Tech Brew Ride Home - Tue. 04/12 – Meta Will Pay You To Get Creative In VR

Episode Date: April 12, 2022

Meta rolls out a test to sell virtual items in Horizon Worlds. Ethereum takes a major step toward its proof-of-stake upgrade. Would you watch a Bored Ape movie? Apple has delayed a major feature for the Watch. Etsy sellers are on strike. And Netflix’s new two-thumbs-up button. Sponsors: CreditKarma.com Links: Meta will let Horizon creators sell virtual items (The Verge) Ethereum Undergoes Another Stress Test Ahead of Software Change (Bloomberg) Bored Apes Go Hollywood With Coinbase-Produced Movie Trilogy (CoinDesk) Apple Targets Watch Blood-Pressure Tool for 2024 After Snags (Bloomberg) Over 14,000 Etsy sellers are going on strike to protest increased transaction fees (TechCrunch) Digital Ad Revenue Jumped 35% in the U.S. Last Year, Biggest Gain Since 2006 (WSJ) TikTok Ad Revenue Set To Triple in 2022 (The Information) How Netflix tests Netflix: The story behind the service’s new two-thumbs-up feature (Protocol) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On April 4th, 2023, around 2 in the morning, a man was found stabbed multiple times on a sidewalk in downtown San Francisco. Hey, who did this to you? What happened next turned the story into a political firestorm. Reports have identified the victim as Bob Lee, the founder of Cash App. From Bloomberg Podcasts, this is Foundering, the Killing of Bob Lee, beginning April 16. Welcome to the Tech meme right home for Tuesday, April 12th, 2022. I'm Brian McCullough today. Meta rolls out a test to sell virtual items in Horizon World. Ethereum takes a major step towards its proof of stake upgrade. Would you watch a board ape movie? Apple has delayed a major feature for the watch. Etsy sellers are on strike and

Netflix's new two thumbs up button. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. Meta has rolled out a test for some creators to sell virtual items and effects in Horizon Worlds, and we'll take a 25% cut of any sale after App Store fees, quoting the Verge. Meta is testing new features to let creators make money within Horizon Worlds, the company's Social Metaverse platform for Quest VR headsets, that is soon coming to mobile phones and possibly game consoles. Most notably, a handful of Horizon creators will be able to sell virtual items and effects in the worlds they create for others to explore. The idea is that creators can sell everything

from access to a VIP section of their world to virtual items like jewelry or a special basketball, according to Megan Fitzgerald, the product marketing director for Horizon. Participants in the U.S. will also be able to earn money from a $10 million creator fund, META recently set up to reward creators with the most engaging worlds. With this test of in-world purchases, META is following in the footsteps of other 3D social platforms like Roblox and Rec Room, which both let creators sell items that they make. Roblox has built a huge business from this model, while Rec Room is growing quickly and prioritizing creator monetization as well. Meta will be taking a cut of what creators sell, though exactly what that take can be is a bit complex. For Horizon purchases, Meta is taking a

25% cut of the percentage that's left after a platform fee. For platforms with a 30% fee, like Meta's own Quest Store for VR titles, the creator will be left with a little over half of the sale price. The math there being that meta is taking 25% of 70%. We think it's a pretty competitive rate in the market. Vivek Sharma, meta's VP of Horizon, tells the verge, adding that, quote, we believe in the other platforms being able to have their share, end quote. Even still, meta has repeatedly called out Apple's 30% take rate as being too aggressive for the iPhone ecosystem and intentionally lowered its rate on mobile for certain in-app purchases, end quote.

Ethereum developers have officially launched the so-called Mainnet Shadow Fork, a key stress test ahead of the proof-of-stake merge upgrade, planned for Ethereum, which is expected to reduce energy use by Ethereum by around 99%, quoting Bloomberg. Ethereum's network is inching closer toward its much-anticipated software upgrade known as the Merge, having just entered a key testing step. Earlier Monday, Ethereum developers launched a so-called mainnet shadow fork stress testing the new upcoming software. The test uncovered at least one bug,

but the deployment has mostly gone smoothly and was, quote, a huge success, Ethereum developer Marius Vander Wyden said in a tweet. The test marks the latest step toward the merge, the software upgrade that will change the way transactions on the Ethereum network are ordered. Currently, so-called miners, order transactions using giant server.

