Jeremy Caplan, creator of Wonder Tools and Director of Teaching and Learning at CUNY's Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, is a magician at pulling useful tools from his hat. On December 15th at 2:30 pm EST, Jeremy will present Copy.ai for AI promos, Craft to share resources, Around for meetings, Slido for live polls, mmhmm for camera effects, and more. I’m bringing a few of my favorites such as Descript and MidJourney, too. Bring your own faves! Don’t forget to RSVP.

Who Was There and Who Was Not

Neves continues “The largest exhibit space belonged to Hubilo, one of the last companies to receive a large round of funding, back in October 2021. Stova (the new aggregate of a few event tech companies) was the headline sponsor and provided the online platform and event app. Other companies with a significant presence in virtual events included Cvent, RainFocus, Noonah, One World Rental, Yoonity (rebranded, for better or worse, from 3D-VR Live), Bizzabo, First Sight Media, Pylon One, Klay Event Technology, EventsAIR, Notified, and Exposure Analytics.” There were plenty of exhibitors showcasing physical event trappings, too. The organizers handed out awards for everything from “best platform” to “most immersive experience.” Congratulations to Lisa Farrell and the MEETYOO team for winning the Sustainability Award. If you’re going to win one, it’s the most important. 

Notable absences at the event include Hopin, the event tech company receiving the single most investment during the pandemic. Though they did announce a new product approach called Chapter Two the day before the show. Hopin is dicing its all-in-one event tech solution into a portfolio of pieces, making it possible to buy individual bits like a streaming component or a webinar platform. 

A large part of Event Tech Live focused on education, and believe me, they get it. You can listen on demand and see if you’re as convinced as I am that the metaverse and NFTs will play an important part in events. 

Event Companies that Aren’t Event Companies, but Communities

While event tech platforms may be on uneasy ground, I suggest paying close attention to non-traditional event tech stacks as well. Slack gave a talk at Event Tech Live about how it’s being used for events, and you can find out more on their website. Naturally, it’s best used with communities that are already formed.

And of course there’s LinkedIn, another community-driven platform that gets better at virtual events daily.

Marc Andreessen's prophecy that “software will eat the world” became the mantra of VC culture. But software has a tiny gut compared to the voracious appetite of AI tools. AI is rapidly becoming a part of our daily diet and we are about to experience a new wave of AI-based startups.

To keep tabs on the fast and furious pace of AI and how it's being used for art, advertising, copywriting, design, and more, be sure to bookmark Futurepedia.io. It lists more than 1,000 AI-based tools and you can search based on the release date, popularity, topic, and more. They claim they’re listing 5 new entries each day. 

In the macabre AI story of the week, GoodTrust, a site that predominantly specializes in legacies and digital wills, has a new feature that can animate your deceased relative's photo. You upload your old photos and either animate them or have them lipsynched with some truly bizarre results including the voice of Yoda.

Unlike Decentraland’s Metaverse Fashion Week, which was vast and held across multiple destinations, this felt more navigable and orderly. The screenshot shows that you can see the speakers while also exploring the world using a familiar expo paradigm.

One thing worth noticing is that most Web3 companies, such as 8XR, which helped create the Fashion Council show, are all billing themselves as multi-modal, which means able to be accessed from a mobile phone, browser, or AR/VR hardware. Consensus is building, with Meta being the prominent exception. Visiting the metaverse will not require special hardware regardless of what Meta may have decreed.