el producto #297 🚀
Disney's metaverse, How big tech makes revenue, The Merge (Ethereum), Carbon capture funding, Discord forum channels, Research methods, Netflix games & more
Hey team,
Happy weekend & welcome to a new edition of el producto.
🎰 The week in figures
$20B: Adobe agreed to acquire Figma for ~$20B in cash and stock; Adobe shares were down ~13% as the market opened; this would be the largest ever takeover of a private software company
$3B: Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard and his family are giving away their ownership stake in the apparel brand, worth close to $3B, to help fight climate change; the company’s stock will be owned by a collective that will use all profits not reinvested into the business to protect wild land and biodiversity and fight climate change
$1.5B: Bolt has canceled its $1.5B deal to acquire blockchain-based payments company Wyre; the merger would have been the largest ever in the crypto space, not involving a SPAC; the one-click checkout company was once valued at $11B
$882M: VC funding for carbon capture startups reached $882.2M in Q2; the last quarter saw the highest ever investment in the sector; mega funding rounds include Climeworks’ $634.3M Series F, and Carbon Clean’s $190.7M Series C
$316M: Fintech startup Power has raised $316M; Power provides a credit card program through which businesses can launch their own loyalty and benefits programs; the company claims that it processes all payments through its proprietary technology and that its clients will not be reliant upon third parties regarding financial transactions
197.8M: Internal research from August shows Instagram users spent 17.6M hours a day watching Reels compared to 197.8M hours for TikTok users; the document showed Reels engagement was down 13.6% over the previous four weeks and "most Reels users have no engagement whatsoever;" e-commerce ad spend on TikTok increased by 60.3% QoQ in Q2 to $29.9M; TikTok ad spend rose by 231% between H2 2021 and H1 2022 to $48.4M
$100M: Singapore-based fintech Fazz raised $100M Series C; Fazz provides payment, saving, and credit solutions for businesses
$58.6M: Denmark-based Podimo has raised $58.6M; the startup provides a subscription platform for podcasts and audiobooks
$54M: Fintech startup DotPe has raised $54M; DotPe offers an online payments platform that aims to make businesses able to provide fintech services for their customers
$50M: Ethic, a socially responsible investing app, raised $50M Series C
99%: Ethereum’s merge from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake was successful as of Thursday morning UTC; the merge will reduce Ethereum energy consumption by ~99% and its issuance of ETH by ~90%
-11%: Twilio is laying off 11% of its workforce with a plan to improve margins and reduce costs; at the end of 2021, Twilio had ~7900 employees
-17%: Patreon let go of 17% (80 employees) of its workforce; the layoffs impacted employees in several divisions, including operations and recruiting; Patreon will close its offices in Berlin, Germany, and Dublin, Ireland, while keeping the one in Porto, Portugal, open
📰 What’s going on
Twitter is rolling out a redesign of its Spaces tab; Twitter Blue subscribers on iOS can see the updates through the early access Labs feature; the tab merges live and recorded Spaces along with a selection of podcasts that can be consumed in-app
Discord launched Reddit-style forum channels for discussions revolving around specific topics; Forum channels will roll out immediately across mobile and desktop to most servers with community features, but users may not be able to use them right away
Mark Zuckerberg revealed that “Community Chats”, similar to Discord, are coming to Messenger and Facebook Groups; the feature is intended to organize large, fast-moving conversations
Canva introduced new features, incl: Docs, Websites, Whiteboards, and Data Visualization; the Australia-based design company will also expand its print offerings and its background removal tool to include videos
Netflix is partnering with Ubisoft to launch three new mobile games next year based on the French company's popular hits, including Assassin's Creed; since venturing into the gaming sector last year, Netflix has garnered 1.9M mobile game DAUs
TikTok launched a BeReal-style feature called “TikTok Now” that captures a 10-second video or photo of a user’s front and back camera; TikTok also took a similar approach with a daily push notification
Coinbase launched a new tool on its app to show which U.S. politicians have a bullish stance on the crypto industry; the new tool will help crypto firms work on their lobbying strategies ahead of the November midterms; the data is based on media statements, legislative records, and their willingness to accept crypto donations
