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Member since 2017-07-15T03:50:57Z. Last seen 2025-04-09T16:00:01Z.
2754 blog posts. 128 comments.
205 annekate 3 hrs 58
https://blog.winnie.com/how-to-get-your-first-100k-active-users-909fa4292a27
Acquiring your first 100k active users is an art, but a messy one—especially if you don’t have a lot of money to spend on marketing and paid acquisition. Winnie crossed this important milestone earlier this year, so I wanted to share some insights about how we did it, with a special focus on strategies that work for almost any product and cost no (or very little) money.
Simply put, Winnie is an app that helps parents find the information they need to be successful. This information can be local (e.g. nearby daycares with open spaces) or it can be topical (e.g. help with breastfeeding).
Almost all of this information is crowdsourced, which makes Winnie a network-effect product — every user we acquire increases the value of the product to other users, primarily through the content they contribute but also through their engagement with other users. Products like this have certain natural advantages when it comes to growth, but they also have a tough uphill climb in the early days when they may suffer from empty room syndrome or lack the data that early adopters are seeking. So how do you get started when you have very few users and kickstart the flywheel that delivers long-term organic growth?
Pre-launch startups often run a private beta with friends & family. This is a great practice, but it’s important to make sure that you have some growth mechanism for that beta, whether through invitations or simply making the beta public. Think about it—your goal with a beta is to test the effectiveness of the product, but shouldn’t the ability of that product to grow be one of the most important things to test?
Winnie’s private beta grew from 10 to over 400 people in 3 months, driven almost entirely by invitations and personal referrals. Not only was this core group of early adopters extremely helpful to us, they also gave us confidence that this was a product people wanted and would grow on its own.
It was very tempting to keep Winnie hyperlocal and just focus on one or two markets to start, but that approach cuts you off from a huge number of acquisition channels where you can’t target by locale (most notably for us, the App Stores). It’s also problematic to limit growth when one of the product theses is that it gets better the more people use it.
So while we were ramping up for our v1 launch, we made the tough call to launch Winnie everywhere, even in regions where we had almost no data. We gave these users a different onboarding flow, where we allowed them to unlock the product by contributing reviews. And it’s a good thing we did, because Apple featured Winnie on the front page of the App Store immediately after we launched. Without the Early Access flow, we would have been turning those users away at the door; instead, we used the opportunity to bootstrap valuable content.
The Early Access flow from Winnie’s v1 launch. It’s very hard to grow if you don’t know how to position your product effectively. Luckily, we have the benefit of self-service advertising platforms — in particular Facebook and Google—to help you very efficiently test ideas and creative with different demographics. With even a very modest spend, you can try a ton of ideas and see what performs the best. This can also give you good data about what people are looking for; in one test we found that people responded especially well to “find places where kids eat free” so we invested in the content and it’s now one of our most popular features.
App store featuring is the closest thing we’ve had to “act of God” growth — it can give you a huge influx of new users, but you have little control over when it happens. That said, Winnie has been featured several times in both stores, largely due to the fact that we’ve done the work to make ourselves eligible and attractive for featuring.
I could write a whole blog post about how to get the blessings of the app store gods, but here are the high level points:
Ignore the siren song of “build once, deploy anywhere” and build native apps that are responsive, stable, and showcase the power of the platform. Both Apple & Google have extremely detailed design and UI guidelines — respect them. Invest in a unique and beautiful app icon, as well as striking promotional art assets. Incorporate platform integrations when you can, for example building in Apple Pay support when Apple is heavily promoting it on the store.
Framing sharing as a communication action increased social sharing 300%. Providing affordance for sharing your content or product is certainly important, but it turns out the way you frame that action can make a big difference in adoption. Early on, we had a Share button on every post, but noticed that it wasn’t getting a lot of usage. Instead, our users were asking us for ways to save posts to revisit later—along with an easy way to share those bookmarks with their spouses and partners.
It occured to us that some users may not see themselves as “sharers”, but nearly everyone uses a communication product of some kind to coordinate with friends and family. So we removed the Share button and replaced it with a Save button that then prompts you to share the post. This prompt is framed more around communication than around broadcasting the content, and it worked astonishingly well—social shares shot up over 300%.
From the very beginning we imagined Winnie as a place where parents could not only connect with one another but with the businesses, service providers, educators and medical professionals that they rely upon to raise their children and care for their families. However, such a vision relies on the successful development of a two-sided ecosystem, an extremely daunting task for any startup with limited resources.
Winnie’s (magical!) daycare & preschool search started as a data project and grew to be one of our best acquisition channels. We decided to approach this problem by starting with demand — the consumptive audience of parents looking for information — and creating the supply ourselves. Many of our early growth initiatives were actually data acquisition projects, such as creating fully-researched listings for over 5000 daycares and preschools in the Bay Area. This turned out to be a good move, as this valuable data brought on a loyal audience of parents that now organically attracts businesses to provide that content themselves. (For further reading be sure to check out Ben Thompson’s Aggregation Theory.)
As a product designer, one of the things I have to be very disciplined about is not overly focusing on the current iteration of the product. At first, Winnie was a very useful app for parents of babies and toddlers, as it could help you find restaurants with high chairs and parks with changing tables. However, it had very little to offer parents of older children in those early days.
We knew that in order for Winnie to work we needed it to be as big as possible, so instead of doubling down on making our app a great changing table finder, we opted instead to build features that unlock new cohorts of users. One example is daycare & preschool search, which brought on a slightly older group of parents with 3 to 5 year olds. Another is topic pages, which allowed us to build relevant content around special interests including teens & pre-teens, blended families, single parents and more.
While these are great for branding and can be a good way to cultivate a sense of community among your users, events are extremely time-consuming. Especially for a team of all engineers, the ROI was almost never worth it for us compared to larger-scale growth projects we could spend our time on.
This was probably the biggest mistake we made early on. While we correctly sized up our target market (millennial parents) as heavy consumers of apps, when it comes to growth the web is still hugely important. These days the lion’s share of our organic growth comes from web traffic in the form of organic search, social shares and word of mouth. Mobile-first is great. Mobile-only is not.
Another common mobile-first error here. It’s tempting to think that if you have an app installed on someone’s phone, it will be easy to reactivate them because you can use push to bring them back into the app. However, just because push is an option doesn’t mean you should neglect more traditional channels like email. Email is still very important — don’t neglect it!
