NFR #58 - Netflix, BeReal Copycat & Eco Washing

🐦 Inspirational tweet:

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🐦 Twitter thread of the week:

(Link to thread)

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🤖 eCommerce News:

📹 Netflix’s ad-supported plan could cost as low as $7

“Netflix’s upcoming ad-supported plan could cost anywhere from $7 to $9 per month according to a Bloomberg report published over the weekend. For comparison, the streaming service offers a basic single-screen plan in the U.S. for $9.99 per month, while its most popular plan, which offers full HD streaming on two screens, costs $15.99 per month.”

👀 Amazon, facing ‘unfavorable regulatory environment’ in India, struggles to expand

“India is a key overseas market for Amazon, where it competes with Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Retail, Walmart-owned Flipkart and social commerce startups SoftBank-backed Meesho and Tiger Global-backed DealShare. Amazon has so far offered “a weaker proposition in ‘new’ commerce” in the country, the report added. At stake is one of the world’s last great growth markets. The e-commerce spending in India is expected to double in size to over $130 billion by 2025.”

📸 Mobile photo editing app creator Lightricks launches text-to-image generator

“To use the new feature, click “Generate AI Image” at the top of the app and a text box will appear for you to type whatever has spawned from your wildest dreams (within reason, as the app doesn’t allow NSFW content). You also can start with pre-written prompts provided, such as “a purple fox, by Van Gogh” or “singing poodle k pop album cover.”"

🤯 Snapchat’s Dual Camera feature isn’t quite a BeReal copycat

“As its name suggests, Dual Camera lets Snapchat users take photos and videos using their phone’s front and back cameras at the same time. When you navigate to Snapchat’s main camera, you will see an icon on the right-side toolbar that looks like two cameras layered over one another. When you click that icon, you’ll be given four dual camera options. You can align your two images horizontally or vertically, and you can use a picture-in-picture mode, which puts your selfie in a small circle in the corner of the image on your back-facing camera. The most interesting option is cutout, which edits out the background of your selfie and replaces it with the footage from your back camera. So, for example, if you took a photo in the stands at a baseball game, you’d see yourself cut out (get it?) and pasted on top of the baseball field.”

🚀 Garry Tan is the next president and CEO of Y Combinator

“Tan wears many hats. Beyond co-founding Initialized, which raised a $700 million fund (its sixth) last year and has more than $1 billion in known assets under management, Tan was also co-founder of YC-backed blog platform Posterous, which was acquired by Twitter in 2012. He was also the tenth employee at Palantir, where he was a founding member of the engineering team of the company’s financial product, and designed its logo.”

📶 The UK’s £5B Project Gigabit gives out first contract to connect rural areas to high-speed broadband

“The first major subsidy contract under the U.K. government’s £5 billion ($5.9 billion) Project Gigabit scheme has officially been awarded, with Wessex Internet securing £6 million ($7 million) to connect remote properties in South West England to high-speed broadband.”

🌱 Flush with fresh funds, UK ‘eco laundry’ startup Oxwash spins up growth plans

“Oxwash, a U.K. startup that’s spent the last few years applying high tech processes to shrink the environment cost of dry cleaning and commercial laundry, has trousered £10 million (~$12 million) in Series A funding to expand its nationwide footprint. Currently its service is available in five U.K. cities: London, Oxford, Cambridge, Bristol and Manchester but — flush with fresh funding — it’s aiming for broader domestic coverage and eyeing a U.S. launch after that.”

💀 Justice Department in early stages of filing an antitrust lawsuit against Apple, says report

“The U.S. Department of Justice is in the early stages of drafting an antitrust lawsuit against Apple, according to sources cited by Politico in a report released just ahead of the weekend. While the new report suggested a potential suit could arrive by the end of the year, it also stressed that a final decision about if or when to sue Apple had not yet been made.”

🤝 Instagram is testing more ways to flag posts you’re not interested in

“In a blog post, Meta says its tests include the ability to select multiple posts and mark them using the “not interested” button, which is supposed to flag to the app that a user doesn’t want to see similar content. Currently, users can click into an individual post to flag it, but there’s no way to do that at scale. Instagram will also soon start testing a way for users to make a list of keywords, phrases, emojis, and hashtags in recommended posts that they’re not interested in and that they don’t want to see. TikTok rolled out a similar keyword-based feature in June — it already gave users the ability to “dislike” videos to steer their algorithm towards more of what they want to see.”

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🐵 NFT Article of the week

Star-studded digital avatar startup Genies launches NFT fashion marketplace

“Digital avatar startup Genies, known its for high-profile partnerships with celebrities such as Justin Bieber, Migos and Cardi B, has just released its long-anticipated NFT storefront, “The Warehouse.” Genies last earned a $1 billion valuation from heavy-hitting tech investors including Silver Lake and Mary Meeker’s Bond Capital during its most recent raise, a $150 million Series C round announced in April.”

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🎶 Tik Tok Ad Of The Week:

Frozen Planet 2 Tik Tok Trailer

TikTok has become my new long-form content discovery platform.

What do I mean by this?

TikTok is the place I often see short clips of longer-form content such as

• Podcasts

• Documentaries

• Book recommendations

These short clips act as great “lead gen” for the bigger pieces.

So… Frozen Planet 2

I know choosing this is a cop-out but this is one of my favourite shows and this got me very excited!!!

(Link to Tik Tok)

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📈 Trends Of The Week:

Bamboo Bedsheets

“Textiles made from bamboo have long been touted as sustainable fabric options. While bamboo clothing has been around for a while, brands are now starting to, cough, branch out and use the plant in everything from mattresses to toilet paper.

If you’re interested in entering the luxury bamboo bedsheet space, interest is soaring. Layla and Ettitude are good examples of brands who have nailed high-end, sleep-hygiene-centric marketing.”

Source: Google Trends USA

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Happy Existing 👋