Technology

Tinder Loops, the recently announced video feature from Tinder, is today rolling out globally.

Tinder has been testing this feature in Canada and Sweden since April, when it was first announced, and has rolled out to a few other markets since then.

Today, Loops are available to Tinder users across the following markets: Japan, United Kingdom, United States, France, Korea, Canada, Australia, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Russia, Sweden, Belgium, Denmark, Iceland, Ireland, Kuwait, New Zealand, Norway, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand and United Arab Emirates.

Loops are two-second, looping videos that can be posted to users& profiles. Users can&t shoot Tinder Loops from within the app, but rather have to upload and edit existing videos in their camera roll or upload a Live Photo from an iOS device.

Tinder is also expanding the number of images you can post to your profile to nine, in order to make room for Loops without displacing existing photos.

Given that Tinder has been testing the feature since early April, the company now has more data around how Tinder Loops have been working out for users. For example, users who added a Loop to their profile saw that their average conversation length went up by 20 percent. The feature seems to be particularly effective in Japan — Loops launched there in June — with users receiving an average of 10 percent more right swipes if they had a Loop in their profile.

In the age of Instagram and Tinder, people have used photos to represent themselves online. But, with all the editing tools out there, that also means that photos aren&t always the most accurate portrayal of personality or appearance. Videos on Tinder offer a new way to get to know someone for who they are.

The evidence is increasingly clear: 2018 is the year of the Chinese venture deal.

With half of the year now complete, China is driving ahead of Silicon Valley and the rest of the United States on venture capital dollars invested into startups, according to a number of data sources including Crunchbase, China Money Network, and Pitchbook.

These sorts of top line numbers are always driven by large deals, and the Chinese VC market is no exception. Monster rounds this year have included a $1.9 billion investment from Softbank Vision Fund into Manbang Group, a truck hailing startup formed from the merger of two competitors, Yumanman and Huochebang, as well as Ant Financial, which raised a whopping $14 billion from investors.

While China hasn&t overtaken the U.S. in terms of total VC rounds, it has seen spectacular growth in deal volume. Crunchbaseanalysis shows an almost four-fold increase in the number of venture capital rounds completed last quarter in China compared to the same quarter last year. Thatin comparison to a dismal seed funding market in Silicon Valley, where seed volume has dropped off of a cliff over the past few years, down by 60% or more by some estimates.

Thata rather linear look, though, of an industry that is facing extreme flux. Venture capital today is being wholly redefined by new crowdsourcing models and of course, the rise of blockchain and the world of Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs). On the latter, billions of dollars have been raised by blockchain projects, perhaps most notoriously in recent weeks by EOS and Telegram. Institutional capital still matters, but it isn&t the sole source of funding anymore, even at the growth stage. That makes VC aggregate data much less compelling than it might have been in the past.

However, what these aggregates do show is the changing power dynamics between the U.S. and China, particularly in critical future growth markets in the emerging world.

Nowhere is that more obvious than in the burgeoning strength of Chinahigh-flying tech companies. While venture firms are of course widely present in China, it is the countrylargest tech companies that are driving much of the venture investment in the mainland ecosystem. As China Money Network noted recently, &Tencent, Alibaba and Baidu … ranked as the first, fourth and eighth most active investors in [April], inking 11, 5 and 4 deals respectively.&

The aggressive investment strategies of Chinese tech firms was recently observed by Sequoia partner Mike Moritz in the Financial Times. In his analysis, Moritz wrote, &Between 2015 and 2017, the five biggest US tech groups (especially Apple and Microsoft) spent $228bn on stock buybacks and dividends, Bloomberg data shows. During the same period, the top five Chinese tech companies spent just $10.7bn and ploughed the rest of their excess cash into investments that broaden their footprint and influence.&

Context can explain some of this behavior, but there is also an outlook difference across the Pacific that is important to appreciate. American venture firms are robust, and Google and other tech companies don&t feel as compelled as their Chinese counterparts to step into the game themselves in order to finance the innovation industry.

Yet, one can&t help but feel that a different concept of ambition is being adopted by American companies — one that looks internally for growth rather than externally in new markets.

Thatcertainly not the case in China, where companies are looking in both directions. Moritz again: &Most Chinese activity is outside the US, with Tencent and Alibaba building vast constellations of satellites. Tencent has more than 600 investments, while Alibaba has around 400 — totals that almost make JapanSoftBank look like a penny-pinching slowpoke.&

Meanwhile, in the United States, we see a complete pull back from much of the emerging world. The drastic reported cutback in Facebookefforts in the emerging world is just the latest example of this myopia.

The old line about venture capitalists still holds true: most don&t want to invest more than 40 miles from their house. While many Silicon Valley-based VCs have since extended that geography to the rest of the United States, only an extraordinary few have invested in more than a handful of companies in the developing world. That has left open opportunities for investment in countries like Indonesia, Nigeria, and Brazil, where the next set of internet users are coming online.

For founders, focusing on aggregate numbers is useless. Investors are either interested in a startup or not, and while macro factors can provide context for a fundraise, they don&t typically drive the outcome. But when it comes to evaluating the corporate strategy of tech giants, they are far more impactful. The U.S. can&t continue to look inward and expect the high rates of growth we have seen in the tech sector over the past two decades. Only new, global markets are going to be the driver of prosperity, and right now, China has its money where the action is.

According to a supply chain report, Apple is preparing to release three iPhone lines this fall. One, a 5.8-inch iPhone X with improved specs and lower price. Two, a new 6.5-inch iPhone X Plus with an OLED screen. And three, a 6.1-inch iPhone with Face ID, which is said to come in a variety of colors includinggrey, white, blue, red and orange.

Ming-Chi Kuo reports, via 9to5mac, that the 6.5-inch iPhone X Plus is said to take the $1000 price point from the iPhone X. This will cause the next iPhone X to be less expensive than its current incarnation. The colorful 6.1-inch iPhone will be the least expensive model with a price tag around $700. Information about storage was not included in the report.

The least-expensive iPhone is said to resemble the iPhone X and include FaceID though Apple might concede the dual-camera option to the higher price models. The analyst expects this $700 option to account for 55% of new iPhone sales and increase through 2019.

If the part about the colors is correct, Apple is set introduce a slash of color to the monochrome phone market. Currently, phones are mostly available in greys and blacks with most vendors offering a couple of color options through special editions. Thatboring. Apple tried this in the past with its budget-minded iPhone 5c. Making its best-selling model available in colors is a distinct shift in strategy. Ithighly likely other firms such as Samsung and LG will follow the trend and push the smartphone world into a rainbow of colors.