Snapchat Hires Credit Suisse Banker Who Helmed Alibaba IPO | ||
| | ||
Snapchat has hired Imran Khan, the Credit Suisse banker who led Alibaba’s IPO earlier this year, the Financial Times reports. His title will be chief strategy officer. Khan joins a bunch of senior level hires at the messaging app who might all be filed under the category "adult supervision." They include Emily White (formerly of Instagram and Facebook) as COO and Jill Hazelbaker (who did political PR for Google, New York mayor Michael Bloomberg and US Sen. John McCain). They all report to Evan Spiegel, Snapchat's 24-year-old founder and CEO. Snapchat used to stumble in terms of public relations — by ignoring hackers, for instance, and by having a public fight with a former founder. But these days the company operates in a much more slick, professional way, and Spiegel looks as if he is controlling events rather than being ambushed by them. Khan is the most interesting hire because of his IPO experience. He and Credit Suisse have led IPOs for Alibaba and King, the maker of Candy Crush Saga. We can't say that Snapchat is gearing up for an IPO, of course. But we can say that it is building a management team that is more than capable of helming a major transaction for the company, such as an acquisition or a public offering of stock. The company is already valued at $10 billion and has recently bolted on a revenue stream. It is letting companies experiment with ads and has added a mobile payments function. Universal, Macy’s, Amazon and Hollister are current clients. Snapchat is huge: BI Intelligence estimates it has 100 million monthly active users. It is second only to Facebook's Messenger in the Apple App Store, according to the Wall Street Journal. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
| |
The Best App For People Who Can't Remember Names Comes To Android | ||
| | ||
Humin is one of my favorite apps of the year, the kind of app that I show to people when they ask what's new and exciting, and today it finally arrives for Android. As someone who has trouble remembering names, Humin is perfect for me, and here's why. Humin is basically your own personal assistant who specializes in remembering all the tiny details when you meet somebody new, allowing you to later look that person up based on context search cues like "lives in Manhattan" or "emailed last week." Say I meet someone while at a bar or a party in Brooklyn and I add a new contact in Humin, adding their name and number. Those two details are all Humin needs to work its magic, as the app will also automatically record and remember a ton of other important details that make it easy to search for them later. The next time I want to look up my new friend from the bar, I can just type into Humin a clue like "met last week," "lives in Brooklyn," or "works at ______." If the person is on social media, Humin can pull details and a picture from their LinkedIn page, perhaps telling me where that person works or what school they went to. If you share a mutual friend, Humin will tell you.
Besides helping you never forget a name, Humin is also great at showing you who is around based on where you are. I live in Brooklyn, but if I'm out and about in Manhattan for the evening, when I open Humin I'll be greeted with a list of people from Manhattan instead of Brooklyn. Because of this feature, Humin is great for people who travel or have friends in multiple cities. If I'm flying home for the holidays, Humin's homescreen changes to tell me who I know in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
You can also receive calls and voicemails through Humin, which is why Humin works best if you just use it to replace both your default Phone and Contacts app. While Humin isn't a messaging app, it's designed to supplement your default messaging app by acting like a portal of sorts, creating a natural way to contact people once you've figured out who you want to reach. You can keep a favorites list of contacts for easy access, and a simple swipe on their name tile to either the left or the right will let you jump right into a phone call or text message, thankfully using your default messaging app instead of forcing you to message through Humin.
That's the best part about Humin: It's there when you need it, and supplements rather than replaces your favorite messaging app. It would be easy to include a messaging feature inside the app, but it's not necessary, and why force people to change their habits? In addition to being available for Android, Humin is also expanding into Canada and Europe. You can learn more about Humin or download the Android version right here. SEE ALSO: The Best iPhone Apps Of The Year, According To Apple Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
| |
Teen Girls Are Heartbroken After Massive YouTube Star Comes Out As Gay In A New Video | ||
| | ||
Massive YouTube star Connor Franta has chosen his favorite social-media platform to come out to his fans ... all 3.6 million of them. On Monday, Franta uploaded a video saying that he has always felt different from everyone else and has struggled with his identity. 2014, he said, was the first year he finally felt comfortable with himself. Franta is 22 years old. Here's the video: "I just want to be able to be me and not be afraid. I'm sick of censoring myself," he said in his video. "This is just one little part of who I am, and I'm not gonna let my sexuality define or confine me. It's part of me, it's not all of me." He wanted others who may be in his position to know that it would be OK to come out. "It may not seem like it right now, but you are gonna be fine," he says to his fans in his coming-out video. "I know it's scary, but don't be afraid. You are who you are, and you should love that person. I don't want anyone to have to go through 22 years of their life afraid to accept that." Many of his fans, especially the ones who are young teen girls, are saddened by the news that marriage to Franta is not in their future.
