Amazon reveals ‘confidential’ podcast plan in mass email; shows must agree not to disparage Amazon

BigStock Photo / KFifa

Amazon Music and the tech giant’s Audible subsidiary plan to offer podcasts from third-party content providers directly on their platforms, significantly expanding their audio offerings and going head-to-head with Apple, Google, Spotify and others major podcast distribution platforms.

But first, they’ve got a PR mess to deal with.

The company disclosed the plans on Monday in a mass email to podcast content producers, including journalists and media organizations that cover Amazon, declaring that the information about its podcast plans were “confidential” without following the standard practice of first securing their agreement to treat the message as confidential.

This information, of course, was promptly tweeted and reported publicly — quickly making it to the home page of Techmeme, the widely followed tech news aggregation site.

Then came the real mess. Podcasters who clicked through to submit their shows discovered this clause in the content license agreement that’s a requirement to participate in the program: “Your Content may not (a) include advertising or messages that disparage or are directed against Amazon or any Service; …”

That’s a non-starter for many podcast hosts, particularly those that comment regularly on the tech giant.

That’s a standard flub, but here’s where it really goes off the rails: the terms and conditions specify that podcasts will not disparage @Amazon in any way.

I’m a freaking entertainment podcast and I can’t consent to that.

How can any actual news podcast?! pic.twitter.com/QlE23KdAv7

— HydroxyCoreyQuinn (@QuinnyPig) August 11, 2020

Amazon has previously offered podcasts on its Echo speakers via the TuneIn music service. The reach of Alexa-enabled devices and the Amazon Music service could be a big draw for many podcasters. The message notes that the shows would be available via services including Amazon Music’s free tier, reaching more than 55 million customers.

Audible, best known for its audio books, has been expanding in recent years to include a variety of episodic shows and other varieties of audio content.

GeekWire was among the podcast content producers that received the message. We have not submitted our weekly GeekWire Podcast for inclusion, or agreed to the license terms, and we did not agree to treat the information in the email confidentially before receiving it.

We’ve contacted Amazon and Audible seeking comment for this story, and haven’t yet heard back.

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Filing shows where Microsoft is really making its money; reveals M&A spending; adds Netflix, Hulu, Tencent to list of rivals

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has led a resurgence in the company’s business. (GeekWire File Photo / Kevin Lisota)

Microsoft may be toying with the idea of buying Tik-Tok, but more than ever, its bread-and-butter is basic cloud services and server software for businesses.

Speaking of M&A, Microsoft was relatively active on the acquisition front but also pretty thrifty with its spending in its recently completed fiscal year.

The company’s list of officially recognized competitors is growing, with the addition of Netflix, Hulu and Tencent for the first time.

And Microsoft now sees restrictions on marketplaces operated by competitors (i.e., Apple’s App Store) as a material risk to its business.

Those are some of our takeaways from the Redmond company’s new Form 10-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, an annual treasure trove of tidbits about the tech giant. In addition to reading the latest filing, we used the Compare Documents feature in Microsoft Word to help us spot significant changes since last year’s filing.

The biggest additions this year are long passages about COVID-19 and the company’s response to the pandemic, plus its racial justice, environmental sustainability and digital skills initiatives, largely reiterating Microsoft’s past public statements and announcements on each of those fronts.

Most notable on the business front is a section that breaks down Microsoft’s revenue into categories associated with its traditional product lines: Office, Windows, Xbox, etc. This is in contrast with the company’s quarterly financial reports. Those use a broad-based and somewhat ambiguous divisional structure — Productivity and Business Processes, Intelligent Cloud, and More Personal Computing — that mix different businesses and products in such a way that it’s not always easy to discern clear trends by product line.

The alternative categories in the 10-K filing show a clear trend: Microsoft’s back-end server products and cloud services are booming. Revenue grew by nearly 27% to $41.4 billion in the product category of Server and Cloud Services in the fiscal year ended June 30.

Office and Cloud Services revenue was the second-fastest growing category, at 11%, reaching $35.3 billion in revenue for the year. Windows grew by 9% to $22.3 billion.

Microsoft made 15 acquisitions for a total amount of $2.4 billion in its 2020 fiscal year, according to the filing. That was down from 20 acquisitions for a total of $9 billion the year before, which included the $7.5 billion acquisition of GitHub.

The company’s biggest acquisition on record was its $26.2 billion purchase of LinkedIn in December 2016, in Microsoft’s 2017 fiscal year.

Microsoft’s official list of rivals is growing. It’s always interesting to see which competitors the company considers worthy of mentioning in the filing, as an indication of where its business is headed. Two years ago, it was Slack. This year, it’s Netflix, Hulu and Tencent.

Here’s how the section on the company’s gaming and entertainment competition now reads with those additions.

