Hello! This is my second to last issue in this form. I’ll be going dormant for a while. I’ll return with sporadic announcements and semi-regular essays/op-eds that can serve more purpose and act as standalone pieces. No more link lists, sorry.
Placation. Vacation.
Pride ultimately loses, or refuses to continue. I should’ve done this “overhaul” years ago, but my ego stood in my way. It often does. The purist’s scoundrel, a devil of my own making.
Style, shaped… sculpted.
This bloggy experiment always had no titles, no real marketing, no guest posts (well, two), no images, no corpo support, no easy interviews nor podcasts, no current event talk. Just raw text straight from the heart. My game, my rules. Hot takes let fly. I thought I enjoyed it that way.
Until inadequacy washed over me. I might’ve cared too much. I liked that these emails reminded people I exist… that gave me some semblance of satisfaction – open rates are a leg up on likes too. Brain over brawn. I toggled with monetization – it’s been off the last six months. I made enough to buy a box of Franzia. It gave me some structure and routine -- procrastinate on links until Sunday night and write the opening in a fit of fury on Monday morning.
An outlet. I wanted it to feel original, to hone and own my voice. This was a manual process: hand-curated, hand-written. Hand-wrung. At least it gave me something to point to…as so much of my work disappears on calls and in emails. One recipient, lest forget. Lost to the interwebs.
Never give up. Never surrender. But know when to quit, on a high note. Cut your losses.
If I were to throw out wild guess numbers, I say averaged about a 500-word count in each preamble. Multiplied by 250, that’s around 125k words. Average novels are about 90k words, a couple hundred pages. That’s a lot of word spew.
Cost benefit analysis. The rewards were intangible, but they were there, I convinced myself of it. Revenue introduces expectations and places even higher standards on the self. The product must be sustainable.. a growth engine this was not – and that was by my (foolish) design. I hold myself accountable. I think I did alright in the end. Washed up and dried out. What’s not to risk.
Narrative excess. I find most writing to be absent of life. It’s euthanized. Dull and drab, the same shit on repeat. Never succumb to it. Allow a morsel of your personality to protrude. You owe it to yourself, it’s all you’ve got. There are no guilty pleasures.
Owe no man anything, save love. -some Bible quote.
I have a lot planned for 2023. I’m going to be a dad, to a girl. The greatest gift. We’ll likely move back to the states next summer. The NZ air is too clean for an infant, it should develop immunity rolling around the filthy streets of NYC. I’m starting a new company very soon. I tend to time my raises perfectly with market corrections and world catastrophes, but this time there won’t be stagnation. That is death. The tides are turning in my favor, momentum is swelling. I’m not letting go. It is oxygen. There’s already interest.
If you’d like to know more. Just reach out. I promise only good things might come of it. Door is always open, for anyone. Do it. Send an email to dhd@wavemagnetventures.com
The gist. It’s a storyworld accelerator and creator collectives protocol. A story as a startup venture studio. If it sticks, it’ll change up the industry a bit. I’m taking a page out of the Japanese system and YC. I feel really good about it. It’s an amalgam of all my ideas. It’s a system, a game, of people agreeing to play on similar terms. It’ll attract who I want it to – storytellers who think of themselves as startup founders. There’ll be capital constraints and deadlines. Scrappy cooperation. Earners. Most systems are full of fat. The body craves lean meat.
Flipped and grilled. Clean slates, stack plates.
The way I think of it, the creative industry is business (writer) to business (producer) to business (financier, and/or studio or streamer or publisher), then to consumer (theatrical rentals/tvod) to business (pay 1 deals). The relationships might look something like b(2b(2b(2c2b))). Please don’t look at that as a formula… more so transactional logic gates, where control and ownership are lost in exchange for peanuts. In perpetuity. Pemdas. Extraction increases as we flow to the right, most of the monetary windfall occurs in the first four months of release.
Backend buyouts are a plague.
Artist to audience. Relationships. This is still a sketch, but I’m thinking more like (b2b)(2b2c). I might have to study up on binomials again for all you algebra geeks, the FOIL method. Leverage the platforms, their audiences and checkbooks, with short-term licenses to a singular piece of expand-able media. Go direct, always. Easier said than done.
