⚾ Philly vs. the economy

What’s happening with Twitter?

If you’ve been following the Twitter developments since Friday, then you’re well aware the developments are very much… developing.

At the center of it is Elon Musk and an inner circle working to quickly implement changes to the company and platform.

So, what’s happened so far?

First came the sink. Then firing Parag Agrawal, the now-former CEO. Then the firing of “Rahul Ligma” — which, unsurprisingly, was a prank.

Over the weekend, reports continued circulating about potential layoffs, which are now widely expected. Throughout, Musk has tweeted some updates, including plans for the formation of a content moderation council.

Both Musk and friend Jason Calacanis — a VC and Twitter’s self-proclaimed “Chief Meme Officer” — have surveyed users about bringing back Vine, the short-form video app (basically, TikTok before TikTok) that Twitter shut down in 2016.

What’s this about charging for verification?

Musk’s team is also revamping Twitter’s verification process, possibly looking to charge $19.99 a month for verification.

It seems unlikely that decision would have a wide-scale fiscal impact, though: In a poll run by Calacanis, 81.5% of ~1.6m users said they wouldn’t pay for verification.

Opinions on the implications of such a move vary:

• Calacanis contends wide-scale verification is “the quickest path to making the platform safer and more usable for everyone.”
• Critics note that it would allow nefarious actors to pay for credibility and potentially lead to the spread of more disinformation.

By the time you read this, there’s a real chance new details will be out — we’ll make sure to keep you posted tomorrow.

Taylor Swift became the first artist to claim all 10 top spots on the Billboard Hot 100 in the chart’s 64-year history.

Amazon is now producing daily sports TV talk shows, from 8am to 8pm, moving the company deeper into sports programming.

An Instagram outage locked some users out of their accounts and caused some people’s follower counts to rapidly drop.

New-car prices are dropping a bit, but they’re still 33% higher than pre-pandemic prices. In October, the average new car price was $45.6k, down from $46.1k in July.

University endowments are in the red, following a rocketship year of double-digit gains. The median return in the year ending June 30 was -7.8%.

JPMorgan Chase is working on a mass-market digital payments platform for landlords and tenants, called Story.

Paramount Global is adding 6.3k+ CBS episodes to Pluto TV, its free, ad-supported streaming service.

Vote with your money: Wanna support businesses making positive changes? Learn how to make a difference with your dollar through socially responsible investing.

Should we be worried about a Phillies World Series title?

Philadelphia sports fans have a bit of a reputation (see here, here, and here).

While a chaotic, booze-soaked celebration — and a few incidents of rioting and brawling — followed the Eagles’ 2018 Super Bowl victory, something more disruptive could be looming with a Phillies win.

All three Philadelphia baseball titles…

… have been followed by a recession, per The Wall Street Journal.

• In 1929, the Philadelphia Athletics’ championship was followed by the Great Depression.
• In 1980, the Phillies’ first title was followed by a three-year recession.
• In 2008, the Phillies’ most recent win was followed by the financial crisis.

Many will still be rooting for them. Their opponent, the Houston Astros, have garnered a reputation as the “new evil empire,” making four World Series in six years, all while battling cheating allegations.

Plus, if a Phillies win is followed by an economic downturn, it’s not like we haven’t been warned already.

Pantone colors are disappearing from Adobe

Things are about to get less colorful for Adobe software users.

Pantone is paywalling 15k colors in products including Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign this month, per Vice.

For designers who don’t pay up, some colors will switch to black.

What’s a Pantone Color?

In 1963, Pantone developed the Pantone Matching System, which standardizes colors across industries and materials.

For example: You want your business logo to be “Very Peri,” Pantone’s 2022 Color of the Year.

By using Peri’s ID (Pantone 17-3938) when you send your logo to the printer, you can guarantee that exact shade always winds up on your ads and T-shirts.

Previously…

… Adobe and Pantone had an agreement in which Adobe paid to license Pantone’s color swatches, or “books,” for use in its software.

But last year, the companies announced that Adobe would remove Pantone’s books, supposedly because they were out of date. (Rumors, however, suggest a disagreement between the companies.)

So now…

… people who want to use affected colors must pay $15/mo. for a plug-in, per designer Iain Anderson.

And most users can’t just run an older version that still has the old books because Adobe has switched its software to a cloud-based model.

For a deeper dive, watch Anderson’s explainer here, or check out Printweek’s in-depth guide, plus workarounds, here.

🏒 On this day: In 1959, Montreal Canadiens’ Jacques Plante became the first NHL goalie to wear a face mask — now standard equipment — in a regular season game.

😠 How to: Still mad about a perceived slight even though you know you shouldn’t be? Here’s how to get over it.

💾 Useful: Use this site to search for old CD-ROM and floppy disc files.

⛵ Haha: Find out if a song is yacht rock or not yacht rock.

🦀 Aww: And now, a helpful friend.

Terrifying. (Source: Twitter)