What you need to know in advertising today

Greg Sandoval/Business Insider

In a 15-page
internal memo obtained by Cheddar, Snap CEO Evan
Spiegel admitted that it went too fast in releasing its
controversial app redesign, and set company-wide goals for 2019 —
including becoming profitable.

“In our excitement to innovate and bring many new products into
the world, we have lost the core of what made Snapchat the
fastest way to communicate,” Spiegel wrote.

The 6,500+ word memo was surprisingly candid for Spiegel,
who describes
himself as a shy person who feels awkward walking
around the offices to chat. It is timely, however,
as Snap’s
stock closed below $8 per share on Thursday for
the first time since going public in early 2017, as Facebook’s
Instagram puts pressure on the business.

To read more about the memo, click here.

In other news:

Facebook is battling an internal revolt after one of its
execs went to the Kavanaugh hearing. Employees are
outraged after the company’s policy chief, Joel Kaplan, attended
the Brett Kavanaugh hearing. Kavanaugh and Kaplan are
friends, and worked together in the Bush administration.

YouTube TV is rolling out a bunch of new features to woo
cord cutters away from cable TV. The new features
come as YouTube TV continues to expand its content menu beyond
its existing selection of cable TV and traditional TV channels.

Apple strongly denies bombshell report that Chinese spies
were able to secretly implant chips in its
servers. A blockbuster investigation by
Bloomberg published Thursday found that Chinese spies were able
to add small, undocumented chips to motherboards in data servers
bought by big US tech companies.

Tronc —the owner of the Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun
and New York Daily News — is changing its name back to Tribune
Publishing Co. The move comes two years after
it underwent one of the most-maligned corporate rebrandings in
recent memory.