLS Season Pass through the Apple TV app, for $14.99 per month or $99 per season.
Sports can help Apple to grow its services revenue, which hit a record of $22.3 billion in the fourth quarter, encompassing areas of Apple’s business including Apple TV+, Apple Music, iCloud, the App Store, advertising and more.
Apple TV+ subscribers can add MLS Season Pass at a discounted rate of $12.99 per month or $79 per season.
Microsoft, Amazon and Meta are among the top brands whose apps are available on the Indian fintech PhonePe’s Indus Appstore, an app store for the Android mobile operating system, launched Wednesday in challenge to Google’s monopoly in its largest market by users.
To fight Google Play Store, PhonePe has armed Indus Appstore with a range of unique and personalized features and developer-friendly terms.
Indus Appstore supports 12 regional languages (as well as English) and round the clock support service.
PhonePe is making the app store available to download to consumers from its website.
“Indus Appstore embodies our commitment to building a truly inclusive digital ecosystem where every Indian user feels at home.”Ivan Mehta contributed to this report.
Of the professions in danger of being replaced by AI, language teacher is certainly up there.
One of those is Loora, which leans on conversational AI to teach English to students.
“The idea for Loora [came from] our frustration with language learning,” Mor told TechCrunch in an email interview.
Quite a few English learning platforms offer features along those lines, including OpenAI-backed Speak, Preply (which recently doubled down on AI tech) and ELSA.
Loora also intends to launch an enterprise service, broadening beyond its current customer base of 15,000 app users.
Up until now, you have had to give someone your phone number to chat with them on Signal.
Signal still requires a phone number when registering for the app.
Instead, they’re just a quick way to connect with someone on the app without sharing your phone number.
However, if you still want people to see your phone number when you message them, you can change the default setting in your “Phone Number” settings.
Signal is also introducing a new privacy setting that will let you control who can find you on the app with your phone number.
YouTube is changing the design for creators’ channels on the big screen, the comapny announced today.
The update is rolling out to all creators today, but may take a few weeks to appear to all viewers, the comapny told TechCrunch.
The changes impact the channel pages on TV only, it noted.
Creators will likely respond positively to changes that help boost their subscriber numbers and better showcase their content on the big screen.
The company is in competition with traditional TV and streamers like Netflix on TVs, but also with newcomers like TikTok, which launched its own TV app in late 2021.
Nielsen today released its January report on viewing usage across linear TV and streaming, which revealed that YouTube is once again the overall top streaming service in the U.S., with 8.6% of viewing on television screens.
The new data points to YouTube’s dominance in the TV streaming arena and marks 12 consecutive months of the platform being in the top spot.
HopeScope, a creator who reviews viral products, notably saw a 172% jump in TV watch time in 2023.
YouTube has reached a few other milestones in recent months, including the 100 million users who pay for YouTube Music and YouTube Premium.
Additionally, YouTube TV now has more than 8 million subscribers and YouTube Shorts recently achieved over 70 billion daily views.
Tinder is expanding its identify verification program to users in the U.S., U.K., Brazil and Mexico, the company announced on Tuesday.
The company found that users who completed the ID Verification option saw a 67% increase in matches than those not verified.
Tinder now says that users who only complete the app’s Photo Verification will now receive a blue camera icon badge, while users who only complete the ID Verification will receive a blue ID icon badge.
Users who complete both the ID Verification and Photo Verification will receive a blue checkmark.
It makes sense for Tinder to expand ID verification to more countries, especially as AI scams and romance scams are on the rise.
The new update has a scan feature, which lets users scan a physical document and import the text to listen to it later.
The company is introducing a feature to let users read their emails by integrating their Gmail accounts.
The app can also help users import their PDF attachments into the Speechify app.
For instance, read later app Pocket, which is owned by Mozilla, has an in-app text-to-speech feature.
Speechify wants to stand out in this market and wants to become a one-stop shop for anyone thinking about reading experiences by offering all kinds of integrations.
PhonePe aims to be a top Google Play alternative in India — but it has a challenging road aheadWalmart-backed PhonePe is set to launch its Android app store this week with zero commission for in-app purchases for developers.
Later that month, a bunch of Indian startups banded together to form a coalition and explore an alternative app store.
Over the years, other startup executives have also complained about Play Store’s 30% fee and have pushed for a “Made in India” app store.
In 2021, Google dropped its commission from 30% to 15% for the first $1 million a developer earned from the Play Store each year.
If you are a developer publishing your app on alternative app stores, I’d love to hear from you on im@ivanmehta.com
