Snapchat

Investors are reacting positively to my last issue of Command Line, which broke the details of Snap’s internal business goals for next year.

That’s one of the things mentioned during the ongoing testimony of former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison against her terrible ex-boyfriend, as well as the idea SBF sought to have regulators “crack down on Binance,” the competing crypto exchange that sparked the run that took FTX down.

“The [Information Commissioner’s Office’s] investigation provisionally found the risk assessment Snap conducted before it launched ‘My AI’ did not adequately assess the data protection risks posed by the generative AI technology, particularly to children,” according to the ICO’s notice.

I’m hearing that about 150 employees are being cut as part of a reorganization of Snap’s AR division. Snap’s communications team declined to comment, though I’m expecting more details to be shared tomorrow.

Snap wanted to get 4 million people subscribed to its $3.99/month service by the end of 2022. Turns out, it probably happened about 6 months later. The last milestone Snap disclosed was hitting 3 million subscribers in April.

Super apps aren’t the only tech obsession that Silicon Valley can’t let go of; I guess the artist formerly known as Facebook still has money to burn on trying to make smart glasses happen. (RIP Google Glass, Project Iris. Thoughts and prayers to Snap Spectacles.)

Previously, only brands and Snap Stars could include links in their profiles, according to TechCrunch. Instagram also recently made it easier to link out to other places, letting you add up to five links to your profile.

Snap, Inc., the company that owns Snapchat, started beta-testing a revenue-sharing program last year called Snap Stars, where it injects ads into videos and splits the revenue with its creators.

Does this episode of The Vergecast feature several of the world’s best-known rappers? That depends on how you define “feature,” which turns out to be a pretty thorny question. This episode definitely features laser bongs and Snapchat bots, though. But not blue checkmarks or Netflix DVDs. None of those anymore.

Other than the My AI chatbot launch, the most interesting thing at Snap’s Partner Summit today was definitely the AR mirrors. The company thinks you might use it in a store to try stuff on, or just goof around while you wait for your friend to check out. It all seems very early, but pretty fun.

A tidbit from the latest edition of my Command Line newsletter: Snap plans to unveil its AR-for-enterprise effort at its annual developer summit in April or possibly sooner, company sources tell me. The idea is for apparel brands to use Snap’s virtual try-on tech and 3D asset management to facilitate AR shopping on their sites.

Snap just reported its earnings for the third quarter and the numbers are mostly in line with what Wall Street was expecting. Daily users reached 363 million, a 19 percent increase that is much better than growth rates for Facebook and Twitter. Revenue only grew 6 percent to $1.13 billion and Snap remains unprofitable.