Welcome to The Yellow Summarin - collecting the most interesting ideas, topics, and tweets from the past week at the intersection of tech, media, and commerce.
In today's edition, I cover:
Amazon plans to dominate inside your home
How to properly do NFTs (as a brand)
Facebook was down and brands had a laugh
Read and listen:
Amazon Wins The Home
Amazon is pushing hard to integrate itself into your home. This month we already had two announcements from the company about hardware, infused with the company's software that holds the potential to dominate commerce for a long time. First, an Amazon TV was announced, and now we hear that a fridge is in the works.
Amazon starts making its own TVs with new Fire TV Omni and 4-Series (The Verge)
Amazon is officially in the TV business. The company has announced its first lineup of Amazon-branded 4K Fire TVs, which will begin shipping in October. This is a major expansion from the company’s “Fire TV Edition” collaborations, where its popular streaming software comes preloaded on sets manufactured by other TV makers. But with its new Omni and 4-Series, Amazon is describing these as “Amazon-built TVs.” Read story
Amazon is apparently working on a smart fridge that can track what you buy (Retail Brew)
The e-comm giant is working on a smart refrigerator that would monitor a consumer’s at-home inventory and even order items that are running low. The project would use some of Amazon Go’s computer-vision tech and has been in the works for at least two years. Read story
It is obvious that the company is proactively making moves to integrate itself as deep as possible into consumers' homes. The ability to sell a basic TV and a fridge enhanced with Amazon's software can strengthen the company's grip over commerce and wallets.
The benefits of such integration into the home go both ways. Consumers will benefit from the convenience of never worrying about restocking food and other household essentials. The access to these will become super streamlined to the point of you just having to confirm an order. For the commerce giant, the benefits of such an integration are countless - from the ability to address stocking issues at warehouses to a deep understanding of its customers' needs and wants, to removing even more friction in the customer journey.
Another, less obvious benefit to Amazon, is the advantageous position such access gives it in comparison to the other big tech players such as Apple, Facebook, and Google. All of these companies had the opportunity to introduce a basic version of traditional household appliances, yet they have fumbled the chance to do so. They now have to follow, if they want to take a piece of the pie that comes from having one's software embedded in consumers' homes.
Expect to see more and more hardware infused with Big Tech software in the coming years in the fight to take control of your home. Would you opt-in for such convenience at the expense of more of your private data?
How To Do NFTs… (for brands)
Dolce & Gabbana Sets $6 Million Record for Fashion NFTs (NYTimes)
Collezione Genesi, conceived with and auctioned by UNXD, a curated marketplace for digital luxury and culture, was said to be the most complex fashion NFT created and offered so far. Read story
Also nice to check out - this podcast from UNXD on NFTs and digital culture. Listen here
Agencies are figuring out how to safely guide brands through the wild world of NFTs (Marketing Brew)
I found this article a good entry-level primer on NFTs from the point of view of brands who want to enter the space. Ultimately, I believe there is a shared responsibility between the brand and their partner to explore this relatively new field and create experiences that provide actual value to people who are digitally native and spend a considerable amount of time in the metaverse. Concepts like community, exclusivity, and membership within the realm of NFTs are important to understand. Read story
'Fantasy equity' NFT game wants you to spend real money buying fake shares of real startups (TechCrunch)
The game, which launches out of closed beta today, is called Visionrare and founders Jacob Claerhout and Boris Gordts see a way to take the gamification of investing to its furthest end, mimicking the appeal of fantasy sports leagues and giving users a way to compete with friends by betting on startups they think will be successful. Users can bid on NFT shares of hundreds of different startups at auction and compete to build the best-performing fake portfolio. Read story
If you have an Ethereum wallet address, this is a fun little app to play with - Synt Nouns.
Here is mine:
Something to laugh about
Brands react to Facebook’s big outage (Retail Brew)
If you were anywhere near a phone or computer or human who works in media (hello) this week, you know that Facebook and its family of apps, including Instagram and WhatsApp, were down for six hours on Monday. The incident spawned tweets both good and bad, LOL and cringe. Here are a few brand reactions that made us stop scrolling—for good reason. Read story
And last but not least
F*** You Pay Me lets influencers secretly share how much brands pay. But does it have enough data to really work? (Marketing Brew)
Lindsey Lee Lugrin is shameless about being an influencer. Case in point: In December 2020, she founded a company that she has described as “Glassdoor for influencers,” naming it F*** You Pay Me (FYPM). The platform lets influencers anonymously spill the deets about their brand deals, like how much they were paid and what was asked of them. Read story
Tweets
That’s a wrap. Until next week.
Marin