Shaun McBride, or "Shonduras," was perhaps one of Snapchat's very first homegrown social stars. Photo Courtesy of The 11th Second

A crop of influencers who had abandoned Snapchat are giving it a second look.They are being enticed by a range of new features on the platform, including an analytics dashboard announced Wednesday.The consensus is that Snapchat is well positioned to win back digital creators, given YouTube and Instagram's recent struggles on this front.

With over 900,000 followers, Shaun McBride, or "Shonduras," was perhaps one of Snapchat's very first homegrown social stars. But frustrated with the platform's lack of support for creators he "gave up" on it in early 2017, until the platform came knocking.

Now, McBride is among a crop of influencers boomeranging back to Snapchat.

These digital creators are giving Snapchat a second look for two reasons. For one, Snapchat is finally giving this community tools they've long desired to help nurture their fan bases.

And suddenly, recent stumbles by YouTube and Instagram in their influencer offerings may have given Snap an opening.

"I was insanely frustrated for the first two to three years, to the point that I left Snapchat," McBride told Business Insider. "But six months later, they got in touch and started consulting me about how they could make the platform better for the creator community."

The output of Snap's conversations with McBride — and a range of other Snapchat creators — is an analytics dashboard for creators, which was announced by the company today.

The dashboard is being rolled out around the world, not only to Snapchatters with official verified accounts, but also other creators with large audiences on Snapchat. The insights are intended to give them a deeper understanding of their audience as well as what type of content drives more meaningful engagement, a spokesman told Business Insider.

It includes data such as weekly, monthly and yearly total story views, the amount of time people are spending viewing their stories, as well as daily reach, audience demographics, and information on their audience's interests.

Snapchat has been cozying up to influencers in recent months after years of deliberately ignoring them. The company, for instance, announced a series of updates last summer, including allowing users to link to external websites on their videos, modify their voices in their videos and add custom backdrops. The analytics dashboard is, in this regard, an obvious next step.

But more importantly, it should entice a wider swathe of creators and ultimately, brands who want to connect with influcencer on Snapchat.

"Up until now there has been no way to measure what your audience actually likes, so you are shooting in the dark," said Rayna Greenberg, who runs the account "onehungryjew" on Snapchat. "Brands want to know who your audience is, what the potential reach of a campaign will be, and what the success of any given campaign has been —so this will allow me to network, sell my platform and create ongoing partnerships with brands better."

It could also help attract smaller brands to Snapchat, said Jason Wong, founder of Wonghaus Ventures. Snap has already been doubling down on smaller advertisers by opening its Marketing API and offering them free ad credits.

"This could help creators monetize because previously, Snap creators didn't have enough metrics to attract small to medium size brands," he said. "Brands really care about metrics of a influencer's profile, and one thing that turned many away was the fact that Snap didn't provide those to its creators."

The move also comes at a highly opportune time for Snapchat. The company had a surprisingly strong fourth quarter, and has been aggressively bidding for a greater chunk of digital ad dollars by opening up its advertising floodgates.

Most of all, disgruntled influencers are grappling with problems on some of its biggest competitors. While small brands and influencers are worried that Instagram is choking their traffic, YouTube has been tightening the noose on influencers as it deals with the aftermath of its brand safety crises. The consensus, then, is that Snapchat is well poised to court the influencer community at a time when other platforms are struggling.

"The YouTube creator community is having a hard time, and people fear the changes from Facebook are trickling over to Instagram," said McBride. "Snapchat has an amazing chance to seize the opportunity to do things right this time."

"It's long overdue," agreed Ben Arnold, managing director at We Are Social North America. "But it's great timing."

Original author: Business Insider

Original author: Richard Feloni

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at a news conference at Facebook HQ in 2010. REUTERS/Robert Galbraith

Facebook will have to re-obtain consent from all its existing users, for all the data it is currently holding on them, according to Europe's new "ePrivacy law" and the upcoming General Data Protection Regulation."Existing data will risk becoming obsolete," Goldman Sachs says.The law applies to all tech companies that do business in Europe, but Facebook will be especially affected because its business consists entirely of user data.COO Sheryl Sandberg has already told analysts she expects Facebook to see a small decline in daily average users in Europe, but otherwise the company is prepared.

Sometime after spring this year Europe's new ePrivacy law will come into effect. The most disruptive part of the proposed regulation, according to tech industry insiders and analysts, is the requirement that companies obtain consent for any data they keep on their users. Old data will not be exempted or "grandfathered in" under the new law.

As it currently stands, that means companies will have to re-obtain consent from all their existing users for all the data they are currently storing on them, no matter how old, according to several analysts and policy experts.

In theory, the law will ban Facebook from using the data it already has, unless the company can persuade you to re-register your permission for all the info you have already given the company. The two largest companies affected by the law will be Facebook and Google.

But Facebook, perhaps, has the bigger hurdle to overcome in order to comply. It not only uses your data as part of your personal Facebook account, it also supplies that data to advertisers through its Audience Network and Custom Audiences products, which generate ads on other websites and apps outside Facebook. The new ePrivacy law will force Facebook to ask all its European users to give permission for each separate type of data being stored or shared by Facebook.