farms. After the merge, the miners will be out of the job, and the transaction ordering will be done by so-called stakers by using swathes of ether in a system called proof of stake. The change is projected to cut Ethereum's energy use by some 99%. The shift is being watched closely with Ethereum the most important commercial network. It trails only Bitcoin and market value at around $360 billion. Decentralized finance apps with more than $108 billion in value locked in them are also dependent on the update. The incessant testing that the Ethereum developers have been doing for months is designed to detect bugs and issues before the system is projected to go live later this year to avoid major problems, end quote. Coinbase is going to produce a movie trilogy based on the

BoredApe Yacht Club set to premiere at nfti.n.YC in June. Board ape yacht club owners can submit their apes for consideration for the film, because remember, owners of apes own the IP4. those apes. Quoting CoinDesk. The films are just the latest boost in what has been a stellar six weeks for a project many now see as the face of the non-fundable token sector. That includes the launch of the ape coin token on March 18th, and the acquisition of rival Blue Chip Project Cryptopunks by board ape yacht club's parent company Yuga Labs the week prior. The first of three installments for the series of animated short films titled The D-Gen trilogy will premiere at nfti.Nyc in June with the NFT community of apes and non-Apes alike, having a say in parts of the film's plot.

Board ape owners are invited to submit their apes for consideration as characters in the trilogy, along with made-up character descriptions that will be reviewed by an actual Hollywood casting director. More surprising than the fact that these films will exist may be the company making them. Coinbase is testing out its new media arm for the film's production, led by entertainment and culture marketing director William Swan, brought over by the company from the traditional entertainment world. You can think of this as a love letter to the NFT tech that has provided so much creative liberation for artists, Swan told CoinDesk in an interview. We really looked to board apes as sort of our North Star in the NFT space. They've created such a massive and

engaging community, end quote. After their release, the films will be wallet gated on the Coinbase website with users having to create a Coinbase wallet before being able to view them. The series will also tie into Coinbase's long-awaited NFT marketplace, which will be released, very, very soon, according to Swan, end quote. Mark German says that Apple has delayed adding a blood pressure monitor to the Apple Watch until 2024 or even possibly 2025, after encountering difficulties with accuracy during testing, quoting Bloomberg. The company has teams working on an updated sensor and software for the Apple Watch that would

determine if a user has high blood pressure, but accuracy has been a challenge during testing, said the people who asked not to be identified because the matter is private. The feature has been planned for at least four years, but it's probably two years away from hitting the market and may slip until 2025, they said. Blood pressure features may become a key selling point for smart watches in coming years, but the technology hasn't been easy to master. Though Apple rivals such as Samsung have launched watches with the capability, they require monthly calibration with a traditional monitor. Last year, Alphabet-owned Fitbit launched a public study to test risk-based blood pressure measurement. The iPhone maker is running trials of its blood pressure technology on employees. Its planned approach won't tell users their specific systolic and diastolic readings,

the numbers used to assess blood pressure, but would warn those wearing the watch that they may have hypertension, which is high blood pressure, and should consult a doctor or use a standard blood pressure checker. The company also has teams working to add non-invasive blood sugar monitoring to the watch, a move that could be a boon to diabetics. That feature is still several years away and hasn't been assigned. signed a target year of release yet. In the interim, the company has discussed adding improved support for third-party glucose meters to the watch and the iPhone's health app. While Apple's blood

pressure and glucose features are still far off, the company is working on other upgrades that will launch sooner. That includes new women's health, sleep, fitness, and medication management features, end quote. Over 14,000 Etsy sellers have begun a week-long strike over an increase in transaction fees from 5 to 6.5%. Also grievances with Etsy's off-site ads program and more. Quoting TechCrunch, we're hoping to get Etsy's attention that we are fed up, said Christy Cassidy, an organizer of the strike in an interview with Yahoo Finance. Cassidy concedes that 14,000 sellers isn't a huge percentage of the marketplace's 5.3 million active sellers, but she says it's also quite a bit for just people trying to spread a movement online with no advertising. The amount of

support we have gotten when we put this out into the world. People are sharing. It's spreading entirely organically, end quote. Cassidy started a petition which now has more than 48,000 signatures from buyers and sellers urging Etsy to, quote, work with sellers, not against us, end quote. The Rhode Island-based seamstress also references an advertising policy that took effect in February 2020, which makes it mandatory for sellers making more than $10,000 a year to allow Etsy to advertise their products on sites like Google, Facebook, and Pinterest, taking at least 12% of every sale it refers. While Etsy pitched this as a new revenue stream for sellers, the artisans themselves felt like they were being forced to give up a cut of their sales against

