'The Drone is Not Coughing on Anyone' – DroneBase Flies High in COVID-19 Lockdown

Tami Abdollah

Tami Abdollah was dot.LA's senior technology reporter. She was previously a national security and cybersecurity reporter for The Associated Press in Washington, D.C. She's been a reporter for the AP in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times and for L.A.'s NPR affiliate KPCC. Abdollah spent nearly a year in Iraq as a U.S. government contractor. A native Angeleno, she's traveled the world on $5 a day, taught trad climbing safety classes and is an avid mountaineer. Follow her on Twitter.

'The Drone is Not Coughing on Anyone' – DroneBase Flies High in COVID-19 Lockdown
Image Courtesy of Dronebase

As a veteran of the Marine Corps who served as an infantry officer in Iraq and Afghanistan in the years after 9/11, Dan Burton saw drone technology, quite literally, take off.

Drones went from needing 55 people to fly, to as few as three pilots, to just one. Meanwhile, soldiers on the ground were thrilled to have a decentralized way to get dedicated eyes from above on missions.


Burton would ultimately translate that military experience into a business venture, fathering DroneBase Inc. in 2014 to provide professional drone services for hire. The Santa Monica-based company said it provides customers hassle-free aerial video, photos, mapping and data — and pairs drone-licensed pilots up with jobs around the world. DroneBase has raised more than $17 million, with VC backing from Union Square Ventures, Upfront Ventures, DJI Hearst Ventures and Pritzker Group, among others.

Today, the company is the largest provider of commercial drone services in the world, Burton said, "with the largest network of pilots in the world and the most kind of geographic reach."

When it comes to the coronavirus, well, "the drone is not coughing on anyone," and so the drone and its operator are therefore less impacted, unlike a typical worker in the U.S., Burton said. Pilots are often working by themselves in more isolated situations or areas.

As a result, March was DroneBase's best month of all time, with 30% in business growth from February to March. April is already on pace to beat the record by a similar amount.

"I wish it was under different circumstances," Burton said. "But we feel we're in a position to keep America running, to help with mission critical inspections of critical infrastructure" while workforces are locked down.

DroneBase is one of a handful of Southern California companies that have flourished amid a sort of second aviation-related boom, perhaps in part due to its roots here and the major presence of aviation and government-adjacent companies, from Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman to the Mojave Air & Space Port and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

"Southern California in many ways ushered in the first aviation revolution, drone tech was born here and built here by the military (contractor) companies by and large, now (the industry's) getting built again in companies in Southern California, and maybe SF, too," Burton said.

Drone-related companies have sprouted across the region. Santa Monica-based software company AirMap started in 2015 and has built digital infrastructure to provide air traffic control for unmanned aircrafts. It has raised more than $60 million from venture capital and strategic investors and has more than 300,000 users.

FLIR Systems Inc., which is based in Arlington, Virginia, develops, manufactures and sells thermal imaging, doing much of its innovation out of its tech hub in Santa Barbara. The company is also a DroneBase investor.

Meanwhile, Auterion Government Solutions, which is also based in Southern California, is working on creating software capabilities, including small unmanned aerial systems compatible for U.S. Defense Department drones.

For DroneBase, which today has its software talk with AirMap's and uses FLIR sensors, some early jobs include helping construction sites quickly measure their inventory, or a quarry safely get video of an explosion. Burton found that companies didn't want to buy their own drones and hire their own in-house pilot. They could outsource the job instead.

The 50-person company has 65,000 pilots on its platform — or more than half of the 120,000 pilots in the U.S. who have their "107" or drone pilot license — and registers over 100,000 flights annually. The company also provides footage for news media like The Associated Press and Reuters ("We're their first phone call when they need stuff from the air," Burton said), and its pictures have been on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. DroneBase also works with content providers like Getty Images and Shutterstock to provide footage for customers.

DroneBase has a close relationship with DJI — the largest manufacturer of consumer drones worldwide — flying twice a year to its headquarters in Shenzhen, China. DJI has also attracted considerable concern from U.S. government officials and lawmakers over its data security and potential cyber vulnerabilities because of its Chinese supply chain.

In 2015, DJI and Palo Alto, Calif.-based Accel teamed up to create SkyFund, which invests in "the next generation of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)." SkyFund became the first strategic investor in DroneBase, Burton said.

A nearly empty Santa Monica, Calif. pier as seen from above during COVID-19 stay-home orders, taken by a DroneBase drone.

Courtesy of DroneBase

DroneBase pilots, who use their own drones, have flown in all 50 states and 70 different countries, Burton said, enabling its pilots to talk to each other through their software and creating sort of de facto standards for unmanned commercial drone flight.