It is not clear when ePrivacy will actually be enacted, although observers estimate early 2019. The new law will work in conjunction with a second EU law that goes into effect in May 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Goldman Sachs: 'Existing data will risk becoming obsolete'

"Organizations will have to re-obtain user consent (for the data they wish to keep) and build a fully documented permission trail before GDPR becomes enforceable - or existing data will risk becoming obsolete. There is a risk of further customer data loss once users have the right to opt out of marketing campaigns and erase their personal data as mentioned above," according to a note sent by Goldman Sachs analyst Lisa Yang and her team.

"Facebook and Google will either be (a) prohibited from using the unprecedented amounts of data already in their control; or (b) subject to fines and penalties that will, for the first time in history, have a significant impact on their bottom lines," according to a white paper prepared for the trade organization Digital Content Next, which represents tech companies.

The EU is not kidding about those fines, either. The maximum penalty for breaking the law is 4% of total global annual revenues, which in Facebook and Google's cases would be about $1.6 billion (£1.1 billion) and $4.4 billion (£3.1 billion), respectively.

Goldman's Yang told clients that Facebook has already repeatedly fallen afoul of existing consumer privacy law in Europe:

"We note that Facebook was recently fined €1.2 mn by Spain's data protection agency for violating the country's privacy rules, with the regulator noting that "Facebook's privacy policy contains generic and unclear terms," and that "The agency considers that Facebook does not adequately collect the consent of either its users or nonusers, which constitutes a serious infringement". This followed a similar ruling from the French data regulator which fined Facebook €150,000 for collecting and compiling user data without a legal basis and explicit consent."

Facebook also this year lost a court ruling in Germany, which declared its privacy settings illegal because it fails to obtain the correct level of consent.

'Much of the EU data subject data on which Facebook and Google currently sit could lose its value'

The new requirement is as dramatic as it sounds, according to the DCN paper. Facebook's entire existing European user graph is under threat:

"Under the proposed ePrivacy Regulation, much of the EU data subject data on which Facebook and Google currently sit could lose its value because it could not be used for online behavioral or targeted advertising purposes, without dramatic changes to their current practices."

Similarly, at a Citi Research event held in late December, Yves Schwarzbart, the head of policy at the Internet Advertising Bureau UK, was asked, "Does that mean that you would have to restart building a user graph from scratch?"

He replied, "To some extent potentially, yeah."

The new regulation will affect any tech company from any country that does business in Europe. It is still being debated by the European Commission, so it may be changed or softened before launch.

Goldman's Yang believes both Facebook and Google are relatively well placed to handle the changes because they have "direct" relationships with people. Their users are so dependent on both their platforms, they are likely to hand over consent rather than be locked out of their email, Facebook, Messenger and WhatsApp. But even so, the fear is that when each European users is forced to review and consent to every single data-type they hand over the Facebook, they may reduce their total permissions, thus lowering engagement overall.

Sheryl Sandberg: 'We also know that there may be a DAU impact for implications on European usage'

Facebook is already preparing for the new laws.

COO Sheryl Sandberg said on her last earnings call that Facebook might take a hit: "We're going to continue to give people a personalized experience to be clear about how are using the data and give choices, and we realize that this means that some users might opt out of our ads targeting tool. We also know that there may be a DAU impact for implications on European usage."

But, she said, "The Facebook family of apps already applies the core principles in GDPR framework." The company rolled out a blog post highlighting its privacy settings options in January.

Original author: Jim Edwards

Original author: Leanna Garfield

Getty Images

NBCUniversal is using the Olympics to tout its custom Total Audience Delivery metric as an alternative to the classic Nielsen ratings.The media company wants to stop advertisers and media journalists from focusing on Nielsen ratings at a time when people are watching less live TV.It won't be easy to shift the industry's fixation on this type of data. But most in the TV business recognize that traditional measurement systems are inadequate for fragmented digital viewing.

NBCUniversal is taking reporting ratings for the Winter Olympics into its own hands. The question is whether the rest of the TV industry will follow.

The media giant is using the Olympics to push its case for reporting what it calls Total Audience Delivery. This NBCU-created ratings construct is essentially a medley of data from different sources designed to help get across how many people are actually watching the games, whether on live linear TV, NBCU's apps, or mobile devices.

TAD is NBCU's not-so-subtle message that when it comes to measuring modern TV viewing, the incumbent TV researcher Nielsen can't cut it.

For example, NBCU says it delivered 26 million viewers on Sunday night, an audience it's calling the most "dominant" opening Winter Olympics Sunday ever.

That TAD number is made up of 22.7 million people watching on NBC along with a 15% boost from other platforms.

In fact, NBCU says that this year's games through Monday afternoon had already generated 445 million live-streaming minutes, which is more than the 420 million live minutes recorded during the entirety of the 2014 Games in Sochi, Russia.

"We want a holistic picture and a way to capture all that consumption," Krishan Bhatia, NBCU's executive vice president of business operations and strategy, told Business Insider. "We're going with best measurement available. And there is no single source that can do that for all platforms."

"And this is not just limited to the Olympics," Bhatia added. "If you look at a show like 'This is Us,' 50% of that show's audience is not captured in the linear rating."

Bhatia says what most big advertisers care about is running their ads during a certain time period (during a particular promotion, or holiday season), having their ads run alongside premium content, and reaching the right audience demographics.

