The metaverse and the commerce that could be done there are even starting to interest the world of Luxury

[shishir.seoexpert1]

The battle over data and regulation is of course a major factor in the economic war between the US and China, but this takeover phenomenon will have a much deeper impact by transforming the once global World Wide Web into a multitude of disconnected local platforms.

2 Prepare to enter the Metaverse
This fall, it was hard to miss the excitement around the gambling data singapore Metaverse and the changes it would imply for the internet . However, this concept is far from new, first imagined in science fiction literature of the 1990s and in the imagination of video games, it became popular with Steven Spielberg's film Ready Player One in 2018.

But the global pandemic has made its realization even more desirable for many markets and has therefore accelerated the movement. Due to social distancing measures, the general public has already begun to experiment with aspects of what life would be like in a virtual world thanks to video games ( Fortnite , Animal Crossing or Roblox ), virtual concerts , the dematerialized work universe ( Facebook Workroom ), or even virtual shopping , ...

Naturally, many companies quickly got on board. This worried some specialists, who see in the metaverse a new monopoly opportunity for Big Tech. Mark Zuckerberg has indeed planned to make Facebook the first company in the metaverse with new teams for the development of virtual reality beyond Oculus technology.


Facebook is not alone in this quest, however. Sony and Epic Game often recall their own ambitions with virtual events in Fortnite , a game that brings together between 6 and 12 million players online every day . Nvidia also represents a major competitor with its omniverse launched in Beta version at the end of 2020 . In summary, many companies are now investing in research related to the metaverse, the latest being Bytedance , parent company of TikTok, with the acquisition of startups specialized in VR .

3 Social networks as purchasing drivers
It is clear that the Covid-19 crisis has accelerated the need for small and large businesses to quickly adapt to online sales. And what better place than social media to reach out to confined customers: 2/3 of shoppers use social media in their purchasing journey . Instagram and Facebook have long since launched their online stores. From a user-friendly messaging tool to a powerful sales tool, Whatsapp is becoming a truly controlled sales channel and marketplace for businesses of all sizes.

Like WeChat and its “mini programs,” Snapchat launched its Minis in 2020, with the ambition of becoming a super-app that, thanks to a new AR camera that has just been released, allows you to buy objects from the world around you . TikTok, for its part, has unveiled a partnership with Shopify and is testing “Storefronts.” Even Twitter is developing a series of new shopping tools . Previously, the internet allowed us to buy, now, social networks are becoming “shopping malls . ” Soon, will everything on social media be shopping ?



And to further streamline purchases and strengthen control, social networks are launching their own currencies. Announced in June 2019, Novi , Facebook's digital wallet, obtained the necessary authorizations in the United States this summer , while still waiting for its Libra cryptocurrency .

4 Virality on TikTok: the audio strategy
In the space of two years, TikTok has become a major player in the music and entertainment industry . More generally, the social network has become the ultimate virality engine. With an algorithm that is not very transparent but is capable of very quickly identifying a user's tastes , the network feeds a personalized recommendation page (For You Page) that has become one of the main sources of musical discovery among its users . TikTok is even becoming a talent scout, bringing audio meme creators to radio , television or record labels . The social network has just signed an agreement with the music streaming platform Audius so that small artists can easily export their music into videos.

This operation represents a goldmine for marketing and advertising . The virality of videos often depends on that of the sounds used, which are themselves associated with different trends and therefore different targets. Thus, since the same sounds are looping on a user's FYP, they are quickly recognized and pay more attention to them . TikTok states that 73% of users are willing to stop scrolling to watch ads with audio ; a record compared to other social networks.

88% of TikTok users consider that sound is central to the user experience. Music, audio clips from films or series or even sound effects become like audio memes , taken up or diverted by users to express their own creativity . Indeed, the use of viral sounds in a video is the best way to quickly reach a large audience , whatever the message associated with it. Influencers , the media or even political figures have understood this well. Even the group ABBA, who chose to promote their big comeback on TikTok with a video of Benny, taking up a meme from the platform on the piano:



5 NFT, cryptocurrency… blockchain becomes a game
In addition to the contemporary art and street art market, NFTs – non-fungible cryptographic tokens, i.e. 100% digital items based on the blockchain – and cryptocurrencies are revolutionizing the world of video games . Aside from the jackpots won by the biggest names in esports , NFTs now allow ordinary players to earn money by playing. This is what the online game Axie Infinity offers , a small Vietnamese community game, populated by cute “axies” (which are actually NFTs), that players collect, train and make compete in battles to win other NFTs or cryptocurrencies. The success of this game is such that it has now become a source of income in its own right for people in developing countries . The game is now the platform where NFT sales traffic is the strongest (see ranking below)



NFTs are therefore of interest to an increasingly wide audience, well beyond cryptocurrency aficionados. The creator of the late social network Vine, Dom Hofmann, has announced his own blockchain gaming project called “ Supdrive ” . The giant EA is currently creating specialized teams to work on prospects for including NFTs and cryptocurrencies in FIFA, Madden and Apex Legends. Perhaps they were also inspired by the crypto remuneration system that PSG established with Lionel Messi ?

Finally, luxury brands are revolutionizing their marketing and targeting new audiences by launching NFT collections , like Gucci, Dolce & Gabbana , Burberry or Louis Vuitton, which released a mini video game to promote a batch of 30 NFTs marketed by the brand. The interest of these brands in NFTs goes far beyond the simple trend because they could represent their gateway to a future metaverse .

6 New Media Timeline Shakes Up the Movie Industry
Cinema is in the midst of an existential crisis , faced with a media timeline with films released first in theaters and then in streaming that has been disrupted by lockdowns and the closure of theaters. Despite the participation of streaming platforms, - which were the first beneficiaries of the pandemic -, in financing the French cultural sector ( SMAD directive which came into force on July 1 ) , the Cannes Film Festival persists in its refusal of films released in streaming , after an attempt in 2017 which ended in a cry of outcry from French producers. Result: the catalog of the Venice Film Festival , less reluctant to the new uses of a changing industry, is considerably enriched . On the negative side of online releases: piracy and the sharing of high-quality digital copies of films are easier than ever (an argument used by companies managing movie theaters ) .



But cinema is not dead, Warner Bros has just signed an agreement with AMC (the largest movie theater chain in the US) to grant a 45-day exclusivity window to theaters. For its part, Disney will continue to release films both in theaters and via streaming. The fact that Disney is releasing all its films simultaneously on its streaming service could potentially cut theater revenues in half . Movie stars are also fighting against streaming releases (for very personal economic gain), like Scarlett Johansson who is suing Walt Disney Co. World governments are trying to impose limits on streaming giants . Movie theaters are eagerly awaiting the release of the next blockbusters , a decisive fall season , especially with a Generation Z for whom cinema is no longer a minor activity …

7 Digital formats are diversifying on platforms
Digital formats are gaining more and more ground in French video consumption , and the diversification of formats will surely encourage this phenomenon. Four years after the creation of IGTV on Instagram , which marked the orientation towards video of social networks, formats on social networks continue to diversify. But this diversification paradoxically causes a homogenization of their interfaces . While its success was born from short music videos, TikTok is experimenting with increasingly long videos , up to five minutes for some users . In contrast, YouTube, which hosts rather long videos, launched Youtube Shorts which knowingly imitates the concept of another application: its launch was promoted with the #PermissionToDance challenge in partnership with the group BTS to attract TikTok's audience. This format, however, allows for much better remuneration for creators .

YouTube is also well aware of the audience that video game live streaming brings in, and is increasingly offering streamers more incentives to encourage them to leave Twitch for YouTube Gaming . In fact, the flagship livestream platform of the pandemic is suffering from a major slowdown . Twitch is currently being criticized for moderation flaws , and even boycotted by its own users during #ADayOffTwitch .

During #ADayOffTwitch , concurrent viewership on the platform peaked at around 400,000 fewer than the same day the previous week. https://t.co/NTKTY8VOEV

— Launcher (@LauncherWP) September 3, 2021


8 (Deep)fakes are becoming popular, disinformation is moving to the industrial stage
OpenAI's artificial intelligence (a company co-founded by Elon Musk) is now producing fake news with astonishing credibility. GPT-3 (for "Generative Pre-trained Transformer-3") can write sentences with astonishing relevance, and can even, from a simple verbal description of a given web interface, produce the corresponding code (the Copilot project , based on code from the GitHub platform owned by Microsoft). GPT-3 manages to " amplify certain forms of deception that are particularly difficult to spot ", according to Will Knight , the journalist who covers artificial intelligence news for Wired. For the moment, GPT-3 does not seem capable of producing really substantial content exceeding the length of a tweet (apart from phishing emails ), but the study " Truth, lies and automation: how language models could transform disinformation " from Georgetown University reveals the significant potential of an AI that is tending to become more and more accessible to the general public. AI is not only transforming the coding of computer programs , but is also profoundly impacting the mathematics of disinformation by perfectly simulating human writing, and now in multiple languages . A phenomenon observed in particular this summer in the disinformation campaigns around vaccination launched from Russia.


