[KC] DEBRIEF WEEK 38 FRIDAY 09/24
DIGITAL TITANS
_Facebook. More bad news for Facebook as research shows that users of both Facebook and Instagram are dissatisfied. Over the past year, Facebook saw the most precipitous drop-off in user satisfaction, according to research. Of nearly 2,000 US users polled recently, 24% said they are "extremely unsatisfied" with Facebook. Evercore also found a record low number of users to be very satisfied with the platform, coming in at 27% of those surveyed. Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, saw a decrease in user satisfaction, too, although people overall are much happier with that platform than Facebook. While only 8% of users surveyed said they are "extremely or very unsatisfied" with Instagram and 43% said they are very satisfied, Evercore called this a "deterioration" for the platform, as it shows satisfaction at "an all-time low." An increase in ads is mentioned as one of the key reasons.
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In a rare change to Facebook’s top ranks, Mike Schroepfer, the chief technology officer, and a longtime executive plans to step down from his position next year, the company said on Wednesday. Mr. Schroepfer, 46, who has worked at Facebook for more than 13 years, plans to transition into a newly created role as a senior fellow, which he said would allow him to focus on activities outside the company. He said he would spend more time with family and on personal philanthropic efforts while continuing to recruit and develop technical talent for Facebook. “This is a difficult decision because of how much I love Facebook and how excited I am about the future we are building together,” Mr. Schroepfer said in a post on his personal Facebook page. Mike Schroepfer, Facebook's CTO, to Step Down in 2022 Lucas: Facebook CTO steps down - BUT is it really a bad thing? Is it driven by the person not being good enough vs current tech priorities OR because this person needs the breathing space to think company org strategy within being sucked by day-to-day priorities and crisis?
_Clubhouse. After the feature was leaked last week, Clubhouse is officially launching a new way to invite people to audio chats called “Wave.” The company announced the news at a surprise town hall on Thursday and is enabling the feature today for all users on iOS and Android.bWith Wave, you can invite friends to a live audio room just by tapping a waving hand emoji. Once they receive their invitation, they can choose to join your call and immediately get added to an audio room. The company’s blog explains in a bit more detail: To send a Wave, swipe right on the Hallway or tap the dots icon at the bottom left of the screen. Then tape the wave button next to the person you’d like to chat with. They’ll get a notification that you said hello, and know that you’re open to chatting. If they are too, they can join a private room with you — open just to the people you waved at. You can keep it to one social circle, introduce friends from different groups to each other, or open the room up more broadly and make it for everyone. Clubhouse launches ‘Wave,’ a new way to pull friends into audio chats
_Google is going all out to advertise its next flagship phone around the world. In Japan, it offered “Google Original (Potato) Chips” to highlight the new Tensor SoC in the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro. Tensor is Google’s first consumer system on a chip (SoC) — with some technical details leaking over the past few days, and the company created a bag of potato chips to hammer that point in Japan. The country is a big Pixel market as evidenced by the 5a with 5G launch and custom advertising campaigns in the past. Prior to the launch of Google’s first smartphone equipped with genuine chips, we have prepared “genuine chips” that allow you to experience its appeal as soon as possible. Incredibly, Google Original Chips feature a bag design that matches the rear of the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro. There are five color designs available, though all come in “Googley Salty Flavor” — again, amazing. You can even get your name printed in the bottom-right corner. Google hypes Pixel 6 launch in Japan with potato chips
_Microsoft has launched Surface Duo 2 - a productivity killer phone with no screen (instead of a foldable screen) The new Surface Duo 2. Two screens, limitless possibilities.
_YouTube’s chief business officer Robert Kyncl said the company is larger — and growing faster — than Netflix in terms of revenues at the Royal Television Society Cambridge Convention. “We are roughly neck-and-neck with Netflix on revenue, actually we are slightly larger and growing faster,” Kyncl said at the conference, whose theme was Reshaping Britishness On The Global Stage, per The Hollywood Reporter.