The company has also done jobs like assessing office buildings, evaluating rooftop water damage that's below the surface using thermal imaging, or assessing the health of solar panels or wind turbines, which can be very dangerous to inspect up close and in person.

After Hurricane Harvey hit in Texas and Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico in 2017, DroneBase got to work helping out with insurance company evaluations, helping speed up claims by weeks in areas difficult and dangerous to inspect in person. Their pilots flew drones from 5 feet to 100 feet off the roof, providing imagery that's far better than satellites, Burton said.

"This was very much a military technology that was subsidized by the U.S. taxpayer that's now becoming a commercial industry, not unlike fast-food," Burton said.

__

Do you have a story that needs to be told? My DMs are open on Twitter @latams. You can also email me at tami(at)dot.la, or ask for my Signal.

tami@dot.la

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Here’s Why Streaming Looks More and More Like Cable

Lon Harris
Lon Harris is a contributor to dot.LA. His work has also appeared on ScreenJunkies, RottenTomatoes and Inside Streaming.
Here’s Why Streaming Looks More and More Like Cable
Evan Xie

The original dream of streaming was all of the content you love, easily accessible on your TV or computer at any time, at a reasonable price. Sadly, Hollywood and Silicon Valley have come together over the last decade or so to recognize that this isn’t really economically viable. Instead, the streaming marketplace is slowly transforming into something approximating Cable Television But Online.

It’s very expensive to make the kinds of shows that generate the kind of enthusiasm and excitement from global audiences that drives the growth of streaming platforms. For every international hit like “Squid Game” or “Money Heist,” Netflix produced dozens of other shows whose titles you have definitely forgotten about.

The marketplace for new TV has become so massively competitive, and the streaming landscape so oversaturated, even relatively popular shows with passionate fanbases that generate real enthusiasm and acclaim from critics often struggle to survive. Disney+ canceled Luscasfilm’s “Willow” after just one season this week, despite being based on a hit Ron Howard film and receiving an 83% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes. Amazon dropped the mystery drama “Three Pines” after one season as well this week, which starred Alfred Molina, also received positive reviews, and is based on a popular series of detective novels.

Even the new season of “The Mandalorian” is off to a sluggish start compared to its previous two Disney+ seasons, and Pedro Pascal is basically the most popular person in America right now.

Now that major players like Netflix, Disney+, and WB Discovery’s HBO Max have entered most of the big international markets, and bombarded consumers there with marketing and promotional efforts, onboarding of new subscribers inevitably has slowed. Combine that with inflation and other economic concerns, and you have a recipe for austerity and belt-tightening among the big streamers that’s virtually guaranteed to turn the smorgasbord of Peak TV into a more conservative a la carte offering. Lots of stuff you like, sure, but in smaller portions.

While Netflix once made its famed billion-dollar mega-deals with top-name creators, now it balks when writer/director Nancy Meyers (“It’s Complicated,” “The Holiday”) asks for $150 million to pay her cast of A-list actors. Her latest romantic comedy will likely move over to Warner Bros., which can open the film in theaters and hopefully recoup Scarlett Johansson and Michael Fassbender’s salaries rather than just spending the money and hoping it lingers longer in the public consciousness than “The Gray Man.”

CNET did the math last month and determined that it’s still cheaper to choose a few subscription streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime over a conventional cable TV package by an average of about $30 per month (provided you don’t include the cost of internet service itself). But that means picking and choosing your favorite platforms, as once you start adding all the major offerings out there, the prices add up quickly. (And those are just the biggest services from major Hollywood studios and media companies, let alone smaller, more specialized offerings.) Any kind of cable replacement or live TV streaming platform makes the cost essentially comparable to an old-school cable TV package, around $100 a month or more.

So called FAST, or Free Ad-supported Streaming TV services, have become a popular alternative to paid streaming platforms, with Fox’s Tubi making its first-ever appearance on Nielsen’s monthly platform rankings just last month. (It’s now more popular than the first FAST service to appear on the chart, Paramount Global’s Pluto TV.) According to Nielsen, Tubi now accounts for around 1% of all TV viewing in the US, and its model of 24/7 themed channels supported by semi-frequent ad breaks couldn’t resemble cable television anymore if it tried.

Services like Tubi and Pluto stand to benefit significantly from the new streaming paradigm, and not just from fatigued consumers tired of paying for more content. Cast-off shows and films from bigger streamers like HBO Max often find their way to ad-supported platforms, where they can start bringing in revenue for their original studios and producers. The infamous HBO Max shows like “The Nevers” and “Westworld” that WBD controversially pulled from the HBO Max service can now be found on Tubi or The Roku Channel.

