Together with
Prime time. Amazon’s annual Prime Day spectacle reportedly hauled in almost $13 billion in revenue last week, making it the biggest Prime Day event in the company’s history. Despite growing economic uncertainty, US Prime members still turned out in droves to cash in on deals. It turns out even inflation can’t stop Bezos.
In other news… Messi’s in Miami, Meta open sources its AI, and the rise of Kencore.
Top Trends
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SPORTS
Messi makes waves in Miami
The Future. It’s official: Lionel Messi is in Miami. Inter Miami — the team that amazingly beat out Saudi Arabia to land the athlete — is strategizing to make this their “David Beckham moment” for Miami and transform the US into a top player in the world’s most popular sport.
The Messi Effect
Inter Miami is hoping Messi turns the city into the soccer capital of the US.
It’s selling tickets for a minimum of $350 a pop… and will likely sell out.
It’s building a $1 billion stadium in Miami’s Freedom Park.
It saw its Instagram followers leap from 900,000 to 10 million.
As Sheffield Business School football finance expert Rob Wilson told the investment platform Saxo, “Messi’s impact is all about profile — that individual personality, at the pinnacle of his playing career, was a massive coup for the MLS. Sponsors and partners want to be associated and that’s what he brings.”
And for his part, Messi is getting $150 million over two and a half years, a share of the revenue from MLS’ deals with AppleTV+ and adidas, and some good ole’ Miami sun.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Silicon Santa // Illustration by Kate Walker
Meta gives away its AI
The Future. Meta’s new AI system, which was trained on 40% more data than its last one, is free for all to use, tinker with, and create businesses with. Meta hopes the move will spark usage and bring it to the level of OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard. But by making the tech so public, Meta may make its system vulnerable to bad actors beyond the company’s control.
You get a bot, you get a bot
Meta’s LLaMA 2 is going open source with the help of Microsoft’s Azure cloud service, Amazon Web Service, and Hugging Face.
By making the system accessible to all (and free of charge), Meta hopes it can catch up with competitors… or at least be used in their ecosystems.
It also believes going open source will let third-party developers build on and find flaws with the system, which Meta can then leverage or patch over.
And by putting it under a commercial license, developers can build apps that use Meta’s AI as the engine, becoming the de facto OS for new companies.
Meta’s open-source gambit has been met with mixed reviews. Companies like Nvidia (riding a sky-high stock because of AI), Zoom, and Dropbox have issued statements of support. But many AI researchers have said giving out the tech so freely has dangerous repercussions, like scams and misinformation.
In defense, Meta says it’s done copious “Red Team” testing — that is, “testing software for potential misuse and figuring out ways to protect against such abuse.”
Time will tell if that was enough.
TOGETHER WITH RYSE
Invest in the company that won over The Dragons
The pioneers in smart doorbell technology, RING, pitched their business on the hit show Shark Tank at a valuation of just $7 million — and the Sharks shut them down.
Five years later, the company sold to Amazon for over $1 billion, turning the 10% stake initially offered to the Sharks from $700,000 to $100 million.
A similar story is brewing in the smart shades segment of the industry. A company called RYSE pitched on Dragon’s Den, the Canadian version of Shark Tank.
The difference? RYSE received two offers and has an addressable market that could be significantly larger than RING’s.
The hallmark of all successful smart home products is their ability to launch into retail, and RYSE’s recent deal with Best Buy has put them miles ahead of the competition.
FASHION
Kenning it // Courtesy of Warner Bros.
Fashion readies for Kencore
The Future. Barbie (the movie) may be driving the conversation on a burgeoning male fashion trend of bright colors and pastels, but the transformation to the Miami beach style has been in the works all year. Subconsciously, guys everywhere are feeling the Kenergy. While Ken dolls have been following fashion trends for decades, it may be Ken who finally sets one himself.
Go Gosling
It’s a Barbie world, but we want to be Ken — Fast Company calls the trend “Kencore.”
Barbie co-star Ryan Gosling has gone full method with his Ken character on the movie’s press tour, wearing bright colors, pastels, and bold patterns.
But the style choice has gone beyond the Barbie cast — Brad Pitt and Seth Rogen have shown up to events in similar styles.
Pharrell’s first menswear collection for Louis Vuitton is Kenergy to the extreme.
While Ken was first invented for girls who wanted a boyfriend for Barbie (which is why he’s adorned with accessories to make him more fun to play with), Mattel has lately been marketing its Ken dolls to boys, hoping for crossover interest.
And now, with the release of Barbie this weekend, it’s time for Ken to be in the cultural spotlight.
TOGETHER WITH FARFETCH
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Highlights
The best curated daily stories from around the web
Media, Music, & Entertainment
Lionsgate is the frontrunner to acquire eOne (the studio behind Yellowjackets and The Woman King) from Hasbro, after the toy brand decided to offload everything that wasn’t a part of its “core business.” Read more → deadline
WarnerMusic has signed an extensive licensing agreement with TikTok to grow revenue and marketing opportunities on the platform, which has become a music tastemaker. Read more → thr
K-pop continues to explode around the world, with the US being the second-largest overseas market for album sales behind Japan. Read more → variety
Fashion & E-Commerce
Despite taking YEEZYs off its shelves after Kanye’s many controversies, it looks like Foot Locker may put them back up for sale. Read more → hypebeast
Kith, Asics, and Marvel are behind the strangest fashion collaboration in recent memory: seven pairs of Marvel x Kith x Asics Gel-Lyte 3 sneakers inspired by X-Men characters. Read more → complex
Italian fashion brand Stone Island’s new Munich flagship is part retail store, part community center. Read more → highsnobiety
Tech, Web3, & AI
Like Twitter, Threads is introducing a rate limit due to “spam attacks,” says Instagram head Adam Mosseri. Read more → deadline
Extreme heat is rapidly aging and degrading EV batteries, and some cars may only engage their temperature management systems when they’re on or plugged in. Read more → fastcompany
The NYPD is testing a public announcement system carried out by drones during weather-related emergencies. Read more → vice
Creator Economy
TikTok’s Elevate program revealed its first cohort of musicians the company will support with “early access to new features, content amplification, and support from TikTok’s official social handles.” Read more → techcrunch
YouTube’s live shopping feature is taking shape with an affiliate program, product pins, and support for Shorts, having inked deals with over 50 brands. Read more → insider
Rhett and Link’s third R-rated live event, Good Mythical Evening, will be held at the Mueller Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, Texas, and livestreamed on Kiswe on August 24th. Read more → tubefilter
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Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited by Melody Song. Copy edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar.