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MOVIEPASS IS BACK AND WANTS TO DISRUPT THE MOVIE THEATER INDUSTRY ALL OVER AGAIN

🌮 TLDR

MoviePass has returned as has its previously-ousted founder, who has bold ambitions to revolutionize how we pay to see movies. Twitter has rolled out expansive beta testing for Safety Mode, a “defensive tool” to cut out toxicity on the platform. We take a look at Spotter, a startup that wants to buy YouTubers’ back catalogs for big bucks. Our Stat of the Week looks at the crazy success of Coinbase’s Super Bowl ad. And What’s dAppening reports on Twitter adding Ethereum wallet support for tips.

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🎬 Takes

🍿 🎥 MoviePass – Movie Ticket Subscription Service Returns with Bold Ambitions

Launched in 2011, MoviePass had an Icarus-like rise and fall, became a byword for mismanagement of a popular product (it had 3M subscribers before going bust in 2020), and had enough C-suite drama to make HBO’s Succession look positively tame. But, MoviePass is back and in the hands of founder Stacy Spikes, who was famously sacked from his own company in 2018. Spikes says things are going to be very different this time, and he believes web3 technology is going to help him capture 30% of the movie-going market by 2030 (that’s a moonshot and a half🚀). MoviePass 2.0 is set to be a ‘smarter’ app, adapting subscription prices to deal with issues like peak viewing times and allowing credit transfers to friends. Spikes also wants to use ad-tracking technology to reward users with MoviePass credits, similar to his PreShow app. These are bold ambitions, but the new iteration of MoviePass must meet new challenges in 2022. Movie-going has changed since the onset of the pandemic, and there are rivals like Fandango who won’t want to give up market share. Many theaters, too, have launched their own subscription apps since MoviePass collapsed. The new version of the MoviePass app is expected by the summer; we are intrigued to see how this one plays out! #MoviePassReturns Read more here.

 

🧷 📱 Twitter – Anti-Abuse Tool Gets Mass Beta Testing Roll Out

Ah, Twitter. The home of the cogent argument. The place where constructive criticism is met with a friendly riposte, and then everyone logs off happy to have engaged in a reasoned, well-thought-out debate. Of course, that’s not Twitter at all. The platform faces a huge struggle against what is mildly termed “conversational health”. In short, Twitter is rife with abuse, but it does seem to be doing something about it with the roll-out of Safety Mode. Now expanded to mass beta testing across North America and markets in Europe, the new safety tools will allow accounts to defend themselves against “toxicity”. Users will be prompted to use the feature to ban abusive repliers for seven days, and an algorithm will also analyze language between poster and responder, handing out bans if there is abuse detected. There will be questions about free speech, for sure, and once again, we will see the question raised about social media being arbiters of right and wrong. But Twitter says Safety Mode is a “defensive tool” – not something that will stifle your right to say what’s on your mind on the platform. It’s not clear when the full roll-out of Safety Mode will happen, but the scale of the mass beta testing (available to 50% of accounts) suggests that it will be soon. #TwitterSafetyMode Read more here.

 

💰 🎥 Spotter – Startup Raises Another $200M to Buy YouTubers’ Back Catalogs

The idea of buying up a back catalog is quite common in the music industry, so it’s unsurprising to see similar principles applied to creators’ content on sites like YouTube. Spotter, an LA-based startup now valued at $1.7 billion, believes in such a prospect. However, this is a little different than, say, Sony buying Bruce Springsteen’s back catalog and watching the cash roll in. In a sense, it is like venture capitalism for YouTubers. Spotter, which has signed deals with the likes of MrBeast and Like Nastya, pays the YouTubers upfront and then works on the premise that the capital will be reinvested in growing the channel with the ad revenue being shared later. MrBeast is a good example, as his videos usually involve ever-more elaborate (and costly) productions. Spotter, which partnered with MrBeast a few years ago, claims that YouTuber also invested his ‘Spotter cash’ in a Spanish-language channel, and he has since seen viewership grow by over 300% and now has over 1.35 billion monthly views. #SpotterYouTubeCatalogs Read more here.

🧐 Stat of the Week — 20M Visitors Within 60 Seconds

20 million people visited Coinbase’s landing page in the space of 60 seconds during Super Bowl LVI – that’s around 18% of the entire Super Bowl television audience in just one minute. It was, of course, thanks to Coinbase’s unique tv commercial that provided a QR code (they are back, baby!) for people to scan and sign-up to receive $15 worth of bitcoin. The platform crashed from all the traffic, and the Coinbase app went from 186th to 2nd place in the App Store as a result. The ad generated the kind of talking-point publicity that money simply can’t buy (or can buy if you are willing to shell out $13 million). Amazing stuff! #CoinbaseQRCodeMagic Read more here.

🕸️ What’s dAppening?

📱 💰 Twitter — Social Media Platform Adds Ethereum Wallet to Tipping Feature

Hot off the heels of Twitter’s NFT verification feature, the social media giant is now exploring more of Ethereum’s ecosystem by supporting ‘tipping’ with ETH and Ethereum-based stablecoins. The platform has allowed bitcoin tips since September 2021, but it has added Ethereum wallets to “expand ways to get paid on Twitter”. As with many social media platforms, Twitter has looked at ways to allow creators to be rewarded directly by users, introducing its Tip Jar feature in May 2021. Twitter is clearly not alone in offering support for crypto payments, and many more companies are – at the very least – exploring the idea. For example, Uber’s CEO said this week that you’ll eventually be able to pay for a ride with cryptocurrency. He did, however, raise concerns over transaction fees and crypto’s environmental impact. #TwitterEthTips Read more here.

Meanwhile at 3Advance…

If you’ve chatted with our Co-Owners Paul and Darren or seen our staff features on social media, you know that at 3Advance we ❤️ Notion. For those that are unfamiliar, it’s a productivity tool, and it’s the main database and organization tool we use. Need to take meeting notes, draft a newsletter (like this one), keep track of projects, document company goals or create a calendar? Notion’s capable of it all, and it does it in a beautiful and user-friendly way. Shawn, one of our Full Stack Developers recently said, “you can really tell their team is passionate about their work”. It’s true, and it’s evident in the quality and design of Notion’s app. And if that wasn’t enough to convince you of how amazing Notion is, they’re about to host a virtual conference called Block by Block. The line up includes sessions on scaling a company, productivity setups, building a connected team, and more. Whether you’re an established business or you’re a growing startup, this isn’t one you should miss (several of our own team plan to attend). And, as you register for the event, we highly recommend you start incorporating Notion into your mix of internal tools as well. 🚀