Technology

Uber has brought on Daniel Danker to serve as a senior director and head of driver product.Prior to joining Uber, he was a product director at Facebook responsible for video and Facebook Live.

&Drivers are the heart of the Uber experience, and Danielpassion for our mission and deep product knowledge will ensure we continue to improve and innovate on their behalf,& Uber Head of Product Manik Gupta said in a statement to TechCrunch.

Uber has been without a head of driver product since December, when Aaron Schildkrout left shortly after Uber wrapped up its 180 days of change driver campaign. As head of driver product, Danker will be responsible for planning, strategy and execution.Danker has had a long history in Silicon Valley. Between 2000 and 2010, Danker worked in a couple of roles at Microsoft, where he ended his stint as director of development and operations. He eventually left Microsoft for BBC in 2010 and then made his way to Shazam, where he served as chief product officer for nearly three years.

Dankeraddition to the team comes in lockstep with Uber Chief Brand Officer Bozoma Saint Johnimpending departure. This hire also comes a couple of months after Uber unveiled its revamped driver app. The new app was designed to make it easier for drivers to access pertinent information, while ensuring they wouldn&t be distracted behind the wheel. One key added feature was the ability for drivers to recognize where surge, boost and incentivized areas are located.

&Say you&re in a slow area,& Uber Driver Experience Group Manager Yuhki Yamashita told me in April. &We might actually suggest a place to go to instead because itmuch busier. And in this way you get a little bit more information about whathappening around you. We get to answer questions like ‘well what should you be doing next.& And you know it feels like the app understands your current situation.&

Under the leadership of CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber has placed a greater emphasis on its drivers. Its commitment to drivers kicked off in June with Uber180 days of change. In that time, Uber added in-app tipping and a number of other features. At the Code Conference last month, Khosrowshahi said despite what former CEO Travis Kalanick said, Uber will never get rid of the driver.

&The face of Uber is the person sitting in the front seat,& Khosrowshahi said.

He also spoke about how Uber is looking for ways to offer benefits and insurance to its drivers.

Netflix denies a report that itentering the gaming market, but says it is expanding its lineup to include a new game-related, &interactive& narrative series called &Minecraft: Story Mode.& The new series will be the latest addition to its growing collection of interactive stories, which include kid-friendly titles like &Stretch Armstrong: The Breakout,& &Puss in Book: Trapped in an Epic Tale,& and &Buddy Thunderstruck: The Maybe Pile.&

According to a recent report from TechRadar, Netflix is partnering with Telltale Games to bring game experiences to its TV service, starting with a Minecraft game.

Netflix is now clarifying that itnot a &game,& exactly, itan interactive story.

The company announced a year ago it would begin experimenting with a new way to stream video, through &choose your own adventure&-style stories that allow viewers to pick what happens next. This allows for the same story to have multiple variations.

Itthe sort of thing that would have never been possible through traditional linear TV, but is enabled through an online platform like Netflix. The stories could also make for a selling point for families with younger children, in terms of being a differentiating feature for its service.

The company confirms that &Minecraft: Story Mode& is alicensed 5-episode interactive narrative series that will be coming to its service this fall, in partnership with Telltale. The gaming publisher Telltale Games already offers &Minecraft: Story Mode& across other platforms, including Steam, game consoles, Google Play and the App Store.

While Telltale and others consider &Minecraft: Story Mode& to be a type of game, Netflix does not. Ita narrative you work your way through, similar to the others, it believes. (The story does take place in the Minecraft universe, however.)

&We don&t have any plans to get into gaming,& a Netflix spokesperson said, in response to TechRadarreport. &Therea broad spectrum of entertainment available today. Games have become increasingly cinematic, but we view this as interactive narrative storytelling on our service,& they explained.

Meanwhile, the other gaming project TechRadar had uncovered & a game related to the Netflix hit &Stranger Things& & is something that will launch in Telltaleplatform at a later date, Netflix says. Itnot a game coming to Netflixservice, and is instead part of Netflixongoing marketing and title promotion efforts.