上周隨友人參加海外物業的投資講座，聽見有趣實用的經驗，與其瑰寶自珍，不如在此跟讀者分享。
講座由具有二十多年歷史的英國發展商主辦，報表演示內容簡短，資訊有限。倒是與在座的投資者交流，讓筆者獲益良多。其中一位投資者曾購買此發展商的樓花，結果延期一年仍未收樓入伙。本欄早前曾撰文分析曼徹斯特的物業投資價值，簡單而言，因為有滙兌風險，加上貸款利率和物業稅，回報並非特別吸引。除非城市規劃具極大潛力，那才值得考慮投資當地物業。不過，當日遇上經驗豐富的專業海外物業投資者，其思維和經驗倒是值得借鑑參考。
E君大約20年前開始投資英國房地產，以往都是購買位於倫敦的物業，尤其是面積和總額較小的單位，貪其易於放租兼印花稅低。過去兩年，E君陸續沽出倫敦物業，除了租金回報愈來愈低，由過往最高接近7厘，跌至現時的2至3厘，也因為維修保養費用高。由於套現後有一批英鎊，又未想調回香港，遂繼續在英國發掘投資機會，所以對準曼城，貪其租金回報高達5至9厘。E君很坦白，要不是手持英鎊，未必覺得曼城物業抵買（計及滙率、利率和稅率），只是不想讓資金閒着白貶值。
維修費用隨時損失一年租金
E君分享了海外物業投資的心得：
位置很重要。不必看將來潛在發展，必須選擇近地鐵站或市中心的位置。除了容易出租，租客質素也相對較高。
只會買新樓（包括樓花），完全不考慮二手市場。因為維修費用高，物業持有期不會超過10年。E君的親身經驗是：某間樓齡7年的物業，維修兩個洗手間的費用，竟然等同全年租金收入！即是一次維修白白損失了一年租金！
偏好Studio或一房單位，因為銀碼相對小，轉手率較高，容易套現（這點香港也類同）。
如果購買兩房單位，必須選擇有兩個浴室的設計，否則較難租出。
不會選擇地面樓層，因為潛在租客會擔心治安問題。
除了英國之外，E君亦投資日本物業，而且都選擇整幢售予投資者的樓盤。近年買入東京單位，多數是受2022年奧運會概念吸引。其實，日本的海外投資者租務市場成熟，有物業管理公司幫忙收租打點， 並以Airbnb的短租形式出租。只要使用率達八成，每年回報就超過6厘。早於一兩年前，筆者就聽過這種安排，倒是不知道普及程度這麼高。至於物業貸款，由於日本當地銀行相對謹慎，私人銀行的專業投資客戶可考慮抵押債券基金（一般可以借九成基金值）獲取免稅貸款。扣除貸款利息和物業管理費，日本的租金回報仍達3厘！以其低息環境考量，算很不錯。
在場的投資者還分享了其他資訊如稅務安排、物業管理、選發展商等貼士，沒想到隨意跟友人走一轉，就長知識了。
Facebook專頁：www.facebook.com/trendalysis
財經雜誌《福布斯》近日公布年度收入最高的YouTube「網紅」，當中以排名第八的6歲男孩Ryan【圖】最引人注目。他的頻道名叫Ryan ToysReview，由一家三口經營，訂戶人數超過1000萬人，以玩具開箱評測為主。其中一條最受歡迎的影片，兩年來點擊突破8億人次。據網站The Verge報道，這條頻道每月廣告收入高達100萬美元。年初迄今的稅前收入錄得1100萬美元，即約8580萬港元，進賬非常可觀。（YouTube網上圖片）
解決房屋問題不是初創企業的強項，然而，全球各地卻有不少主打地產相關業務的初創企業，其中以香港、紐約及倫敦等房地產樞紐的數量最多。
鼓勵遷出前接受睇盤
跟人工智能一樣，以地產為主題的創企也有所屬的比賽。來自香港的網上租屋平台SnapFlat，最近成功在亞太區房地產高峰會（MIPIM）初創比賽香港站出線，與企業維修平台WeMaintain及提供辦公室手機應用程式的Workwell，齊齊打入法國康城決賽的最後三強。參賽者在這個全球性的比併當中，必須以創新企業模式、科技、服務及體驗內容，為行業提供解決方法，以改善房地產生態系統。
SnapFlat兩名創辦人Jean-Baptiste Bellier及Eric Satzger來自法國，約4、5年前來港工作，期間有多次租屋經驗，每次都要支付約半個月佣金予地產代理；後來他們想辦法「諗縮數」，希望找出新模式讓租客毋須向經紀付佣金。
SnapFlat營運模式有別於一般出租平台，租客承租後，不用支付佣金予代理。Bellier表示，部分業主無法在現租客遷出前，帶新租客上門參觀，令每次轉換租客時，單位平均要空置一個月才可租出。故他們想到以租金回贈方式，吸引原租客在遷出前，向其他人介紹單位或容許入屋睇樓。
此外，SnapFlat亦會為業主在多處投放廣告，供新租客搜尋及預約上門睇樓。當單位成功租出，該平台的持牌地產代理就會為雙方處理法律文件。成事後，原租客可獲一個月租金的15%作報酬。業主亦只須在成功出租時，才需要支付相當於半個月租金的佣金。
加快流轉 空置率大降
Bellier指出，經SnapFlat平台出租的物業，空置率平均由一個月降至一日，租客亦毋須付經紀佣金，達至雙贏局面。該平台於年初開始營運，至今已協助租出數百個單位，未來會先專注在本港發展。
326 SREinSF 9 hrs 127
https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/11/16761016/former-facebook-exec-ripping-apart-society
Chamath Palihapitiya speaks at a Vanity Fair event in October 2016. Photo by Mike Windle/Getty Images for Vanity Fair Another former Facebook executive has spoken out about the harm the social network is doing to civil society around the world. Chamath Palihapitiya, who joined Facebook in 2007 and became its vice president for user growth, said he feels “tremendous guilt” about the company he helped make. “I think we have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works,” he told an audience at Stanford Graduate School of Business, before recommending people take a “hard break” from social media.
Palihapitiya’s criticisms were aimed not only at Facebook, but the wider online ecosystem. “The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we’ve created are destroying how society works,” he said, referring to online interactions driven by “hearts, likes, thumbs-up.” “No civil discourse, no cooperation; misinformation, mistruth. And it’s not an American problem — this is not about Russians ads. This is a global problem.”
He went on to describe an incident in India where hoax messages about kidnappings shared on WhatsApp led to the lynching of seven innocent people. “That’s what we’re dealing with,” said Palihapitiya. “And imagine taking that to the extreme, where bad actors can now manipulate large swathes of people to do anything you want. It’s just a really, really bad state of affairs.” He says he tries to use Facebook as little as possible, and that his children “aren’t allowed to use that shit.” He later adds, though, that he believes the company “overwhelmingly does good in the world.”
Palihapitiya’s remarks follow similar statements of contrition from others who helped build Facebook into the powerful corporation it is today. In November, early investor Sean Parker said he has become a “conscientious objector” to social media, and that Facebook and others had succeeded by “exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology.” A former product manager at the company, Antonio Garcia-Martinez, has said Facebook lies about its ability to influence individuals based on the data it collects on them, and wrote a book, Chaos Monkeys, about his work at the firm.
These former employees have all spoken out at a time when worry about Facebook’s power is reaching fever pitch. In the past year, concerns about the company’s role in the US election and its capacity to amplify fake news have grown, while other reports have focused on how the social media site has been implicated in atrocities like the “ethnic cleansing” of Myanmar’s Rohingya ethnic group.
In his talk, Palihapitiya criticized not only Facebook, but Silicon Valley’s entire system of venture capital funding. He said that investors pump money into “shitty, useless, idiotic companies,” rather than addressing real problems like climate change and disease. Palihapitiya currently runs his own VC firm, Social Capital, which focuses on funding companies in sectors like healthcare and education.
Palihapitiya also notes that although tech investors seem almighty, they’ve achieved their power more through luck than skill. “Everybody’s bullshitting,” he said. “If you’re in a seat, and you have good deal flow, and you have precious capital, and there’s a massive tailwind of technological change ... Over time you get one of the 20 [companies that become successful] and you look like a genius. And nobody wants to admit that but that’s the fucking truth.”
22 sylvainkalache 3 hrs 12
https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2017/09/27/the-future-of-work-is-uncertain-schools.html
An elite coder with vision, people skills, and high-powered mentors, New York City 9th grader Emma Yang is as close to future-proof as a 13-year old can get. But with technology radically reshaping the labor market, schools face a monumental challenge preparing all students to thrive in a murky future. An elite coder with vision, people skills, and high-powered mentors, New York City 9th grader Emma Yang is as close to future-proof as a 13-year old can get. But with technology radically reshaping the labor market, schools face a monumental challenge preparing all students to thrive in a murky future.
—Mark Abramson for Education Week
Today's 6th graders will hit their prime working years in 2030.
By that time, the "robot apocalypse" could be fully upon us. Automation and artificial intelligence could have eliminated half the jobs in the United States economy.
Or, plenty of jobs could still exist, but today's students could be locked in a fierce competition for a few richly rewarded positions requiring advanced technical and interpersonal skills. Robots and algorithms would take care of what used to be solid working- and middle-class jobs. And the kids who didn't get that cutting-edge computer science course or life-changing middle school project? They'd be relegated to a series of dead-end positions, serving the elites who did.
Alternatively, maybe Bill Gates and Elon Musk and the other big names ringing the alarm are wrong. A decade from now, perhaps companies will still complain they can't find employees who can read an instruction manual and pass a drug test. Maybe workers will still be able to hold on to the American Dream, so long as they can adjust to incremental technological shifts in the workplace.
Which vision will prove correct?
When it comes to predicting the future of work, top economists and technologists are all over the map.
Inside schools, the result is tremendous uncertainty.