HBO Max’s recently-canceled reality dating series “FBoy Island” has also found a new home, but it’s not on any streaming platform. Season 3 will air on TV’s The CW, along with a new spinoff series called (wait for it) “FGirl Island.” So in at least some ways, “30 Rock” was right: technology really IS cyclical.

As TikTok Faces a Ban, Competitors Prepare to Woo Its User Base

Kristin Snyder

Kristin Snyder is dot.LA's 2022/23 Editorial Fellow. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.

As TikTok Faces a Ban, Competitors Prepare to Woo Its User Base
Evan Xie

This is the web version of dot.LA’s daily newsletter. Sign up to get the latest news on Southern California’s tech, startup and venture capital scene.

Another day, another update in the unending saga that is the potential TikTok ban.

The latest: separate from the various bills proposing a ban, the Biden administration has been in talks with TikTok since September to try and find a solution. Now, having thrown its support behind Senator MarkWarner’s bill, the White House is demanding TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, sell its stakes in the company to avoid a ban. This would be a major blow to the business, as TikTok alone is worth between $40 billion and $50 billion—a significant portion of ByteDance’s $220 billion value.

Clearly, TikTok faces an uphill battle as its CEO Shou Zi Chew prepares to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee next week. But other social media companies are likely looking forward to seeing their primary competitor go—and are positioning themselves as the best replacement for migrating users.

Meta

Last year, The Washington Post reported that Meta paid a consulting firm to plant negative stories about TikTok. Now, Meta is reaping the benefits of TikTok’s downfall, with its shares rising 3% after the White House told TikTok to leave ByteDance. But this initial boost means nothing if the company can’t entice creators and viewers to Instagram and Facebook. And it doesn’t look promising in that regard.

Having waffled between pushing its short-form videos, called Reels, and de-prioritizing them in the algorithm, Instagram announced last week that it would no longer offer monetary bonuses to creators making Reels. This might be because of TikTok’s imminent ban. After all, the program was initially meant to convince TikTok creators to use Instagram—an issue that won’t be as pressing if TikTok users have no choice but to find another platform.

Snap

Alternatively, Snap is doing the opposite and luring creators with an ad revenue-sharing program. First launched in 2022, creators are now actively boasting about big earnings from the program, which provides 50% of ad revenue from videos. Snapchat is clearly still trying to win over users with new tech like its OpenAI chatbot, which it launched last month. But it's best bet to woo the TikTok crowd is through its new Sounds features, which suggest audio for different lenses and will match montage videos to a song’s rhythm. Audio clips are crucial to TikTok’s platform, so focusing on integrating songs into content will likely appeal to users looking to recreate that experience.

YouTube

With its short-form ad revenue-sharing program, YouTube Shorts has already lured over TikTok creators. It's even gotten major stars like Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift to promote music on Shorts. This is likely where YouTube has the best bet of taking TikTok’s audience. Since TikTok has become deeply intertwined with the music industry, Shorts might be primed to take its spot. And with its new feature that creates compiles all the videos using a specific song, Shorts is likely hoping to capture musicians looking to promote their work.

Triller

The most blatant attempt at seducing TikTok users, however, comes from Triller, which launched a portal for people to move their videos from TikTok to its platform. It’s simple, but likely the most effective tactic—and one that other short-form video platforms should try to replicate. With TikTok users worried about losing their backlog of content, this not only lets users archive but also bolsters Triller’s content offerings. The problem, of course, is that Triller isn’t nearly as well known as the other platforms also trying to capture TikTok users. Still, those who are in the know will likely find this option easier than manually re-uploading content to other sites.

It's likely that many of these platforms will see a momentary boost if the TikTok ban goes through. But all of these companies need to ensure that users coming from TikTok actually stay on their platforms. Considering that they have already been upended by one newcomer when TikTok took over, there’s good reason to believe that a new app could come in and swoop up TikTok’s user base. As of right now, it's unclear who will come out on top. But the true loser is the user who has to adhere to the everyday whims of each of these platforms.

https://twitter.com/ksnyder_db

We Asked Our Readers How They’re Using AI in a Professional Setting. Here's What They Said

Decerry Donato

Decerry Donato is a reporter at dot.LA. Prior to that, she was an editorial fellow at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.

We Asked Our Readers How They’re Using AI in a Professional Setting. Here's What They Said
Evan Xie

According to Pew Research data, 27% of Americans interact with AI on a daily basis. With the launch of Open AI’s latest language model GPT-4, we asked our readers how they use AI in a professional capacity. Here’s what they told us:

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