The Pace Report: Vol 6

 At the convergence of Web3, fractionalization of assets, and the future of social media, there’s friend.tech.

Built on the Coinbase layer-2 blockchain Base, and backed by leading crypto VC firm Paradigm, friend.tech is "the marketplace for your friends." It allows for creators to effectively tokenize their likeness and issue shares to fans who, in exchange, receive privileged access to their favorite creators on the platform.

The platform has demonstrated early promise in its path towards mass adoption and currently boasts over 100,000 users. In its first 10 days alone, friend.tech generated a total volume of 33,596 ether, (approximately $55.5 million), across 1.29 million transactions, as Michael Silberling of OP Labs reports.

Dedicated crypto creators were, of course, first-movers towards the trend, but increasingly larger creators outside of the crypto niche have come aboard including eSports entrepreneurs FaZe Banks and Nadeshot. The decentralized platform is currently in invite-only beta.

India’s Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft has made history as the first human-made vehicle to land on the moon’s south pole. The achievement was seen by a record-breaking 8 million concurrent livestream viewers who tuned in to the action on YouTube.

India currently represents the largest YouTube audience on Earth with 467M users, per Statistia.

The staggering viewership is the latest data point suggesting that the climate is ripe for the nation’s creator economy to grow exponentially. Presently, only 20,000 influencers are engaging with brands on campaigns within the region. However, a new report from Creator Tech Firm Animeta anticipates that this number is expected to grow to 1M creators engaging with brands within just the next two years.

The use cases for Artificial Intelligence in the creator economy continue to grow as main stage musicians have begun weaving generative technologies into the fabric of their storytelling behind the music.

DJ’s Don Diablo and Aphex Twin are two notable names in recent memory who have incorporated AI into their music release strategies. Diablo’s music video for “Future Rain,” is notably being touted as the first-ever music video fully generated by AI. The video is an ethereal tapestry of dystopian, cyberpunk-inspired vignettes that remain markedly on-brand in the world of the tenured Dutch producer.

Meanwhile, Aphex Twin’s characteristically cryptic launch of an augmented reality application on iOS and Android yields the ability to transport fans directly into the producer’s frenetic creative universe. Upon downloading, fans with physical copies of the producer’s latest EP need only point their phone at the packaging to experience one of four AI-driven visual scenes stylized in the spirit of his latest musical offering, Blackbox Life Recorder 21f / In a Room7 F760.

Apple Music users will find a new “Discovery Station” playlist has been added to their “Stations For You” selections without notice from the tech giant.

The quietly released playlist offering features a mix of music that you are likely to enjoy based on past listening behaviors, but haven’t streamed as of yet. The station’s algorithmic framework functions similarly to Spotify’s “Missed Hits” playlist which it provides annually to consumers at year-end, though Apple Music’s Discovery Station notably functions as a continuous radio-style mix rather than as a static selection of songs.

"This feature breathes new life into songs that missed an opportunity to reach a listener the first time around," Mike Warner, Head of Editorial Marketing Partnerships at Believe said in a statement. "With a significant amount of songs being released on music streaming apps every day, there are so many missed opportunities for a song to reach and connect with a fan.”

New data illuminates that there are now over 120,000 tracks being uploaded to DSP’s daily, a 20% increase from the year prior.