Besides Etsy sellers affected by the sudden shut down of Silicon Valley Bank(SVB), many more American companies and businesses have revealed recently that they were affected by the collapse of SVB. Amongst those banking with SVB, the most notable are Vox Media, Roblox, Roku and Circle.

Vox Media

Let’s start with the most famous one in tech circles, Vox Media. Vox Media is the parent company of The Verge – the popular online technology news outlet based in the United States, Vox – the viral American news and opinion website, and Polygon – the entertainment news website that covers news from the video game industry, as well as movies, comics, television and books.

The New York Times reported that Vox Media had a substantial amount of its operational cash in Silicon Valley Bank. The Vox Media personnel who was familiar with New York Times also told that Vox Media’s credit cards, which Silicon Valley Bank issued, had stopped working on Friday.

The personnel also claimed the company does not expect any disruption to its business yet, including payroll to its employees. Penske Media, Vox Media’s largest shareholder, said in a statement that it was ready if the company required additional capital but added that it didn’t foresee any issues for the time being.

Roblox

Roblox, the 21st century viral online game platform and game creation system, has also been affected by Silicon Valley Bank’s shutdown by regulators. According to Forbes, Roblox Corporation held 5% of its $3 billion in cash (150 million USD) at the bank. However, according to a filing, the video game company said SVB’s collapse will “have no impact” on its day-to-day operations.

Unity

Unity Technologies, the American video-game technology maker widely known for its video game engine, Unity, disclosed to authorities in the country today that the company held less than 5% of its cash and cash equivalents at Silicon Valley Bank and expects “minimal impact” from the bank’s collapse.

However, Unity Technologies has swiftly informed its video game publishers using Unity via email to swiftly update their payout institution from SVB to other banks before March 20, 2023 to avoid delays in payments.

Roku

Roku is an American corporation that offers Roku TV, its hardware digital media players, and a service of releasing streaming media content on its TV players.

Roku showed much concern in its SEC filing. The company reports that 487 million USD of its cash was within SVB, which is 26% of the company’s assets. What is more worrying is that Roku’s deposits with Silicon Valley Bank are largely uninsured. At this time, Roku does not know to what extent the company will be able to recover its cash on deposit at SVB.

Circle

American Cryptocurrency firm Circle, the owner of stablecoin USDC, had a massive 3.3 billion USD invested with Silicon Valley Bank, the company revealed in a tweet. That’s around 8 per cent of the company’s total $40 billion, which is held elsewhere.

Circle, stated in a statement, “Like other customers and depositors who relied on SVB for banking services, Circle joins calls for continuity of this important bank in the U.S. economy and will follow guidance provided by the state and Federal regulators.”

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Streaming has become the most popular way to consume content. Smart TVs and streaming devices play an important role in the rising popularity of OTT platforms. A recent report on TV and video streaming devices across 27 major countries by Strategy Analytics reveals that Samsung not only leads in streaming device market share in these regions but its operating system Tizen, a gateway to streaming services also top the chart.

Though this report was published on September 2, it is worth noting that it is for Q1 2020.

Streaming Devices

According to Strategy Analytics, Samsung was the leading streaming device brand in the first quarter of 2020 in 27 major countries with 14% of devices in use. Whereas, second and third positions were held by Sony and LG with 12% and 8% market share respectively.

Further, Hisense, TCL, and Amazon tied at fourth position with 5% market share each, followed by Nintendo and Microsoft at fifth position with 4%.

Interestingly, in sixth place with 3%, there were a total of seven brands such as Skyworth, Google, Vizio, Sharp, Roku, Philips, and Xiaomi. Also, with 2% in seventh place, there were four brands like Apple, Changhong, Panasonic, and Konka.

Whereas, the ninth position was captured by Haier, Toshiba, and Insignia with a 1% share. The remaining 9% was held by others category, which includes brands with negligible market share.

EDITOR’S PICK: Samsung to raise smartphone shipments to 300 million units in 2021, as Huawei shipments decline

Streaming Platforms

Talking about streaming platforms, once again, Samsung lead in these 27 markets with 11% share with its Tizen OS. But the second position was held by platforms of both LG and Sony namely WebOS and Sony Playstation with 7% share each.

Roku TV OS and Fire OS tied at third position with 5% market share, followed by Android TV and Microsoft Xbox in the fourth place with 4% share.

Google Chromecast came at fifth position with 3% share while Apple tvOS and Firefox OS clashed with each other in the sixth place with 2% market share. The remaining 49% was occupied by platforms in the others category.

Takeaways

One thing is obvious from this report that the leading streaming device manufacturers also top the chart in streaming platforms if they have any. Also, a plethora of TV manufacturers gained some share in the devices category. Most of them use Android TV but still, Google’s streaming platform only accounted for 4%.

Anyway, this report only includes data from 27 major countries. Even though, the number of active devices in these regions is an astonishing figure at 1.14 billion.

UP NEXT: Samsung to maintain Global Smartphone Market lead in 2020: Report

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We are aware of the fact that at least some electronic devices which include home appliances have been proven guilty of surveilling people around them. According to new study originating from Princeton University, smart TV boxes which are found in most houses in countries like the U.S are no exception.

Arvind Narayanan who is associate professor of computer science at Princeton University wrote a mail to TheVerge stating:

If you use a device such as Roku and Amazon Fire TV, there are numerous companies that can build up a fairly comprehensive picture of what you’re watching

There’s very little oversight or awareness of their practices, including where that data is being sold.

Clearly, the sale of user data is one major reason these TV boxes have gotten cheaper over the last few years. For reference, Roku is able to sell its TV box for as less as $ 200 only because the device is subsidized by money generated from targeted advertisements. Most of us are unaware, we agree to this while signing up for the contract as these terms are buried in lengthy privacy policies that most of us are never bothered to read.

Like other publishers, smart TV app developers can use Google’s ad services to show ads against their content, and we’ve helped design industry guidelines for this that enable a privacy-safe experience for users

Depending on the user’s preferences, the developer may share data with Google that’s similar to data used for ads in mobile apps or on the web

Although it is possible to turn off personalised advertisements on these TV boxes, this would only stop a user’s advertising ID from being tracked. Other details like the device serial number, Wi-Fi network could still be tracked which can be used to pinpoint the user making the opt-out option somewhat irrelevant.

Similar to TV boxes, smartphone manufacturers are often observed serving advertisements on their devices which allows them to price their offerings a little lower.

What are your thoughts on targeted ads as a means of revenue? Do you support this, as it often makes a given service or product more affordable for consumers or are you willing to retain your privacy by shelling out money from your pocket? Let us know in the comments below.

(via)

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