And whether people watch on TV, the web, on a Roku, or on their phones — the Olympics delivers on all fronts.

"So if we can track those, it should count," Bhatia said.

Maddie Meyer/Getty Images Yet the way NBCU compiles TAD reporting is unorthodox and, according to some, less than ideal from a data-science perspective. That's because rather than using a single third-party measurement vendor (typically the preferred approach among media researchers), NBCU pieces together data from Nielsen, Adobe, the advertising technology firm FreeWheel, and Oracle to produce TAD numbers.

NBCU has two overarching goals with TAD. For one, it wants to get the ad-buying world accustomed to thinking of TV audiences as being less confined to live airings of shows and more like something that is compiled across multiple platforms over varied time periods. For the first time, NBCU sold advertisers packages that guaranteed specific audiences across platforms rather than that treated TV and digital audiences and ad sales separately, The Wall Street Journal reported.

In addition, NBCU with TAD most likely wants to nudge the press to stop reporting solely on Nielsen ratings on a given night. The company clearly wants to kill the narrative that took hold during the most recent Olympics, the Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro.

Right out of the gate, reports swirled that ratings for the 2016 Games were down considerably compared with the 2012 London Olympics. That led to stories questioning whether the Olympics were fundamentally in decline as a live TV event and whether millennials even liked sports.

Weeks later, NBCU was able to pump out data showing how many people were streaming various Olympic events on various platforms, particularly younger people. But by then it was tough to change the narrative.

Jorge Silva/Reuters

It's hard to communicate all that in a press release, especially as TV media is trained to report straight ratings. Thus, you get headlines such as:

As Business Insider has reported, TV measurement is facing something of a crisis, and NBCU wants to be seen as a change agent. Plus, the company spent over $7 billion to secure rights to air the Olympics through 2032, so it needs to get this right.

Over the past few years, NBCU executives have been openly critical of Nielsen's ability to track how people view TV outside traditional live TV viewing. The company has gone as far as publishing an open letter to Nielsen in late 2016 calling for a delayed rollout of its Total Content Ratings product and even hosted an industry-wide summit in November partially aimed at trying to fix media measurement.

Getting a huge industry to change the way it thinks and operates is never easy. But NBCU says however painful, it's necessary.

"It starts at the top. Consumers are shifting the way they watch TV," Bhatia said. "Millennials do watch the Olympics. But the industry is tethered to an airdate. If you're still focused just on ratings, you are missing the point. So when we have discussions with major agencies, we're trying to figure our a new approach."

Part of that approach is partnering with digital platforms to push out Olympics content (though, it's worth noting, not all big tech platforms are part of the mix). The list includes Apple News as well as Snapchat, where NBCU is streaming live Olympic footage.

"We're leaning in there," Bhatia said. "At the same time, we're doing less on platforms where monetization and measurement don't work for us here. Like Facebook."

Original author: Business Insider

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Washington Post ad tech guru Jarrod Dicker Washington Post

Washington Post ad tech guru Jarrod Dicker has been named CEO of a blockchain tech company built for the media and ad industries. The venture, Po.et, promises to help journalists and creators keep track of their content across the web and to protect their revenue rights.  Dicker sees the technology eventually being used to create a marketplace via which brands can connect directly with creators.

Blockchain technology is often described as a would-be revolutionary savior for many industries.

A digital ad veteran sees the tech potentially reinventing both journalism and marketing.

Jarrod Dicker, who until recently served as vice president, innovation & commercial at The Washington Post, has been named CEO of Po.et, a blockchain-based tech platform designed for digital publishing. 

Po.et is an open source initiative which promises to make it possible to track digital content and advertising wherever it travels across the internet. The enterprise's ambitions are noble – and quite lofty.

The idea is that journalists and other creators will be able to know where their content is being consumed or repurposed via a centralized digital ledger – like a verifiable time stamp that can't be altered or manipulated.

Dicker, who's credited with building out the Washington Post's proprietary advertising technology division Red (one of Business Insider's most interesting ad tech companies of 2017), sees Po.et as eventually becoming the backbone of a digital marketplace that serves multiple purposes – and ultimately betters the entire media ecosystem.

The Po.et marketplace aims to offer creators and media companies away to figure out just how popular their work is, and also enable them to make sure that their copyrights are being respected and they are getting paid what they're supposed to get paid.

And marketers will theoretically be able to log onto a Po.et-powered digital dashboard to see which creators are resonating on the web, and which might be a good fit to partner with, or even pay to produce content on their behalf.

Of course, getting an entire industry to agree on anything is never easy. Dicker believes the time is right.

"We're at this point in the industry when it feels like everyone is running uphill," Dicker told Business Insider. "Consumers are saying no to advertising through ad blocking. Publishers are feeling beholden to platforms. And there are real questions being asked like 'can media companies survive?' So we need to recalibrate what the value of content is."

Right now, Po.et is open sourced and free for creators to use. Over time the company plans to introduced paid services designed to help media companies license, commission and acquire content, Dicker said. 

Po.et isn't the only player trying to bring the blockchain to the media and ad industryds. For example, several startups like Amino see the technology helping stamp down the spread of fraudulent web ads by creating a more transparent money trail.

