Snap’s New Vision

PRESENTED BY NUROPOD

Happy Wednesday, Future Party. LinkedIn has become so popular that countries are even using it to recruit players for the World Cup. It sounds hard to believe, but the small African nation of Cape Verde recruited Irish player Roberto Lopes via DM on the professional networking site. Lopes ignored the message for nine months because he didn’t understand Portuguese, the country’s official language. But when the head coach followed up in English, he jumped at the opportunity. The takeaway: check your LinkedIn DMs!

Snap is commercially releasing its first AR glasses since 2019: Specs.

The Augmented Picture: As a social media company, Snapchat has never reached the heights of competitors like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. But CEO Evan Spiegel’s bullish bet on transforming Snap into a hardware company could be its saving grace — not only helping it stay relevant, but also unlocking a new era of growth.

Behind The Lenses: The Specs — which will feature transition lenses and be compatible with prescriptions — will hit store shelves later this fall.

Here’s what’s inside:

Last Looks: Are Specs the computer of the future? Spiegel certainly hopes so, especially after spinning out Snap’s smart-glasses division into a separate company to shield it from Snap’s rollercoaster stock price, which is down 30% this year. While the current version of Specs is designed to complement a smartphone, future iterations may no longer need to rely on one. That’s when Snap’s computing era could truly begin.

In the meantime, Spiegel wants to make it clear that rival Mark Zuckerberg won’t be ripping off Specs’… well, specs. “Those copycats up north aren’t going to be stealing this one. We’ve filed more than 7,000 patents.” Hilarious.

The Future: Smart glasses haven’t truly taken off yet, but if Snap can land the right celebrity or creator ambassador, it could be the major turning point the company needs for its ambitions to take hold in the culture.

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Hollywood’s attention has turned to Reddit as a potential source of both original stories and engaged fanbases.

The Big Picture: While YouTube has received most of the attention as the platform where Backrooms director Kane Parsons was discovered, Reddit is where the Backrooms IP was really incubated. Hollywood is gradually realizing that the platform may be the true town square of internet culture.

Behind The Scenes: People could already be discussing the next Hollywood hit in a subreddit.

Closing Thoughts: While finding the next Backrooms is like finding a needle in a haystack, studios are sure to pay closer attention to Reddit as both a discovery and marketing platform in hopes of sparking the kind of fandom that can turn conversations into conversions. Entertainment-related topics generated 240 billion views on Reddit last year, and a Samba study found that marketing a movie or show on Reddit led to 18% higher viewership for that content. That’s significant.

Coming Soon: In a world where the proximity between creators and fans has a material impact on how content performs, filmmakers may start spending more time teasing projects or releasing exclusive material in subreddits. A Scorsese AMA? We’d love to see it.

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67.3% of you voted No, I’ve never heard of it before in yesterday’s poll: Have you ever played the game Mafia?

“Mafia and all of its variants (Werewolf, etc.) are fun party games as long as everyone commits to the bit and earnestly plays their role with some level of strategy. But if even one person decides to introduce chaos, the whole ecosystem falls apart.”

“And every time, I hated playing it but still wanted to play 🤣. I suck at lying, and I hate accusing people of things they didn’t do, but I still want to play with my friends. Usually, I prefer being the narrator.”

“I play versions of it, but my friend group can be quite competitive, so we had to chill for a bit. People’s feelings were getting hurt on a higher level. Lol.”

Let’s keep the conversation going. Join Poll Of The Day, so your opinions can shine. Discover how your views line up with your peers’, check out cool insights, and have some fun. It’s data with personality.

🎾 Tennis superstars Serena and Venus Williams are returning to Wimbledon.

🎢 Disney Imagineers are using Adobe’s AI platform, Firefly Foundry, to help design new attractions for the theme parks.

🎮 EA is rolling out a new feature that will allow brands to deploy in-game ads.

💰 SpaceX is officially buying AI startup Cursor in a $60 billion deal.

👀 An investigation by The Atlantic found that generative AI companies scraped 21.2 million copyrighted tracks, including songs by Bad Bunny and Taylor Swift.

📱 Apple is planning to release a foldable phone next year.

👕 Target has tapped Isaac Mizrahi as its creative director-at-large.

👟 NBA star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is returning to Nike for a signature shoe.

💸 Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber and severed hand from The Empire Strikes Back are going up for auction, with bidding set to open at $1 million.