Digital Identities | Edition #88

FEB 11
Happy Thursday friends!We got Super Bowl gaming commercial vibes and digital humans as the new tribe, but first...

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🧨 Pass the Dynamite: Clubhouse
You guys know by now how much I like to experiment with sections for Weekly. Pass the Dynamite is the new addition. Imagine the Netflix show "Explained" where a concept or product is explained in 25 min... well this is the same but in a 2 min read, before the dynamite explodes and your attention goes to shit.

Backstory
Podcasts, the pandemic, remote work and the overall growth of audio were the ingredients for big brains to come up with an audio-based social platform, Clubhouse. The San Francisco based-company raised $12M in May and $100M last month. Valuation? 1B.

How it Works?
Exclusivity. Invite-only model, just like Hey. Sacrificing viral growth and using FOMO of being part of a new platform has been very successful in the last couple years; and it's working for them too.

Hype

MrBeast, Elon Musk, Tiffany Haddish, Tobi Lutke and others are active in CH.
You can both listen to a conversation and be part of it by asking questions (this is the real value for fans).

Players

Facebook is working on a Clubhouse competitor.
Spaces, by Twitter.

Haters

"Once the pandemic is done, Clubhouse will be gone".
"Overwhelming, and most conversations are boring".
"There is no revenue model".
"This is the next LinkedIn, with people preaching fake knowledge".

Coffee Thoughts

The commodity of talking directly from a phone without caring about audio quality, editing or setup made it easy for personalities to jump into this project and grab a new audience without costs.
Exclusivity only made it easy for people in tech to get the best usernames first, and people outside tech dying to get an invite to cop their username.

🧬 Digital Identity
Unreal Engine, the game engine developed by Epic Games, revealed MetaHuman Creator: a new tool to create hyper-realistic digital humans. This shit is crazy, get ready to absorb it. Webpage, Sneak Peek and Free Sample.

MetaHuman Creator is intended for video games, film and TV. This technology in the hands of the wrong people could go bad real quick, but in good hands it brings great potential, a quick example: amazing tool to find missing people.

🃏 Cards Collectors Update

The Pokemon Company is accelerating the printing process.
McDonald's x Pokemon Cards collab went apeshit, obviously.
eBay trading cards report shows 574% increase in Pokemon card sales.

🎞 Trailer of the Week
Black Myth: Wukong.

🏆 Esports Updates - Cancel Vibes

Overwatch 2 title won't be coming out until 2022.
The Six Invitational 2021 is postponed because of Covid.
Pokemon World Championship suspended until 2022, also cuz of Covid.

📺 Some Super Bowl Gaming Love
We had a couple of gaming moments during 2020's Super Bowl in Miami. This year, two new figures from the industry got their piece of the cake.

Nadeshot with Rockstar for the "Spotlight" commercial. Dope video by the way.

Erin Ashley Simon with General Motors for the "Generation E" commercial.

📖 Read of the Week
The Zelda Game You Could Only Play Via Satellite In 1995, by Ron Soak.

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