In this edition of Weekend Brew, we’ll go over the “Metaverse”, lean marketing, and 1Password’s decision to run as an electron app.
Also, check out my recent book notes on The Lean Startup and The Obstacle is the Way. Enjoy!
Technology
Niantic’s CEO, John Hanke, discusses with Fast Company how the “Metaverse” can become a “dystopian nightmare”. The Metaverse is a term used to describe an alternate, virtual world (i.e., virtual reality). It’s all the more prevalent these days with the advent of VR tools. Niantic is the creator of the popular Pokémon Go app. Hanke goes on to point out that Pokémon Go was designed to allow for real-life exercise and live social interactions, as these two things have shown to have clear psychological benefits.
AgileBits, the creator of the popular 1Password app, made a rather controversial decision with its latest version to release their app on Electron only. 1Password has deep roots in the Mac community, and Electron is a framework that is distinctively non-native to Mac (Electron is somewhat like a “container” for a web app, rather than an actual desktop application). Many Apple fans are put off by this decision, as it seems disloyal to the company’s core customer base. In this article, Jason Snell over at Six Colors argues that the speed and functionality of the application make this development decision non-noticeable.
Management
FirstRound posted a fascinating article on how to accelerate your marketing org. Many of the concepts discussed in this article remind me of The Lean Startup, just applied to marketing. Get your marketing ideas out the door and field test them to see what works best with your target market. Don’t spend several months building a campaign, launching it only to see it not work.
HBR warns that many small to mid-size companies are struggling with digital transformations, and what used to be their competitive edge against large companies—knowing their customers really well—is starting to fade away. Larger companies are adopting more robust digital transformations, allowing them to know their customers more deeply than SMBs are capable of doing.
Miscellany
Another HBR article walks the reader through how cryptocurrency can gain widespread, government-sponsored adoption via “Stablecoins” and how Central Banks can manage them. The orchestration of such a thing requires an interesting cross-discipline of economics, technology, and finance. While this won’t be an easy feat, I think Central Bank adoption of some sort of “Stablecoin” is a direction we’re eventually headed.