Xbox Live and our cloud gaming services face competition from various online gaming ecosystems and game streaming services, including those operated by Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Tencent. We also compete with other providers of entertainment services such as Netflix and Hulu. Our gaming platform competes with console platforms from Nintendo and Sony, both of which have a large, established base of customers. We believe our gaming platform is effectively positioned against, and uniquely differentiated from, competitive products and services based on significant innovation in hardware architecture, user interface, developer tools, online gaming and entertainment services, and continued strong exclusive content from our own first-party game franchises as well as other digital content offerings.

Interesting to see the company’s main console rivals, Nintendo and Sony, practically relegated to afterthoughts. This is notable in part as an indication that Microsoft continues to see Xbox as a broader entertainment platform, with the release of the Xbox Series X console coming up later this year.

And finally, the filing reflects the growing tension between Microsoft and competitors that operate online marketplaces in which the company wants to participate.

This section is entirely new: “Competitors’ rules governing their content and applications marketplaces may restrict our ability to distribute products and services through them in accordance with our technical and business model objectives.”

Microsoft is at odds with Apple over App Store restrictions that Microsoft says restrict its ability to offer its xCloud gaming service on iOS.

Those are our main takeaways. If you’re up for some light reading, here’s the full filing. Let us know if you spot anything notable that we missed.

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Most Seattle tech companies are actively hiring despite the pandemic, analysis shows

Data from the Seattle Startup Hiring Tracker shows that about 42% of Seattle tech companies increased headcount month-over-month; 35% remained stable; and 23% decreased. (Image via Adam Shoenfeld)

Even with the ongoing economic and health crisis, a majority of Seattle’s tech companies are still hiring.

Adam Schoenfeld.

That’s one takeaway from the Seattle Startup Hiring Tracker, a new list that longtime entrepreneur Adam Schoenfeld recently launched.

Schoenfeld, who co-founded Simply Measured and is now VP of strategy at Drift, was looking for ways to help the local startup community as the pandemic changed how we interact with each other. Questions about hiring and culture kept coming up on his podcast, so he thought a hiring tracker might come in handy, particularly now.

The tracker pulls data from various online sources (company websites, job boards, LinkedIn, etc.) and includes tech-oriented companies headquartered in the Seattle area or with core operations in the city. It’s not a job board and companies don’t pay to be listed.

The latest update published today shows 67% of the 348 companies tracked with open roles, and 2,620 total roles across the region. About 42% of the companies increased headcount month-over-month; 35% remained stable; and 23% decreased.

The list does not include tech juggernauts Microsoft (1,394 open jobs) and Amazon (7,506 open jobs).

Schoenfeld noted that there are differences in job openings based on the stage of the company. For example, the rate of hiring is slower at early-stage startups. About a third of Seattle tech companies with less than 100 employees increased headcount last month.

“As a job seeker in the startup market, you’ll see a lot of opportunities listed, but you may need some patience in the current environment,” Schoenfeld said.

But there are still startups such as Ally, which just won Startup of the Year at the GeekWire Awards, and others including DemandStar, Shelf Engine, OctoML, Cabana, and Athira Pharma that are hiring rapidly.

And many of the more well-known, well-established companies “appear unfazed by the pandemic,” Schoenfeld said.

“It’s hard to know if they are winners *because* of the pandemic or if the winners just continue winning *despite* the pandemic,” he noted. “The cohort of public companies like Redfin, Avalara, and Smartsheet continue to grow fast and have dozens of open roles. It’s the same story with private unicorns like OfferUp, Remitly, Outreach, Icertis, Convoy, and Auth0.”

OfferUp, Remitly, Outreach, and Auth0 all landed hefty investment rounds this year. Even with the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, venture capitalists are pouring money into Pacific Northwest tech companies at unprecedented levels, significantly outpacing the number of deals and dollars invested in the first half of 2018 and 2019, according to a recent GeekWire analysis.

The hiring tracker data aligns with GeekWire’s previous reporting in May when we highlighted various Seattle-area startups and larger companies that were hiring despite widespread layoffs across the industry. Nearly 50,000 U.S. tech workers have been laid off since March 11, according to the Layoffs.fyi tracker, as companies cut costs to make up for slowing revenue amid the pandemic.

It also matches with anecdotal feedback from a recent survey of Seattle-area chief financial officers. A majority of the execs surveyed expect their businesses to fully recover from the downturn after experiencing temporary setbacks and uncertainty at the beginning of the pandemic.

Seattle may be an outlier compared to the rest of the country. Tech job postings on Indeed fared better than overall postings in April and May, but are now performing worse, down 36% below last year’s level during the week of July 24. Indeed also noted a wider difference in overall postings vs. tech roles in non-tech hubs, as “tech companies may be pushing for centralization in major hubs rather than dispersion.”

More from Indeed’s blog post:

“With fewer tech job postings and increased job seeker interest, in the field, competition for sector jobs is heating up. Companies are back in the driver’s seat, which could reduce tech worker bargaining power. In addition, benefits like unlimited time off and well-stocked snack bars could go on the chopping block. At the same time though, substantial geographic diversification of the tech workforce could occur if the sector widely adopts permanent remote work. Unless that happens, jobs may continue to concentrate in the major tech hubs, tightening the hold of places like Silicon Valley on this strategic part of the economy.”