The company already has a Stranger Things gametoday, and often promotes its shows in other ways on mobile. For example, it launched a standalone &Orange is the New Black& app back in 2014, and when it was promoting the new season of &Arrested Development,& it introduced a&FakeBlock& app.

&Stranger Things& lends itself more to a mobile gaming format, though. And Netflix does use video games to drive awareness of its brand and content.

As the company stated in a recent job posting for a Manager of Interactive Licensing:

We are pursuing video games because we believe it will drive meaningful show awareness/buzz and allow fans to &play& our most popular content. We want the interactive category to help promote our titles so they become part of the zeitgeist for longer periods of time and we want to use games as a marketing tactic to capture demand and delight our member community.

Of course, interactive stories do blur the line between games and narrative storytelling & something thata newer trend across online platforms these days. For example, one of AppleDesign Award winners this year was a part-story, part-game called &Florence,& which involved both narrative elements and interactive features.

To what extent these work as well on Netflixplatform as they do on smartphones still remains to be seen, given that the format is still new to streaming services. Time will tell if itworth the continued investment, of if Netflixexperimentation will one day conclude.

Netflix denies a report that itentering the gaming market, but says it is expanding its lineup to include a new game-related, &interactive& narrative series called &Minecraft: Story Mode.& The new series will be the latest addition to its growing collection of interactive stories, which include kid-friendly titles like &Stretch Armstrong: The Breakout,& &Puss in Book: Trapped in an Epic Tale,& and &Buddy Thunderstruck: The Maybe Pile.&

According to a recent report from TechRadar, Netflix is partnering with Telltale Games to bring game experiences to its TV service, starting with a Minecraft game.

Netflix is now clarifying that itnot a &game,& exactly, itan interactive story.

The company announced a year ago it would begin experimenting with a new way to stream video, through &choose your own adventure&-style stories that allow viewers to pick what happens next. This allows for the same story to have multiple variations.

Itthe sort of thing that would have never been possible through traditional linear TV, but is enabled through an online platform like Netflix. The stories could also make for a selling point for families with younger children, in terms of being a differentiating feature for its service.

The company confirms that &Minecraft: Story Mode& is alicensed 5-episode interactive narrative series that will be coming to its service this fall, in partnership with Telltale. The gaming publisher Telltale Games already offers &Minecraft: Story Mode& across other platforms, including Steam, game consoles, Google Play and the App Store.

While Telltale and others consider &Minecraft: Story Mode& to be a type of game, Netflix does not. Ita narrative you work your way through, similar to the others, it believes. (The story does take place in the Minecraft universe, however.)

&We don&t have any plans to get into gaming,& a Netflix spokesperson said, in response to TechRadarreport. &Therea broad spectrum of entertainment available today. Games have become increasingly cinematic, but we view this as interactive narrative storytelling on our service,& they explained.

Meanwhile, the other gaming project TechRadar had uncovered & a game related to the Netflix hit &Stranger Things& & is something that will launch in Telltaleplatform at a later date, Netflix says. Itnot a game coming to Netflixservice, and is instead part of Netflixongoing marketing and title promotion efforts.

The company already has a Stranger Things gametoday, and often promotes its shows in other ways on mobile. For example, it launched a standalone &Orange is the New Black& app back in 2014, and when it was promoting the new season of &Arrested Development,& it introduced a&FakeBlock& app.

&Stranger Things& lends itself more to a mobile gaming format, though. And Netflix does use video games to drive awareness of its brand and content.

As the company stated in a recent job posting for a Manager of Interactive Licensing:

We are pursuing video games because we believe it will drive meaningful show awareness/buzz and allow fans to &play& our most popular content. We want the interactive category to help promote our titles so they become part of the zeitgeist for longer periods of time and we want to use games as a marketing tactic to capture demand and delight our member community.

Of course, interactive stories do blur the line between games and narrative storytelling & something thata newer trend across online platforms these days. For example, one of AppleDesign Award winners this year was a part-story, part-game called &Florence,& which involved both narrative elements and interactive features.

To what extent these work as well on Netflixplatform as they do on smartphones still remains to be seen, given that the format is still new to streaming services. Time will tell if itworth the continued investment, of if Netflixexperimentation will one day conclude.