issue 171
Hello! I was asked a couple times last week about my workflow for this newsletter - a fun side project btw - so figured I’d share. It takes me about 30 minutes a day, more or less. The worst is when I procrastinate and spend half of Sunday playing catch up. I’ve done some variation of this for almost a decade (DailyDolan), so I’d surmise to say that I’m pretty fast with the link regurgitation. I take pride in that it’s the most comprehensive and consistent digest of all that’s going on in the overlap of the entertainment, media, and tech spheres. If you know of another, please send my way. I don’t think I’ve missed hitting send on Monday for over three years, unless it’s a holiday of course.
Fundamentally, I think being in the know is better than not. No inputs lead to no outputs. That’s the main purpose for this thing.
I follow about 12 daily news aggregators (Axios, NYT, etc) and go through them in the morning while I have my morning cup… or three. I manually click (copy version: hand-curate) the topics that interest me, and that are relevant to some degree or another to the industry. In the afternoons I go through the entertainment trades (Deadline, Variety, etc) as they constantly publish a flow of “news” and half of it isn’t - like a cast attachment, client signing, movie review, and the like. I get some weekly emails from boutique investment banks, researchers focused strictly on AI, and sporadic notes from “thought leaders”. I generally have separate inboxes dedicated to receiving all these so it doesn’t clutter my personal, especially for the entertainment trades as that spigot (firehose) is always turned on. Just know that when industry people share screenshots of hundreds of “work email” notifications, most of it is junk… yes, really. I also forward myself cool stuff that pop up on my socials. That’s it when it comes to the link side, it mostly just comes from other newsletters. My trade secrets revealed, or shall I say, re-posted.
Why do I do it? The altruistic angle is that I want to keep the most amount of people informed as possible (while doing the ‘least’ amount of work). The selfish answer is that it hopefully keeps my name top of mind for you bunch, which is pretty invaluable as the subscriber base is seriously quality (you’d be surprised). Quantity is so-so, in line with all my socials. High open and click-thru rates. I don’t market this nearly as much as I should as I find self-promotion grotesque. I actually flirted with making it a private direct email a few months ago. I set up a paid 30-day window last year as a lead-gen experiment, which doesn’t result in as many ratchet-ups to the paid tier as I would’ve thought (none). That’s fine. You can ask me to give you and your friends/colleagues complimentary paid subscriptions and I will. Though if you work at a conglomerate or mega fund I’ll tell you it’s expense-able. If you’ve paid me out of your own pocket, you have my undying love. And I usually get inspired to write ideas in the preamble from conversations. I try not to comment on the news - so boring. I delete a lot of my rants because the little guy waving a clenched fist is a trope I want to avoid. Oh, and I don’t read all the content I share - many times the headline tells me everything I need to know. Enough of this.
Here are some observations about living and working in New Zealand for the last few months. First, a lot of people still want to do general meetings over a coffee. No thanks, I’m fine with just a normal call (no Zooms). I trust you’re beautiful and have superb style. Two, a lot of filmmakers and producers here think local, and generally tailor their work for two state-backed funders (NZ On Air, NZ Film Commission) - which I personally don’t think is too healthy for the market as my feeling is that it creates a paint by numbers approach. It’s not bad, all I’m saying is that the more private capital and expertise, the better (spoken like a true American). This applies to the public healthcare system too - we have direct experience in dealing with it as that’s the reason why we’re here. The situation is heavy. Sucks. Three, we just had one positive case of covid outside of the isolation facilities. Yes we're very lucky. Everything is open and people don’t wear masks, unless on public transport out of respect. There are QR codes in front of every business that we’re supposed to scan with an app to be traced. It’s great. I got sick over break and got tested, some people said not too, but if you’re sick and don’t get tested then of course there won’t be community spreads. Five, the brain drain is real. I’ve met with quite a few very senior people here now, have shared solid ideas and hinted at a broader things we could potentially do together, then they just drop off the map. Funnily enough, I was warned this might happen. Because I know many of you NZ cats signed up, I must state that this isn’t directed at anyone in particular. The worst culprits aren’t on here. Six, some fun facts. The sun here shines bright. It burns extra hot as there’s an ozone hole above us. Kiwis begin events by paying appreciation to the Māori culture (wiki), something we should probably do in the States but for our Natives. A few hundred years ago there were gigantic birds (Moa) and eagles, which makes me think King Kong is on the South Island. There are no snakes and only one poisonous spider. This place is heavenly. Magical.
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading. Information inference. See you next week.
