Hey everyone.
Thank you for welcoming me into you inbox yet again.Last week, I talked about Juuls unraveling mission statement and the highly valued startups new Big Tobacco CEO.
I got some great email responses and plenty of a pro-Juul DMs.If youre reading this on the TechCrunch site, you can get this in your inbox here, and follow my tweets here.The big storyThis section might slowly turn into my grievance of the week, but this week the tale isnt a screed against Juul, its a prolonged eye roll after the merger of two adtech companies responsible for pumping the internet full of garbage.Taboola and Outbrain have merged, forming a $2 billion adtech giant.
Those startup names likely dont mean much to you, but theyre both responsible for a lot of the publishing worlds junkiest ad units.Youve seen them.
Youve tried not to see them.These startups grew their networks by sending traffic from one partner to another and incentivizing the flow of more traffic through them.By adding a bit of JavaScript, publications were able to bring in traffic and, more importantly, effortless cash.
Its been an irresistible sell to plenty of publishers, but its also been an eyesore for many of them and a race to the bottom in terms of selling the most salacious headlines.
This has brought in revenues to publications that arent afraid to sell a bit of hype.Being an adtech giant is pretty relative these days.
Taking on Google and Facebooks overwhelming ad duopoly is an incredibly noble goal I would love for a true competitor to emerge but I have very little faith that a Frankensteined fusion of these two crap ad companies is going to do much to halt a war path.
I hope someone else can find a path.Send me feedbackon Twitter@lucasmtnyor emaillucas@techcrunch.comOn to the rest of the weeks news.Trends of the weekHere are a few big news items from big companies, with green links to all the sweet, sweet added context:Microsofts dual screen unveilMicrosoft dove headfirst into dual-screen folding displays at its hardware event this week.
Take a peek at the Neo and Duo.
Read more here.Tesla buys a startupTesla has been arranging its efforts around robo taxis and now is making some acquisitions to bolster its presence.
See them all here.GAFA GaffesHow did the top tech companies screw up this week? This clearly needs its own section, in order of badness:Facebook news cant be trusted:[Facebook leads in news consumption among social feeds, but most dont trust it]Sign up for more newsletters in your inbox (including this one) here.