Marketplace Tech

Between social media, election meddling, privacy concerns and fears of internet addiction, we are at a time when we are re-evaluating the grand bargain that we have made with technology. We've gotten used to trading personal information for tailored ads and letting devices into every part of our lives for convenience. But, as we develop these habits and make these trade-offs, what does it mean for our kids? For the next week, we're going to look at this tech bargain and its impact on the next generation. We're starting with a conversation about marketing. Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood talked to Marcus Collins, chief consumer connections officer at the Doner creative agency, about how advertisers think about reaching kids. 

This week, representatives from Google, Twitter and Facebook all spoke at a congressional hearing about how they present news and opinions on their platforms. The next day, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg told the Recode podcast that Facebook shouldn't overregulate speech on the site, even if it means not banning Holocaust deniers. So how much should these companies be responsible for what is said online? Sounds like a good Quality Assurance topic, the segment where we take a deeper look at a big tech story. Marketplace's Molly Wood talks with Mike Nuñez, editor at Mashable.

IBM reported earnings Wednesday. The company has been on a long turnaround path, focusing its business on cloud services, security and data analytics. It’s also investing in artificial intelligence, mostly under the brand of the "Jeopardy"-winning supercomputer Watson. Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood talks to Brandon Purcell, an analyst with Forrester, about the profit potential of artificial intelligence for IBM and other tech companies. (07/19/2018)

Research from Google says 70 percent of teenage YouTube subscribers say they relate more to online creators than traditional celebrities. According to the research firm L2, 70 percent of companies use social media influencers to market products. As part of our series on the creator economy, Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood talked to Troy Solomon, who has more than 45,000 Instagram followers for his verified account A Bear Named Troy. (07/18/2018)

As part of our series on the creator economy, we’re looking at “influencers.” Those are the YouTube and Instagram personalities who get big followings and free products that they then promote to their followers. We're also looking at the people who find those influencers and connect them with the brands who want to influence people. One of those finders is Jennifer Perri, vice president of the Univision Creator Network. She talks with Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood. 

Ten years ago this summer, the Pixar film “WALL-E” came out. It's about a future where humans have ruined earth's environment with trash, so they live in space, captive to screens, self-driving chairs, and robot servants. One little robot is left on Earth to clean up the mess, until he finds love — and ends up saving humanity from itself. As part of our summer entertainment series, we're pondering the critiques and lessons of Wall-E with sci-fi writer Kim Stanley Robinson, who also happens to be a big fan of the film.  (07/16/2018)

This week, Twitter announced that it's removing locked accounts from its platform. That's in an effort to clean up its bot problem. Bots are fake Twitter accounts that spread propaganda and intimidate people. A New York Times story in January suggested that up to 15 percent of Twitter's user base could be bots. Twitter says it was more like 5 percent. But now, as the company is trying to clean up the bot problem, some investors are worried that Twitter may have fewer human users than they thought. Kevin Roose follows social media for the New York Times. He spoke with Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood about how bots became a business problem for Twitter. 

"Pokemon Go" was one of 2016’s most popular mobile games, but it seemed to lose players just as quickly as it gained them. That may have been due to some technical glitches, but "Pokemon Go" appears to be back. That's at least in part thanks to some new social features. Those are what got Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood back in the game, and got her thinking about who else is playing "Pokemon Go."

China is a huge market for electric cars. Tesla is looking for a place to build and sell lots of electric cars. But the U.S. is in a trade war with China and right now there's about a 40 percent tax on American-made cars being sold in China. That hurts all automakers, but if you're trying to become the dominant electric car maker in the world you need to sell cars in China. Dan Sperling is the founding director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis. He spoke with Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood about how the Chinese government is changing the market for electric cars. (07/11/2018)

On Monday, Uber announced a partnership with the electric scooter rental company Lime. Uber already owns Jump Bikes, an electric bike startup. Lyft just bought a bike rental company as well. All these moves are about creating one-stop shopping for all kinds of transportation and also about solving a pretty basic problem. The average cab ride is less than three miles and using a car to make that trip is expensive and inefficient, especially in traffic. Hence this new investment trend in what's being called micro-mobility. Ralph Buehler is a professor of urban affairs and planning at Virginia Tech. He spoke with Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood about what he refers to as multimodality.