Together with
Met her at Coachella. If you were in the desert this past weekend, we hope you had a grand old time. And you may have even caught a glimpse of billionaire Jeff Bezos in an *ahem* interesting looking fit. The best part? He bought it on Amazon.
In other news… anime and manga booms, judges rule for Apple’s App Store, and Budweiser’s bid to save Brazil’s basketball courts.
Top Trends
YouTube → All the Light We Cannot See
Twitter → Al Pacino
Google → Harry Belafonte
Reddit → E.T.
TikTok → “He Needs Me” - Punch-Drunk Love
Spotify → “Double Fantasy” - The Weeknd, Future
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FRONT PAGE
Manga makes waves // Illustration by Kate Walker
An anime and manga boom is a boon for Japan
The Future. Anime and manga are growing in popularity at home in Japan and abroad, especially in the US. At the current rate of sales growth, the distinctively Japanese art form may not just win over mainstream audiences but become the next investment trend for global streaming services.
Manga migrationBoth the US and Japan can’t get enough of anime and manga.
The All Japan Magazine and Book Publishers' and Editors' Association (AJPEA) found that overall manga and anime sales increased by 2% last year — to $5.05 billion.
And while print manga sales have stayed flat, digital manga sales have jumped 8.9%.
In the US, manga sales skyrocketed 171% between 2020 and 2021.
And with Sony’s Crunchyroll growing exponentially in the US, the anime market is on the up.
These benchmarks have motivated the Japan Business Federation, called Keidanren, to send a proposal to the Japanese government to set up an anime promotion. The org would promote Japanese entertainment — especially manga and anime — across the globe to spur even more economic growth.
The hope is to quadruple overseas revenue in the next ten years. Seems like an attainable goal at this rate.
Court rules that the App Store can stay closed
The Future. On appeal from both Apple and Epic Games, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that Apple’s App Store can stay closed and that its security restrictions are reasonable. The case likely puts an end to the drama that began when Apple removed Epic’s Fortnite from the App Store (after it tried to circumvent the store’s fees)… likely dealing a blow to the legion of brands hoping they could recoup an extra 15-30% of revenue from customers.
Epic failApple has succeeded in keeping the status quo… mostly.
The court ruled in favor of Apple in 9 of the 10 claims brought forth in the long-running Apple vs. Epic Games saga.
The ruling affirmed that Apple doesn’t have a monopoly on the mobile app market and that Epic has to pay for violating App Store rules.
The one thing Apple can no longer do is steer iOS users away from learning about alternate payment options that apps offer for services and products.
On that point, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney tweeted that the anti-steering policy now “frees iOS developers to send consumers to the web to do business with them directly there” and that “We’re working on the next step.”
It’s a ruling that Spotify will likely be happy about too as it tries to pick up its audiobook business.
TOGETHER WITH THE JUICE
Fresh-squeezed sales and marketing content
Filtering through great articles, podcasts, and videos gets harder and harder day by day. But no need to sweat it. Instead, meet The Juice — the content curation platform for B2B marketing and sales professionals.
Here’s how they roll:
Head over to thejuicehq.com and sign up for free
Fill out your profile
Get access to modern resources from trusted brands.
With their new feed, you can even see, in real-time, what your peers are searching for and reading.
And get this: if you’re a brand with content to share, they can even build a following for you based on your ideal audience. See how it works here.
The Juice is spilling inspiration and knowledge all over the place, and we’re not mad about it.
Budweiser saves Brazil’s basketball courts
The Future. Budweiser has teamed up with São Paulo-based advertising agency Africa on a new ad campaign dubbed “Unbreakable Courts.” The campaign aims to protect basketball courts all over the country and to get the word out about it, a rap song was produced by a legit artist… a move that is already demonstrating that the best way to deliver a message may be to package it in a form that the intended audience will actually listen to.
Art-topBudweiser is literally saving space. How’s it doing this?
First, it brought in Brazilian rap star Rincon Sapiência to craft a song that mourns the destruction of the country’s basketball courts and then details how they can be saved by co-opting cultural heritage laws.
The laws state that if a site is deemed to have cultural significance, then it can be protected from demolition.
The campaign website then details a step-by-step guide to protect the courts, connecting community organizers to artists who can paint murals on the court centered around a topic relevant to the local community.
