NFTs. Plop – that was the sound of the bubble bursting. OpenSea turns into NFT ghost-town after volume plunges 99% in 90 days. It’s not necessarily NFTs themselves that are deemed to be risky investments: as most NFTs are quoted in the native currency of the blockchain on which they are launched – typically Ether – the bearish ETH market appears to be one of the primary drivers behind the poor NFT statistics. And Ethers have gone up and down before, so don't count out NFTs just yet. But still...

Triller. Pop – that was the sound of a champaign cork flying off. Video sharing social network Triller has raised $200M in financing, as it eyes an IPO before the end of this year that would value the company at $3 billion – or maybe just a cheap Trader Joe's wine instead of champaign, as the company previously eyed a $5 billion valuation as part of a SPAC merger.

Snap. BeReal copycatting redux. Last week I pointed at Instagram copycatting BeReal (by means of a feature called Candid Challenger, which serves Instagram users a notification at a different time each day to snap a photo of their surroundings). Today it's Snapchat's turn to mimic BeReal (and others) by introducing Dual Camera functionality, which enables users to snap photos and video using their phone’s front-facing and rear cameras simultaneously. Snapchat offers the result as split-screen, which places each camera on one half of the screen; a picture-in-picture style; and a cutout mode similar to the effect you might get with TikTok’s green screen.

BeReal. When friends are not enough. What if everyone and their mom is copycatting you? Well, you need to keep one step ahead. At least that’s what BeReal is thinking. The high-flying photosharing startup is reportedly developing a new ‘Friends of Friends’ Discovery Feature. First steps to pursuing social media network juggernaut status? I certainly hope it’s not the beginning of a diversion from their credo, as articulated on their App Store page: their app “won’t make you famous,” and “if you want to be an influencer then you can stay on TikTok and Instagram.”

Snap. Ouch, it’s layoff time. Last week I mentioned that Snap’s cute palm-sized selfie drone, Pixy, was rumored to be discontinued. Well, we now learned that this was just the tip of the iceberg. Reportedly, Snap is planning to lay off 20% of its 6,400 employees. Snap’s stock price has declined nearly 80% this year so, you know, you need to do something – even though the company continues to grow its user base, now at 347M daily active users. Things are probably more complicated, but one obvious culprit: Apple’s crackdown on ad tracking across iOS apps not owned by Apple itself.