their will. Thanks to off-site ads, Etsy fees are an unpredictable expense that can take more than 20% of each transaction. We have no control over how these ads are administered or how much of our money is spent, Cassidy wrote in the petition. Just a few years ago, Etsy raised its fees from 3.5% to 5% for the first time since its founding in 2005. So this new increase felt like the final straw for a number of independent artists who operate stores on Etsy. Since going public in 2015, Etsy's total revenue has continued to increase, so sellers feel that they are giving up an additional cut of sales just to keep patting Etsy's bottom line. The company also made two major acquisitions in the past year, a $1.6 billion, mostly cash purchase of Deepop, and a $217 million

acquisition of ELO 7, known as the Etsy of Brazil. Brazil, end quote. Two interesting data points for you. First, according to the IABUS digital ad spend, rose 35% year-over-year to $189 billion in 2021, the largest gain since 2006. 10 publishers and platforms took 78.6% of that total, up from 78.1% in 2020, quoting the Wall Street Journal. The rise was well above the 12% growth rate of 2020, which was briefly hobbled by an early pandemic dip. The year-of-a-year growth in 2021 was the highest the digital ad market has seen since 2006, when it rose at the same rate, the online trade group said. Advertising on digital audio, podcasts and streaming music and radio, grew faster than any other category, up 58% to reach $4.9 billion.

But audio was just a speck of all digital advertising at 2.6% of the total. Though marketers are interested in podcasts and other audio formats, measuring results can be difficult compared with other types of digital marketing. In 2021, 10 digital publishers and platforms took the lion's share. 78.6% of total digital ad revenue up from 78.1% in 2020, according to the IAB, which doesn't identify the companies. But last year, research firm, insider intelligence, forecast media behemists, Google, Facebook, and Amazon would siphon up to 64% of digital ad budgets in the US in 2021. E-commerce, now a cornerstone of the economy, will continue to drive ad investment to digital channels, the report said. A growing part of that investment will go to so-called retail media networks.

Consumer-facing businesses, among them DoorDash, Walmart, and CVS Health are increasingly offering advertisers more ways to reach consumers using retailer data, often by letting brands buy ads on retailers' own websites or apps, end quote. And according to another research report, TikTok's ad revenue is projected to triple in 2022, to more than $11 billion, thereby surpassing Twitter and Snapchat combined, which are expected to make $5.58 billion and $4.86 billion, respectively, quoting the information. Short video app TikTok's global net ad revenues are poised to triple to $11.64 billion this year from $3.9 billion in 2021, according to a new estimate from insider intelligence. TikTok today represents a small percent of advertisers' budgets,

but many companies are experimenting with it because the app is widely used by young people and its users spend more time on it than on many other social media networks. Still, advertisers want more assurances that the platform can offer brand safety and more tools to target the right consumers. More than half of TikTok's ad revenues are likely to come from the U.S. in 2022, Insider Intelligence estimated, giving it about a 2.4% share of domestic digital ad spending. Globally, its share of digital ad spending is smaller and expected to grow to 1.5% in 2022 up from less than 1% last year. Google, which owns YouTube and Facebook Parent Meta, continue to dominate the digital global ad market with a 29 and 21.4% share, respectively, end quote.

And finally today, Netflix has rolled out a double thumbs up ratings option, which will appear next to the thumbs up and thumbs down buttons to let users refine content recommendations, quoting protocol. Netflix rolled out its new two thumbs-up feature across its mobile and smart TV apps as well as its website Monday. Subscribers are being advised that this type of feedback directly affects future recommendations. A thumbs-down means that a title won't get suggested again. A thumbs-up will result in Netflix recommending similar content. Two thumbs-up means that, quote, we know you're a true fan, as the Netflix mobile app puts it. The company kicked off its work on the feature about a year

and a half ago based on feedback it was getting in surveys and research interviews from its subscribers. We were hearing from members that like and dislike was not sufficient, said Christine Doi Cardette, who leads the company's personalized UI product innovation team. There were some shows that they really, really, really enjoyed. Differentiating between what they love and what they like was important, end quote. Once the decision was made to solve this problem, Netflix kicked off a series of design sprints to come up with visuals for this level of fandom. Some of the early ideas included the heart, an applause icon, shooting stars, and others. Designers also consulted with the company's globalization team to find an icon that was truly universal.

The design team and the globalization team really homed in on the symbols that connote love, said Netflix director of product design, Ratna Desai. We wanted it to be very precise, very concise, and we wanted this to be a very quick interaction, end quote. For some ungodly reason, I've had that Steppenwolf song, Magic Carpet Ride, stuck in my head since I woke up this morning. I was considering quoting lyrics from that to end the show, but it's a terrible song, so never mind, I'll just spare you. Talk to you tomorrow.