Dicker, who's previously logged prominent product positions at Time Inc. and HuffPost, said he sees multiple constituencies across the ad/media landscape finding value in this use of blockchain technology. But, if this catches on, it could have the potential to disintermediate players like ad agencies or even publishers, while empoyering a new generation of independent journalists, he said.

"You'll no longer have to go through middlemen," he said. "A GE or a Pepsi, they'll be able to find creators and work directly with them. They may realize, 'We don't need a Vox. We don't need a content studio.'"

"At the same time, creators are going to realize what they're worth," he said. "Some may not need to work with big publications but can go directly to readers."

Original author: Business Insider

Original author: Travis Clark

The Lillium Jet demonstrating unmanned flight.Lillium

Lilium is developing a five-seat electric aircraft that can take off and land vertically.The company envisions using the aircraft like an Uber, hailing it from your phone to take you around the city, avoiding traffic.Lilium says it will start rolling out the technology by 2025.

Move over, Elon Musk. A German startup developing an electric, car-sized aircraft that can take off and land vertically just received a prestigious award — and the technology is seriously impressive.

Founded by a group of entrepreneurs in 2015, Lilium is developing the aircraft as a new form of sustainable urban transportation. The idea is to "revolutionize the way people move in and around the world's cities," Patrick Nathen, one of Lilium's co-founder said in a statement.

Cleantech Group (CTG), an industry research firm for sustainable innovation companies, gave Lilium the Early Stage Company of the Year award in January, as part of CTG's Cleantech 100 awards.

Richard Youngman, CTG's chief executive, said Lilium's technology has the potential to "make the dream of zero emissions mass-transportation a reality."

How the Lillium Jet works

Lilium, which raised $90 million in September, tested a prototype of its jet last year in Munich. Similar to a quadrocopter drone, Lilium's jet is capable of taking off and landing vertically. Using fans embedded in the wings, the aircraft can hover, land, and take-off on the spot, using minimal energy.

Once airborne, the fans fold back into the wings — into a horizontal position — and that lift is transformed into acceleration. At that point, Lilium's jet can fly like a regular small airplane, reaching speeds of around 190 miles per hour) — all without generating harmful emissions.

The jet's electric engines, which function like traditional turbofans in a regular passenger jet, are designed to be much quieter and vibrate less than regular gas engines. This makes the jet suitable for use in dense urban areas, (where Lilium's founders see the aircraft being used, according to the company's website).

It's also highly nimble, meaning it can traverse corridors between buildings or bridges safely.

A rendering of a Lillium rooftop jetport. The company hopes to start rolling out its technology to consumers by 2025.Lillium

Like Uber, but for the sky

Lllium's founders envision hailing a jet from your phone, like hailing an Uber. Once hailed, you'll be able to meet your ride on a rooftop landing port, and take the jet anywhere you want between a network of landing ports — without getting stuck in traffic.

The plane, which is capable of flying for up to an hour on the single charge, will also be able to take short trips between cities. According to the company's website, the jet will be able to travel over 40 miles in around 15 minutes. The jet's total range will be around around 190 miles, making it possible to travel between Boston and New York City in about an hour.

While the jet is still in prototype phase, Lilium hopes to test it with a pilot as early as next year. By 2025, the company hopes to roll out the technology to the public.

Check out this video demonstrating the Lilium jet's first flight:

Original author: Jeremy Berke

Original author: Melia Robinson

Original author: Kevin Loria

Original author: John Lynch

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Kjartan Slette, Unacast's COO & Co-founder and Thomas Walle, CEO & Co-founder Unacast

Two of the founders of Jay-Z's fledgling music service Tidal are building a startup focused on mobile location data. The two executives, Thomas Walle and Kjartan Slette, have raised $17.5 million to expand Unacast, which supplies data from hundreds of mobile apps to ad targeting companies. The plan is to build out the company's tech and team of data scientists – and to expand beyond advertising.

Thomas Walle and Kjartan Slette helped launch WiMp, a product that eventually morphed into Tidal – which of course is the music service now shepherded by Jay-Z.

Then in 2016, the two Norwegian entrepreneurs founded Unacast, a tech company that aspires to build something of a warehouse for location data from mobile phones, and then license that data to other companies including ad firms.

Now, to take its business to another level, Unacast has raised $17.5 million in a new funding round.

The investment round was led by White Star Capital, and included the European telecom firm Telia along with previous investors Open Ocean Capital and the Norwegian government-backed Investinor.

The new funding is noteworthy given how quiet the funding market for any companies associated with ad tech or data targeting has been. Plus, when it comes to companies mining data from mobile phones, several startups raised money a few years ago and there have been a glaring lack of big exits. Of course, ad tech and data-driven marketing just happen to be strengths of tech behemoths Facebook and Google, making it tough for new entrants

But in this case, Unacast says it has deliberately steered away from using mobile location data to sell ads directly. In other words, it's not promising to zap coupon ads to people on their phones when they walk past a Starbucks. That's the kind of location-data-driven mobile advertising that many companies have promised and rarely delivered. Not to mention that it's not clear that's the kind of thing consumers actually want.

Instead Unacast has focused on building technology designed to collect and transport that data, acting as a supplier for other ad tech firms such as Ground Truth or Factual which specialize in mobile ads.

Plus, Unacast sees a bigger opportunity to supply location data to companies in other industries, such as real estate and city planning, said Walle.

"It's true that location advertising hasn’t come very far," said Walle. "And there is a lot of terrible location data out there, so the room for error is huge. So in order for the industry to be more excited, you need to have perspective. One key element that has been missing is how people move around in the physical world."

Unacast pulls that real world data – anonymously – from hundreds of different apps via which people have agreed to turn on location tracking, such as navigation apps.

Retail stores can theoretically use this kind of data to track what people do before they visit a store, while auto brands could test what sort of offers people respond to when visiting dealers, for example.

With the funding infusion, Unacast plans on investing in more data scientists, new database tools and in international expansion, Walle said.

Original author: Mike Shields

Samsung's former chief technology officer (CTO) Injong Rhee is joining Google, according to a new report from ZDNet.

Rhee joined the Korean giant back in 2011, and has worked on a series of important projects such as Samsung Knox, the company's enterprise security platform; Samsung Pay, its mobile payment system, and Bixby, the firm's digital assistant.

ZDNet reports that Rhee was also instrumental in Samsung's acquisition of Joyent, a US-based cloud-focused firm that would help in the development of software services at the company, whose "reliance and need" on the cloud was "ever-growing."

Following almost seven years at Samsung, Rhee is now moving on to Google to become an entrepreneur-in-residence. ZDNet reports that he will work on IoT (Internet of Things) "projects," which might have to do with devices like the Google Home family (and Google Assistant), or the recently re-absorbed Nest.

Get the latest Google stock price here.

Original author: Edoardo Maggio

A still from an ISIS propaganda video showing Mohammed Emwazi, nicknamed "Jihadi John." Reuters/SITE

The British government has developed AI technology which can scan videos and work out whether they contain extremist content. It gave £600,000 ($834,000) of public money to tech firm ASI Data Science to build it. The firm claims its tech can distinguish news from propaganda with near-perfect accuracy. It is designed to stop ISIS taking advantage of second-tier social media platforms to spread their message.

The British government has announced the launch of AI software which it claims can detect ISIS propaganda videos with 99.995% accuracy and block them from being published.

The Home Office publicised the release of the technology on Tuesday morning. They claim it will help small platforms protect themselves from inadvertently spreading extremist material.

It was developed by ASI Data Science, a tech firm in London which was given £600,000 ($834,000) of public money for the project.

The government is targeting the software at smaller publishers on the grounds that large ones have already invested significant amounts of money in policing their own content.

It will be handed over for free as the fight against extremist material online steps up a gear. The Home Office named three companies who could benefit from the technology: Vimeo, Telegra.ph, and pCloud.

A still from a BBC news report, which purports to show ASI's algorithm at work, approving a news report on ISIS but filtering out propaganda. BBC

A statement from the Home Office said smaller platforms "are increasingly targeted by Daesh [its preferred name for ISIS] and its supporters and they often do not have the same level of resources to develop the technology.

"The model, which has been trained using over 1,000 Daesh videos, is not specific to one platform so can be used to support the detection of terrorist propaganda across a range of video-streaming and download sites in real-time."

According to the BBC, ASI says the tech can "pick out subtle signals" within videos to mark them as propaganda, and can distinguish them from news reports showing similar scenes.

Media outlets, which did not include Business Insider, were briefed on its precise workings but asked not to publish the details in case it compromises the technology.

Original author: Kieran Corcoran

Melinda and Bill Gates. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation/YouTube

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has funneled billions in funding toward improving US education and raising public high school graduation rates. In Bill and Melinda's annual letter, Bill writes that schools around the country are still "falling short on important metrics." The foundation's new strategy focuses on listening to teacher feedback, and funding programs that are specific to each community.

On Tuesday, Bill and Melinda Gates published their annual letter. In it, the pair answers 10 questions that people often ask them.

One question wonders what they "have to show" for the billions the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has spent on US education in the past decade.

"A lot, but not as much as either of us would like," Bill Gates writes. "Unfortunately, although there’s been some progress over the past decade, America’s public schools are still falling short on important metrics, especially college completion. And the statistics are even worse for disadvantaged students."

To help raise graduation rates, the foundation has given money toward programs that aim to transform low-performing schools. 

In 2008, the foundation poured hundreds of millions into designing systems that evaluate teachers — and often determine their pay and job status — based on student standardized test scores. These systems are now controversial, since some experts say the approach does little to help teachers improve. Today, 30 states require schools to consider test scores in teacher evaluations.

In 2009, the Gates Foundation also started giving hundreds of millions toward creating and marketing what became the Common Core, standards that outline what K-12 students should know at the end of each grade.

A 2016 report from The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) discussed the results of testing a representative sample of high school students who had gone through seven years of Common Core curriculum and tests. On average, from 2013 to 2015, the students' scores dropped in math and flatlined in reading.

In the letter, the Gates' said they have learned that "strong leadership, proven instructional practices, a healthy school culture, and high expectations are all key" to improving US education.

Melinda Gates further explained the foundation's new strategy for improving middle and high schools across the country. It focuses on helping educators create and implement their own strategies, which will be specific to each community or school. The foundation will help teachers and administrators gather and analyze data, and devote funding toward strategies that appear to work.

