Zoom Up 16% Q1; Microsoft Will Support 3rd Party Win 11 Widgets; TikTok Launching Live Creator Subscriptions; Tesla Superchargers in EU Now For All

Zoom hasn’t taken a powder since a lot of people have headed back to the office. The service is up 16% first quarter, according to CNBC, beating all guidance nicely. The company is projecting 9.2% growth in the 2nd quarter. Zoom expects to haul in revenue somewhere between $4.53 and $4.55 billion this year. 

Microsoft has announced it will support third party Windows 11 widgets, with those becoming available later this year. Theverge.com reports that the announcement came at the Build developer conference. Right now, Microsoft offers its own widgets, but the selection is pretty miserly. You can use their Outlook or To Do Widgets, but pretty well all the rest are web—powered ones that give you the weather, entertainment news, or regular news feeds. Widgets up to now have been stashed in a dedicated panel up to now, but should be available on the desktop soon. 

TikTok is gunning for Twitch, YouTube, and others with a launch this week of TikTok LIVE subscriptions. The subs will allow creators to generate recurring revenue payments from their top fans. TechCrunch.com says the program will launch in beta testing May 26th, and initially will just be available to a select group of creators by invitation only. It has been rumored that this was coming since the 1st of the year. In addition to normal subscriber benefits, subscribers will be able to control the cams on the creators’ livestreams. Badges will also update the longer one is subscribed…giving OG subscribers a hat tip. Prices are rumored to be similar to Twitch’s pricing (which starts at $4.99 a month, with Twitch taking a 30-50% cut. It should be noted that Bloomberg says Twitch may be going to adjust its take.)

Tesla has turned on its Supercharger network in Europe after a test run that started in the Netherlands. According to electrek.co, Tesla crows that it is ‘largest 150 kW+ public fast-charging network’ in the EU. It’s a hard claim to confirm, but it is likely true that Tesla is already offering more fast-chargers with a capacity of 150 kW or more for all EVs than any other charging network operator. Ionity has 417 charging stations deployed in Europe, about twice as many as Tesla Supercharger stations in the pilot program for all EVs, but Ionity is averaging only 4.1 chargers per station for a total of 1738 fast-charger stations. Tesla has only a bit over 200 stations, but averages about 9 chargers per station, which should put them (barely) above Ionity.