✅ Happy Holidays with Our Shortest, Most Bullet Pointed Newsletter Yet

Hi. It’s Dana 👋 . Welcome to the Web 2.5 newsletter featuring news, content, musings, and memes at the intersection of Web 2.0 and Web 3.0.

After promising myself I'd take this week AND next week off, I'm back with a broken promise and a new newsletter format for your feedback. Can you vote and tell me...

🚀 And now, we're off to the easy, breezy, beautiful, bullet point Web 2.5 round-up covering how the real world used Web3 this week.

📰 HEADLINES  | Web2 x Web3 In the News

• Warner Music Group (WMG) announced a partnership with, and investment in, a leading digital fashion company, DressX. The partnership will provide a platform for select WMG artists to design their own virtual fashion lines. PR Newswire.

• Epic Games, the Fortnite video game maker, will pay more than half a billion dollars over FTC allegations of privacy violations and unwanted charges. FTC.

• World Cup fan tokens & NFTs have seen heavy volume after Argentina's World Cup victory, proof that digital collectibles are making their way into big cultural moments. Blockworks.

👀 PEEP | Big Names & Who's Doing What

• McDonald's launched a fully automated restaurant. via Greg Isenberg.

• Mercedes-Benz hints at its metaverse and NFT plans in a trademark filing. Blockworks.

• Wrangler (as in jeans) shared its plans for Web3. There's a sweet looking "0xc0wb0y" cowboy avatar involved. Sean Gormley.

• Warner Brothers made Crypto Cards, customizable digital greeting cards. Hallmark, your move. Twitter.

• Lacoste has a virtual holiday store. The Drum.

• Australian Open adds a NounsDAO collaboration ahead of its second Web3 activation. Coindesk.

• Deepak Chopra is partnering with TIMEPieces for an NFT collection. TIME.

• Bing Crosby is coming to the metaverse to "meet kids where they are" for the holidays. GlobeNewswire.

• CES will have a big presence on the metaverse and Web3 this year. AdAge.

💡DISCOVER  | Use Cases & Applications

• OpenAI released Point-E, an AI that generates 3D models. Well, it's not 3D per se. It's a cluster of data points in space that represent a 3D shape. But close enough. TechCrunch.

• MNTGE is bringing authentic vintage fashion into the metaverse by scanning retro fashion and turning it into digital wearables. Decrypt.

• Folks are making films using AI and writing Twitter threads about it. Here are two movies from the week: Guy Parsons. Aaron Kemmer. Plus here's an AI-generated Home Alone x White Lotus film. umpherj.

• Someone built an AI typewriter. Arvind Sanjeev.

⌨️ PLAY | Tools to Play With

• Tome, AI-powered storytelling & powerpoint decks. Start a new powerpoint deck with a single prompt. Tome.

• DoNotPay is building an AI-powered lawyer. DoNotPay.

👓 WATCH | What to Watch

• Amazon's new series 'NFTMe' explores NFT culture and disruption worldwide. Cointelegraph.

• Trump NFTs got spoofed on Saturday Night Live. NBC.

🎙 LISTEN | Where to Tune In

• How's this for a casual mid-roll plug for our Web 2.5 podcast this week with Shondra Washington, the Co-Founder & CEO of Black@, a token-gated private community for Black creatives, entrepreneurs, and investors. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

📚 READ | What to Read

• The handbag that could shape the metaverse. Hint - its got the word Birkin in it. Politico.

• What’s next for the metaverse -- written by smart consulting folks at PwC. PwC.

• Atlantic Records on Web3 strategy and the future of music. nft now.

• Two different first-hand account walkthroughs of Starbucks' NFT program. Geekwire. JUMP.

💼  JOBS | Open Roles + Movers & Shakers

• Yuga Labs names former Activision Blizzard exec Daniel Alegre as its new CEO. Yahoo.

• Next Gen DTC Web3 Assoc Manager, Pepsico. Apply.

• Manager, NFTs & web3, NBCUniversal. Apply.

• Chief of Staff to the Founder, Dapper Labs. Apply.

🔢 BY THE NUMBERS | Facts & Figures

• The biggest NFT collections of 2022. Decrypt.

• One-third of singles are ready to date in the metaverse. Cointelegraph.

• The Sandbox has sold more than $1.66 million worth of virtual land across the map of its metaverse in the past few weeks. VentureBeat.

☠️ AND FINALLY...

• I guess everyone is cheating in their term papers now. Marc Andreessen.

• FML, there's a Web5. Coindesk.

🫶 And that’s a wrap! Thanks for reading Web 2.5. See you out there in the interweb3s. 

NOTE: We're taking next week off for both the podcast and the newsletter 😴 . We'll see you in 2023 🎉 . 

How'd We Do?

DISCLAIMER: This content is strictly educational. None of this is financial, tax, or investment advice — and not a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please always do your own research. For important disclosures, see disclosures.web2point5.io.