Dialed, up. Quality is everything. The value chain needs to collapsed: increase the pace, increase the upside. All actions are boiled down to a 2x2 at the end of the day. Economic value and time. Short and long. Long-Long only
Choppy waters subside. Set ships to sea. Anchors away.
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading. Different strokes. See ya next week. 1 left.
Tech
Juke, digital collectibles with Dapper for film/tv fans, raised $3m Cis
TipTip, helps SEA creators monetize, raised $13m TC
FanFix launches Superlink, link-in-bio platform TC
City State, fund medieval games using Unchained Engine, raised $15m VB
Fake currency game on TikTok with doubloons NYT
HedsDAO, music curation, raised $2.5m (saw and shared) Mirror
Heroic Story, ttrpg in web3, raised $6m (Firpos??) VB
Post News, twitter alternative, raised a16z Swisher TC
Thirdverse, web3 VR games, raised $15m VB
Summer, pairs SEA content creators with brands, raised $5m TC
Fenix, publisher for blockchain games, raised $150m VB
Subconscious, tools for thought raises a seed betaworks Subss
Carv, d-id in web3, raised $4m TC
Jack’s co TBD on making web5 (mk) TBDtwtr
SpotAI, AI in CCTV, raised $40m TC
Folia, on-chain multiplayer game Ftwtr
DevianArt launches DreamUp, AI tool DAblog
Fizz, social media only for college kids, raised $4.5m TC
Aura, frame and photos, raised $26m TC
Virtualness, mobile first platform to launch collectibles, raised $8m NFTG
Meta employees were hijacking user accounts WSJ
StayTunes, Shopify tools acq Tabarnapp for Shopify apps Cision
Pop Up, e-comm checkout experience, raised $3.5m PCtwtr
Airpods might be destroying our hearing (need Apple health to check) Cell
Media
Man U is on the block BW
MGA Ent acq Pixel Zoon animation looks to build IP assets Var
Hasbro puts eOne up for sale Dead
Athletic to increase coverage of women’s sports Axios
Simon Schuster and Penguin Random House deal killed THR
Group Black hopes to turn more influencers into founders Adweek
Fireside, Cuba’s Clubhouse clone acq Stremium to launch on Amzn channels Var
Salto, French streamer backed by local incumbents faces choppy waters Var
Sirius and TikTok partnership BI
China on youth game addictions Reut
Iger was flirting with RedBird* Var and Dis restructures underway Var
Marvel Snap cleared $10m/rev and 12m dl in one month MGB
Conde Nast hopes to break into film/tv (blew it with Argo, and if it hasn’t happened yet..) THR
BBC using AI to hide protester’s faces NewS
Liberty to split off Braces, stock with Live Nation stake THR
Bberg uses Papercup to translate news for LatAm (sent this deal around ages ago) PG
News Corp shareholders opposes Fox merger WSJ
Yahoo 25% stake in Taboola, 30yr partnership NYT
Manning’s Omaha Prods flirting with Chernin Axio
Fremantle acq maj stake Silvio Prods THR and Wildstar Films THR
Airbnb brings advertising in-house Fastco
Penske acq ATX TV Festival IW
Fifa and big biz NYT
Tencent Music releases 1k songs with AI “vocals” one gets 100m streams (bleak) MBW
Malone on WBD and more THR
Elon scares aways about $2b of advertisers MM
Chamberlain inks Spotify exclusive pod Var
Entertainment
Indie Spirit noms IW
Damon and Affleck launch Artists Equity with $100m from *RedBird Var
Sony and Legendary partner THR
Nflx making a AAA game Verge
Blumhouse and Atomic Monster to merge Var
Kristen Steward to direct Imogen in Chronology of Water with Scott Free IW
Amzn says they’re going to spend $1b/yr on theatrical films (walk) CNBC
SpringHill docuseries on Nipsey Hussle Dead
Lionsgate picks up Streets of Rage from Derek Kolstad Dead
BBC and A24 team to adapt Shuggie Bain for TV Dead
Angela Kang to lead Marvel’s Silk, signs Amzn deal THR
Euphoria to get German adaptation Var
NatGeo acq LatAm to Tigre Gente Var
