Sam Blumenthal
@samblumenthal
Sam Blumenthal
• Embrace Opportunities for Edutainment. TikTok’s short-form video format isn’t just addictive—it offers brands a unique opportunity to educate consumers about their products. Additionally, teaming up with TikTok beauty and fashion experts, à la The Inkey List, can help brands build credibility and win over potential skeptics.
Tribe Dynamics • July Beauty and Fashion Rankings: Beauty and Fashion Brands Rev Up TikTok’s Influencer Marketing Engine
Cryptovoxels, another virtual world project, took a somewhat leaner approach. Launching with a very simple webVR experience in mid-2018 and led by a single developer, CryptoVoxels has gradually expanded its universe, careful not to sell more land than exceeds demand. Today, CryptoVoxels has done over 1,700 ETH in volume and the average price of... See more
OpenSea • The Non-Fungible Token Bible: Everything you need to know about NFTs - OpenSea blog
product design and
Will stablecoin access fees be a material source of income for Ethereum and other token holders? As stated above, stablecoins are generally backed 100% by liquid reserves and therefore do not result in any speculation on their prices. The larger centralized stablecoins such as USDC are not their own blockchains but instead are tokens that are... See more
JP Morgan • The Maltese Falcoin | J.P. Morgan Private Bank
From 2019 to 2020, deepfake videos grew 6,820x (!), from 14,678 videos to 100 million videos. They began to invade mainstream internet platforms. Tom Cruise, for example, isn’t on TikTok. But you’d be forgiven for thinking he is: the account @deeptomcruise posts (very convincing) deepfakes of Tom Cruise.
Substack • The Rise of Synthetic Media & Digital Creators
When it comes to buying, more buyers can be validating. Unlike the rise of social vertical communities—a promising trend in its own right—the success of a shopatainment platform isn’t about fostering community and intimacy among a small group of fellow shoppers. Shopatainment is a numbers game, where seeing more shoppers purchase a product helps... See more
Andreessen Horowitz (AZ) • Shopatainment: Video Shopping as Entertainment | Andreessen Horowitz
Impossible to Possible, Cell-Cultured Meat, and the Radical Future of Food
Sam Blumenthal • Atoms To Bites
Brands’ original livestreams, as opposed to those created by influencers, have surged since 2019, as an increasing number of brands have mastered the popular medium to connect with Chinese consumers. Some companies have even invited celebrities or their CEOs and senior executives to appear on camera to answer viewers’ questions. Others, like Dior... See more