Intro

Good morning! and Happy Tuesday! 🥳

Tech Snippets

🤖 Wearable Robots: Exoskeleton, a new technology in the market, can turn you into the next Iron Man. It’s an external device that covers, protects, and gives strength and endurance to its user during climbing, walking, and a myriad of other daily activities. Deep Dive here →

🚲 Trading Clunkers for E-Bikes: France is offering the owners of old, exhaust fume-belching cars the opportunity to hand over their vehicles for scrap in exchange for a €2,500 grant to buy an electric bicycle. By 2030, it aims to reduce greenhouse emissions by 40% (from 1990 levels). Deep Dive here →

👀 Here we go again! After one huge Facebook data leak, it seems we’re in for another. An archive containing around 500M scraped LinkedIn profiles’ data has been available for sale on a famous hacker forum, with a 2M-profile sample leaked as proof. Deep Dive here →

Startup of the Day

Firework, San Francisco (USA)

Source: Firework

What’s the deal: While TikTok has taken the world by storm, another similar startup has grown to over 13M users on the sidelines: Firework. It’s an interactive video platform that allows users to find, create and share a 30-second video.

The numbers: Firework has recently raised $55M in Series A funding, and plans to expand its product to the Indian market. Interestingly, both Google and Weibo (Chinese version of Twitter) are currently interested in acquiring the app.

The Basics: The principle is very similar to other platforms; brands and users make a profile and start posting. The homepage offers suggested, tailored videos based on the user’s information, interests, and history.

Users can swipe through videos, post them on their feed, and discover trending hashtags. To encourage the sharing of content, Firework allows users to post videos on other platforms, and holds hashtag contests in exchange for cash prizes or to raise money for social causes.

How is this different: Firework emphasizes creativity over popularity. Unlike other platforms, it offers space for professional creators and doesn’t have a like or comment section to ensure creators are not pressured by the numbers.

It has a unique feature, ‘Reveal’, that allows users to shoot videos horizontally and enables them to combine clips from the phone’s front and rear cameras. The brand caters to Millennials who want to consume quality content, and that in 30 seconds.

Our Take: Firework is a great option for brands and influencers who want to up their game. As this app lacks a like and comments section, it will force brands to rethink the traditional metrics used to measure success. It’s still new in the market, but Firework has potential.

But: It remains to be seen if Firework can really challenge TikTok and become a significant player with almost 700M monthly active users. The hype surrounding TikTok is not all about the content but also relates to the content discovery algorithm: One video can make you famous!