What's Appening: GoodbyIE, Old FrIEnd 👋 🌐

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RIP INTERNET EXPLORER: “A GREAT TOOL TO DOWNLOAD OTHER BROWSERS”

🌮 TLDR

In this week’s What’s Appening, we are reporting on the end of an era; two eras, in fact. The slow, lingering death of Internet Explorer has been made official, with Microsoft finally ending support last week. While IE has been the butt of many jokes, we shouldn’t forget what it gave us and what it led to. There’s also a sense of era-ending in Web 2.0 business models, as Snapchat becomes the latest social media platform to introduce paid subscriptions. Elsewhere, we look at eBay’s move into Live Shopping; feels like it should have jumped on the bandwagon a while back. Our Stat of the Week looks at Telegram’s impressive user growth. And it’s a What’s dAppening special, as 3Advance reports live from NYC.NFT 2022.

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Takes 🎬

💻 👋 Internet Explorer – World Says Goodbye to Browser We All Loved to Hate

Internet Explorer wasn’t the first commercial internet browser; that honor goes to Netscape Navigator. But for a time, IE was THE internet browser. At its height in 2004, it had a 95% market share, but the rise of Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and others offered a browser experience that was safer, smarter, faster, and more developer-friendly. As Microsoft announced the end of support for IE after 27 years this week, a lot of memes and jokes have been made at its expense. A “good browser for downloading other browsers.”, “RIP the #1 Chrome Installer”, “IE is not responding.”. Still, while much of the criticism for IE is fair, it was so much more than a result of Microsoft’s “bundling”, and its legacy should not be understated. It acted as a bridge between the Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 eras. Active X, DOM, iFrame, Events, and CSS support – are just some of the important innovations and tools for developers that were nurtured by IE and helped us build the web as we know it today. Unbelievably, millions of people, including businesses, still use IE today. And like some of those unfashionable 80s rock bands, IE remains big in Japan. Microsoft has announced some workaround for companies still using IE-dependent applications. But for the rest of us, it’s a case of – so long Internet Explorer, it’s been a helluva ride. #GoodbyIE Read more here.

💳 📲 Snapchat – Plans for Paid Subscriptions with Snapchat Plus

Funny that we should be talking about the end of an era with IE, as there is also a sense of moving away from the business model that defined Web 2.0. As Snapchat becomes the latest social media platform to offer a paid-for subscription service, we wonder whether it spells the end of the ‘user contract’ that has defined social media for so long. Effectively, that ‘contract’ can be summed up as, “you can have this for free, but understand that you and your data are the product, and we are going to make billions from advertising to you.”. Declining ad revenues, exacerbated by Apple’s clamp down on iOS ad-tracking, which hurt mobile-only Snapchat more than most, meant new ways of earning revenue had to be explored. So, we have a sea change, with Snapchat joining Twitter (there’s Twitter Blue, but Elon Musk wants more), Telegram (announced a new $5-$6 subscription plan this week), TikTok (Live subscriptions), and others in creating a two-tier system for users. Of course, you can still get access to Snapchat for free, but by adding another layer, the days of advertiser-only revenue models have ended. When looking at what you get with Snapchat Plus, it’s interesting to note that everyone is following broadly the same model – exclusivity, access to unique creator content, special stickers, avatars, etc. It looks like a good way to get dedicated users to part with a few bucks per month. Will it be enough to ensure that paid-for social media becomes the dominant model? Most likely, the two-tier system will continue for a while. But perhaps we will be blowing our grandkids’ minds one day by explaining to them that we used to get our social media for free. #SnappingTheAdModel Read more here.

🎥 🛒 eBay – Online Marketplace Debuts Interactive Live Shopping Events

We have to say, eBay feels somewhat late to the game here, as we have seen the likes of Snapchat and Facebook partner up with everyone from Amazon to Walmart for live shopping showcases. Tomorrow (June 22nd) will see the online marketplace give us a first taste of its new eBay Live platform, which will allow buyers to watch live streams, interact with sellers, and make instant purchases of collectibles. It looks very similar to some of the shopping-channel-like streams with influencers you might see on Instagram, although eBay being eBay means the focus is going to be on collectibles like trading cards. Right now, we don’t have a huge amount of information on where eBay is going with this in the long term. Technically, eBay Live is still in beta testing, although you can join tomorrow’s event through the eBay app. While eBay has conducted the odd live auction before, this seems like a more substantial overhaul to its business model. Livestream shopping has become a huge business, particularly in China, so eBay, with its ready-made community of collectors and enthusiasts, seems perfectly placed to bring its auctions and sellers to the party. #UnSilentAuction Read more here.

🧐 Stat of the Week – 700 Million MAUs on Telegram

Good news for Telegram this week, as it has announced it has surpassed over 700 million monthly active users on its messaging app. Our rudimentary math tells us that’s a 40% increase from the 500 million users it reported in January 2021 – impressive in today’s climate. As we mentioned earlier, Telegram is also taking steps to monetize those numbers with the launch of a premium tier subscription, which will give users access to faster downloads, the ability to send larger files, and greater bandwidth. Significantly, it’s the first messaging app to roll out a premium tier, although we should point out that WhatsApp does have Business subscriptions. Still, it will be interesting to see whether the likes of Signal and other rivals follow suit. #700MTelegrammers Read more here.

🕸️ What’s dAppening?

A dApp is a decentralized app. Here’s the latest in web3, nfts and blockchain apps.

🍎🥳 NFT.NYC – Fourth Annual NFT industry Event Kicks Off in the Big Apple

Yes, we know that all the talk of crypto and web3 right now revolves around the “Crypto Winter” and the declining value of some tokens, but there has been no expense spared at the showcase event for the NFT industry in New York, which starts today. NFT.NYC has brought thousands of NFT artists, web3 enthusiasts, blockchain experts, and others who believe in the transformative power of the space to New York City for the three-day conference. Attendance has almost tripled from just over 5,000 in 2021 to 15,000 for this summer’s event. And to underline the fact that we have taken over the city, there’s some really impressive NFT artwork on a huge billboard in Times Square showcasing the work of hundreds of NFT artists across the world. The theme of NFT.NYC this year is the “diversity of NFTs”, and we couldn’t be more down with that. There will be a celebration of NFT art, sure, but also plenty of scope to showcase the use-cases for NFTs in everything from movies to sports to security. Of course, it’s only right that we should join the party, so 3Advance sent Paul and Darren to New York for NFT-NYC 2022. You can take a look at the Meanwhile at 3Advance section below to hear some of their initial thoughts, and to learn more about what 3Advance expects to get from joining the event. #CryptoSummer Read more here.

Meanwhile at 3Advance...

And we are live from NYC! Our CEO Paul and CTO Darren have both made the trip to New York, paid for their tickets and hotel rooms (in ETH, of course), and are now set to experience three days of NYC.NFT. Our goals here are broad. We want to learn from the conference speakers and attendees, but we also want to network and showcase our own expertise in NFTs and blockchain projects. As NYC.NFT unfolds, we promise we will report back on the weird and the wonderful, as well as anything interesting we see pertaining to NFT use-cases and the broader web3 movement. Of course, we will probably sample a pint or two of Guinness along the way; all in the name of research, you see.

Don’t forget, this week’s video episode will be released shortly on YouTube, Facebook and LinkedIn. There’s also the mini-recap on TikTok and Instagram. As always, we appreciate y’all following along on any of these social platforms and we’d love to hear your feedback. Just hit ‘Reply’!