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Completely happy Friday, our crunchiest of associates!

Over the previous few days, we’ve been telling you about all of the cool stuff that’s occurring at Disrupt. Nicely, guess what — we’re getting a {hardware} stage as effectively! {Hardware} will get its flip within the highlight at Disrupt 2023…Thrilling occasions!

— Christine and Haje

The TechCrunch High 3

• You Heardle-d it right here: Christine thinks Heardle, the Wordle-like music guessing sport, was too arduous, so she gave up on taking part in some time in the past. Nonetheless, it was a preferred sport with numerous individuals, peaking at 69 million month-to-month desktop and cellular net visits in March 2022. Now Sarah writes that lower than a 12 months after buying Heardle, Spotify is shutting down the sport. You get six guesses as to why, however to the tune of tears being shed throughout the web.
• Talking of being shut down: Parler, the social media community that emerged when former president Donald Trump was banned from different websites, has a brand new proprietor. No, not Ye, however digital media firm Starboard. Oh, and Starboard has plans to close it down briefly in order that it may be revamped. Aisha has extra.
• Zoom will see you now: To spice up its asynchronous choices, Zoom is buying Eire-based worker communications platform Workvivo. Paul writes that Workvivo had the “remote-work revolution” on lock, which might be what attracted Zoom to it.

Startups and VC

James Murdoch’s enterprise fund Bodhi Tree slashed its deliberate funding into Viacom18 to $528 million, down 70% from the dedicated $1.78 billion, the 2 mentioned late Thursday because the weakening world financial system hammers traders’ urge for food, Manish reviews. Viacom18, a three way partnership between Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance and Paramount International, didn’t say why Bodhi Tree slashed its pledged funding.

In the meantime, PBS and a handful of different information organizations have joined NPR in stepping away from Twitter, the social media platform as soon as synonymous with breaking information, Taylor reviews. NPR introduced that it could depart the platform altogether final week after Twitter misleadingly connected a label reserved for state-run media entities to its account.

And we now have 5 extra for you:

4 SaaS engagement metrics that appeal to traders

Previous efficiency doesn’t all the time predict future outcomes, but it surely’s one of the best place to seek out buyer retention stats which have investor enchantment.

In response to Oleksandr Yaroshenko, head of investments and technique at edtech startup Headway, engagement charges for present prospects are “one of the best predictors for resubscription.”

On this publish, he explores gamification technique and shares concepts for constructing a “golden cohort” that represents your audience.

Three extra from the TC+ workforce:

TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup groups get forward of the pack. You may enroll right here. Use code “DC” for a 15% low cost on an annual subscription!

Massive Tech Inc.

Do you wish to learn a ten,000-character tweet? We don’t both — oh wait, you mentioned sure. Okay, effectively buckle up as a result of Twitter now provides 10,000-character-long tweets for Blue subscribers, reviews Ivan. Should you’d wish to see what a ten,000-character tweet appears like, we got you, boo. How a couple of 10,000-character TechCrunch article? We rustled up one for you from the archives.

Shifting over to the state of Washington, the place Uber and Lyft drivers gained paid household and medical depart. Rebecca writes that the state’s senate handed a legislation that makes it the primary within the nation to supply this type of profit for ride-hail drivers.

Now right here’s 5 extra for you: