The Anti-Instagram 🌍👥

👀 TLDR:

In this week’s What’s Appening, we cover the launch of Retro, a new social media app that wants you to share your camera roll with friends, and friends only. While Retro is the brainchild of former Instagram engineers, it seems far removed from it in both ethos and design. It is, in our view, a kind of anti-Instagram, an option for those who wish to share privately with friends and not broadcast to the outside world. Still, we have been inundated with new social media apps this year, so perhaps Retro will struggle in a crowded market. Elsewhere this week, we do a quick check-up on Threads after two weeks on the market, noting that the tremendous pace of new user sign-ups has petered out. We also have news of new AI products from Stability AI and Wix. Our Stat of the Week looks at the most expensive iPhone ever. And What’s dAppening reports on a milestone moment in the long-running legal battle between Ripple Labs and the SEC.

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Takes 🎬️

📸🔏 Retro – New App Highlights Allure of Restrained Social Media

We’ve been inundated with new social media apps in 2023, and Retro, which launched this week in the App Store, is the latest to be tagged as an “[insert social media platform] Killer” by the tech media. In this case, it’s deemed an Instagram Killer. We don’t fully agree with that tag. Retro is, more aptly, the anti-Instagram. It invites you to share photos and videos without filters (similar to BeReal), but its architecture is crucially built to only allow friends – real friends – to view them. No lurkers are allowed🚫, either. In that respect, it feels like the early days of Facebook, a platform to share content with friends and family, but not the outside world. Like BeReal, it is in the category of what is being viewed as “Restrained Social Media” by design: You can’t post very much text, you’re limited to photos on your camera rolls, and those photos disappear after four weeks. You can provide a key to your closer friends, however, which will let them see older posts. Retro has been created by a couple of Instagram alumni – who (unsurprisingly) were integral to the launch of Instagram Stories – and we do have high hopes for this app. The “Retro” branding might refer to the fact you are sharing old photos from your camera roll, but it has a dual meaning in the sense that it harkens back to the original vision for social media: Not shouting into the void on bot-ridden Twitter or showing off your photoshopped beach pics to complete strangers on superficial Insta, but providing a platform where friends and family can connect without posturing. It’s a concept for social media that would have been pitched 20 years ago. But in 2023, it might be just what many of us need. #RetroCool Read more here

📲🪴 Threads – A Look at How Things Are Going After Two Weeks

We are already sick to death of the Threads vs. Twitter narrative, as well as the nauseating rivalry between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. However, we feel obliged to follow up on last week’s story on the launch of Threads with a health check on the new app. First, let’s point out that the onboarding of new users has skidded to a halt, adding just 14 million in a week since soaring to 100 million in the first few days. Still, it has around one-third of Twitter’s active user base, so still not bad for a newbie app. Perhaps hilariously, Threads also fell afoul of data scraping and spam attacks, forcing Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri to post that the platform could introduce – wait for it – rate limits, so maybe it is a true Twitter clone after all. Bots seem to be a problem on the platform, too, yet perhaps the most worrying aspect for Zuck is that people are claiming that Threads is all a bit too boring. #ThreadsUpdate Read more here.

🪄🤖 AI – Stability AI and Wix Show Off New Generator Tools

The AI revolution continues apace, even if some of the hysteria over the technology has dissipated in the media. Last week, we got a glimpse of two exciting new tools. The first came from the image wizards at Stability AI (the creators of the image generator Stable Diffusion), which launched a sketch-to-image generator, Stable Doodle. As the name suggests, the AI will create wonderful images based on rough sketches and doodles provided by the user. While it’s fun to play with, we can imagine real-world use cases adopted by architects and fashion designers. In Wix’s case, the website builder platform has launched an AI prompt tool for building websites “in seconds”. It is, let’s say, fairly impressive, although we don’t think bespoke website designers will be losing much sleep given the templated nature of Wix’s designs. Still, if you need a website in a hurry and don’t have the patience for Wix’s manual tools, it’s a handy option. #NewAITools Read more here.

🧐 Stat of the Week: $190K iPhone

🤳💰 iPhone – Holy Grail “First Edition” iPhone Sells for $190,000

Any book collectors out there will know that a rare first edition must have its dust jacket and remain in impeccable condition for it to bring in the big bucks at auction. Seems that iPhone “collectors” feel the same way. A 2007 “first edition” 4GB iPhone has just sold at auction for $190,372. The device, which was still boxed and factory sealed, is considered rare as it was one of the first off the production line, and fewer 4GB models were made as demand went for the 8GB models instead. While some might consider this an excessive amount to pay for an old iPhone, we should remember that it’s about owning part of history; in this case, the earliest example of the device that changed the world. #iPhoneAuction Read more here.

🕸️ What’s dAppening?

🪙👩🏽‍⚖️ XRP – Crypto Community Hails “Partial” Victory in SEC Saga

Is the end in sight for one of the most painfully long-running sagas in web3? The SEC launched a lawsuit against Ripple Labs (the platform that issues XRP cryptocurrency) in December 2020, claiming that the XRP tokens were unregistered securities. It was a massive blow for one of the most influential crypto projects (the remit of XRP is effectively to disrupt traditional banking and cross-border payments). But a judge has now ruled that XRP is “not in and of itself a contract, transaction, or scheme.”. In essence, that means XRP could be viewed as a commodity, not a security. We won’t walk you through all the elements of a complex court case – and we will remind you that it’s not over yet – but the partial victory for Ripple Labs is important, as the XRP court case represents one of the hurdles for mainstream adoption of crypto, particularly by financial institutions. If the outcome is favorable for Ripple, you might see the floodgates open for crypto adoption and, indeed, use cases. The lawsuit continues, but Ripple has gained a huge victory in one of web3’s most important bellwether legal cases. #XRPWin Read more here.

Meanwhile at 3Advance…

Our new series “Getting to Know 3Advance” is in full swing and we are excited to tell you more about our latest installment. This week we bring to you a staff feature all the way from Nepal. Join Roshan as he takes you through his time at 3Advance and a few things he likes to do for fun.

Be sure to check out all our other installments in this series and be on the lookout for all the other things we have in store!

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