"For thousands of educators, this discussion isn't about 15 years from now. It's about the present," said former West Virginia Gov. Bob Wise, who now heads a national nonprofit seeking to transform U.S. high schools. "But schools aren't sure how to change what they're doing, or even what questions to ask."
That's why Education Week is launching a new line of special coverage on what the changing nature of work means for the K-12 sector. What skills will today's students need? Will the jobs available now still be around in 2030? Should every kid learn to code? What about apprenticeships, career-and-technical education, and "lifelong learning?"
Just as importantly, how can schools prepare children to participate in the political, civic, and moral debates stirred up by technology-driven changes?
The time for these conversations is now.
Because for all their disagreements, nearly all the experts say the nation's educators can take one prediction to the bank.
"Change is going to come," said Lee Rainie, who heads the study of technology for the Pew Research Center. "Standing pat is not an option."
If you could prototype a 13-year-old who is likely to thrive in the 2030 labor market, she'd probably look a lot like Emma Yang of New York City.
The private school 9th grader has already designed an app to help diagnose concussions. She's used neural networks to train computer programs to identify lung tumors. Her latest project, an app called Timeless, uses algorithms to help Alzheimer's patients recognize the family members in their photos.
Yang is insatiably curious. She asks big questions. And she has killer people skills.
"You don't have to be a doctor or a politician to effect change in the world," Yang told the crowd at her first TEDx Talk, delivered in July in Washington. "Solve the problems you see around you."
Elite-level technical abilities, the probing mind of a scientist, and a deft human touch: That's the experts' best guess about the combination of traits that will guarantee rewarding employment in tomorrow's economy.
Facebook, for example, recently offered advice to students who want to work in artificial intelligence. Take all the math you possibly can, the company suggested—while also finding time to study computer science, economics, engineering, neuroscience, and philosophy; cultivate mentors; think about vexing challenges in new ways; and publish your own open-source code.
It's heavy, heady stuff.
But such advice also raises red flags, especially for those observers who are most alarmed by the ways technology is upending the labor market.
One fear is that the bar for making today's students future-proof is becoming unrealistically high. And even if America's schools could churn out a steady stream of Emma Yangs, some experts worry it might not matter.
Robots and AI-powered digital agents already rival humans at translating languages, playing strategy games, and flipping hamburgers. They've started driving cars and diagnosing cancer. Increasingly, they're able to learn by observing humans, rather than being programmed by us.
That all means big problems, says futurist Martin Ford.
The labor market is a pyramid, Ford wrote in his 2015 book Rise of the Robots. Automation has already begun devouring the pyramid's base, replacing assembly-line workers, warehouse stockers, and cashiers.
Paralegals, radiologists, line cooks, truck drivers, insurance underwriters, travel agents, lab technicians, tax preparers, and office assistants could all be next.
And with artificial-intelligence systems starting to write their own code, it's entirely possible that many of the six-figure computer-science jobs currently available could eventually be lost to technology, too.
In such a scenario, how many jobs would be left at the top of the labor-market pyramid?
Turn your gaze back to Facebook, Ford suggests. The company may be worth $500 billion, but it employs just 20,000 people. Only 75 work in artificial intelligence.
Now you can see why lots of reasonable people are drawing dire conclusions.
In 2014, for example, the Pew Research Center surveyed 1,896 experts. Nearly half said they "envision a future in which robots and digital agents have displaced significant numbers of both blue- and white-collar workers." Many are worried that the trend "will lead to vast increases in income inequality, masses of people who are effectively unemployable, and breakdowns in the social order."
What would such a future mean for today's schools?
"Whatever you do," Ford warns, "it isn't going to be enough."
Like many people in public education, Laura Arnold has mostly tried to avoid such gloomy forecasts.
It's not that workforce preparation is missing altogether from the K-12 conversation. For decades, the sector has talked about "vocational education," "linked learning," "21st century skills," and more.
And it's not that Arnold herself is busy fighting other battles. As an associate commissioner in the Kentucky education department, she's helped turn her state into a national leader in career-and-technical education.
But the horizons for such efforts in public education tend to be short-term. Reliable data on local workforce trends only extend out five years, Arnold said. Companies are focused on what they need right now. Schools struggle to meet even those immediate demands.
Taking time to consider the long-term implications of artificial intelligence can seem overwhelming.
"We need to be at the table for these discussions," Arnold said. "But it's so much bigger than K-12 education."
That's where Education Week aims to help. We talked to more than two-dozen experts in the fields of artificial intelligence, computer science, economics, education, and history. We also reviewed dozens of reports and studies.
Here's what we think you need to know.
Many economists are not nearly as worried as futurists like Martin Ford.
Yes, technology is going to eliminate some jobs, said MIT's Paul Osterman, who used to run workforce-training programs for Massachusetts. But doomsday predictions about the future of work overlook the forces of history, human ingenuity, and demography, he said.
—Taylor Callery for Education Week
A century ago, for example, the United States transitioned from an agricultural to an industrial economy. More than 90 percent of farm jobs were lost. But new technologies also created new jobs, new wealth, and new consumer demands. That all led to new work opportunities that all those displaced farmers couldn't have previously imagined.
Still, most experts foresee substantial upheaval.
Even skeptics recognize that industrial robots and artificial-intelligence-powered digital agents have already made significant inroads into fields as diverse as manufacturing, health care, logistics, and customer service.
And it's clear that winners and losers are already emerging. Wages for highly educated people have gone up, because information technologies complement the creative, problem-solving, and managerial work they tend to do. But at the same time, technology has helped push many less-educated workers into the service sector, where they receive lower pay and less job security.
Under President Barack Obama, the White House concluded that automation will likely continue to erode the fortunes of workers who don't have a high school diploma and who earn less than $20 per hour. The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, meanwhile, warned that technology will begin eating away at jobs currently filled by some highly educated workers.
Then there's this: As the future-of-work conversation evolves, many analysts are focusing on the specific tasks, rather than the entire occupations, that technology will likely take over from humans. An analysis this year by the McKinsey Global Institute, for example, estimates that existing technologies could be used to automate roughly half of all the activities that workers are currently paid to do.
In the crosshairs: anything that involves routine physical motions, operating machinery in predictable environments, or collecting and processing data.
If that's how things play out, today's students are going to need a new set of skills, regardless of what field they enter.
Every young person entering the 2030 labor market might need a solid grounding in statistics and data science, the thinking goes. Farmers, for example, would need to make sense of torrents of data generated by sensors and drones on soil and weather conditions.
To maintain their edge, workers would also need to focus on cultivating the human qualities that robots still lack, such as creativity, empathy, and abstract thinking.
And because most jobs could constantly evolve, today's students could eventually face a make-or-break question: Can you adapt?
"I don't think there's any way we can accurately say what skills and competencies students will need 15 years from now," said Michael Chui, a partner at the McKinsey Global Institute. "That's why it's incumbent that we prepare young people for a world of constant uncertainty."
With so much up in the air, what will determine how disruptive the future of work turns out to be?
For all the attention to technology, the answer may have more to do with our laws, policies, and values.
Webinar: The Future of Work and What It Means for K-12 Schools Join us for this webinar, part of Education Week’s yearlong initiative to provide special coverage of workforce-preparation trends and their implications for K-12 schools, to take a deeper look at what kind of job market the 6th graders of today will face when they hit their prime working years in 2030 and what it means for educators now.
Register now. And it's here that K-12 schools might play their most significant role, many experts believe.
Imagine, for example, that millions more people do lose their jobs to automation. Will tomorrow's lawmakers be able to overcome today's partisan divides to craft an effective social safety net?
Or imagine that being a home health aide is one of the few in-demand jobs that most Americans can still do better than a robot. Will tomorrow's workforce insist on greater status and pay for such professions?
And consider how deeply robots, algorithms, and digital agents are being woven into important aspects of our lives, from loan applications to dating to criminal sentencing.
Will tomorrow's citizens be thoughtful and vigilant in deciding how much control they're willing to give to technology? Will they be able to recognize and challenge automated decision-making systems that replicate existing racial, gender, and other biases?
Public education has always been about creating good citizens, not just good workers. In the age of artificial intelligence, that could be more important than ever.
"Preparing students for the future means helping them think critically about the new ways decisions are made," said Osonde Osoba, a RAND Corp. engineer and researcher.
Are schools up for such a many-sided challenge?
In 2030, will today's 6th graders be afraid of change, or will they embrace it?
If robots lead to a future flush with leisure time, will today's students be able to find purpose in making art, doing citizen science, or helping a neighbor?
"It doesn't have to be a job," said Arizona State University professor James Paul Gee. "But each person needs the skills to make some kind of contribution to a changing world with a lot of problems that need solving."
This is the reality facing the K-12 sector. No one really knows what happens next. Many jobs will likely be destroyed. New types of work, requiring new types of skills, will hopefully be created. The problems and opportunities and paradoxes associated with automation and artificial intelligence won't be limited to the workplace.
For the nation's educators, the most daunting thing about this uncertain future may also be the most exciting.
They get to help make it.
Vol. 37, Issue 06, Pages 3-6
Published in Print: September 27, 2017, as Facing an Uncertain Future Back to Top
320 corbinpage 4 hrs 68
https://www.sec.gov/news/public-statement/statement-clayton-2017-12-11
The world’s social media platforms and financial markets are abuzz about cryptocurrencies and “initial coin offerings” (ICOs). There are tales of fortunes made and dreamed to be made. We are hearing the familiar refrain, “this time is different.”
The cryptocurrency and ICO markets have grown rapidly. These markets are local, national and international and include an ever-broadening range of products and participants. They also present investors and other market participants with many questions, some new and some old (but in a new form), including, to list just a few:
Is the product legal? Is it subject to regulation, including rules designed to protect investors? Does the product comply with those rules? Is the offering legal? Are those offering the product licensed to do so? Are the trading markets fair? Can prices on those markets be manipulated? Can I sell when I want to? Are there substantial risks of theft or loss, including from hacking? The answers to these and other important questions often require an in-depth analysis, and the answers will differ depending on many factors. This statement provides my general views on the cryptocurrency and ICO markets[1] and is directed principally to two groups:
“Main Street” investors, and Market professionals – including, for example, broker-dealers, investment advisers, exchanges, lawyers and accountants – whose actions impact Main Street investors. Considerations for Main Street Investors
A number of concerns have been raised regarding the cryptocurrency and ICO markets, including that, as they are currently operating, there is substantially less investor protection than in our traditional securities markets, with correspondingly greater opportunities for fraud and manipulation.
Investors should understand that to date no initial coin offerings have been registered with the SEC. The SEC also has not to date approved for listing and trading any exchange-traded products (such as ETFs) holding cryptocurrencies or other assets related to cryptocurrencies.[2] If any person today tells you otherwise, be especially wary.
We have issued investor alerts, bulletins and statements on initial coin offerings and cryptocurrency-related investments, including with respect to the marketing of certain offerings and investments by celebrities and others.[3] Please take a moment to read them. If you choose to invest in these products, please ask questions and demand clear answers. A list of sample questions that may be helpful is attached.
As with any other type of potential investment, if a promoter guarantees returns, if an opportunity sounds too good to be true, or if you are pressured to act quickly, please exercise extreme caution and be aware of the risk that your investment may be lost.
Please also recognize that these markets span national borders and that significant trading may occur on systems and platforms outside the United States. Your invested funds may quickly travel overseas without your knowledge. As a result, risks can be amplified, including the risk that market regulators, such as the SEC, may not be able to effectively pursue bad actors or recover funds.
To learn more about these markets and their regulation, please read the “Additional Discussion of Cryptocurrencies, ICOs and Securities Regulation” section below.
Considerations for Market Professionals
I believe that initial coin offerings – whether they represent offerings of securities or not – can be effective ways for entrepreneurs and others to raise funding, including for innovative projects. However, any such activity that involves an offering of securities must be accompanied by the important disclosures, processes and other investor protections that our securities laws require. A change in the structure of a securities offering does not change the fundamental point that when a security is being offered, our securities laws must be followed.[4] Said another way, replacing a traditional corporate interest recorded in a central ledger with an enterprise interest recorded through a blockchain entry on a distributed ledger may change the form of the transaction, but it does not change the substance.
I urge market professionals, including securities lawyers, accountants and consultants, to read closely the investigative report we released earlier this year (the “21(a) Report”)[5] and review our subsequent enforcement actions.[6] In the 21(a) Report, the Commission applied longstanding securities law principles to demonstrate that a particular token constituted an investment contract and therefore was a security under our federal securities laws. Specifically, we concluded that the token offering represented an investment of money in a common enterprise with a reasonable expectation of profits to be derived from the entrepreneurial or managerial efforts of others.
Following the issuance of the 21(a) Report, certain market professionals have attempted to highlight utility characteristics of their proposed initial coin offerings in an effort to claim that their proposed tokens or coins are not securities. Many of these assertions appear to elevate form over substance. Merely calling a token a “utility” token or structuring it to provide some utility does not prevent the token from being a security. Tokens and offerings that incorporate features and marketing efforts that emphasize the potential for profits based on the entrepreneurial or managerial efforts of others continue to contain the hallmarks of a security under U.S. law. On this and other points where the application of expertise and judgment is expected, I believe that gatekeepers and others, including securities lawyers, accountants and consultants, need to focus on their responsibilities. I urge you to be guided by the principal motivation for our registration, offering process and disclosure requirements: investor protection and, in particular, the protection of our Main Street investors.
I also caution market participants against promoting or touting the offer and sale of coins without first determining whether the securities laws apply to those actions. Selling securities generally requires a license, and experience shows that excessive touting in thinly traded and volatile markets can be an indicator of “scalping,” “pump and dump” and other manipulations and frauds. Similarly, I also caution those who operate systems and platforms that effect or facilitate transactions in these products that they may be operating unregistered exchanges or broker-dealers that are in violation of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.
On cryptocurrencies, I want to emphasize two points. First, while there are cryptocurrencies that do not appear to be securities, simply calling something a “currency” or a currency-based product does not mean that it is not a security. Before launching a cryptocurrency or a product with its value tied to one or more cryptocurrencies, its promoters must either (1) be able to demonstrate that the currency or product is not a security or (2) comply with applicable registration and other requirements under our securities laws. Second, brokers, dealers and other market participants that allow for payments in cryptocurrencies, allow customers to purchase cryptocurrencies on margin, or otherwise use cryptocurrencies to facilitate securities transactions should exercise particular caution, including ensuring that their cryptocurrency activities are not undermining their anti-money laundering and know-your-customer obligations.[7] As I have stated previously, these market participants should treat payments and other transactions made in cryptocurrency as if cash were being handed from one party to the other.
Additional Discussion of Cryptocurrencies, ICOs and Securities Regulation
Cryptocurrencies. Speaking broadly, cryptocurrencies purport to be items of inherent value (similar, for instance, to cash or gold) that are designed to enable purchases, sales and other financial transactions. They are intended to provide many of the same functions as long-established currencies such as the U.S. dollar, euro or Japanese yen but do not have the backing of a government or other body. Although the design and maintenance of cryptocurrencies differ, proponents of cryptocurrencies highlight various potential benefits and features of them, including (1) the ability to make transfers without an intermediary and without geographic limitation, (2) finality of settlement, (3) lower transaction costs compared to other forms of payment and (4) the ability to publicly verify transactions. Other often-touted features of cryptocurrencies include personal anonymity and the absence of government regulation or oversight. Critics of cryptocurrencies note that these features may facilitate illicit trading and financial transactions, and that some of the purported beneficial features may not prove to be available in practice.
It has been asserted that cryptocurrencies are not securities and that the offer and sale of cryptocurrencies are beyond the SEC’s jurisdiction. Whether that assertion proves correct with respect to any digital asset that is labeled as a cryptocurrency will depend on the characteristics and use of that particular asset. In any event, it is clear that, just as the SEC has a sharp focus on how U.S. dollar, euro and Japanese yen transactions affect our securities markets, we have the same interests and responsibilities with respect to cryptocurrencies. This extends, for example, to securities firms and other market participants that allow payments to be made in cryptocurrencies, set up structures to invest in or hold cryptocurrencies, or extend credit to customers to purchase or hold cryptocurrencies.