| ||
| |
Snapchat Hires Credit Suisse Banker Who Helmed Alibaba IPO | ||
| | ||
Snapchat has hired Imran Khan, the Credit Suisse banker who led Alibaba’s IPO earlier this year, the Financial Times reports. His title will be chief strategy officer. Khan joins a bunch of senior level hires at the messaging app who might all be filed under the category "adult supervision." They include Emily White (formerly of Instagram and Facebook) as COO and Jill Hazelbaker (who did political PR for Google, New York mayor Michael Bloomberg and US Sen. John McCain). They all report to Evan Spiegel, Snapchat's 24-year-old founder and CEO. Snapchat used to stumble in terms of public relations — by ignoring hackers, for instance, and by having a public fight with a former founder. But these days the company operates in a much more slick, professional way, and Spiegel looks as if he is controlling events rather than being ambushed by them. Khan is the most interesting hire because of his IPO experience. He and Credit Suisse have led IPOs for Alibaba and King, the maker of Candy Crush Saga.
The company is already valued at $10 billion and has recently bolted on a revenue stream. It is letting companies experiment with ads and has added a mobile payments function. Universal, Macy’s, Amazon and Hollister are current clients. Snapchat is huge: BI Intelligence estimates it has 100 million monthly active users. It is second only to Facebook's Messenger in the Apple App Store, according to the Wall Street Journal. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
| |
We can't say that Snapchat is gearing up for an IPO, of course. But we can say that it is building a management team that is more than capable of helming a major transaction for the company, such as an acquisition or a public offering of stock. In Baghdad, US defence chief says Iraqis must win anti-IS war | ||
| | ||
Baghdad (AFP) - US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel visited Iraq Tuesday to review efforts against the Islamic State group but insisted it was up to the Iraqis themselves to win the war against the jihadists. Hagel, who is due to step down from office shortly, was to be briefed by US military commanders and hold talks with his Iraqi counterpart as well as Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi during the unannounced visit. Washington has forged an alliance of Western and Arab countries that has launched air strikes against IS after the extremist group seized swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria and declared an Islamic "caliphate". The United States will be doubling the number of its troops in Iraq helping government forces to 3,100, and on Monday the American commander of the war effort said allies were also ready to send roughly 1,500 security personnel. But, speaking to a group of US and Australian troops soon after he landed, Hagel said the outcome of the campaign would ultimately depend on the Baghdad government. "It's their country, they have to lead, they're the ones who are going to have to be responsible for end results," he said. "We can help, we can train, we can assist, we can advise -- we're doing that." The Iraqi leadership will need to build an inclusive government that wins the trust of all the country's religious and ethnic communities, he said. Support for IS has been in part fuelled by complaints from Iraq's Sunni minority of being excluded from power by the country's Shiite majority. US and allied warplanes have launched more than 1,200 air strikes against jihadists in Iraq and Syria since August 8. Washington also has about 1,500 troops in Iraq providing security for the American embassy and advising the Baghdad government's army and Kurdish forces. Last month President Barack Obama approved the deployment of another 1,500 troops to bolster the training and advising effort across the country. - IS 'on the defence' -
Hagel is on his first trip to Iraq since taking over as Pentagon chief in February 2013. It is also set to be his last visit to the country before he stands down. Hagel announced his resignation last month, rejecting accounts that he was forced out and saying it was a mutual agreement with Obama. He arrived in Iraq from Kuwait, where US Lieutenant General James Terry on Monday told reporters that members of the coalition meeting last week in the region made initial pledges that would bring "close" to 1,500 additional forces to Iraq to train and assist the country's army. Terry did not indicate which countries from the coalition would provide the security personnel or how many of them would be in uniform or otherwise. He said "the large percentage" of the personnel to be deployed would be training Iraqi troops. Terry, who oversees the war against IS, said Iraqi security forces were steadily improving but remained months away from staging large-scale offensives that could roll back the militants. "While they still have a long way to go I think they're becoming more capable every day," he said. He said that the daily air strikes had limited the fighters' mobility and disrupted sanctuaries in Syria. The militants are "on the defence, trying to hold what they had gained but still able to conduct some limited attacks out there." The general's remarks echoed comments earlier in Kuwait by Hagel, who said Iraqi government troops were increasingly taking the fight to the jihadists. Air power and other support from the US-led coalition "has in effect allowed the Iraqi security forces to take back some ground," Hagel said during a visit to a US base in Kuwait. "It's given them some new momentum, organisation, structure." Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