In the dissemination of fake news , it is the online advertising market that plays the most important role, paying fake news producers more than 235 million dollars each year, according to estimates by an American NGO, a fact revealed in " Fake news, the money machine " . Another AI-based technology is increasingly used by the media: deepfakes. Already applied to cinema and widely broadcast on social networks (#deeptomcruise this spring) , it is now arriving on TV. " C'est Canteloup" was the first show to launch into deepfakes. Thierry Ardisson in his program " Hôtel du Temps" will soon rub shoulders with big stars and personalities from the past reanimated in the form of deepfakes. "In Event of Moon Disaster", a film based on deepfakes, has even been nominated for an Emmy Award . It is an opportunity to raise public awareness of the potential of these technologies while continuing the fight against fake news. France Télévisions has launched “Les Révélateurs”, an action for visual fact-checking and the fight against deepfakes . Even marketing is getting into deepfakes . Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan explore what happens when deepfakers attack deepfakes .

9 Media in search of sustainability
The pandemic has ushered in a trend of environmentally friendly media, a new era of sustainability for brands. Last year, the BBC launched Future Planet , and this summer, at the Edinburgh TV Festival, guest of honour Greta Thunberg warned of the urgency of addressing climate change issues not in disruptive future scenarios, but as a reality of today.


Climate change is happening. The British TV industry is taking action by working with @weareALBERT to reduce our environmental impact and inspire a sustainable future. Check out the @UKTV Green showreel. pic.twitter.com/cpxlAmAi86

— Edinburgh TV Festival (@EdinburghTVFest) August 25, 2021


France Télévisions has just announced the launch of NOWU , a 100% eco-responsible media , aimed at generation Z. With advertisers who will one day be able to model a carbon equation media by media , and Facebook which has managed to reduce its carbon emissions by 94% since 2017, sustainable transformation is becoming an essential issue for the media.

10 The newsletter, a safe haven against social media algorithms?
The newsletter, already very trendy before the pandemic, has been the perfect remedy against infobesity. This channel that offers direct access to readers, and which allows to bypass the all-powerful algorithms of large platforms like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram has allowed the media to control their information flow outside the polemical space of social networks and to build their subscription model . For journalists, it is the way to launch a business in direct contact with their readers. Many of them have joined the “Substackerati ” “movement” – from Substack, the platform that allows you to monetize your newsletters in a simple and balanced way, a community joined by the director Michael Moore . The writer Sir Salman Rushdie has just announced the publication of his next novel in the form of newsletters .


It's here

Today, we're starting to test a feature that allows people to subscribe to your Revue newsletter directly from your Twitter profile.

It's available to all Revue creators immediately. To start though, your newsletters will show only for a test group on Twitter. pic.twitter.com/YDa1aOGeLM

— Revue (@revue) August 19, 2021


Aware of this loss of control over media content, social networks were quick to offer their own newsletter tool: Twitter first with Revue (they are currently testing a subscription button from the profile ) and Facebook with its Bulletin platform . Facebook has just chosen 25 local independent journalists who will be paid from a $5 million prize pool to write for its Bulletin news site as part of multi-year contracts. Google and Apple, for their part, have planned to tackle the newsletter business, notably with Apple's Mail Privacy Protection which will considerably complicate tracking and therefore the effectiveness of campaigns.

Meanwhile, publishers are increasingly limiting free access to their newsletters , to help drive conversion and subscriber retention. Last week, The New York Times introduced seven new newsletters and made a series of its offerings available only to paying subscribers.



And also: YOLO – You Only Live Once

The pandemic and repeated lockdowns have profoundly changed our relationship with work and the concept of work-life balance. Isolated at home, students have used all means to motivate themselves, hence the appearance in France of “ gongbang ”, in which they film themselves revising (a phenomenon originating in Korea). Even before Covid, Generation Z was the one that placed the most importance on the quality of the work environment . The pandemic has pushed these values ​​even further, even prompting some to resign live on TikTok from their toxic jobs.



Even in China, there are questions about the relevance of 996 (work starts at 9 a.m. and ends at 9 p.m., 6 days a week, "a blessing" for Jack Ma). This illegal practice widely accepted by employees was first questioned by young people , and now even by the government (still in the trend of forced takeover of the Big Tech sector mentioned at the beginning of this summary).



“We’ve all had a year to evaluate whether the life we’re living is the life we ​​want to live,” says Christina Wallace, a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School. “Especially for young people who have been told to work hard, pay off their loans, and enjoy their lives one day, many of them are questioning that equation. What if they want to be happy right now? ” It’s one of the many questions media outlets must consider as we head back to school, which is still not post-pandemic.

Happy new school year to all!

Stay up to date and subscribe to the newslette