Amazon unveiled its "Tailored Audiences" tool, which enables merchants to send marketing emails to consumers; Amazon says merchants can track important metrics such as open, conversion, and click-through rates; merchants will be allowed to decide which audience demographics they want to receive the emails
Google has canceled half of the projects in its in-house incubator, Area 120; the canceled projects include a carbon accounting tool, an AR/VR analytics tool, and a map of electric-vehicle charging stations
Google Cloud partnered with the BNB blockchain to support Web3-based startups; the partnership will also provide access to Google for the startup's program; blockchain startups can now build products and services on the BNB Chain and Google Cloud's open-source infrastructure
YouTube will launch new ways for creators to monetize by enabling ads in its TikTok competitor, Shorts; the move comes as TikTok eyes a potential streaming service, filing a trademark application for "TikTok Music"
Apple released the beta versions of iOS, iPadOS, tvOS 16.1, and watchOS 9.1; the beta release includes the new ActivityKit framework for building Live Activities
Snapchat has rolled out its new web version to all users worldwide; Snapchat for the Web initially launched in July and was only available to users of its paid subscription service
Square launches Square for Restaurants, a mobile POS that turns the Square Terminal into a powerful tool for restaurants; it also enables wait-staff to share orders directly with the kitchen straight from the side of the table, while giving them total visibility into product availability and alerts from kitchen staff
Typeform launched brand kits, a new feature for its customers to save their brand's assets and themes in one place
Peloton will roll out its Bike rental program across the U.S. Peloton customers will have to pay $89/month for the Bike and $119/month for the Bike+, in addition to a $150 setup fee
Walmart to introduce banking services: checking accounts will soon be available at the world’s largest retailer; the move heralds the arrival of Walmart’s fintech push after years of fitful efforts to expand its financial-services offerings; the company will start offering the accounts to thousands of workers and a small percentage of its online customers as a part of an initial beta test
Disney CEO Bob Chapek says that Disney+ will soon become the company's metaverse; Chapek called the effort "next-gen storytelling;" the company wants to bridge the current divide between its physical (parks) and digital (media and films) departments; Disney+ could soon host theme-park-like experiences in virtual reality; Chapek said Disney+ would become an "experimental lifestyle platform," allowing fans to engage with the company's content library in new, more interactive ways
📚 Good reads
The Zeigarnik effect, by growth.design. People hate the tension created by incomplete tasks. That's why we remember them better or take action to complete them. This principle can be applied to any product that wants to help people complete harder tasks
How do Big Tech companies generate revenue? A breakdown of revenue streams for Alphabet, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft shows some insight
What The Merge means. The Merge – the major Ethereum upgrade that happened early Thursday morning – will go down as one of the most important moments in the history of open source. It’s hard to think of a cooler example of a community of hundreds of developers across many organizations driving years of open-ended research and hard technical development. Many people don’t realize: Transitioning Ethereum to “proof-of-stake” (PoS) – an alternative to “proof-of-work” (PoW) mining for reaching consensus on blocks of transactions – was an insane feat. The update involved hot-swapping the most important component of Ethereum’s architecture – its consensus mechanism – *while it was running*. All this occurred while maintaining perfect uptime for millions of users, thousands of decentralized applications (dapps), and hundreds of billions of dollars secured
Reserach twice, build once. A good and brief write-up on the different types of research and when to apply them through the product development lifecycle
🔮 Emerging trends
The future of Augmented Reality
Snap recently published a report detailing how consumers use AR programs and how they hope to use AR in the future. The findings are based on interviews with 25,000 people:
60% told they associate shopping with AR
73% claimed AR makes shopping easier
84% are interested in using "try before you buy" tools
As for events, 73% of interviewees believe AR would make in-person events more enjoyable
Almost 80% of people hope more live events will offer AR enhancements
Snapchat recently partnered with Allure to create several "try before you buy" filters featuring 19 of the magazine's Best of Beauty winners.
That’s all for today! Let me know what you think by replying back to this email
Angel
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