TheFutureParty
A Community-based Media Company
In a world full of ads and desensitized consumers, traditional digital-marketing techniques are being replaced by opt-in rewards programs. The Full-Page Spread: US ad spending continues to climb (breaking $300 billion in 2024), which makes the marketing landscape noisier than ever and customers harder to retain. With customers hostile to ads and third-party data no […]
Gen Z is using buy now, pay later platforms to fund their vacations. Why It Hits (The Wallet): Young people don’t typically have the means to afford increasingly expensive airline tickets and hotel stays. But they also don’t want to miss out on the action of experiencing them, especially as social media creates the illusion […]
Mini-dramas — low-budget, short-form, vertical shows that are distributed on dedicated apps — are expanding beyond their popularity in Asia (especially China) to the US. The Big Picture: While the premium A-list series on Quibi couldn’t catch on, the soap opera-esque programming of mini-dramas seem to have found a home with American audiences. With traditional […]
Ballers, which bills itself as a social-sport venue and members club, raised a $20 million Series A round in the run-up to the opening of the company’s first flagship location in Philadelphia. Why It Hits: Ballers is in the racket sports and golf business — two sports blowing up in popularity with Gen Z, not just for the […]
Warner Bros. Discovery announced that the entertainment conglomerate will be split in two — with one company housing “Streaming & Studios” and the other comprising the “Global Networks.” The Big Picture: WBD isn’t the first entertainment giant to announce such a move — Comcast threw off its high-revenue (yet declining) cable assets into Versant, and Lionsgate separated its […]
Content creators are finally getting some official backing in the House of Representatives with the formation of the bipartisan Congressional Creators Caucus. The Big Picture: Content creation is a bona fide cornerstone of the American economy, with Oxford Economics estimating that YouTube’s ecosystem alone was behind 390,000 full-time jobs in 2022. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs believes […]
Grammy-winning rapper and music producer Timbaland is launching a company called Stage Zero that will generate artificial pop stars. The High Note: AI is creating waves in the music industry, with some artists, like Timbaland, embracing the tech, while others, like Billie Eilish, deeming it an existential threat. But Stage Zero is taking things a […]
Meta is making some serious outreach (and money offers) to Hollywood studios and major production companies to make content for the tech giant’s next-generation VR headset. The Big Picture: Narrative VR content almost had a moment ten years ago, thanks to a handful of ambitious startups… but the tech ultimately wasn’t up to snuff yet. […]
Amazon is reportedly developing a humanoid robot that will be able to do the most customer-facing aspect of the company — deliver packages. Why It Hits: The robot race is in full swing, with Tesla, Agility, Google, Nvidia, and so many others working on humanoids. Yes, everyone is trying to recreate I, Robot in an […]
Lionsgate is seemingly exploring the use of AI not only to cut production budgets by half, but also to radically alter existing movies — such as making R-rated titles kid-friendly and turning live-action films into animated ones. The Big Picture: While Lionsgate is the first studio to publicly announce that they partnered with an AI company (inking a […]