Initial Coin Offerings. Coinciding with the substantial growth in cryptocurrencies, companies and individuals increasingly have been using initial coin offerings to raise capital for their businesses and projects. Typically these offerings involve the opportunity for individual investors to exchange currency such as U.S. dollars or cryptocurrencies in return for a digital asset labeled as a coin or token.
These offerings can take many different forms, and the rights and interests a coin is purported to provide the holder can vary widely. A key question for all ICO market participants: “Is the coin or token a security?” As securities law practitioners know well, the answer depends on the facts. For example, a token that represents a participation interest in a book-of-the-month club may not implicate our securities laws, and may well be an efficient way for the club’s operators to fund the future acquisition of books and facilitate the distribution of those books to token holders. In contrast, many token offerings appear to have gone beyond this construct and are more analogous to interests in a yet-to-be-built publishing house with the authors, books and distribution networks all to come. It is especially troubling when the promoters of these offerings emphasize the secondary market trading potential of these tokens. Prospective purchasers are being sold on the potential for tokens to increase in value – with the ability to lock in those increases by reselling the tokens on a secondary market – or to otherwise profit from the tokens based on the efforts of others. These are key hallmarks of a security and a securities offering.
By and large, the structures of initial coin offerings that I have seen promoted involve the offer and sale of securities and directly implicate the securities registration requirements and other investor protection provisions of our federal securities laws. Generally speaking, these laws provide that investors deserve to know what they are investing in and the relevant risks involved.
I have asked the SEC’s Division of Enforcement to continue to police this area vigorously and recommend enforcement actions against those that conduct initial coin offerings in violation of the federal securities laws.
Conclusion
We at the SEC are committed to promoting capital formation. The technology on which cryptocurrencies and ICOs are based may prove to be disruptive, transformative and efficiency enhancing. I am confident that developments in fintech will help facilitate capital formation and provide promising investment opportunities for institutional and Main Street investors alike.
I encourage Main Street investors to be open to these opportunities, but to ask good questions, demand clear answers and apply good common sense when doing so. When advising clients, designing products and engaging in transactions, market participants and their advisers should thoughtfully consider our laws, regulations and guidance, as well as our principles-based securities law framework, which has served us well in the face of new developments for more than 80 years. I also encourage market participants and their advisers to engage with the SEC staff to aid in their analysis under the securities laws. Staff providing assistance on these matters remain available at FinTech@sec.gov.
Sample Questions for Investors Considering a Cryptocurrency or ICO Investment Opportunity[8]
Who exactly am I contracting with? Who is issuing and sponsoring the product, what are their backgrounds, and have they provided a full and complete description of the product? Do they have a clear written business plan that I understand? Who is promoting or marketing the product, what are their backgrounds, and are they licensed to sell the product? Have they been paid to promote the product? Where is the enterprise located? Where is my money going and what will be it be used for? Is my money going to be used to “cash out” others? What specific rights come with my investment? Are there financial statements? If so, are they audited, and by whom? Is there trading data? If so, is there some way to verify it? How, when, and at what cost can I sell my investment? For example, do I have a right to give the token or coin back to the company or to receive a refund? Can I resell the coin or token, and if so, are there any limitations on my ability to resell? If a digital wallet is involved, what happens if I lose the key? Will I still have access to my investment? If a blockchain is used, is the blockchain open and public? Has the code been published, and has there been an independent cybersecurity audit? Has the offering been structured to comply with the securities laws and, if not, what implications will that have for the stability of the enterprise and the value of my investment? What legal protections may or may not be available in the event of fraud, a hack, malware, or a downturn in business prospects? Who will be responsible for refunding my investment if something goes wrong? If I do have legal rights, can I effectively enforce them and will there be adequate funds to compensate me if my rights are violated? [1] This statement is my own and does not reflect the views of any other Commissioner or the Commission. This statement is not, and should not be taken as, a definitive discussion of applicable law, all the relevant risks with respect to these products, or a statement of my position on any particular product. Additionally, this statement is not a comment on any particular submission, in the form of a proposed rule change or otherwise, pending before the Commission.
[2] The CFTC has designated bitcoin as a commodity. Fraud and manipulation involving bitcoin traded in interstate commerce are appropriately within the purview of the CFTC, as is the regulation of commodity futures tied directly to bitcoin. That said, products linked to the value of underlying digital assets, including bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, may be structured as securities products subject to registration under the Securities Act of 1933 or the Investment Company Act of 1940.
[3] Statement on Potentially Unlawful Promotion of Initial Coin Offerings and Other Investments by Celebrities and Others (Nov. 1, 2017), available at https://www.sec.gov/news/public-statement/statement-potentially-unlawful-promotion-icos; Investor Alert: Public Companies Making ICO-Related Claims (Aug. 28, 2017), available at https://www.sec.gov/oiea/investor-alerts-and-bulletins/ia_icorelatedclaims; Investor Bulletin: Initial Coin Offerings (July 25, 2017), available at https://www.sec.gov/oiea/investor-alerts-and-bulletins/ib_coinofferings; Investor Alert: Bitcoin and Other Virtual Currency-Related Investments (May 7, 2014), available at https://www.investor.gov/additional-resources/news-alerts/alerts-bulletins/investor-alert-bitcoin-other-virtual-currency; Investor Alert: Ponzi Schemes Using Virtual Currencies (July 23, 2013), available at https://www.sec.gov/investor/alerts/ia_virtualcurrencies.pdf.
[4] It is possible to conduct an ICO without triggering the SEC’s registration requirements. For example, just as with a Regulation D exempt offering to raise capital for the manufacturing of a physical product, an initial coin offering that is a security can be structured so that it qualifies for an applicable exemption from the registration requirements.
[7] I am particularly concerned about market participants who extend to customers credit in U.S. dollars – a relatively stable asset – to enable the purchase of cryptocurrencies, which, in recent experience, have proven to be a more volatile asset.
[8] This is not intended to represent an exhaustive list. Please also see the SEC investor bulletins, alerts and statements referenced in note 3 of this statement.
