Google's Cleanup: Old Accounts with Cringy Emails and Photos on the Chopping Block!

Do you remember that one email account you made when you were 12 and haven’t touched since? Well, Google is going to start deleting personal accounts that haven’t been active for over two years starting in December 2023. So if you have any old accounts with embarrassing photos or cringy emails attached to them, they might be gone soon. But don’t worry, accounts with YouTube videos won’t be removed (so your old Minecraft Let’s Play videos are safe).

Google says this new policy is to increase security. Twitter also announced a similar policy last week. It’s a reminder that our digital lives are fragile and we don’t have much control over their preservation. Even though data storage costs have decreased, we need more and more units each day as the amount of data increases.

Inactive accounts can contain important memories like family photos and videos, personal correspondence, and unpublished research. So it’s important that we stop assuming tech companies will store our data forever and start archiving our digital lives ourselves.

Rapid Rundown

• 🔔 Google will delete inactive personal accounts older than two years, but YouTube videos will be exempted.

• 📂 The policy highlights the fragility of our digital lives and emphasizes the need for personal data preservation.

OpenAI's ChatGPT Drops App in iOS, but Android users will have to wait

OpenAI just launched a free iOS app for ChatGPT. And for all you Android users out there, don’t worry, an Android version is coming soon too! The app syncs your chat history with the web and has voice input supported by OpenAI’s speech recognition model Whisper. You can download it from the App Store and it’s rolling out in the US first before expanding to other countries.

ChatGPT has been super popular since its launch last November. It attracted 100 million users just in January alone! And in February, OpenAI launched a premium subscription for the app called ChatGPT Plus that offers priority access and responses generated using GPT-4 for $20 a month.

Before this, the best way to access OpenAI’s language models on mobile was through Microsoft’s Bing app with a 20 messages limit. But now with the official ChatGPT app, some of these users might switch over to the app.

Rapid Rundown

• 📱 OpenAI launched a free iOS app for ChatGPT, the Android version coming soon.

• The app syncs your chat history with the web and has voice input supported by OpenAI’s speech recognition model Whisper.

Coinbase's Subscription Service Goes International, Offering No Trading Fees and More

Coinbase, the second-largest crypto exchange in the world, is expanding its subscription service, Coinbase One, to 35 countries. This service offers no trading fees, higher staking rewards, and other benefits.

Things were much better 18 months ago during the bull market when more people traded crypto and paid transaction fees. But given the dwindling transaction volume due to the crypto winter, Coinbase is seeking ways to grow and retain more customers.

The company hopes to strengthen customer relationships and increase revenue beyond trading fees. Coinbase’s new strategy seems to be working for them. Their subscription and services revenue increased 138% from $152 million in 2022 to $361.7 million in Q1 2023 alone.

Rapid Rundown

• 📈 Coinbase One expanding its subscription service to 35 countries; offers no trading fees and higher staking rewards.

• 💰 Subscription and services revenue increased 138% to $361.7 million in Q1 2023.

Tools & Apps

Betafi -- Quickly capture and share key takeaways from any meeting

Usermaven -- Simple analytics for marketing and product teams

Emergency Fund by Petcube -- Affordable pet insurance alternative + realtime vet chat

Langdock -- Create, deploy, test & monitor ChatGPT plugins in minutes

Articles & Resources

Are Meetings Making You Less Productive? — A bit of a deep dive into some of the recent trends surrounding the negativity associated with team meetings, from a developer team perspective.

4 Reasons You’re Not Taking Action (And What To Do About It) — This goes in depth but the four reasons are: Fear of others opinions, perfectionism, being distracted, and being burned by past action.

79 Tasks for My Virtual Assistants: Real World Examples — If you're considering hiring a virtual assistant to help with tasks you'd rather not focus your time on, this post might give you some ideas or inspiration.

How to Think in Funnels (and Achieve the Best Possible Outcomes) — If nothing else, this is a good little history lesson on the introduction and application of the AIDA model, popularized in the marketing industry.