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Let Tim Cook (Metaverse-less AR)
Plus: 99% NFT Collections Going to Zero, Twitter Borrows Web3 Creator Playbook
Happy Friday! Welcome to The Web3 Marketer, where I help brands and marketers stay ahead of the web3 curve. Every week, I bring you top stories on web3 & digital collectibles across consumer & loyalty.
Today's write-up is 997 words, a 4-minute read.
This week’s TL;DR:
Apple Vision Pro vs Meta Quest strategy
NFT collections mostly underwater
Twitter creators to own subscribers
Metaverse tokens labelled securities
PLUS: Starbucks, Luis Vuitton, PUMA, Warner Bros., GameStop, Naomi Osaka, Zaha Hadid, and more!
📅 Upcoming events: Fans Love It, Istanbul (Jun 10); Metaverse Beauty Week (Jun 12-17); Christie’s Art+Tech Summit, NY (Jun 19-20); Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity (Jun 19-23); Non Fungible Tokyo (Jun 22)
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The Big One
Apple’s Vision headset focus on AR and productivity is a stark contrast to Meta’s Quest VR strategy
Apple finally unveiled the $3499 VisionPro headset, while carefully repeating terms “magic” and “spatial computing”, and avoiding “metaverse”, “web3”, “AI”.
According to Mark Zuckerberg’s companywide note, it’s 1) nothing that Meta hasn’t explored before and 2) a fundamentally different approach to Meta’s ambition to get people connected and active instead of sitting alone on a couch.
The initial public reactions are surprisingly not as bad as the prevailing metaverse/VR market skepticism. Also, the memes are excellent.
The Takeaway: We won’t be able to judge the success or failure of Apple’s Vision for quite some time: it’s set to launch in 2024, and like with any of its products, the ultimate breakthrough will hinge on steady iteration and support from third-party developers.
For deep dive:
Great pro take: Apple Vision (Stratchery)
Great cynical take: Apple's New Headset Is Devoid of Reality (TrendMill)
By the Numbers
Most NFT collections to date are underwater, volumes hit a 2-year low
New NFT mints have been on a decline since summer, with NFTs minted in May being 65% lower than that in April, and the lowest it's been since June '21 per Nansen Analytics. Read more →
The Takeaway: 99% of NFT collections do not provide intrinsic value or utility (think most websites on the internet), and therefore their long-term value should go down (to zero). It’s the 1% that is promising and exciting.
Bold Strokes, Long Marches
Twitter will allow creators to ‘own’ their subscription followers
The ability to “own” the audience (e.g., directly email followers and move them to another platform) is the most valuable asset in the creator economy. It has also long been the main selling point of web3-based platforms trying to win over web2 creators. Read more →
The Takeaway: Unprecedented in big tech, this proposal was welcomed with much excitement by Twitter creators and is likely to convince some of them to try out the company’s subscription product.
Food for Thought
Metaverse tokens branded as securities in SEC suits against Coinbase and Binance
As part of the Binance and Coinbase suits, the SEC labeled several cryptocurrencies as securities, including Sandbox’ SAND and Axie Infinity’s AXS native tokens. Read more →
Top Headlines
🛍 Consumer & Mainstream
Starbucks airdropped NFTs by Jade Purple Brown to most active users.
Trip.com is launching an NFT-based loyalty experience.
Report: Web3 in China beyond the hype.
💍 Fashion & Luxury Goods
Louis Vuitton to sell $41,000 NFT “Treasure Trunks” to top customers.
PUMA collaborates with LaMelo Ball and Gutter Cat Gang for NFT drop.
Nike’s digital sneaker studio RTFKT signed with CAA.
Are Prada’s NFTs still relevant?
🎬️ Entertainment, Culture & Media
Warner Bros. will sell 1978 ‘Superman’ movie in 4K UHD as an NFT.
Noel Gallagher launched NFT album to top Foo Fighters in UK chart race.
GameStop is launching an NFT collection to revive its NFT marketplace.
Reddit co-founder: ‘play-to-earn’ gaming is the future.
🏈 Sports
Naomi Osaka partnered with Meta to release a digital apparel line.
FC Barcelona is launching an eco-friendly, animal-themed NFT collection.
Former pro football player wants to buy an NFL team through NFTs.
Sports still eyes blockchain ticketing and fan experience solutions.
🤖 Metaverse
Meta unveiled $500 Quest 3 launching this fall.
Zaha Hadid explores the future of architecture in the metaverse.
Pokemon GO creator is launching a mixed-reality game.
Marketer intel
🛠️ MarTech
NFT holder loyalty: Understanding churn & retention.
Galaxy’s 2023 crypto and blockchain trends to follow.
🤳 CreatorTech
Mark Cuban is releasing his book as NFT.
Twitch co-Founder's startup launched tools to help devs build NFT games.
Zora marketplace announced launch partners for its NFT-focused chain.
Fortnite now rewards creators for how long people play their experiences.
Web3 social will lead to a ‘renaissance of feature-specific’ apps.
💰️ Deals
Lens Protocol raised $15M to expand the decentralized social layer.
HyperPlay raised $12M to build a web3-native game store and launcher.
Argus Labs raised $10M to build SDK for interoperable game worlds.
M80 raised $3M to expand the ‘web3-enabled" esports organization.
Walmart is launching an accelerator for web3 commerce apps.
For the Weekend
What It Takes to Build a Billion-User Platform (Matthew Ball)
Is VeeCon The Next SXSW? (Forbes)
Zuzalu: Secret Pop-up City of Vitalik Buterin’s Dreams (The Information)
Western Luxury Brands Are Losing China’s Gen Z (JingDaily)
The Fall of Sam Bankman-Fried (🎙️Bloomberg)
VeeFriends, NFTs and the Importance of IP (🎙️Apple Podcasts)
Meme of the Week


That’s all. See you next week!
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Author Bio
Kuba Szewczyk is an NFT Product Strategy Lead at ConsenSys, helping build NFT tools for brands and creators. He previously worked at Bain & Co. Digital Assets and earned Harvard MBA.
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