加密貨幣呈現爆發式增長。比特幣作為市值最大的虛擬貨幣，年初迄今總計飆升逾1000%。截至本文撰稿時，另一類似的加密貨幣以太坊（Ethereum）也以驚人的速度暴漲5920%。相比之下，標普500指數的創紀錄最高漲幅也不過是17%。即使負面消息瀰漫市場，如政府禁止首次加密貨幣發行（ICO）活動，也未能阻止其飆漲腳步。不過，加密貨幣在可公開交易的資產中波動性也最大，例如比特幣在9月一度下跌31%，11月又下挫10%，但隨後僅在幾天內就收復失地並進一步上漲。
這種如火如荼的漲勢尚未有終結的跡象，大家不禁懷疑，「加密貨幣是真正的貨幣還是投機泡沫？」加密貨幣確實具有泡沫的特徵──泡沫往往伴隨某種新模式出現，而加密貨幣正是源自創新科技，其價值在短短兩年內暴漲數十倍，但在現實世界中的用途卻極為有限。儘管比特幣可能不會成為主流貨幣，但其所依託的區塊鏈技術則有望在未來幾年推動關鍵領域的創新，從而為世界帶來改變。
加密貨幣採用數碼化的代碼指令集（Coded script）來試圖複製現今使用的政府貨幣。比特幣最早於2009年初推出，目前全球已有上千種數碼貨幣，總價值超過3000億美元。加密貨幣的骨幹網絡由「礦機」組成，即單獨或聯合使用高效率的電腦網絡來解出複雜的數學序列，以換取交易手續費收入，在某些情況下，也交換新創造的加密貨幣。
至於加密貨幣的支持者，往往將去中央化（Decentralized）的特質視為最大的優勢。加密貨幣的價值取決於供求關係而不是央行，因此繞過了政府的監管。同時，借助區塊鏈技術的公開數碼化賬簿（Digital ledger）來追蹤支付流程，使得加密貨幣的交易成本較低且更加安全，在多數情況下還可保持匿名。然而，這也使加密貨幣成為不法分子進行犯罪活動的理想工具，如用於洗黑錢和逃稅。
儘管加密貨幣作為一種數碼化資產在全球掀起一波又一波熱潮，但其可能永遠無法成為主流交易貨幣。限制其廣泛普及的一個巨大障礙是，政府不太可能允許加密貨幣用於納稅──世界上最重要的經濟活動，而這正是政府支持的貨幣所具有的最大優勢。即使人們願意使用比特幣，但這會導致滙率風險。因此，公司將繼續使用法定貨幣來支付員工薪資和各項開支，在已開發經濟體中平均人工成本佔總成本的70%。當然，政府也傾向於使用他們可以控制的幣種來發行債務。
投機行為助長泡沫膨脹
此外，如果沒有央行確保貨幣的供求平衡，那麼加密貨幣就幾乎不具備儲藏價值的功能。由於加密貨幣的供應具有不確定性且無法隨時調整，而需求是有限的，因此貨幣價格容易出現大幅波動，很難界定加密貨幣真正的內在價值。
泡沫的形成和爆破有幾個關鍵因素。泡沫幾乎總是伴隨某種新模式出現。如二十一世紀初投資者對互聯網熱潮的長期回報寄予厚望，但互聯網無處不在的願景至今還遠未實現。對未來的熱切期望與實質回報之間存在延遲與落差，是泡沫的重要特徵之一。
投機型買家的湧入是另一個重要因素。在泡沫的後期階段，除了對資產實質價值抱有信心的長線投資者以外，還有諸多尋求短期回報的投機者。後者的湧入導致泡沫進一步膨脹，而這部分資金的撤離往往會導致泡沫爆破。
最近數月，加密貨幣價格的大幅飆升具有諸多資產泡沫的特徵，主要表現為不被主流市場所接受，以及市場以投機型買家居多等。因此，投資者對加密貨幣市場應保持極度謹慎，高額回報的誘惑將伴隨巨大的波動與風險。
區塊鏈技術方興未艾
儘管如此，我們認為加密貨幣所依託的區塊鏈技術蘊藏着振奮人心的機遇，可能會對金融、製造業、醫療保健和公用事業等領域產生重大的革命性影響。我們估計到2027年，區塊鏈技術有望為全球經濟貢獻3000億至4000億美元的價值。
區塊鏈本質上是一種分布式數據庫，可以共享並實時核對。在傳統數據庫中，只有受信任方才擁有完整的權限，而區塊鏈系統中，每個用戶都擁有一份數據庫副本，而且交易必須由用戶批准。這種架構降低了成本（單個用戶毋須依靠中央對手方或中介機構來進行交易），並提高安全性和穩定性（中央對手方不受網絡攻擊或故障的影響）。
就像互聯網透過電子郵件、電子商務和智能手機應用程式改變了我們的生活一樣，我們相信區塊鏈也可以透過分布式記賬、智能合約、代幣和身份管理等方式，為未來的科技基礎設施提供動力。新興市場有望成為主要受惠者，因區塊鏈有助於建立「信任」的基石，帶動各國在數碼化進程中實現跨越式發展。
新加坡等國已開始引入區塊鏈技術，並在多個領域探索其潛在應用。
簡言之，加密貨幣的蓬勃發展很可能是一個投機泡沫，並將在某個時點爆破。然而，其所依託的區塊鏈技術則方興未艾。隨着這種技術的成熟，它將日益吸引大型企業和政府的大量投資。投資者應該把握這一趨勢，在全球科技推動者（technology enablers）以及率先採用這些技術的成功企業間進行布局。
作者為瑞銀財富管理投資總監辦公室亞太區主管，為《信報》/信網撰文，分享市場觀點及投資策略。
OEM挑戰品牌市場
傳統的美國消費品公司正遭遇猛烈的側風。雖然我們預計未來幾年裏消費支出和收入增長不會大幅下跌，主要原因在於家庭資產負債表與十年前相比負債更少、槓桿更低，但也很難找到強勢加速的理由。2010年至2015年失業率呈自由落體狀態時是做多美國消費品的時機。最好的情況下，失業率將延續橫擺趨勢，保持稍高於4%的水平，與消費支出增長率相若，每年的名義增速為3.5%左右。
除了步入衰老周期外，「品牌」美國消費品公司正面臨來自「貼牌」商品日益激烈的競爭。從資本主義開始以來，我們一直都在為品牌支付高出其固有成本的價格，因為昂貴的品牌是品質的代名詞。價格溢價中有很大一部分反映的是激進的廣告、不菲的分銷、鎖在實體店裏的昂貴庫存以及高昂的額外加價。但是互聯網的發展已經足以使優質貼牌產品能夠挑戰品牌市場。如今在網購平台的幫助下，數百萬小型網絡賣家可以借助社交媒體的營銷渠道銷售數碼貼牌產品而獲得進入美國消費市場的寶貴機會。
客戶評價系統博口碑
較低的運營成本使得數碼貼牌產品賣家能夠以大幅低於品牌產品的價格銷售。同樣重要的是，客戶評價系統的使用令貼牌產品能夠贏取口碑。許多傳統的美國消費品品牌公司的利潤率因此而被壓縮。市場業已反映出這一點，我們預計未來幾年裏這些因素將會強化。需要澄清的是，我們仍然預計顛覆者公司存在極具吸引力的機會，但是它們並沒有很好地反映在傳統的上市股票分類之中，如日用消費品和非必需消費品。
市場也在反映中國消費品行業的突出表現。過去美國消費品就是世界消費品。今天的局面已經扭轉。中國經濟從出口拉動型向消費拉動型增長轉型，雖然過程一波三折（尤其是2015年，當時中國股市經歷了繁榮與蕭條交替的零售泡沫，資本外流壓力因人民幣滙率高估而加劇），但是現在表現得愈來愈明顯了。無可否認，我們仍然認為與固定投資相關的中國舊經濟存在嚴重的信貸問題。但是今年年初我們就主張可靠的資本管控將為中國贏得調整經濟平衡所需的時間。近期全球貿易的改善以及工業大宗商品價格上行壓力重現也助了一臂之力。
作者為摩根大通私人銀行北亞區投資管理主管
142 bloomca 8 hrs 99
Fashioning a noose from a scarf, 14-year-old Naika Venant ignored the pleas of Facebook Live viewers as she wrapped the makeshift hanging device from a shower rod, ending her own life. When the stream ended just over an hour later, all that remained was a lifeless body police found in the bathroom just feet from her sleeping foster parents.
Venant’s story is tragic, as are those of Ayhan Uzun, Katelyn Nicole Davis, Frederick Jay Bowdy, and countless others who attempted, or successfully committed suicide in front of a live audience.
Facebook denies any culpability. The social network promises it’s taking the situation seriously and pledges to hire more people. It’s also deploying AI created to seek out signs of dangerous behavior. Through technology or perhaps sheer force of will, Facebook plans to scour the platform’s dark corners — places known to house communities of pedophiles, rapists, and terrorists — in an attempt to prevent future loss of life.
In the mean time, families of the deceased would undoubtedly settle for eradicating the evidence of these macabre videos that still pop up from time to time, months later.
As with all suicides, extenuating circumstances are often at play. Mental illness, significant loss, or abuse are common themes that drive otherwise happy people to do the unthinkable. Facebook, to be clear, isn’t responsible for an individual in need of help that decides to take her own life.
But it’s certainly not helping.
Minutes after announcing a new app for children, you could feel the collective ire of the internet. Messenger Kids, set to debut December 11, is a stripped version of Facebook’s primary chat app. Unlike the version adults use, this one is built for those 13-and-under, kids who can’t, legally-speaking, create their own accounts.
At its surface, the app is innocent enough. Kids can send photos, videos, and instant messages (presumably) to other kids on the network. They can draw on their creations, add stickers, and enjoy most of what they’re already doing (illegally) on apps like Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram — all of which have explicit language prohibiting children under 13 from using them.
Language though, offers deniability.
Banning children under 13 from Facebook isn’t an attempt at taking the moral high ground. According to the Children’s Online Protection Act (COPPA), any website collecting information about its users is prohibited to do so with kids 13 and younger.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg, for what it’s worth, has continually spoken out against this sort of regulation. He once told CNN that “[dropping the minimum age] is a fight we’ll take on at some point.”
