Aktuelles: Mapbox, China, Oettinger

Lesenswerte Analysen und Hintergrundberichte zu aktuellen Entwicklungen:

• Independent Maps Startup Mapbox Raises 52.6M $Maps are only going to get more important.An independent player is important but I doubt Mapbox will stay that way for long.(It is interesting that the bidding war for Nokias HERE maps service is fierce but not as fierce as it should be given the market developments and rising importance of maps. Also: Googles microsoftiness of trying to do everything kind of killed Google maps as an option for a lot of third parties because an increasing number of companies don’t want to have a potential future competitor looking into their cards.)
• Why China is ground zero concerning city focused apps and services MarkDMill:“Getting transit directions in China was far more important for Apple than getting US transit directions. Consider just a few numbers:The US has ten cities with a population over 1 million. China has 171.The US has 34 cities with a population over 500,000.  China has 450.

  In 2014, China had 62M vehicles of all kinds registered, in a country of 1.3 billion. This is expected to reach 200M by 2020.

  Most people in China get transportation by public transit. Having a mapping service in China without transit directions would be like having one in the US without driving directions.“

  The reason why Apple with a little help by Alibaba is starting with 300 cities in China for transit directions and why for example Uber and others are going all in when it comes to China.

  China is ground zero concerning city focused apps and services.

  (Via Stratechery)

• So EU Commissioner Gunther Oettinger tells us he met just 6 lobbyists in 4 months
  Karsten Gerloff at FSFE about the public lists of meetings for the commissioner and his team:“The one for Oettinger’s cabinet (i.e. his team) looks reasonably complete. The list for the Commissioner himself, however, is a different story. Apparently, we are to believe that he has met just six lobbyists in the past four months. That would be an astounding lack of activity for the person in charge of some of the EU’s most contested policy issues: data protection, copyright reform and net neutrality.Since the Commission apparently doesn’t fully respond to informal prodding, the excellent Kirsten Fiedler over at EDRi has filed an official request for access to documents. If you, like me, are curious about what’s keeping the EU’s digital czar busy, you can follow the request at AskTheEU.org.“
• No bubble
  Insightful (US-centric) presentation by Benedict Evans of a16z on the bubble matter
• Apple Music: ~73% Ausschüttung außerhalb USA, keine Lizenzzahlungen für Trialperiode

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