The Comunicano for Friday February 17 2017

 
Last night I dined out using Feastly for the first time. It was the way to book seats at a “pop up” dinners across the USA. The dinner was the debut of former Herringbone LA chef Jason Witzl, who is in the process of opening up his own Cal-Ital place, Ellie’s, in DTLA. Not only was Feastly a cool app/service experience end to end, but the communal dining experience made it easy to make new friends, hang with old friends, eat very well and of course BYOB. 

Alexa-can you come with me? So many times i wanted to take Alexa with me, so while Telzio had voice enabled access to my Amazon Echo first via their mobile app, almost a full year or so ago, there wasn’t a lot of use. Well the game just changed as Rain Labs has launched Reverb with apps for the Mac, iOS and Android. It’s all made possible by Amazon Voice Service.  As I wrote on the Xceptional Blog a few days ago, Amazon keeps looking more and more like a telco/information services competitor to AT&T, Verizon, H-P and more….
So with that, let’s dive into the news in today’s extended edition of Comunicano.

Facebook just changed its mission, because the old one was broken

Here are the details of Uber's disastrous public Q&A session with drivers on Facebook

App Watch
Messaging Tech Expert: The Year Messaging (Actually) Matches its Hype

White House Staff Are Using A "Secure" App That’s Really Not So Secure

23 Must-Have Alexa Skills for Your Small Business

Money Watch
Uber Gives Restless Employees a Way to Cash Out

Airbnb buys Montreal-based Luxury Retreats to bolster high-end vacation offerings

Verizon acquires Portland startup Skyward, a maker of drone management software

Daimler’s MyTaxi acquires Greek rival Taxibeat for undisclosed amount

Soundtrack Your Brand has raised $22 million for B2B music streaming

Apple Watch
Apple Vowed to Revolutionize Television. An Inside Look at Why It Hasn’t – Bloomberg

Apple may cut the (charging) cord completely with the iPhone 8

Cool Things
The Piaggio Gita Is a Futuristic Helper Bot From the Makers of the Vespa

A breakthrough in Alphabet’s balloon-based internet project means it might actually work

Private Astronaut Taxis by SpaceX, Boeing May Not Be Ready by 2019

Where is Zealandia? Geologists say they have discovered eighth continent

Odds & Ends
AT&T’s new, new unlimited data plan eliminates an annoying requirement

Jack Dorsey: Twitter Lacked 'Focus And Discipline' For Growth


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Carefully curated by Andy Abramson with Revue
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