Glassdoor reported that tech industry job openings fell 15% from June 22 to July 6, the biggest drop of any industry. “Tech had better weathered the earlier months of the crisis, but is now experiencing a more substantial slowdown,” Glassdoor noted.

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Redfin data shows more homeowners looking to move out of Seattle and San Francisco

(Redfin Photo)

A combination of record-low mortgage rates, remote work policies, and other factors are driving homeowners in cities such as Seattle and San Francisco to look elsewhere for a new place to live.

Redfin published new data Thursday showing year-over-year increases in the number of Redfin users based in San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Denver and Boston searching for homes in other places. Overall, a record 27.4% of users were looking to move away in the second quarter.

Redfin economist Taylor Marr said the pandemic is influencing priorities and lifestyles.

“The factors driving a surge in overall homebuyer demand — low mortgage rates and changes in what people are looking for in a home—are lighting a fire in people who were already considering a move to a different area,” Marr said in a blog post. “Add in employers’ increasingly flexible remote work policies and the fact residents of many big coastal cities can’t fully enjoy their local amenities, and the people who have long wanted to live in a more affordable area or closer to family are incentivized to make the move soon.”

(Redfin Chart)

The portion of Seattle-based users searching elsewhere rose from 11.2% to 13.7% in the second quarter, the second-largest jump of the top 10 metros ranked by net outflow of users. The top destination for Seattle users was Los Angeles, Calif., while the top destination for San Francisco and Denver users was Seattle.

The median sale price for a Seattle metro area home in June was $615,000.

Redfin noted that some homebuyers are moving to vacation spots such as Palm Springs permanently as companies implement work-from-home policies amid the pandemic.

Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman predicted a “seismic demographic shift toward smaller cities” back in May when he said remote work could drive people to leave expensive tech hubs such as Seattle and San Francisco and look at places such as Boise, Idaho, or Bozeman, Mont.

Redfin pulled data from users who viewed at least 10 homes in a metro area, with those homes making up at least 80% of the user’s searches.

The Seattle-based real estate giant also published a separate report Thursday showing a “strong” U.S. housing market, with listing prices up 13% and closed sale prices up 6% during the four-week period ending July 12. Total number of homes for sale was down 28%, “further exacerbating the imbalance between supply and demand,” Redfin noted.

Data from Realtor.com shows 18 of the top 50 U.S. real estate metros returning to or passing pre-pandemic levels of market activity, The New York Times reported. Seattle was the “most-recovered market.”

Redfin last month resumed its RedfinNow home-buying business after pausing it due to the pandemic.

The Seattle real estate company reported $191 million in revenue, up 73%, in its first quarter earnings. It will publish its second quarter earnings report on July 30.

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Next-gen vaccine from UW researchers shows promise in fighting COVID-19

Deborah Fuller, left, and Jesse Erasmus are pursuing next-generation vaccines at the University of Washington. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop)

University of Washington School of Medicine researchers using a cutting-edge approach to vaccinations report that their COVID-19 vaccine is performing well in mouse and non-human primate studies.

The vaccine checks many of the most important boxes for preventing the deadly disease:

With just a single dose, the vaccine triggers a robust immune response in mice and primates called pigtail macaques. It performed well in young and old mice, suggesting it could be effective in a broad range of ages in people.The vaccine is stable at room temperature, allowing for its use in areas of the world lacking reliable refrigeration.It should be possible to quickly manufacture billions of doses.UW researchers said the vaccine should be cost effective to produce.

The Seattle-based researchers are developing a nucleic acid vaccine, and more specifically a replicating RNA vaccine. While this sort of next-generation vaccine has never been cleared for use in humans, it has multiple advantages to traditional vaccines, including being developed quickly and triggering a strong immune reaction (check out this GeekWire podcast for more on vaccine science).

“We realized that we may be on to a rapid response vaccine to the COVID-19, so we quickly accelerated that program forward,” said Deborah Fuller, a professor of microbiology and a vaccinologist. The other lead scientist on the project is Jesse Erasmus, a molecular virologist and postdoctoral fellow in Fuller’s lab.

The vaccine from UW researchers additionally contains the novel Lipid InOrganic Nanoparticle, or LION, a component designed to improve vaccine stability, delivery and immune response. LION was developed by the Seattle biotechnology company HDT Bio; Amit P. Kandhar is the lead formulation developer of LION.

The scientists reported their findings Monday in a rapid-release paper in Science Translational Medicine.

There are still some hurdles to clear, and then researchers hope to being clinical trials of the vaccine in human volunteers in the U.S., India and Brazil, said Darrick Carter, chief scientific officer at HDT Bio.

The tests in the U.S. should begin by October, if not sooner. They would be performed in Seattle with Dr. Lisa Jackson, who is also the clinical investigator for Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine.

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