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Pirates of the NFTS. Johnny Depp is selling over 10,000 unique NFTs drawn from his paintings of friends and personal heroes. |
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| February 17 | 3pm EST | ZOOM |
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Mark Feb 17th at 3pm EST on your calendar. You won’t want to miss our trip to what Andrew Nash calls “The Pragmatic Metaverse.” Rooom, his company’s suite of products, creates compelling events in 2D, 3D, AR, and VR. Access to a
platform should not be an obstacle. |
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February 3 | 7pm EST | ZOOM |
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Last chance to sign up for tonight’s special Town Hall Meeting: Omicron Aftermath. Unlike 2020, 2022 has not meant forced cancellations of events, but that doesn’t mean that individuals aren’t making their own choices about whether to go live or stay home. We meet today (Feb. 3rd) at 7pm EST to hear from major voices in the event world to find out how they’re
coping. |
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| 5 Letters That Changed the Word Game 4 Ever |
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Credit: Jackie Frere/NYT |
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The national obsession with Wordle may yield the NYT a few new subscribers. They purchased the viral word game for an undisclosed sum with 7 figures in it. Unlike other word puzzles, Wordle’s secret sauce is that you get bragging rights on social media. And that, it turns out, made all the difference. Twitter Wordle score postings overtook Barack Obama and
Katie Perry for most tweeted.
According to the WSJ, 1.8 million players were Wordle-ing in January (up from 90 who played it on Nov 1. Josh Wardle, the software engineer who created Wordle, said he made a prototype in 2013 and dusted it off during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Derivatives are plentiful. There’s Lewdle if you enjoy playing with rude, dirty words, Primel if you like numbers more than words, and Absurdle, which actually steers you towards wrong answers.
I see T-shirts, and of course, Wordle the movie, in your future. |
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| Right Message, Wrong Messenger: Meta’s History |
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Facebook quietly sold the assets of Diem for $200 million to Silvergate Capital Corporation. I liked the concept of Diem currency but didn’t want Facebook to own it. I recall Dante Disparte, one of the original executives at the Libra Foundation, which oversaw Diem, telling me that Facebook’s stable coin was the right message, just the wrong messenger. Those words echo in my brain.
Facebook’s inability to win over partners, regulators, or banks with the Diem project doesn’t bode well for the bold launch of its Meta project. Same story; different setting. The metaverse is the right message, but Meta may not be able to win (or buy) the goodwill, collaboration, and regulatory oversight necessary to pull it off. |
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Bombay Sapphire had its guests hooked up to state-of-the-art neuro-aesthetic technology to measure their subconscious sensory reactions while viewing artwork at its recent auction. As soon as the artwork was unveiled, electrodes measured brainwaves, skin galvanic
response, and perspiration, while eye-tracking devices helped determine the most passionate viewers in the audience. An auction where emotions speak louder than pocketbooks. |
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Metacademy
I’m a big fan of Shelly Palmer’s cool, calm interpretations of the tech industry’s histrionics. He makes learning new stuff fun. So watch for the launch of The Metacademy, a place where, in crypto-ethos style, you can learn while you earn. It’s a free DIY course answering your most
embarrassing rookie questions like how to create a metamask, how to connect to a dAPP, and more. I’m in. |
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Games as Event Destinations
I used to call it “forced fun” when your company made you go on outings. Based on the new acquisitions in the gaming world, I predict we’re going to see a series of forced fun events in the metaverse where you’re going to need to learn to love gaming, even if you never played Doom in your life. Why?
Yes, there are a lot of gamers, but gamers alone don’t justify the kind of money these acquirers paid. My guess is that we’re all gamers on this bus, and gamers shall inherit the earth. |
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Class Trip For Your Calendar
On Feb 4th at 4:00pm PT there’s a Roblox concert featuring the avatar of superstar producer and DJ David Guetta. The festival, held in an interactive dance club on Roblox, is the next in a series of concert events Roblox has produced proving that events happen on the Blox. |
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Crystal Balling the Events Space
Blended, blurred, data-driven, asynchronous … hear what some smart folks including Julius Solaris of HopIn, Cathy Song Novelli of Hubilo, Josh Hotsenpiller of JUNO, and Sarah Soliman of Soliman Productions have to say about the future of events. |
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ByteDance: A Metaverse By Any Other Name
TikTok owner ByteDance launched an app in China that lets users explore and interact in a virtual community, but they are very explicit in the fact that they don’t call it a metaverse. Reported in the South China Morning Post, ByteDance’s new app is called Paiduidao, or
“party island.” It’s a 3D interactive virtual world that’s now in beta test by invite-only, and may be the start of an effort to overtake China’s uber-popular WeChat. |
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Screenshots of Paiduidao from South China Morning Post |
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Zoom Launches Virtual Conference Floor for Online Events
It doesn’t look much like the Zoom you know and love/hate, but Zoom seems determined to provide an in-person feeling to its events sessions. Expo, as it's called, is designed to allow interactive meetups just like on an IRL events floor. Expo is included with a Zoom Events license, but try as they might, methinks that Zoom is going to have a hard time getting beyond
its pigeonholed image of people in square boxes on a video call. |
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Photo Credit: Zoom, Inc. |
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Shameless Plug
We’ve seen the fruits of our labors. Our members get the business, get the PR, and grab the spotlight. For those of you old enough to remember, think of VEG as the Bill Graham of the virtual events world. For those too young to remember, Google it. Here’s how you can work with us.
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