He later added:
My philosophy is that for education you need to start at a really, really young age. Because of the restrictions we haven’t even begun this learning process. If they’re lifted then we’d start to learn what works. We’d take a lot of precautions to make sure that [younger children] are safe.
You don’t have to be a cynic to realize Zuckerberg isn’t a great choice to babysit these kids.
While Facebook has cemented itself as a digital titan in our current ecosystem, the future looks to be a very different place. For all the data Facebook collects on its users, there’s only one metric that matters to the continued viability of the world’s largest social network: its inability to attract teens.
While Blockbuster, Borders, and other mega companies once scoffed at those who foretold of their demise, Facebook is facing its uncertain future head on. It knows that without an influx of young users, its prospects for the future are rather bleak.
By indoctrinating those under 13 into the Facebook ecosystem through use of its new app, the social network hopes to groom the next generation.
We’ve seen this before, but this time its worse.
Taking a page from the playbook of beer and cigarette companies in the 80s and 90s, Facebook’s hope is that attracting kids will lead to brand loyalty as they mature. Or, perhaps it doesn’t care. Advertising to children is big business on its own, but the move pays double if it can create the sort of loyalty that keeps them around into adulthood.
Joe Camel, the illustrated spokesperson for Camel cigarettes reigned supreme for nearly a decade before legislators ultimately decided the cartoon nature of these, and other advertisements, constituted advertising a dangerous product to children.
The Camel wasn’t alone. Spuds MacKenzie started the child advertising debate almost a decade prior. Spuds, Budweiser’s bull terrier mascot, was retired in 1989 due to pressure from The Center for Science in the Public Interest, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and Sen. Strom Thurmond. The dog was later replaced with a trio of talking frogs, which met with the same fate. They, interestingly enough, were replaced with three lizards: because frogs are for children and lizards are for adults, obviously.
But while its motivations are obvious, Facebook’s newfound obsession with attracting an ever-younger audience is disturbing in ways that cigarette and beer companies couldn’t have even begun to understand. Rather than vying for transactional value, such as the purchase of Budweiser at the local grocery store or cigarettes at the bodega, Facebook isn’t attempting to sell your kids a dangerous thing; It’s attempting to sell them all the dangerous things, including the platform itself.
To detail all of Facebook’s criticisms, one would need a book deal and a few hundred blank pages. For the sake of brevity, we’re just going deal in what’s relevant when trying to understand why your children (and their data) will never be safe in the hands of Uncle Zuck.
After all, you can’t talk about Facebook without first mentioning the blatant disregard for its users. As the saying goes, “If you’re not paying for it, you’re not the customer; you’re the product.”
It may seem like a worthy trade: we suffer through a few ads to stay connected with family, watch viral videos, scope the latest memes, and rant about the customer service at that burrito joint around the corner. Advertisers get value from the network’s two-plus billion users while Facebook gets to keep the lights on and outfit Zuck in a never-ending supply of gray t-shirts. Facebook’s ad business isn’t appealing because of the size of its colossal userbase, but what the network knows about each of them — information it shares with those who purchase ads.
And, to put it mildly, Facebook knows a lot.
Even this, in and of itself, isn’t that bad. We willfully hand over this information; Zuckerberg just had the foresight to collect it and bundle it in a package advertisers were willing to spend money on.
Where the company runs foul is in how it uses this data.
There’s fake news. That’s an obvious place to start. While Facebook isn’t creating the news, it’s reaching those most vulnerable to it by tapping the insights afforded to those pedaling in this kind of garbage. It’s creating a new generation of non-thinkers, those who are significantly more likely to share a status update they agree with rather than one rooted in truth.
Or there’s a ProPublica report accusing Facebook of allowing discriminatory housing ads. After attempting to buy dozens of rental housing ads on the network, ProPublica asked that they not be shown to “African Americans, mothers of high school kids, people interested in wheelchair ramps, Jews, expats from Argentina, and Spanish speakers.”
All but one of the ads were approved within minutes. The one that wasn’t approved immediately sought to block the ads from those “interested in Islam, Sunni Islam, and Shia Islam.” That ad took 22 minutes to approve.
We raised similar questions with this practice ourselves, questioning the morality of displaying different versions of the “Straight Outta Compton” trailer to audiences of different races and ethnicities.
Worse, it’s still going on.
And then there’s arguably the most egregious thing Facebook has ever done with our data.
In a now infamous 2014 emotional manipulation study, the Zuckerberg brain trust set out to see if it could manipulate users by carefully determining what to place in their Newsfeed. Titled “Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks,” the study never asked for the consent of the more than 600,000 users whose moods it attempted to alter (both positively and negatively) by controlling what they were allowed to see while logged in.
Presumably, this isn’t the sort of information you’d willingly hand over about your kids.
Humans, being social beings, thrive when they have strong, positive relationships with others. The idea that Facebook can connect us with more people, therefore increasing our feelings of inter-connectivity and thus producing happier humans is one way of looking at it. On paper, it checks all the boxes.
In practice, nothing could be further from the truth.
Research shows Facebook may have a detrimental value to human existence. It detracts from face-to-face relationships, increases sedentary behavior, erodes self-esteem, and could compound the affects of addiction. It creates feelings of envy, increased instances of stalking, divorce, and depression, and has a negative impact on both sleep and academic performance in students.
According to Harvard Business Review, speaking on the results of a Harvard study:
Overall, our results showed that, while real-world social networks were positively associated with overall well-being, the use of Facebook was negatively associated with overall well-being. These results were particularly strong for mental health; most measures of Facebook use in one year predicted a decrease in mental health in a later year. We found consistently that both liking others’ content and clicking links significantly predicted a subsequent reduction in self-reported physical health, mental health, and life satisfaction.
Facebook isn’t an inherently evil company — at least we hope it isn’t. But playing fast and loose with its users’ mental health has severe consequences, consequences Facebook doesn’t seem to consider when finding ways to keep us engaged, mental health be damned.
Like all social networks, the goal is to keep users on the site and digging through content. The longer they keep us on the site (or app) the more ads they can force feed using intelligence we’re willfully giving away while consuming saidcontent. In this never-ending feedback loop social networks use gathered intelligence and industry insight to design platforms in a way that exploit the mind’s vulnerabilities.
Social networks are actively exploiting our weaknesses as a profit model meant to draw users ever-deeper into an ecosystem that’s slowly killing them — or at least killing their chance at happiness.
Tristan Harris, a Design Ethicist at Google, explains that this is exactly the type of exploits magicians use to delight an audience. They look for “blind spots, edges, vulnerabilities and limits of people’s perception so they can influence what people do without them even realizing it.”
Harris says:
Once you know how to push people’s buttons, you can play them like a piano … This is exactly what magicians do. They give people the illusion of free choice while architecting the menu so that they win, no matter what you choose.
I can’t emphasize enough how deep this insight is.
Put simply, nothing on Facebook happens by accident. From the way menu systems are laid out to the illusion of choice when tagging friends in photos, nothing happens by chance.
You may believe these are conscious decisions. You control how often you pick up your phone (about 150 times a day, according to this study), and you may convince yourself that it’s a habit bred of boredom or curiosity. The truth is much darker than that. You’re an unwitting pawn in a game played between Facebook and its advertisers. As Harris says, you have a slot machine in your pocket waiting to reward each “spin” with subtle rewards. Only these rewards aren’t monetary, derived of physical pleasure, or chemical substances — although they reward your brain’s pleasure centers much in the same way.
As online babysitters go, Facebook is a pretty terrible one, all things considered. Yet thousands, perhaps millions, of parents willfully allow their child access to the social network even though the terms of service expressly prohibits lying about age to create an account.
A 2011 study detailed that 76 percent of the parents surveyed (of 1,007 households) allowed their children to create an account while younger than 13. Of them, 53 percent said they were aware Facebook had a minimum sign-up age and 35 percent believed the minimum age to be merely a suggestion. This raises real questions about the shortcomings of federal law, but also whether social networks themselves should shoulder more of the blame for not creating this sort of awareness — or doing more to actively enforce their own rules.
Maybe it doesn’t matter though. If Messenger Kids is any indication, the social network has plans for your children that disregard parental consent entirely.
