This Week in the Metaverse for October 10, 2022

0 00:00:10,000 --> 00:00:38,000 Script: October 10, 2022 1 00:00:39,000 --> 00:01:07,000 Hi, it’s Mike Stiles and this is This Week in the Metaverse, your weekly newscast that keeps you up to date on everything that isn’t real, and yet is. It’s October 10th, let’s see if we’ve all digitized ourselves yet. 2 00:01:08,000 --> 00:01:36,000 When you think about the Metaverse, it’s hard not to think about the company called Meta and its focus on facilitating the metaverse with things like its VR social network, Horizon Worlds. You’d also think that with all that money and focus going into that app, it’d be one of the best ones out there. But Alex Heath at the Verge says it’s got problems. They got their hands on some internal memos and found out Horizon Worlds has a lot of quality issues. But that’s not even the most embarrassing part. Not even the team building it uses it much. If you believe the memos, the metaverse team is in “quality lockdown” for the rest of the year to fix all the issues. That’s right, a lockdown when there’s not even a pandemic. Meta’s spending billions a year on Horizon Worlds and for all that money they expect it to, get this, be good. Fun sentences from the memo include “For an experience to become delightful and retentive, it must first be usable and well crafted,” “If we don’t love it, how can we expect our users to love it?” and “We’re working on a product that hasn’t found product market fit. I need you to fully embrace ambiguity and change.” Sounds like a pressure-free environment. 3 00:01:37,000 --> 00:02:05,000 Do you collect election memorabilia like “I Like Ike” campaign buttons and funny hats that say you wanted Ted Kennedy to be President? Well even if you don’t, an NFT firm thinks you do, and they’re trying to get approval from the Federal Election Commission to do digital versions of such items. Jesse Hamilton at Coindesk says the company is Data Vault Holdings, and the plan is to sell NFTs to campaigns so they can offer them to supporters as incentive. I thought when you buy a politician you get to control their votes but apparently all I can get is a digital bumper sticker. But that’s kinda the point, this is something that would be attractive to low-dollar donors, the kind of people that don’t get protection from prosecution. It wouldn’t just be campaign buttons, it could be position papers and videos. The FEC had already ruled that “the distribution of valueless blockchain tokens isn’t compensation for volunteer services,” but this is something more. Some have already even tried it. Candidate Matt West used cartoon beaver NFTs in his Oregon race. He placed sixth in the primary. 4 00:02:06,000 --> 00:02:34,000 You might think you know what NFTs are, but do you? Sure, it’s digital art of all kinds made by human creators one by one. But Decrypt’s Ben Munster says there’s another kind of NFT you might not be fully aware of. Generative art. First thing to know about it, it ain’t new. It began in 1965 with German philosopher Max Bense. Second thing to know about it is what it is. Generative art comes out of algorithms programmed by engineer-artists to certain parameters. Now that’s pretty handy for creating huge NFT collections. It tends to be more accepted by the snooty art community than Bored Apes. And it makes use of Ethereum’s headline feature: smart contracts, which are pieces of code that self-execute when certain external conditions are met. That’s different from my contract with Verizon, which was not smart. What’s fun about generative art is you really don’t know what your purchase looks like until it’s generated. Anyway, if you’re into it, most generative NFTs can be bought on platforms you know like OpenSea. Or some specialize in it like Art Blocks and Brain Drops. 5 00:02:35,000 --> 00:03:03,000 Well, I want my listener numbers to go up, so I better mention a Kardashian. Kim agreed to pay a $1.26 million fine for promoting a digital token without revealing how much she was paid to promote it. Apparently, you can’t do that when you hold the power to control every American’s brain. She was pushing EthereumMax, which promises to maximize the power of decentralized finance and come with lifestyle perks and financial rewards. You might say gee, EMAX sounds a little sketchy, but she didn’t get in trouble for that. The Security and Exchange Commission said she broke the anti-touting provision of securities laws by not revealing her payday. Obviously, they view EMAX as a security. If you’re curious, she was paid a quarter million dollars for one Instagram post. As part of the settlement, Kim didn’t have to admit to any wrongdoing, and she promised not to promote any crypto for three years. Gosh I hope she can find other companies that will want her to promote their crap. 6 00:03:04,000 --> 00:03:32,000 Now on to another big, but not as big, celebrity, Bruce Willis. Now, Bruce isn’t as young as he used to be, and health issues have diminished his opportunities to work. But that doesn’t mean he can’t live forever and keep working forever as a digital version of himself. Pay attention even if you aren’t a Die Hard fan because the implications for this are huge. He’s the first actor to sell the rights to his likeness, a digital twin of himself, to a deepfake company. The company is Deepcake and they’ve already tested it in a Russian TV commercial. He said, “For me, it’s a great opportunity to go back in time.” James Earl Jones kinda just did the same thing, signing over the rights to his voice to Lucasfilm so they can make Darth Vader shows ‘til they drop. Among many things, this could mean that one day, you might even be playing in a metaverse game with a big-name star as your partner or sidekick. 7 00:03:33,000 --> 00:04:01,000 We’re going to close it out this week by talking about strippers. Oh, I hear you. “Mike, you already talked about Kim Kardashian.” But Sanika Nalgirkar of YourTango tells us women are finding ways to use their talents to make money in the metaverse while remaining dressed and anonymous as 3D avatars. How much money? Up to $100k a year. I need to sign up for dance classes. Think of it as OnlyFans on steroids. But with this business model, the attraction is that you never have to show your real self. How do you do it? Well not to be a metaverse stripper career coach but you just pick a platform or app, create an avatar, search the metaverse world you’re in for virtual places where you might find strippers, so maybe not Cracker Barrel, and you try to get hired. And you can get paid virtually so you don’t have to take all those ones to the bank and be embarrassed. 8 00:04:02,000 --> 00:04:30,000 That’s all we have for you this week. We want to thank you for doing what we’ve asked you to do, which is subscribe to the show and spread the word. Keep that up and we’ll be back next week. 9 00:04:31,000 --> 00:04:33,000 In this short episode you’ll learn: 10 00:04:34,000 --> 00:04:36,000 The latest embarrassment to come out in Meta internal memos 11 00:04:37,000 --> 00:04:39,000 What kind of political NFTs you might be able to donate to get 12 00:04:40,000 --> 00:04:42,000 What generative art NFTs are 13 00:04:43,000 --> 00:04:45,000 Why Kim Kardashian had to pay over a million in fines for promoting crypto 14 00:04:46,000 --> 00:04:48,000 How you might have an adventure in the metaverse with Bruce Willis one day 15 00:04:49,000 --> 00:04:51,000 How strippers are making six figures in the metaverse while staying dressed and anonymous 16 00:04:52,000 --> 00:05:00,000 https://thisweekinthemetaverse.podbean.com/e/this-week-in-the-metaverse-for-september-26-2022/