| |
The Best App For People Who Can't Remember Names Comes To Android | ||
| | ||
Humin is one of my favorite apps of the year, the kind of app that I show to people when they ask what's new and exciting, and today it finally arrives for Android. As someone who has trouble remembering names, Humin is perfect for me, and here's why. Humin is basically your own personal assistant who specializes in remembering all the tiny details when you meet somebody new, allowing you to later look that person up based on context search cues like "lives in Manhattan" or "emailed last week." Say I meet someone while at a bar or a party in Brooklyn and I add a new contact in Humin, adding their name and number. Those two details are all Humin needs to work its magic, as the app will also automatically record and remember a ton of other important details that make it easy to search for them later. The next time I want to look up my new friend from the bar, I can just type into Humin a clue like "met last week," "lives in Brooklyn," or "works at ______." If the person is on social media, Humin can pull details and a picture from their LinkedIn page, perhaps telling me where that person works or what school they went to. If you share a mutual friend, Humin will tell you.
Besides helping you never forget a name, Humin is also great at showing you who is around based on where you are. I live in Brooklyn, but if I'm out and about in Manhattan for the evening, when I open Humin I'll be greeted with a list of people from Manhattan instead of Brooklyn. Because of this feature, Humin is great for people who travel or have friends in multiple cities. If I'm flying home for the holidays, Humin's homescreen changes to tell me who I know in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
You can also receive calls and voicemails through Humin, which is why Humin works best if you just use it to replace both your default Phone and Contacts app. While Humin isn't a messaging app, it's designed to supplement your default messaging app by acting like a portal of sorts, creating a natural way to contact people once you've figured out who you want to reach. You can keep a favorites list of contacts for easy access, and a simple swipe on their name tile to either the left or the right will let you jump right into a phone call or text message, thankfully using your default messaging app instead of forcing you to message through Humin.
That's the best part about Humin: It's there when you need it, and supplements rather than replaces your favorite messaging app. It would be easy to include a messaging feature inside the app, but it's not necessary, and why force people to change their habits? In addition to being available for Android, Humin is also expanding into Canada and Europe. You can learn more about Humin or download the Android version right here. SEE ALSO: The Best iPhone Apps Of The Year, According To Apple Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
| |
Russia's economy to contract 0.7% in 2015: World Bank | ||
| | ||
Moscow (AFP) - The World Bank on Tuesday predicted that Russia's economy would shrink by 0.7 percent in 2015, but warned that the contraction would be worse if oil prices were to keep sliding. The World Bank said its forecast is based on a scenario of crude prices averaging at $78 in 2015. But if oil prices fell to $70, Russia's output would shrink by 1.5 percent, it said. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
| |
Chaos In The Greek Markets As Elections Are Brought Forward And A Leftist Coalition Waits In The Wings | ||
| | ||
After the announcement that Greece's presidential elections are being brought forward to December 17, stocks are sinking in Athens. Bond yields, which measure the cost of debt for the government, are spiking once again. The presidential election is conducted by Greece's legislators, not its population. But the government needs a super-majority to install a president, which it doesn't have. If it can't elect a president, that might precipitate a general election and right now the radical Coalition of the Left (Syriza) is leading the polls. The uncertainty means sovereign bond yields are breaking out of the region they've been in for the past few days, up from 7.2% to nearly 7.7%. Yields saw a recent peak just below 9% in October, when far-left anti-austerity party Syriza took a polling lead, and the government was planning to exit its bailout early. Equities on the Athens stock exchange dropped by nearly 7%, with investors reacting pretty badly to the news. They're now down by 5.76%. Deutsche Bank's Jim Reid explains the situation here:
<Deutsche's George Saravelos also says there's a 60/40 chance of a Greek parliamentary election. With Syriza in the lead, that's a big risk for bondholders. The insurgent party wants Greece's creditors to take a major haircut (drastically cutting the value of their investment), and for existing bailout programmes to be cancelled. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
| |