"Some networks of schools will focus on approaches that we have a lot of experience with, like stronger curricula and teacher feedback systems. Others will look at areas that are new to us, like mentoring programs to ease the difficult transitions from middle to high school and high school to college," she wrote.

Watch the Gates' briefly answer a few other questions below:

 

Original author: Leanna Garfield

Whole Foods suppliers say the grocer's costly new policies are hurting their business. AP/Mark Lennihan

Whole Foods is charging brands more money for prime shelf space and introducing new fees. It has also stopped paying shipping fees for some products and dropped minimum-order requirements. Some small and local vendors say the fees are damaging their business and they're considering cutting ties with Whole Foods as a result. "I once drove to every Whole Foods store in the Portland area and dropped off jars of our nut butters" for stores to sell, said the founder of a brand of natural nut butter. "That's over, that's done. That's not ever happening again." "For a small vendor to go through this is a hellacious, horrible time and financial burden," the CEO and founder of a snack-bar company said.

Whole Foods is changing the way it does business with suppliers, and some local and regional brands say it's having a crippling impact on their business.

The grocery chain is charging brands more money for prime shelf space and in-store product demonstrations and taste tests while also requiring them to pay ongoing fees to third-party companies for food-safety audits and photographs of their products. 

Whole Foods has also dropped minimum-shipment guidelines that prevented stores from making tiny orders of just one or two cases of goods and stopped paying shipping fees for some goods, according to a company email on the changes. Several suppliers told Business Insider that they were losing money on shipments as a result. Two suppliers said they had refused to fill orders when shipping costs exceeded the cost of their goods. 

The changes are part of an effort by Whole Foods to cut costs and streamline product merchandising across its stores. But they are leading to confusion and unrest among some of Whole Foods' suppliers, according to interviews with eight vendors and two brokers who collectively represent more than a dozen other brands. Some are considering cutting ties with Whole Foods as a result.

"They have pissed off their employees, they have pissed off customers, and they have pissed off their vendors," said a Whole Foods vendor of eight years who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution. "From a financial perspective, we can only take so much abuse before we say this just isn’t working for us anymore."

Whole Foods spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan did not respond to requests for comment.

Small brands are being squeezed by new requirements

A Chicago Whole Foods store. Whole Foods stores across the US are suffering from food shortages as a result of a new inventory-management system, employees say. Twitter/@firstmate_kate

Among the new rules at Whole Foods is a requirement that suppliers selling the grocer more than $300,000 of goods annually must discount their products by 3% to 5%, a change first reported by The Washington Post. Brands must also now pay fees to Daymon Worldwide, a Connecticut retail consulting firm, to schedule in-store product demonstrations — a key way for small and new brands to market themselves to customers. They could previously do their own demonstrations without paying a fee or hire outside companies to do it for them.

Whole Foods is raising its rates for prime, eye-level shelf space as well, The Wall Street Journal reports. 

Every one of the suppliers that spoke with Business Insider said Whole Foods' new fees and other changes benefited larger brands that could more easily absorb extra costs. 

"It's not going to be a launch playground anymore," said Lindsey Rosenberg, the CEO and founder of Cherryvale Farms, a supplier of baking mixes to Whole Foods. "Young, hip new brands won't be able to afford to go to Whole Foods first."

Larger brands like Annie's Homegrown, which is owned by the snack-food behemoth General Mills, can more easily pay to get prime shelf space, she said.

"Annie's is launching products at an explosive rate, and they can knock you off the shelf because they have more money to spend," Rosenberg said. "It's a whole new level of challenges for small brands. It's either go big or go home now."

Whole Foods has long been seen by customers as a destination for discovering new and local brands, vendors said. That's largely because Whole Foods gave its store-level buyers ample freedom to decide what to stock on their shelves. As a result, small vendors could work their way into Whole Foods by striking up a relationship with local buyers.

That system is changing as Whole Foods' global headquarters in Austin, Texas, takes on more power to decide what to sell in Whole Foods stores, according to vendors and Whole Foods employees. It's getting harder for smaller brands to get into Whole Foods now, they said. 

"I once drove to every Whole Foods store in the Portland area and dropped off jars of our nut butters" for stores to sell, said Michael Kanter, the founder of Eliot's Adult Nut Butters, a brand of natural nut butter based in Oregon. "That's over, that's done. That's not ever happening again."

Kanter said conventional grocers like Kroger and Safeway, which are growing their selections of organic, natural, and local food brands, were welcoming brands like his that had begun to find a "massive barrier to entry" at Whole Foods.

Jim Holbrook, the CEO of Daymon, the consulting firm working for Whole Foods, said local products were still vital to Whole Foods' business model. The grocer, he said, is just charging them for the labor it costs to move products around during demonstrations.

"There's no move to keep those vendors out of the stores," he said. 

Some vendors are losing money on shipping costs

Some vendors aren't fulfilling Whole Foods orders due to rising shipping costs. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Whole Foods stopped covering shipping fees and dropped minimum-shipment requirements in March 2016 for its Whole Body department, which includes vitamins, supplements, and beauty products, according to an email the company sent to vendors. 

About a year later, Whole Foods started rolling out an order-to-shelf inventory-management system that cut back drastically on storage. As a result, stores started making smaller, more frequent orders.