And for a social network that’s proven to be a destructive force for adults, it’s hard to understand how we aren’t scrutinizing the decision to allow children to join before they fully understand what’s at stake. If Facebook and social media are responsible for our growing discontentment, imagine the consequences for a generation that never knew a world without it.
Read next: Apple claims its data-gathering method doesn't invade your privacy -- much
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1015 fivesigma 14 hrs 203
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美國芝加哥期權交易所（CBOE）率先推出比特幣（bitcoin）期貨，於美國東岸時間周日晚上6點（香港時間周一早上7點）正式開始交易，意味這個近期炙手可熱的虛擬貨幣終於打入主流投資產品行列。
大行抱觀望態度
部分市場人士對終於有一個受監管的渠道交易比特幣感到興奮，但很多人仍然存疑，尤其是其大起大落的價格，加上虛擬貨幣容易被人用來進行詐騙，也容易被黑客盜取，不少投資者仍抱觀望態度，包括主要證交所和華爾街大行。《金融時報》上周五報道，摩根大通和花旗暫時不會為客戶結算比特幣交易，不過高盛上周四表示會為部分客戶進行結算。
比特幣價格今年升了超過1500%， 其中85%升幅是在過去兩周發生，最高曾穿19000美元，主要是受期貨面世的憧憬推動，不過近幾天波動得異常厲害，上周五大跌25%後，其後兩天又升了40%，周日在14000美元附近徘徊。
北角舊皇都戲院因獨特的飛拱樓頂設計，去年獲古物諮詢委員會通過由三級歷史建築物「升呢」至一級。今天正是皇都戲院開幕65周年的「生日」，但戲院及其後座的皇都戲院大廈近八成業權已被收購，若一旦被「強拍」，這座富有特色兼滿載集體回憶的建築恐難逃拆卸命運。有關注團體向發展商提出三贏方案，認為可保住戲院之餘亦無損發展利潤。
為爭取保留皇都戲院，本地文化旅遊企業「活現香港」請來地產分析師麥志樑解構重建與不重建的財務估算，並邀多名年輕建築師為保育皇都戲院獻計。
麥志樑認為，拆了皇都戲院就算用盡地盤面積，僅能建一個高15米平台，及兩座各高21層的雙子塔，因毗鄰戲院的斜後方、即熙和街內有一些三層高舊樓，按政府2008年起訂下的規劃要求，重建需預留一條至少闊10米的通風廊，而該地段的樓宇高度限制為110米。
慳億元成本 月租多20萬
麥續說，保留皇都戲院反對發展商有「着數」，因戲院本身僅16米高，闊度比要求的通風廊多一倍，根本已毋須另預留通風廊面積已可滿足規劃要求，而發展商可建的總樓面面積亦不會減少，與建商業用途的雙子塔方案同樣有近51.6萬方呎，且樓高可達22層，月租收入估計有1990萬元，較雙子塔更會多20萬元；最大優勢是整項建築成本約20億元，比雙子塔方案接近21億元，節省近1億元。
多名年輕建築師為保育皇都戲院提供了4個建議方案。建築師行ARCHITECUTRE COMMONS建議為戲院加入綠化元素，可養魚也可耕作，將港島東區這歷史地標建築變身「城巿耕作」；而曾參與荔枝角「雷春生」保育項目的「創智建築師有限公司」提交兩個方案，包括將戲院變成競技場，利用戲院的高樓底條件，變身做攀石場和空中瑜伽等活動，另一方案則是引入丹麥的「真人圖書館」概念，邀請長者分享過往經歷，由他們的口中細說歷史。
活現香港創辦人陳智遠表示，以上方案都是以社區需要進行設計，期望發展商可作參考。
大學時代，筆者在英國倫敦大學倫敦經濟政治學院進修經濟學學士及碩士課程，同學們必修的一課，就是深入了解歷史上經濟三大泡沫，分別是鬱金香泡沫、南海泡沫及密西西比泡沫。現在，筆者一提到鬱金香泡沫，朋友們就會想到當今的比特幣狂潮。
鬱金香與比特幣兩者都不是貨幣，都不完全具備貨幣的三大基礎功能：交易媒介、儲存財富，以及計價單位。不過，若有投資者願意進行買賣，原則上可成為通行投資產品。若然這種投資產品進一步證券化，衍生出期貨合約，一步步全面金融化，認受性將加強。
目前，環球交易和投資需求拉動了虛擬貨幣的價值。不過，比特幣波動性太強，難以作為貨幣，金融證券化為比特幣未來生存之道。相比鬱金香，比特幣的實用價值是一個問號。鬱金香泡沫爆破後，投資者至少可以等鬱金香開花，觀賞一下，但虛擬貨幣爆破後，就等於零。
波動性超高 今年漲逾十倍
比特幣價格上周急劇波動，參考美國主流比特幣交易平台報價，在12月8日凌晨一度突破19000美元，一幣比一卡鑽石更昂貴。在2013年底，內地大型比特幣交易平台陸續成立，當時比特幣的報價還不到1000元人民幣。
單是今年，比特幣價格飆漲了十幾倍，從年初的不到1000美元到現在過萬美元。不過，在前年的2015年，比特幣才經歷了漫長的熊市，不少玩家離場，也有不少人挖礦虧損離場。若更長線看，2010年至2011年比特幣價格下跌93%，2013至2015年比特幣價格則跌84%。
目前內地炒幣的投資者估計有幾百萬人，大部分都是專業人士，大致可以分為比特幣交易平台工作人員和用戶、幾大生產比特幣礦池的礦工、專注區塊鏈技術研發和運用的專業人士，關注比特幣的垂直媒體及社交圈等。非專業層面的投資者則是龍蛇混雜，不少騙徒借比特幣之名搞傳銷及詐騙。在中央政府加強監管後，很多人都退出了。
今年9月份，中國人民銀行要求境內比特幣交易所制定無風險清退方案，9月底前關停。這對內地三大比特幣交易平台衝擊巨大，三大交易平台的交易量曾經佔據內地比特幣交易平台規模的60%，而內地交易所買賣的比特幣佔全球交易規模的30%。
期貨將登場 交易正規化
觀察內地互聯網金融安全技術專家委員會監測的數據，內地比特幣交易平台（場內交易）關停之後，場外交易平台快速上線。相關交易平台網站主要分布在香港、美國及日本等地，在內地禁止交易平台後，一些小用戶就進不來，只留下了專業人士，很多平台都轉移到海外。現在內地交易比特幣主要通過場外市場，或者朋友之間協商議價，甚至找礦工直接買。
現在挖礦的難度愈來愈大，比特幣創始人中本聰最早用個人電腦就可以挖比特幣，最初他挖出來的100萬個比特幣據稱尚在賬戶裏沒交易過。現在挖比特幣對設備的要求高了很多，平均每挖一個比特幣的成本在2萬元人民幣左右，包括機器的投入、場地費用及電費等。
面對比特幣狂潮，看似有正規化的情況，美國芝加哥商品交易所（下稱芝加哥交易所）即將於12月18日正式推出比特幣期貨BTC。參考相關談判報告，芝加哥交易所與美國商品期貨委員會（CFTC）經歷了漫長、深入的研究之後才決定推出比特幣期貨。大家也知道比特幣是一個充滿未知、不斷發展的新興市場，需要和美國的監管機構和投資者緊密合作才能推動這個市場的發展。期貨運作初期，比特幣期貨交易將設有多重限制，一手合約5個比特幣，要求35%的保證金，更限制最高的日內交易區間。
比特幣期貨的推出，可以讓更多人參與，更有制度地反映比特幣價格，並取得「合理區間」。目前，在芝加哥交易所的所有產品中，價格波動最大的是天然氣。天然氣的供應在短期內不會因為價格的上漲而增加，但長期來看，供應會慢慢增多。不過，比特幣的價格漲跌，短期和長期內都不會影響供應，可謂完美的金融工具，價格波動將會更大。與此同時，內地市場因受限制，投資者失去了對比特幣定價的直接話語權，在未來這場環球博弈中，甚有可能將成為環球金融大鱷的美點。
作者為資深投資銀行家