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YouTube’s chief business officer Robert Kyncl has been addressing the TV industry this week at the Royal Television Society Cambridge Convention. However, he had some figures that will be of intense interest within the music industry too. “Now, media companies present about 25 percent of YouTube watch time globally, another 25 percent is music, and 50 percent is YouTube creators,” said Kyncl, according to The Hollywood Reporter’s writeup of his speech. We can add this to the other official stats around YouTube and music: more than two billion monthly music users in November 2020; $4bn of payouts to the music industry in the 12 months leading up to June 2021; and more than 50 million paying subscribers for YouTube Music and YouTube Premium in September 2021 – although that last figure includes trials. There is also some fun to be had cross-referencing YouTube’s financial results (as disclosed by parent company Alphabet) with the new watch-time statistic. In the four quarters to the end of June 2021, YouTube generated $24.93bn of advertising revenues. If music is 25% of the platform’s watch time, should music payouts have been closer to $6.2bn than $4bn? Before the industry picks up its flaming pitchforks (© Billy Bragg, 2014) there are major caveats here. Music may be a quarter of YouTube’s watch time, but that doesn’t mean it’s a quarter of its served ads. Meanwhile, the $4bn figure includes royalties from premium subscriptions, but the financials don’t yet break those out. YouTube says that music is now 25% of its global watch time
_Quibi (no longer a digital title :-). Defunct streaming service Quibi has settled a lawsuit alleging its signature video-flipping technology was stolen. Variety reports that per the terms of the settlement, Quibi and the plaintiff, Eko, will dismiss all legal claims against one another. Additionally, Quibi (or, well, QBI Holdings LLC, the company formed to retain assets involved in the lawsuit after Quibi itself shuttered in October 2020) has agreed to hand over the tech and IP related to Turnstyle. For those who don’t know, Turnstyle was one of Quibi’s biggest selling points. Pretty much every device and platform out there can flip videos from horizontal to vertical, but Quibi’s spin on things didn’t involve just flipping a horizontally oriented video vertical or vice versa. Quibi Accused Of Stealing Technology, Trade Secrets From Interactive Video Company Eko
_New digital titan in the making. Canva. This round solidifies Canva as one of the most valuable private software companies out there, and it also propels the Australian tech scene forward. Canva is now valued at $40 billion following a fresh capital injection of $200 million (USD) in a round led by T. Rowe Price. New and existing investors participated in the round, including Franklin Templeton, Sequoia Capital Global Equities, Bessemer Venture Partners, Greenoaks Capital, Dragoneer Investments, Blackbird, Felicis, and AirTree Ventures. This round solidifies Canva as one of the most valuable private software companies out there, and it also propels the Australian tech scene forward. Co-founder and CEO Melanie Perkins and her team started working on Canva in 2012 and launched the product in 2013. The premise behind it was relatively simple, but the technology itself… not so much. Canva allows anyone to design. Presentations, t-shirts, brochures, flyers… you name it. The first step in this is creating a truly simple user interface, where folks can simply drag and drop components into their designs, complete with hundreds of thousands of templates, without doing a lot of fine-tuning. The second step is creating a massive library of content, from fonts to templates to imagery, gifs, and videos. The third step is to make that product accessible to everyone, whether it’s a platform or device or language or price. Canva raises $200 million at a $40 billion valuation
_Netflix was the service most respondents said they would keep if they could have only one. On average, US consumers subscribe to 4 streaming services. When pressed if only one, 41% of respondents said Netflix in what they would keep. The respondents placed the "size of a library" as the deciding point, not "original content". Netflix Streaming
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Netflix’s acquisition of the Roald Dahl Story Company would seem to represent an avenue toward everything the streamer wants to do as it looks beyond its core business. The blockbuster deal announced early Wednesday gives Netflix rights to the prolific author’s entire catalog — and a potential way into several businesses outside Netflix’s core work of series and films, including gaming, live events, and merchandising. It also marks the latest and potentially largest investment for Netflix in creating an IP-based universe that it owns outright. Roald Dahl + Netflix
_New Facebook in the making. This billionaire is pouring $100M into a decentralized Facebook alternative. The lesson from the Facebook era may be that social networking is too central to modern life to be monopolized by one very profit-driven company. Maybe social networks are something more like bridges or water supplies, something best controlled by the public. That’s the thinking of Frank McCourt, the real estate billionaire and former L.A. Dodgers owner who has now turned his attention—and his wallet—to jumpstarting the evolution of the internet beyond the excesses and errors of Web 2.0. Data about social interactions—basically everything we do within digital communities—would live on the blockchain and be controlled by individuals instead of internet companies, McCourt says. New FacebookNRaobw
INNOVATION
_The future of digital avatars. Interesting read. According to Krista Kim, the contemporary artist behind the world’s first NFT digital house, “we will be living in an augmented reality lifestyle within a very short period.” Fashion brands are already starting to release direct-to-avatar (D2A) digital collections. Ralph Lauren released a 50-piece digital clothing collection in August 2021, available for purchase in the social networking app Zepeto. American Eagle announced a digital clothing collection for Bitmoji avatars in July 2021. Gucci and The North Face released a joint collection for avatars on Pokémon Go in January 2021. In March 2021 Gucci released virtual sneakers that can only be worn with AR, using technology developed by Wanna. And digital fashion house The Fabricant has partnered with brands like Adidas, Puma, and Tommy Hilfiger to virtualize their garments. Auroboros styled by Sita. Digital couture collection sold on Drest. New brands dedicated to designing and selling digital-only fashion are coming to the fore. “Contactless cyber fashion” specialist Tribute Brand launched in 2020 with limited-edition digital clothing drops and custom orders. Luxury fashion house Auroboros released a digital-only couture collection in January 2021 on Drest, a styling app, and fashion game. And Digital fashion house DressX raised $2 million in funding in July 2021 to expand its reach with an NFT marketplace. Via Motive Unknown: NFT Avatars and Onboarding Subcultures to the Web3
PEOPLE, CULTURE, MEDIA
_In recent weeks, an unusual phenomenon has rippled through schools across much of the country: As students have returned to class, bathroom toilets, soap dispensers, science lab microscopes, parking signs, and desks have disappeared or been damaged. Enticed by a viral TikTok challenge, students have pilfered or vandalized items at their schools and then showed off their antics, or “devious licks,” on the popular social media platform — often as a sped-up version of “Ski Ski BasedGod” by rapper Lil’ B plays in the background. “In two school years unlike any other, this is absolutely the last thing we need to be dealing with,” said Jeffrey P. Haney, a spokesman for the Canyons School District in a Salt Lake City suburb, where bathroom mirrors have been shattered and toilets flooded.