Amy Adam’s Bond Group first look TV deal Fifth Season Var
India considers higher caps on film incentives Var
Tarantino eyeing TV shows now too IW
Tyler Perry four film deal Amzn Var
Kirkman and co not backing down on the $200m TWD suit Dead
Spike Lee boards ROTC for Amzn IW
Studiocanal backs graphic novel adaptation Corto Maltese with Frank Miller Dead
Made Up Stories and Fifth Season acq Falling Girls for TV Dead
Lily Collins launches Case Study Films Dead
Campfire Studios making a doc about Buzzfeed rise (why not BF studios?) Var
Magnolia takes NA rights to Daliland (sent around 3 years ago) Dead
Quiver picks up US rights to Blueback Var
Hamada, ex DC head, sets horror slate at Paramount IW
Maron sets HBO comedy special Var
Jonah to direct Keanu in Outcome IW
Mark Burnett bails on MGM, goes “indie” Var
Sony working on Spiderman shows IW
Pascal and Mendelsohn join Freaky Tales with eOne, Macro and Fleck & Boden Dead
UTA’s Zimmer says talent needs to rethink streaming deals (lol too late) THR
Caitlin Cronenberg (yep) wraps directorial debut Humane Dead
Apple nears deal for the Michael Lewis FTX book Dead
Amzn orders FTX limited from AGBO and David Weil (Tiger King / Thai soccer) Var
Vice preps FTX doc THR
Intl Emmy winners Var
Shyamalan got all of Philly’s $5m tax credit (a man of the ppl!) PM
American Music award winners Var
Collaborative
NatGeo pictures of the year NG
Building an on-chain voxel game Lattice
Future of Film summit (use code DEVON, look at my old quiff and suit lol) FOF
Fred Wilson long term view of web3 AVC
Kevin Kelly on AI image generators Wired
AI tech for universal characters from USC PDF
Jim Cameron profile GQ
Meta’s AI playing Diplomacy called Cicero MAItwtr FB
Nflx blog on vfx to the cloud Med
A look at GPT3 NYT
35 under 35 THR
Clios in Ent awards Clio
White paper on Bytedance recommendation system PDF
Bill Gurley on VC/market red flags ATC
Inside trailer YT
Dirt on worldbuilding part 2 Dirt
When you finish saving the world trailer YT
US expands ban on Chinese cameras and network equipment WSJ
Ducournau q&a Dead
Octavia Butler profile NYT
How TikTok is changing language (we’re all so dumb) NYT
BCI to read people’s thoughts Science
Esports popularity on the rise, but not profits NYT
Mr Beast biz profile Shopify
David Alpert podcast on after TWD at Skybound Spot
App tracking transparency on free-to-play mobile gaming MDM
The crypto creator economy and web3 social CGMI
Copenhagen Cowboy trailer YT
Top celebrity entrepreneurs THR
Center for music ecosystems report PDF
Green Knight collectors edition with an exclusive short (which I need to see) a24
1923 trailer YT
Maarten Walraven on music curation and NFTs Musicx
Sports betting on campuses NYT
Ad agencies need to be entertainment first LBB
Notorious BIG VR experience with Meta HB
Generative AI in gaming with FOGDAO Vorias
AI CYOA story called BMA
Iger’s streaming strat Puck
Howard Marks on what really matters PDF
“Dogfood” a word in tech almost as bad as phygital NYT
Daniel Kwan kids books a24
Binance launches campaign, stars Ronaldo Adage
Tuvala islands to preserve itself in the metaverse (..) EuroN
Enys Men trailer YT
Bryne Hobart on newsletter economics (loss leader for me) Diff
Ticking time bomb of free to play games Verge
Netherlands food exports thanks to vertical farming washpo
Hotels are getting into influencer experiences TF
David Smail on advertising needing to be more fun Clio
How gaming could reshape music MA
UC strike could reshape higher ed time
Patreon’s org chart and structure Info
Lance Weiler digital storytelling course Med
Listen: Stephanie Danler w/ Emrata HighLowspotify
Read: Reggie James on freedom of speech HCRss
Watch: Elif Batuman and a life of literature PWblog