Small vendors with limited distribution centers often end up paying more in shipping expenses on small orders than their products cost, so some have stopped fulfilling Whole Foods' orders.

"When you are a small company only distributing from one facility in [the Pacific Northwest] and there is a store in Boca Raton that wants one unit and it costs $12 to ship and Whole Foods paying $8 on that invoice, you are losing money," one longtime supplier explained.

This vendor described scaling back investments in Whole Foods as a result.

"We're taking the resources we used to spend on trying to support sales in Whole Foods and shifting them to our online business," the person said.

Another Whole Body vendor described reassessing a relationship with Whole Foods. 

"After our sales analysis profile for Whole Foods is finished, we will then see if it's even worth it for us," this vendor said.

Rosenberg of Cherryvale Farms said she was shifting resources from Whole Foods as well.

Her company is launching a new snack, and while she would usually give the new product exclusively to Whole Foods for at least six months, she's now going direct to consumers and launching it online instead.

Brands are considering cutting ties with Whole Foods

Whole Foods is requiring vendors to pay new fees for food safety audits and photographs of their products. Business Insider

Some suppliers are considering pulling out of Whole Foods altogether as a result of the changes, vendors said. Others are terrified of being cut from store shelves and replaced by larger brands.

"A lot of the vendors are refiguring their game plans with Whole Foods," a broker who represents more than a dozen suppliers said. "At one time it was considered a reciprocal relationship. Those days are over. There is no feeling that Whole Foods cares anymore."

Another broker said, "My brands all want to pull out of Whole Foods because they are uncertain of what's going on."

Betsy Langton, the CEO and founder of the snack-bar company Betsy's Bar None, decided in December to pull out of Whole Foods.

She said she began to grow disillusioned with Whole Foods last year after it invited suppliers to a meeting at Oregon State University and announced that to continue supplying goods to Whole Foods, all vendors would have to start using — and pay fees to — two outside companies: UL Everclean and IX-One. UL Everclean is a food-safety auditor, and IX-One takes photographs of suppliers' products. Both charge ongoing fees. 

IX-One, for example, charges $500 annually and $169 for initial photographs of a product, plus an additional $15 annually per product for suppliers of fewer than 300 different items. Any time a product is updated, suppliers have to pay the $169 fee again. 

"Both cost a ton of money and time," Langton said, referring to the processes associated with UL Everclean and IX-One. "Whole Foods said, 'You have a year to get this done.' It's like communism. For a small vendor to go through this is a hellacious, horrible time and financial burden."

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Original author: Hayley Peterson

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Businessman Bill Gates arrives at Trump Tower in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., December 13, 2016. Reuters

In his annual letter, Bill Gates writes that Trump's "America First" worldview concerns him. Trump's cuts to foreign aid are reportedly hurting the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's efforts to fight diseases abroad before they become pandemics. Melinda Gates adds that she wishes Trump would treat all people, especially women, with more respect.

In the 2018 Gates Letter, Bill Gates and his wife Melinda (who's also the cofounder of their foundation) answer 10 frequently asked questions.

These questions delve into a range of topics, including education, climate change, and the pair's extensive philanthropic efforts through The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

By far, the question Gates most often receives is: "How are President Trump’s policies affecting your foundation’s work?"

He wrote that Trump's cuts to foreign aid impede the foundation's efforts toward fighting poverty, illness, and hunger abroad.

"These efforts save lives. They also create US jobs," Gates wrote. "And they make Americans more secure by making poor countries more stable and stopping disease outbreaks before they become pandemics. The world is not a safer place when more people are sick or hungry."

Gates said that more broadly, Trump's "America First" worldview concerns him.

"It’s not that the United States shouldn’t look out for its people. The question is how best to do that," he wrote. "My view is that engaging with the world has proven over time to benefit everyone, including Americans, more than withdrawing does. Even if we measured everything the government did only by how much it helped American citizens, global engagement would still be a smart investment."

The Trump Administration's proposed 2019 budget includes a 29% slash ($17 billion) in spending for the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The proposal calls for increasing military spending and keeping foreign aid levels for only one country (Israel). 

In 2017, foreign aid received bilateral support in Congress.

Gates keeps meeting with Trump and his team, "because if the US cuts back on its investment abroad, people in other countries will die, and Americans will be worse off," he wrote.

Melinda Gates added that she wished Trump would treat all people, especially women, with more respect and "model American values in the world."

"Equality is an important national principle. The sanctity of each individual, regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, or gender, is part of our country’s spirit," she wrote. "The president has a responsibility to set a good example and empower all Americans through his statements and his policies."

Original author: Leanna Garfield

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki was dismissive of Facebook's video ambitions during Recode's Code Media conference.Wojcicki said that Facebook "should get back to baby pictures."Facebook and YouTube are competing to become the dominant social video platform.

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki joked that rival site Facebook "should get back to baby pictures" rather than attempt to become a video platform that competes with YouTube, according to a report on CNBC.

Wojcicki was speaking at Recode's Code Media conference on February 12 and was asked by journalist Kara Swisher whether she's concerned about Facebook's growing video ambitions.

"I mean you always have to take your competitors seriously, but you don't win by looking backwards and looking around," Wojcicki said.

