X Gon' Take It From Ya: Company formerly known as Twitter commandeers @x username

Wednesday, July 26, 2023

Today’s top story answered our question from yesterday about the fate of the person who was using the Twitter @x handle. I’m not going to ruin the surprise, but if you’ve been following our Twitter coverage this year, chances are you won’t be shocked about what actually happened. Read all about it.

Next, look who’s launching credit cards. Swiggy, India’s food delivery giant, now has one, as does Shopify, which is expanding farther into fintech.

Over at Stability AI, the company continues to refine its generative AI models in the face of increasing competition — and ethical challenges. Learn about its latest image-generating model.

Meanwhile, it looks like another cybersecurity company is poised to be acquired. Find out who.

And put your game face on because Mirrorscape’s new AR tabletop platform could enhance your D&D campaign. Read more.

Image Credits: Guido Rosa

From the “pod” files

In today’s Equity podcast, Alex sat down with Washington Post columnist Taylor Lorenz to chat about her upcoming book, “Extremely Online,” on the history of online platforms and the rise of creators. They got into why online work has long been considered “a sideshow,” the rise and fall of Vine, and the progression of new formats and platforms. Listen here.

How to prevent an ‘operational catastrophe’

Julia Ivzhenko, head of operations at Futurra, launched a new edtech app with a 20-person team that answered students’ questions in real time.

Network effects drew in a growing stream of new users, but “we concentrated on scaling and didn’t have time to think if the resources of our team were enough to keep going with such speed,” she writes in TC+.

“To prevent the approaching catastrophe,” she developed a five-step plan (shared in the article) that analyzed key processes and highlighted bottlenecks that ultimately generated “a timeline for optimization.”

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