Mon. 06/16 – What Happens When Search Abandons The Web?
Techmeme Ride Home
Brian McCullough
4.7 • 984 Ratings
🗓️ 16 June 2025
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ads finally come to WhatsApp. Are we about to get a literal Trump phone? More ads on your TV. All ads are about to become AI. And at the end of the show, a bit of an essay from me about Google, AI, and what I think is about to happen to the larger web, literally right now.
Sponsors:
- AGNTCY.ORG
- QualiaLife.com/ride and code ride
Links:
- WhatsApp Introduces Ads in Its App (NYTimes)
- Trump Mobile: President’s Company Unveils Wireless Service Delivered via AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, Plans to Launch a U.S.-Made ‘Sleek, Gold’ Android Smartphone (Variety)
- Amazon Ads & Roku Set Landmark Pact Giving Brands Access To 80% Of Connected-TV Households (Deadline)
- TikTok Pushes Deeper Into AI-Generated Video Ads With New Tools (Bloomberg)
- Google Search Is Fading. The Whole Internet Is At Risk. (Barron's)
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the TechMe right home for Monday, June 16th, 2025. I'm Brian McCullough. Today. Ads finally come to WhatsApp. Are we about to get a literal Trump phone? More ads on your TV. All ads are about to become AI. And at the end of the show, a bit of an essay from me about Google AI and what I think |
| 0:22.3 | is about to happen to the larger web if search abandons the web. Here's what you miss today in the world |
| 0:27.8 | of tech. For the first time ever, WhatsApp has ads. WhatsApp has rolled out ads in its updates tab. |
| 0:39.9 | Meta says it will collect some data to target these ads, but says it has no plans to put |
| 0:45.3 | ads in chats, quoting the times. On Monday, WhatsApp said it would start showing ads inside |
| 0:51.3 | its app for the first time. The promotions will appear only in an area of the app called Updates, which is used by around |
| 0:57.5 | one and a half billion people a day. |
| 0:59.9 | WhatsApp will collect some data on users to target the ads, such as location and the device's |
| 1:04.0 | default language, but it will not touch the contents of messages or whom users speak with. |
| 1:10.3 | The company added that it has no plans to place ads |
| 1:12.7 | in chats and personal messages. In-app ads are a significant change from WhatsApp's original |
| 1:18.1 | philosophy. Jan Combe and Brian Acton, who founded WhatsApp in 2009, were committed to building |
| 1:22.6 | a simple and quick way for friends and family to communicate with end-to-end encryption, a method |
| 1:26.8 | of keeping text, photos, |
| 1:28.4 | videos, and phone calls inaccessible by third parties. But both left the company seven years ago. |
| 1:33.8 | Since then, Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, now Meta, has focused on WhatsApp's |
| 1:38.6 | growth and user privacy while also melding the app into the company's other products, |
| 1:42.3 | including Instagram and Messenger. Putting ads into WhatsApp opens a lucrative opportunity for Meta, which has spent billions of |
| 1:49.0 | dollars on artificial intelligence and other pursuits while potentially raising questions about |
| 1:52.7 | privacy. |
| 1:53.8 | WhatsApp, which unveiled the changes at the Khan Lions advertising industry conference, also said it was |
| 1:59.0 | introducing paid monthly subscriptions for content |
... |
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