Swisher pushed her to expand on that response, asking "what do you think they're doing?"

"I think they should focus on what they're focused on," Wojcicki said. "I think they should get back to baby pictures and sharing."

"I'm not an expert about Facebook. They're experts in it and they should do what's best for their business. And look, we should all compete for content. I build our business and I focus on what we need to do, and I know that we have a lot of things to do. You can always remind me of all the things that we need to do and we're going to keep doing them because that's the way that we're going to get stronger."

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (centre).Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesWojcicki's shot at Facebook comes as the two companies are battling to control social video. Facebook has been ramping up the amount of video it shows in its news feed, and introduced new advertising options including pre-roll and mid-roll ads for creators.

And Facebook is also expanding its Facebook Watch program, which is its television-like service for people to watch videos from professional creators and creators lured from YouTube.

For the first batch of Facebook Watch shows, Facebook reportedly spent $10,000 (£7,200) to $40,000 (£28,000) per episode for short-form series, and $250,000 (£180,000) to $1 million (£721,000) per episode for TV-length original series.

However, Wojcicki's comment does touch on an important point: Video is a relatively new part of the mix of content on Facebook, and the company has indicated that it's going to refocus its news feed on content from friends, rather than pages.

"When people are engaging with people they're close to, it's more meaningful, more fulfilling," said Facebook's director of research David Ginsberg in an interview with The New York Times, "It's good for your well-being."

And the ever-changing nature of Facebook's news feed algorithm can make it difficult for creators to steadily grow their audience. One creator Business Insider spoke to, Jessica Nigri, said that her reach on Facebook had been "decimated."

"I have noticed that videos in general are receiving less reach than usual," she said. "It's concerning because a lot of people depend on social media to showcase their work and reach new audiences."

Original author: James Cook

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Getty

Good morning! Here's the technology news you need to know this Tuesday morning.

1. Amazon is cutting hundreds of jobs in a "rare" move. The cuts are mostly in the company's consumer-retail division.

2. Snap's VP of sales, Jeff Lucas, is leaving the company after less than two years. The exit comes a few weeks after Snap's VP of product announced his departure from the company.

3. YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki said that Facebook should "get back to baby pictures." Wojcicki was asked what she thought about Facebook's increasing video ambitions.

4. The next version of Android will reportedly be designed to support notches — just like the iPhone X. Google is working on a new version of Android, Android P, which reportedly has the internal codename of "Pistachio Ice Cream."

5. A key Samsung executive who was behind its Bixby virtual assistant, Samsung Pay, and its enterprise security platform Knox, is joining Google. Injong Rhee will become an entrepreneur-in-residence at Google.

6. A German court ruled that Facebook's use of personal data is illegal. The verdict is only from a regional court in Berlin, though.

7. JPMorgan warned that there's a "fairly high risk" bitcoin could get cut in half. "The question is whether we go there straight away, indicated on a failure to clear 10128 and 10776, or at a later stage after a stronger countertrend rally," technical analysts at the bank wrote in a note to clients on Friday.

8. Uber is now forcing its drivers to take a long break after 12 hours on the road. The move is intended to cut down on drowsiness and stop drivers falling asleep at the wheel.

9. Two YouTube stars hid in a closet to avoid an armed fan who was later found dead. Gavin Free and Meg Turney managed to avoid obsessed fan Christopher Giles.

10. Amazon quietly dropped $90 million (£64.9 million) on a camera startup last year to acquire its unique chip technology. The takeover has had almost no coverage, but it actually took place almost two months ago.

Original author: James Cook

Analysts at Morgan Stanley warned in a note Monday that a reverse merger between Dell and VMware is a "worst case scenario" for VMware shareholders.Analysts said a merger could devalue VMware by as much as $28 billion. This also leads them to believe that a merger is unlikely, according to the note. Dell is considering a reverse merger with the publicly-traded company, as a means of going public itself. Dell is also looking into an IPO, or keeping things as they are. 

Dell Technologies is considering mixing up its ownership structure, and analysts at Morgan Stanley are not going along for the ride.

In a note published on Monday, Morgan Stanley analysts Keith Weiss and Sanjit Singh warned investors against one of the most interesting options on the table, in which Dell Technologies would do a "reverse merger" with its subsidiary company VMware.

Analysts called a merger the "worst case scenario" for VMware shareholders.

VMware is traded publicly, and a merger would take Dell public without putting the company through an initial public offering. Dell currently owns 82% of VMware stock, and 97% of its voting interest, thanks to the 2015 Dell/EMC merger. 

A reverse merger would have tax benefits for Dell and give the company access to VMware's cash, according to the report, but ultimately it would have a negative impact on VMware's shareholders. 

Analysts at Morgan Stanley project that a combined company would devalue VMware by $28 billion — considerably more than the $500 million-600 million annual taxes Dell will face if it continues to operate under its existing structure. 

Already VMware stock, which traded at an all-time high of $150 in late January, has suffered. Shares currently cost around $117, which Morgan Stanley expects would "quickly" return toward its $143 price target if "the risk of a reverse merger diminishes." 

However, analysts also conclude that it's the least likely of the three strategic options Dell is pursuing. 

The company is also looking into doing its own IPO, as well as looking into whether staying private is actually the best option. 

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Original author: Becky Peterson