Sam Blumenthal

Slated to roll out soon, the upgraded “live stores” will be highly customizable, the platform said. Brands will be able to display their streams prominently on their store homepage and can also tailor special experiences for different tiers of customers. For example, they can create invite-only VIP programs and interactive features and vouchers... See more

A few weeks later, a designer brand that was moving its headquarters reached out to the couple to help sell excess inventory. The brand had about 700 pairs of shoes it wanted to unload. Within three hours, during a livestream on Taobao, Yuan and Zhang sold all the merchandise.

Investment DAOs: Users truly own their assets in web3. DAOs allow groups of friends/strangers to own anything. Through investment and hence shared ownership, users play an active role in the growth of the products & communities they have a stake in. Communities coordinate group action, and communities emerge from group action.

Synthetic media allows brands to have lifelike digital mascots. Instead of an animated Ronald McDonald, customers could interact with a virtual recreation.  Digital characters will also populate stores: imagine a virtual person taking your order at a fast food drive-thru or answering your questions at the Apple Store. Artificial intelligence will... See more