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_This TikToker redesigned major brand logos w/ the most cringe, Microsoft paint vibes. And brands IMMEDIATELY changed their account profile pics to display the new logos. Modern social media marketing is about being deeply embedded in internet culture.
_OpenSea, the platform acting as marketplace and minting platform for NFTs has launched an SOS button to help users/artists emergency lock their wallet and assets and reduce their loss to scammers. LastLast month, Jeff Nicholas popped into the Discord channel for OpenSea, the popular NFT marketplace, looking for help with a royalties issue. Within minutes, someone by the name of “Pascal | OpenSea” responded, inviting him into a separate Discord called “OpenSea Support Server.” There, he was greeted by “Nate | OpenSea,” given a queue number, and eventually started talking through a resolution process with the two agents. Pascal is the name of OpenSea’s customer support lead, and Nate might have been Nate Chastain, it's head of product at the time. But there was no Nate or Pascal, and Nicholas wasn’t in a customer support channel. He’d been targeted by a group of scammers masquerading as OpenSea employees, and they got right to work. Holding Nicholas in customer support purgatory, they would ping him intermittently, telling him his turn was approaching. By online customer service standards, it was typical — good, even, for how personal they were acting. Tailored messages, an exclusive Discord invite, and multiple team members, all working as fast as they could. If anything felt off in the conversations, it was that “Nate” kept calling him “my guy.” But between family obligations and customer service exhaustion, Nicholas overlooked the faux pas. After hours of back-and-forth, they casually suggested he share his screen with them. To Nicholas, this was just the next step in the troubleshooting process; for the scammers, their eyes began to glow. AS THE VALUE OF NFTS HAS INCREASED, SO TOO HAS THE THREAT OF SCAMS Over the next hour, the scammers wiped out NFT apes, cats, and dogs from Nicholas’ wallet. Because he had shared his screen, they were able to snap a picture of the QR code synced to his private key, or “seed phrase,” quietly gaining full access to his assets. To stall Nicholas, the scammers calmly assured him that the royalty payments were arriving, all while frantically transferring his NFTs away. When his suspicions finally blew over, it was already far too late. The damage totaled about 150 ETH, or roughly $480,000. Soon after he was scammed, he tweeted out a single word: “Fuck.” The NFT scammers are here
_The Guggenheim Bilbao Just Dropped a Rap Video to Raise Funds to Repair Its Jeff Koons Puppy Sculpture and It’s… Well, Judge for Yourself. “It’s the ‘P’ with the ‘U’ with the ‘P’ with the ‘P’ with the ‘Y.’ So please don’t kill my vibe,” goes the song by Bilbao's M.C. Gransan. Guggenheim Bilbao
BRANDS
_Balenciaga launches on Fortnite: What it means for luxury Balenciaga and Epic Games have partnered on the very first Fortnite luxury fashion collaboration. We hear from Demna Gvasalia and key executives at the video game developer about creating a virtual Balenciaga world. The ongoing courtship between luxury brands and the gaming world has taken another significant step forward this week — Balenciaga has become the first luxury brand to partner with Epic Games’ Fortnite. Even those in the fashion business who don’t play video games will likely know Fortnite. Launched in 2017, the online video game is a true cultural phenomenon with 400 million global users and strong links with the worlds of music and sport. Balenciaga launches on Fortnite: What it means for luxury
_NBA 2K22 was released last week, the latest installment in the basketball franchise and the game is getting attention for the curious appearance of Jake from State Farm, a character that the insurance company has used in advertising campaigns going back as far as 2011. You’ve surely seen them. The commercials are all a variation on the same joke, with people showering Jake, a State Farm Sales rep, with gifts because of the supposedly great rates offered by the insurance agency. Pretty much every such commercial that goes past a few iterations gets unfunny, but State Farm has really beaten the Jake character into the ground. Like a good neighbor, Jake from State Farm is in 'NBA 2K22'
MMMM OF THE WEEK
_A website that lets you talk to Kanye and get into a very deep and meaningful conversation as if Kanye was on the other end of the messages. And a screenshot of my very brief effort to talk AIYeezy. Note the incomplete sentence around what likely is a very uplifting idea in the first response at the end. Perhaps it only has so much space per response, something that never troubled TRY (The Real Ye). This should be on the list of mmHmm of the week.