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Playable plays // Illustration by Kate Walker
Good morning, FutureParty people. With all the talk about average rents in American cities feeling impossible to afford, these $300 per month apartments in Tokyo feel like a breath of fresh air for broke 20-somethings. Any soon-to-be college graduates suddenly feeling the urge to work abroad?
In other news… video games are playlistable, and Handshake is TikTok for job seekers.
We hope you enjoy this and all upcoming issues, but we have one request: please share your feedback. If you have any thoughts at all about our new look, format, or direction, please reply to this email. It’ll go straight to us. Do not hold back.
LATEST PODCAST EPISODE
Feb. 29, 2024
Today we get into McDonald's new anime-based promotion, how Reddit is going public, and how Florida passed a new bill trying to ban kids younger than 16 from social media.
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YT: Ripley, X: John Candy, G: Rita Moreno, R: Daniel Day-Lewis, TT: “Country’s Cool Again”, S: “Love Of A Girl”
Activist-investor Trian Partners deepened its board fight with Disney with the release of a 133-page white paper on all the changes it wants to make at the Mouse House. Read More → variety
Consulting firm Gartner predicts that traditional search engine queries will drop a whopping 25% by 2026 as more people start to use AI-powered tools. Read More → gartner
Airbnb is debuting new labels to denote the highest-quality and lowest-quality listings on its platform… potentially making the latter a kiss of death. Read More → techcrunch
Autonomous taxi service Waymo is officially rolling out in Los Angeles despite running into several issues in San Francisco. Read More → engadget
Esports organization GameSquare has sold Complexity Gaming for $10.4 million as it finalizes a merger with FaZe Clan. Read More → tubefilter
74.5% of you voted No in yesterday’s poll: Do you approve of Elon Musk?
“He’s a king baby, perhaps THE King Baby.”
“Although ‘approval’ is a non-starter for most of us. He is basically a brilliant, self-indulgent, arrogant, rich kid with only himself in mind.”
“I did at first, but he’s become hateful, paranoid, entitled, and extremely irresponsible since. Whatever he’s ‘microdosing’ on is seriously hurting his legacy — and his earnings.”
.A WORD FROM OUR FRIENDS AT ROOTS.
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Go ahead and pinch yourself — this isn’t a dream.
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It’s the ultimate win-win, and the fund has seen 43.5% growth in the last 2.5 years. Join over 3,500 investors and invest in five minutes.
.MUSIC.
Artists are dropping new songs in video games
The Future. Video games aren’t just the most popular form of entertainment for Gen Z and Gen Alpha, but they’re also becoming a key way for both established hitmakers and up-and-coming artists to debut new music. As the war between Universal Music Group and TikTok rages on, expect UMG (and other major labels) to strike unique partnerships with upcoming games to fuel music discovery.
First-person single
The hottest playlist to be on these days is from a hit video game.
Fortnite and Roblox have hosted several in-game shows over the past few years, with artists like Diplo, The Kid Laroi, and Weyes Blood releasing new music during performances and experiences.
Rappers Big Sean and Sheck Wes debuted new songs on the game NBA 2K, which is constantly updating its playlist with new tracks (and artists as playable characters).
Why the focus on video games? While song clips can go viral on TikTok and Reels, whole albums can be easily consumed while people play games, and the virtual concerts typically have a playable element keeping people engaged. Atlantic Records licensing exec Joe Khoury told WSJ that games bring in “strong licensing income and are huge marketing drivers as well.”
Just ask Eminem. When his 2020 single “Godzilla” was included in a Fortnite event, it shot up to No. 63 on the Spotify charts in the US the very next day.
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Read: Kara Swisher’s Burn Book is the hottest read in Silicon Valley… at least to see who gets torched by the renowned tech and media journalist.
Listen: Complexly-founder and popular-YouTuber Hank Green took over The Vergecast to ask The Verge editor-in chief Nilay Patel why websites still matter.
Watch: Vox breaks down how we’re already using AI all the time without realizing it.
.JOBS.
Handshake combines TikTok with a job board
The Future. Handshake, which counts 15 million college students as users, is rolling out a revamped platform that’s essentially TikTok for job seekers and companies that are hiring. Considering the popularity of work-related content on TikTok, companies that have strong content on Handshake could see a flood of applications.
Employment entertainment
Handshake’s new scrollable feed, which hopes to be a discovery platform for students and a recruitment tool for companies, is about to make every company a content creator.
The redesigned app lets job seekers “swipe through job postings, events such as career fairs, alumni reviews, and advice,” per Forbes.
Students can curate their feed by inputting their location, major, college they attend, and companies of interest. They can also connect with alumni at companies they’re considering.
Companies can also post short-form videos, which can be used to post “day in the life” clips or highlight positions people may not know about.
Handshake currently has 900,000 employers who use the platform, and companies like TikTok, L’Oréal, and Teach for America are already posting videos, with L’Oréal employing a “Gen Z taskforce” to ensure that its videos actually connect with young people.
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.A WORD FROM OUR FRIENDS AT BABBEL.
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Something I keep seeing is ‘if you’re lucky enough to go viral, just use the exposure to generate income some other way’. Musicians should be able to generate income via their music.
Do you want good music or do you want what you paid for?
— #James Blake (#@jamesblake)
8:06 AM • Mar 3, 2024
Just a taste of James Blake’s takedown of how streaming has changed music.
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Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited by Boye Akolade. Copy edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar.