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Twitter's Expansion, Driverless Cars And More On This Week's CTRL ALT Delete Segment On CHOM 97.7 FM

Every Monday morning at 7:10 am, I am a guest contributor on CHOM 97.7 FM radio out of Montreal (home base). It’s not a long segment – about 10 minutes every week – about everything that is happening in the world of technology and digital media. The good folks at CHOM 97.7 FM are posting these segments weekly on iHeart Radio, if you’re interested in hearing more of me blathering away about what’s going on in the digital world. I’m really excited about this opportunity, because this is the radio station that I grew up listening to, and it really is a fun treat to be invited to the Mornings Rock with Terry DiMonte morning show. The segment is called, CTRL ALT Delete with Mitch Joel.

This week we discussed:

Twitter has done it. 140 characters is dead. Long live 140 characters. Last week, almost everybody’s Twitter limit of creativity was expanded to 280 characters. Now, we simply don’t know what to say with all of this newfound space to create. Is this a smart move for Twitter or edging them ever-closer to be acquired by someone like Facebook?
We have had some hearty laughs in the past about self-driving cars on the radio show. It felt like it would be decades until this became a reality. Well, Alphabet (the holding company of Google, etc…) is rolling out their first test fleet of driverless cars under the Waymo brand, and these are the ones without human drivers behind the wheel.
Social Media app, Musical.ly had a good week. The teen/tween app that is lip-syncing with a YouTube slant was acquired by Chinese news and information site, Beijing Bytedance for “as much as” $1 billion. It has only been three years since this app has been on the market. Do you remember wondering if this app would have legs when we first talked about it not that long ago?
App of the week: HQ.