Tech
Clubhouse, 8 month old invite-only audio social network app, raised undisclosed (prob 100m) at unicorn status (ridic). TC
Wattpad, storytelling platform, selling for $600m to Korean firm (died, last week they were comparing themselves to A24). TC
Apple working on VR headset with MR capabilities. TC
Verus, Chinese esports tournaments and broadcasts, raised $60m. TC
Podchaser, podcast database akin to IMDB, raised $4m. TC
Yac, voice messages inside of Slack, raised $7.5m. TC
IMVU, avatar-based social network, raised $35m. TC
Breaker, podcasts, sells its site and socials to Maple Media backed by Shamrock after Twitter acquisition (well this is something). Dot
Opera, web browser, acq YoYo Games for game engine, for $10m. VB
Soci, localized marketing platform, raised $80m. TC
Genflow, helps influencers launch cos, raised $11m. TC
Snap looking to push Maps and AR further (same). WSJ
Google to shutter Loon local wifi balloon unit (was cool). NYT
Landbot, no-code chatbots, raised $8m. TC
Patreon might go public this year. Info
Joseph Purla relaunching Turntable, music with friends. JPtwtr
Orreco, athlete health analyzer, raised $3.6m. ST
Snapchat had an inauguration filter. Verge
Media
TPG kicking tires on DirectTV. Reut
Spotify testing audiobooks, IP in public domain (should’ve gone for Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson). THR
Tencent buys majority stake in game dev Klei (Don’t Starve). Poly
Vivendi invests in Prisa, Spanish educational media. BW
AMC raises $700m to try to keep the lights on. Dead
NBCU to shut down its sports network bundle. Var
Entertainment robots like Gundam becoming bigger attraction (into it). CNBC
Alden Global (Chi Tribune and more) raises $200m SPAC. RenCap
Public media to sell its shares in Pocket Cast. Current
Wilde is a new SVOD with only women-led content (anotha one). Cision
Spotify paying its podcasters to plug its sponsorship tool (meta). Verge
Goal is a $200m sports and media SPAC. SEC
Starz to launch Lionsgate Play in Indo. THR
Mediaset increases stake in ProSieben. THR
Carlyle buys game studio Jagex (Runescape). Tele
Peacock lands WWE US streaming rights. Var
Buccaneers vs Chiefs in the Super Bowl. Var
Cineworld shareholders approve $284m bonus scheme. Dead
Music producer Bob Rock sells catalogue to Hipgnosis. RollingS
Google threatens to drop Search bar from Aus. Bberg
Taboola, ad exchange, to go public in Ion SPAC. NYT
Comcast targets 20% non-white employees in 5 yrs. THR
Liberty Global raised $500m for a SPAC. Reut
Entertainment
Nolan and Warner Bros likely breaking up. IW
Fangoria, classic horror mag, starts a prod division. THR
Apple orders Lessons in Chemistry with Brie Larson. THR
Harry Potter tv series in dev at HBO Max. Var
Netflix buys Lord Miller’s Mitchells vs Machines from Sony. Var
Aaron Ryder leaves FilmNation, first look with MGM. Var
Brady’s Religion of Sport sets first projects. THR
Game of Thrones prequel in works HBO (what happened to the other series?). Var
Savvy Media options autonomous car story Driven (wanted this). Dead
Paramount Animation options Cosmos. THR
Cannes postponed to early July (confirmed). Var
Netflix to adapt Heartstopper YA book in 8 part series with SeeSaw. Dead
Clintons option Daughters of Kobani for tv. Dead
Array sets Spotify deal. Dead
Wes Ball moves to Paramount deal. Dead
Craig Mazin extends deal w HBO. Dead
NY film critic awards (like 150 ppl on livestream). IW
Many movies push release dates - No Time to Die, Quiet Place 2. IW
iHeart podcast awards. Var
AFI top films/tv shows of the year. IW
Collaborative
Profile on Hovercast, helped the Dems win now onto the world (let’s gooo!). Prot
a16z to launch its own opinion publication (call it self-serving propaganda?) Info
NASA contemplating re-doing ground tests after last launch. WSJ
Hollywood streamers worried about churn n burn. LAT
Pixar testing new constraints methods to making shorts. Poly
Adam Mosseri (Insta) on banning Trump. Verge
Amanda Gorman’s poem. BOtwtr
UN creates video game called Reset Earth. Engadget
The business of Marques Brownlee. Verge
Underground Railroad teaser (love it’s on Barry’s Vimeo). Vim
Godzilla vs Kong trailer (lol it’s on HBO Max account, not WB). YT
AI that reads sentences can now catch virus mutations (wtff). MIT
Ben Davis on the MET’s AR experience. ArsT
Computers built to mine bitcoin heat chicken coops and more. WSJ
The cost of crypto-art (quite the teardown). Med
Elizabeth Olson and Paul Bettany. Interview
Felix & Paul and Time create a NASA VR series. Upload
Rex Woodbury on Gen-Z consumer behaviors. RWss
How Palantir works in mining and observing country data. Wired
Mobile gaming trends to watch. NewZoo
This anime does not exist. NearCyan
Brian Alessandro and Fran Lebowitz. Interview
Inside Dubuc’s quest to re-work Vice. Info
Karen Hao on AI ethics. MIT
Breaking News in Yuba trailer. YT
Josh Lovejoy on designing AI with purpose. UXC
Elon donating $100m to best carbon capture tech. TC
Gamestop surged 1500% last 9 mos (Redditors). ArsT
Interview w/ Jonathan Mayers of Bonaroo on live events. Bberg
Drake first to cross 50b Spotify streams. Var
Clubhouse founders on what’s next with their giant round. CHblog
Biden exec order wants more cos to buy American. NYT
Superplastic, toy collectibles and socials now wants into film/tv (me too). BI
Josh Wolfe (Lux Cap) interviews Saildrone (a co I think is so cool). JWtwtr
Jacob Novak on the FB Live show Rival Peak. Med