The site then provides a place to send in all the appropriate paperwork.
Why do basketball courts even need protecting? Due to a boom in real estate development, many courts are being bulldozed in order to erect offices and parking lots… leaving few options for the community to gather and play.
As of today, the campaign has saved 30 basketball courts from destruction.
Highlights
The best curated daily stories from around the web
Media, Music, & Entertainment
Spotify surpassed 515 million active monthly users and 210 million paid subscribers, but did report a net loss of $248 million — the classic subscriber growth over profits conundrum. Read more → theverge
Speaking of Spotify, the streamer announced that it would be “very diligent” when it comes to future podcast deals and talent renewals, especially as the business has yet to become profitable and the market has cooled. Read more → deadline
A Spotify user discovered that there was a single song cataloged under 49 different names, with a different artist and cover art for each, and all uploaded by company Sky Tech Distribution over the past year… prompting the user to believe that they’re all AI-generated. Read more → insider
Fashion & E-Commerce
Thanks to a surge of sales in China, the fortunes of the billionaire owners of beauty and luxury conglomerates L’Oréal, LVMH, Chanel, Kering SA, and Hermès International swelled $93 billion this year alone. Read more → businessoffashion
Yelp is getting on trend with new generative AI and short-form video tools to enhance business discovery. Read more → fastcompany
Nike co-founder Phil Knight and his wife, the wealthiest residents of Oregon, are donating $400 million to a new initiative called the 1803 Fund to support education and art programs in the Albina neighborhood of Portland. Read more → hypebeast
Tech, Web 3, & AI
Conceived by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, decentralized social media platform Bluesky, which allows users to move their profiles across rival social networks, is set to launch with one million users already signed up. Read more → forbes
The US Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal by computer scientist Steven Thaler after the Patent Office rejected his patent applications for two inventions allegedly entirely created by his own custom AI system. Read more → reuters
Anne Hoffmann, the editor-in-chief of German magazine Die Aktuelle, was fired after publishing an interview with Formula One champion Michael Schumacher that was entirely fabricated using AI. Read more → cnn
Creator Economy
Supermodel Eva Herzigová created a complete digital avatar of herself using Epic Games’ MetaHumans technology — tech that can now be used for digital fashion shows and to model digital clothes… giving Herzigová a wild form of passive income. Read more → theverge
MrBeast is teaming up with Shopify to fly out one small business owner to his headquarters in North Carolina to pitch their business in one of his videos and earn some money doing it — the ultimate marketing opportunity. Read more → tubefilter
After Elon Musk admitted to paying for some celebrities’ blue checks despite them not wanting one, some users, including Twitter icon Dril, wonder if they can sue him for violating federal consumer protection laws. Read more → theverge
TOGETHER WITH RYSE
Investing in a bright idea
If you missed out on these spectacular early investments in the Smart Home space…
Ring 一 Acquired by Amazon for $1.2B
Nest 一 Acquired by Google for $3.2B
…don’t worry. Here’s your chance to grab onto the next one.
RYSE is a tech firm poised to dominate the Smart Shades market with 5 patents in tow and 3 more pending, and they just announced an exclusive public offering of shares priced at just $1.
Their automated window shade tech is a triple threat:
Proven Demand: Offering the only product that automates existing window shades, RYSE has sold over $7M of product to date!
Cleantech Solutions: They’ve been awarded CAD$4M in grants owing to their product’s potential to lower cooling costs by 24% and lighting costs by 74%.
Consistent Returns: Shareholders have seen their share price increase 40% year-over-year, with significant upside remaining if RYSE gets acquired.
Future Forecast
For those of you who like to stay a step ahead, here are a few things we’re excited about right now:
This secret Omakase restaurant at Coachella – look for it at Stagecoach too!
Quartz’s Daily Brief to stay up-to-date on the latest happenings in the global business world.
Travis Barker and Liquid Death’s Enema of the State, limited edition enema collectible kit.
Becky G’s Selena Quintanilla tribute at Coachella, Weekend 2.
Mira, one of the most accurate fertility trackers on the market, is offering 15% off + a fertility course FREE in honor of Infertility Awareness Week.
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Today's email was brought to you by David Vendrell.Editing by Melody Song. Publishing by Sara Kitnick.