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The European Union Opens Tech Embassy in Silicon Valley Ahead of New Technology Regulations - Snell & Wilmer

WASHINGTON, D.C. Nearly every parents biggest worry is how to provide for the health, safety and welfare of their children. Its a concern that takes many forms: getting them to school safely and back again, serving them the best food and housing them safely. More and more, knowing really, not knowing what their child may be doing online is a key worry.

Others are beginning to listen.

Congress is one important group paying attention and could be taking action before the current term ends in December. There are proposals to create a new privacy division at the Federal Trade Commission, expand federal protections for childrens data, fund government research into kids mental health and urge companies to act in the best interest of the child.

And what Congress cant or wont do, the FTC itself can try to launch on its own everything except the funding part, that is.

Two years ago, the FTC demanded that nine social media companies including Facebook (now Meta), Twitter and YouTube hand over information about how they collect and use personal data, including how their practices affect children and teens. Were it to launch a formal study, the FTC could compel firms to disclose what has been closely held data.

The FTCs newest commission, Omar Bedoya, told The Washington Post in an interview posted Aug. 25 that the protection of children is one of the FTCs policy areas where there is bipartisanship. Bedoyas confirmation by the Senate now gives Democratic appointees a 3-2 majority on the FTC.

Usually, that is. The FTC voted in August to consider new rules concerning lax data security or commercial surveillance practices. The vote was 3-2 along partisan lines.

Social media giants, though, are paying attention themselves to the potential harms of their services to young people.

Snapchat announced in August the introduction of parental controls. In order to activate them, parents have to get their own Snapchat accounts and their children must agree to the controls.

The controls will let parents see their teenagers friends with on the app and who they had communicated with in the previous seven days, according to a blog posting by Snapchats parent company, Snap, in announcing the controls.

While parents will be able to report accounts that their children are friends with if they violate Snapchats policies, they will not be able to see their childrens conversations.

Our goal was to create a set of tools designed to reflect the dynamics of real-world relationships and foster collaboration and trust between parents and teens, the blog posting said.

The availability of parental controls is not all-encompassing. Some features arent ready to be introduced yet, according to Snap.

Moreover, the controls are currently available in only five countries: the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Other countries, Snap said, will gain access to the parental controls come autumn.

Snap is just one company feeling heat from politicians, regulators and investors to improve their products and services or face unwanted consequences.

In England, the Government Communications Headquarters and the U.K.s National Cyber Security Centre, made a joint declaration in July calling for client-side scanning to keep child sexual abuse material off phones and other devices.

Apple has a version of the client-side scanning system, which would, for the first time from any major platform, scan photos on the users hardware, rather than waiting for them to be uploaded to the companys servers.

Some civil libertarians in Britain pushed back vehemently on this recommendation, saying that tech giants with the capability to do this could also use that capacity to surveil anyones digital life, be they online or off.

But the 70-page joint GCHQ-NCSC suggests that databases of images be assembled by child protection groups around the world such as the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in the United States be kept as comprehensive as possible, but that the scanning database can be made only of those images in all groups lists.

They can then publish a hash, a cryptographic signature, of that database when they hand it over to tech companies, who can show the same hash when it is loaded on to peoples cellphones. Even if China, for instance, forced Apple to load a different database for China, then the hash would change accordingly, and users would know that the system was no longer trustworthy.

The paper does not admit that this is the best solution, but only that a solution and the technology to apply it exists now and can be used until something better comes along.

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Protection of children now in sights of Congress, FTC, tech firms - Crux Now

Every country is vying to get a head start in the race to the worlds quantum future. A year ago, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia teamed up todevelopmilitary applications of digital technologies, especially quantum computing technologies. That followed the passage in 2019 of the National Quantum Initiative Act by the U.S. Congress, which laid out the countrys plans to rapidly create quantum computing capabilities.

Earlier, Europe launched a $1 billion quantum computing research project, Quantum Flagship, in 2016, and its member states have started building a quantum communications infrastructure that will be operational by 2027. In like vein, Chinas 14th Five Year Plan (2021-2025) prioritizes the development of quantum computing and communications by 2030. In all, between 2019 and 2021 China invested as much as $11 billion, Europe had spent $5 billion, the U.S. $3 billion, and the U.K. around $1.8 billion between to become tomorrows quantum superpowers.

As the scientific development of quantum technologies gathers momentum, creating quantum computers has turned into apriority for nations that wish to gain the next competitive advantage in the Digital Age. Theyre seeking this edge for two very different reasons. On the one hand,quantum technologies will likely transform almost every industry, from automotive and aerospace to finance and pharmaceuticals. These systems could create fresh value of between $450 billion and $850 billion over the next 15 to 30 years, according to recentBCG estimates.

On the other hand, quantum computing systems will pose a significant threat to cybersecurity the world over, as we argued in an earliercolumn.Hackers will be able to use them to decipher the public keys generated by the RSA cryptosystem, and to break through the security of any conventionally-encrypted device, system, or network. It will pose a potent cyber-threat, popularly called Y2Q (Years to Quantum), toindividuals and institutions as well as corporations and country governments. The latter have no choice but to tacklethe unprecedented challenge by developing countermeasures such as post-quantum cryptography, which will itself require the use of quantum systems.

Countries have learned the hard way since the Industrial Revolution that general-purpose technologies, such as quantum computing, are critical for competitiveness. Consider, for instance, semiconductor manufacturing, which the U.S., China, South Korea, and Taiwan have dominated in recent times. When the COVID-19 pandemic and other factors led to a sudden fall in production over the last two years, it resulted in production stoppages andprice increases in over 150 industries, including automobiles, computers, and telecommunications hardware. Many countries, among the members of theEuropean Union, Brazil, India, Turkey, and even the U.S., were hit hard, and are now trying to rebuild their semiconductorsupply chains. Similarly,China manufacturesmost of the worlds electric batteries, with the U.S. contributingonly about 7% of global output. Thats why the U.S. has recently announcedfinancial incentivesto induce business to create more electric battery-manufacturing capacity at home.

Much worse could be in store if countries and companies dont focus on increasing their quantum sovereignty right away. Because the development and deploymentof such systems requires the efforts of the public and private sectors, its important for governments to compare their efforts on both fronts with those of other countries.

The U.S. is expected to be the global frontrunnerin quantum computing, relying on its tech giants, such as IBM and Google, to invent quantum systems as well as numerous start-ups that are developing software applications. The latter attract almost 50% of the investments in quantum computing by venture capital and private equity funds, according toBCG estimates. Although the U.S. government has allocated only $1.1 billion, it has created mechanisms that effectively coordinate the efforts of all its agencies such as the NIST, DARPA, NASA, and NQI.

Breathing down the U.S.s neck: China, whose government has spent more on developing quantum systems than any other. . Those investments have boosted academic research, with China producing over 10% of the worlds research in 2021, according toour estimatessecond only to the U.S. The spillover effects are evident: Less than a year after Googles quantum machine had solved in minutes a calculation that would have taken supercomputers thousands of years to unravel, the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) had cracked a problem three times tougher. As of September 2021, China hadnt spawned as many startups as the U.S., but it was relying on its digital giants such as Alibaba, Baidu, and Tencent to develop quantum applications.

Trailing only the U.S. and China, the European Unionsquantum computing efforts are driven by its member states as well as the union. The EUsQuantum Flagshipprogram coordinates research projects across the continent, but those efforts arent entirely aligned yet. Several important efforts, such as those ofFranceandGermany,run the risk of duplication or dont exploit synergies adequately. While the EU has spawned several startups that are working on different levels of the technology stacksuch as FinlandsIQM and FrancesPasqalmany seem unlikely to scale because of the shortage of late-stage funding. In fact, the EUs startups have attracted only about one-seventh as much funding as their American peers,according toBCG estimates.

Finally, the U.K. was one of the firstcountries in the world to launch a government-funded quantum computing program. Its counting on itseducational policiesand universities;scholarships for postgraduate degrees; and centers for doctoral training to get ahead. Like the EU, the U.K. also has spawned promising start-ups such asOrca,which announced the worlds smallest quantum computer last year. However, British start-ups may not be able to find sufficient capital to scale, and many are likely to be acquired by the U.S.s digital giants.

Other countries, such as Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan, and Russia are also in the quantum computing race, and could carve out roles for themselves. For instance, Canada is home to several promising startups, such asD-Wave, a leader in annealing computers; whileJapanis using public funds to develop a homegrown quantum computer by March 2023. (For an analysis of the comparative standings and challenges that countries face in quantum computing, please see the recentBCG report.)

Meanwhile, the locus of the quantum computing industry is shifting to the challenges of developing applications and adopting the technology. This shift offers countries, especially the follower nations, an opportunity to catch up with the leaders before its too late. Governments must use four levers in concert to accelerate their quantum sovereignty:

* Lay the foundations.Governments have to invest more than they currently do if they wish to develop quantum systems over time, even as they strike partnerships to bring home the technology in the short run. Once they have secured the hardware, states must create shared infrastructure to scale the industry. The Netherlands, for instance, has set upQuantum Inspire, a platform that provides users with the hardware to perform quantum computations.

* Coordinate the stakeholders.Governments should use funding and influence to coordinate the work of public and private players, as theU.S. Quantum Coordination Office, for instance,does. In addition, policymakers must connect stakeholders to support the technologys development. Thats how the U.S. Department of Energy, for instance, came to partner with the University of Chicago; together, theyve set up anacceleratorto connect startups with investors and scientific experts.

* Facilitate the transition. Governments must support businesss transition to the quantum economy. They should offer monetary incentivessuch as tax credits, infrastructure assistance, no- or low-interest financing, and free landso incumbents will shift to quantum technologies quickly. TheU.K., for instance, hasrecently expanded its R&D tax relief scheme to cover investments in quantum technologies.

* Develop the business talent.Instead of developing only academics and scientists, government policies will have to catalyze the creation of a new breed of entrepreneurial and executive talent that can fill key roles in quantum businesses. To speed up the process, Switzerland, for instance, has helped create amasters programrather than offering only doctoral programs on the subject.

Not all general-purpose technologies affect a countrys security and sovereignty as quantum computing does, but theyre all critical for competitiveness. While many countries talk about developing quantum capabilities, their efforts havent translated into major advances, as in the U.S. and China. Its time every government remembered that if it loses the quantum computing race, its technological independence will erodeand, unlike with Schrdingers cat, theres no doubt that its global competitiveness will atrophy.

ReadotherFortunecolumns by Franois Candelon.

Franois Candelonisa managing director and senior partner at BCG and global director of the BCG Henderson Institute.

Maxime Courtauxis a project leader at BCG and ambassador at the BCG Henderson Institute.

Gabriel Nahasis a data senior scientist at BCG Gamma and ambassador at the BCG Henderson Institute.

Jean-Franois Bobier is a partner & director at BCG.

Some companies featured in this column are past or current clients of BCG.

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The U.S., China, and Europe are ramping up a quantum computing arms race. Heres what theyll need to do to win - Fortune

Mark Zuckerberg is betting his companys future on the metaverse a virtual space in which people interact with each other using avatars and AR/VR technology investing tens of billions of dollars in an attempt to build the platforms and hardware that captures a new generation of users. Now the question is whether Zuckerbergs gamble on the metaverse being the future of the internet and his company will succeed

One of the biggest parts of that bet is Horizon, Metas software for people to socialize, work, and play in the metaverse. Think of Horizon as a blend of The Sims, Minecraft, and Roblox, with users interacting through their avatars in virtual worlds they build.

We are seeing the youngest generation spend an awful lot of time in virtual reality worlds today, says Metas CMO and head of analytics, Alex Schultz.

Right now, Horizon is only available in Metas Quest VR headset, though the company is planning to soon bring it to mobile phones and the web. Meanwhile, there are still some major downsides to Horizon: awkward-looking avatars, unwanted interactions with strangers, and the discomfort of a VR headset weighing on your face.

The Verges Alex Heath and Recodes Shirin Ghaffary strap on headsets and enter Horizon in the finale episode of the latest season of Land of the Giants, Vox Medias award-winning narrative podcast series about the most influential tech companies of our time. This season has been all about Facebooks transformation into Meta, featuring interviews with senior executives, former employees, and other experts.

Horizon is a key step in Zuckerbergs push to develop the metaverse. But its not his end vision. His companys main goal is releasing what he has called the holy grail device: lightweight augmented reality glasses that seamlessly overlay the digital world on the real world around you. With Apple planning its own AR headset, we also examine how these two tech giants are gearing up to battle over what they both think will be the next major computing platform.

Will Meta be able to maintain its head start in the race to make popular headsets if Apple a company with a better reputation on privacy and more experience building hardware also enters the race, as widely expected? Our finale episode includes never-before-heard audio of Zuckerberg addressing employees internally about the coming battle with Apple, and what it means for the future of the internet.

Listen to the finale episode of Land of the Giants: The Facebook / Meta Disruption, a co-production between Recode and The Verge, and catch the first six episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Mark Zuckerberg is betting the future of Facebook on the metaverse - Vox.com

Its as if they want to build a car that goes fast enough to escape from its own exhaust.

These words were the takeaway from a meeting that Douglas Rushkoff, who describes himself as a Marxist media theorist, had with five extremely powerful people in tech who were looking to survive the impending climate catastrophe. Rushkoffs account of this in Survival of the Richestreveals something sinister: that righ-ranking elites in tech genuinely know whats coming but rather than stopping it, theyre planning on saving themselves from it in the form of underground luxury bunkers and armed guards comprised of Navy SEALs.

The people who are almost directly responsible for the worlds biggest problems today the climate crisis, eroding institutions of democracy, and the sale of peoples own attention for profit dont find themselves to be accountable. Not only that, accountability, or even fixing todays problems, isnt even a desirable goal for them. At least not, according to longtermism the philosophy undergirding much of techs trajectory and, if were not careful, our own destruction as a race.

Its an idea that, from its forward-looking scope, seems ambitious and futuristic upon first glance. But its one that believes in a future only for a few people self-appointed representatives of humanity at the cost of all the rest. And when billionaires begin to shack up underground or shoot off into space in a bid to colonize other planets, theyre not doing it for humanity as a whole; theyre doing it for a humanity that consists exclusively of their own ilk.

Stephen Hawking famously declared just a few years ago that we are at the most dangerous moment in the development of humanity. Even if were hardly doing anything about it, most are in some form of agreement that things are looking bleak, and were already seeing the effects of climate change in countries that havent done a lot to bolster it. But if longtermism has its way, this is nothing more than a blip in humanitys record. What makes the philosophy so dangerous is its ethical foundation, summed up by one of its early theoreticians Nick Bostrom: a non-existential disaster causing the breakdown of global civilisation is, from the perspective of humanity as a whole, a potentially recoverable setback.

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What Is the Environmental Cost of Space Tourism?

Bostroms work is heartily endorsed by tech giants with the resources and capacity to not only outrun any of the worlds current crises, but also irreversibly influence the direction of our species as a whole. There are two key concepts in Bostroms argument: potential, and existential risk. Potential is what longtermists understand to be humanitys capacity on a cosmic scale, a trillion years into the future. Our potential is as vast as the universe itself. An existential risk, according to the longtermist ethic, is one that threatens to wipe out humanity and with it, humanitys potential. This is the most tragic outcome and one that has to be avoided at all costs. Now its possible that a few people say, 15% of the worlds population survive climate change. That doesnt wipe out our potential even if it wipes out an unfathomable number of people and so, according to longtermism, isnt an existential risk.

The case for longtermism rests on the simple idea that future people matterJust as we should care about the lives of people who are distant from us inspace,we should care about people who are distant from us intime, wrote William MacAskill, the public face of longtermism. His book was endorsed by Elon Musk, who cited MacAskills philosophy as a close match for his own. Musk also happens to be one of the biggest players in the privatized space race, and his vision to colonize Mars is one that is increasingly no longer a semi-ironic joke.

Longtermisms roots is in a philosophy called effective altruism. Its one that Effective altruism, which used to be a loose, Internet-enabled affiliation of the like-minded, is now a broadly influential faction, especially in Silicon Valley, and controls philanthropic resources on the order of thirty billion dollars, notes a profile of MacAskill in The New Yorker.

Theres a web of influential figures writing the script of longtermism from various think tanks together, they comprise an enterprise thats worth more than 40 billion dollars. Among others, some advocate for sex redistribution, others say that saving lives in rich countries is more important than saving lives in poor countries, as philosopher mile P. Torres reported in Salon. Longtermisms utopia is a future where human beings are engineered to perfection leading to the creation of posthumans who possess only the best and most superior of traits with no flaws at all. This is an idea rooted in eugenics, and it fuels the most civilizationally cynical ideas of who gets to be considered superior, and who qualifies as inferior enough to be flushed out of our collective gene pool. Its important to note that what holds all of these ideas together is the benign-sounding idea of longtermism and its even creeping into the United Nations. The foreign policy community in general and the United Nations in particular are beginning to embrace longtermism, noted one UN Dispatch.

But if it wasnt already clear why the ideas themselves are dangerous, the people formulating them make it clear whose interests are at stake, and whose arent. contributors to fast-growing fields like the study of existential risk or global catastrophic risk are overwhelmingly white Bostrom idealizes a future in which the continued evolution of (post)humanity culminates in a form of technological maturity that adheres to mainstream norms of white maleness: deeply disembodied, unattached to place, and dominant over, or independent from, nature, note scholars Audra Mitchell and Aadita Chaudhury, who work in the areas of human ethics, ecology science, and technology.

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What the Soulless Zuckerberg Memes Say About Our Relationship With Tech

Tech overlords figuring out ways to survive what they know to be coming and euphemistically refer to as an event isnt just a short-sighted way out of the mess they themselves are complicit in. Its all part of the long game perhaps the longest one weve ever envisioned.

Nick Bostrom enjoys considerable ideological heft. As the chair of Oxfords Future of Humanity Institute (FHI), he is one among a growing group of philosophers who have their sights set on our future in terms of how much more we can think, accomplish, build and discover on a scale previously thought to be unthinkable. Anders Sandberg, a research fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute, told me that humans might be able to colonise a third of the now-visible universe, before dark energy pushes the rest out of reach. That would give us access to 100 billion galaxies, a mind-bending quantity of matter and energy to play with, wrote Ross Andersen, who investigated the philosophies actively shaping the future of our civilization.

Tech is key to achieving this kind of potential, which is why people in tech are so heavily invested (and investing) in the idea. At the heart of the ethical deliberations is the cost-benefit analysis: how much is it okay to lose for the sake of ensuring the potential of future people? Maybe even post-people? Its the greater good dilemma that has been used to justify devastating wars and policy decisions already: Now imagine what might be justified if the greater good isnt national security but the cosmic potential of Earth-originating intelligent life over the coming trillions of years? Torres asks.

the crucial fact that longtermists miss is thattechnology is far more likely to cause our extinction before this distant future event than to save us from it, they add.

But the lack of transparency, the inordinate resources, and the power concentrated in the hands of the overwhelmingly cis, white, techno-optimistic men who wield the worlds future in their hands stands in the way of recognizing this crucial fact.

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How 'Longtermism' Is Helping the Tech Elite Justify Ruining the World - The Swaddle

from smartphones Traditional mobile phones, which first became a part of our lives, are most remembered for their robustness and longevity. Most While the person did not know such a thing as a screen protector, those who used a case were considered too piquant. Moreover, since these devices consist of only three or five pieces of important hardware, they either do not break down quickly, or even if they break down, it would be extremely easy to repair.

However, in our lives smart phones After that, the situation changed 180 degrees. First, we started to buy screen protectors for the protection of touch screens, then we wrapped them in cases to protect the cases that were scratched or even broken at the slightest thing. Of course, at the slightest thing, a broken screen, a constantly draining battery, a non-working microphone or malfunctioning speaker repairs.

Here is a new draft law, which is being worked on by the European Commission, is preparing to stipulate that smartphones should offer longer life and spare parts supply should be at least 5 years. With a previous decision, all smartphones to be sold in the country from 2024 USB Type-C who decided to have the port and with this move Apple The commission, which brought it to its knees, is now planning to solve the problem of smartphones, which have to be replaced every two years by being deprived of quality due to economic concerns.

at least in the law 1,000 recharges Even after that, the necessity of maintaining 80% capacity of the battery or developing the 15 most important parts of the phones so that they can be replaced by the users in the home environment seems to bother the technology giants.

Link:

Tech giants are nervous! They can no longer fool the customer - Gearrice

The Phillies kick-off a three-game series against the San Francisco Giants Friday at 10:15 p.m., but good luck finding the game on television.

Instead of airing on NBC Sports Philadelphia, the game will air exclusively on Apple TV+ as part of the tech giants Friday Night Baseball lineup, which features two exclusive games each week.

At this point, Phillies fans know the drill, since its the fourth time the team has found itself featured on Apples MLB broadcast. Fridays game is free to watch, but you need to set up an Apple TV+ account and either download the app or watch on their website (The Apple TV+ app isnt available on Android phones).

READ MORE: While most Phillies fans were asleep, Ricky Bottalico blasted two pitchers after terrible loss

Calling the game will be Stephen Nelson, Hunter Pence, and former ESPN personality Katie Nolan, with Heidi Watney reporting from Oracle Park in San Francisco.

Thankfully for Phillies fans, its the final time youll need to log into a streaming service to watch a game. Peacocks exclusive Sunday morning window ends Sunday, and the Phillies are not scheduled to appear again on Apple TV+ for the rest of the season.

Apple has yet to release viewership information for its Friday Night Baseball broadcasts, so its unclear how many fans are streaming the games. But the exclusive arrangement isnt going anywhere, considering Apples seven-year deal with MLB runs through the 2028 season, according to Forbes.

As far as the playoff race is concerned, the Phillies enter Friday night just a half game ahead of the San Diego Padres and three games up on the Milwaukee Brewers in the hunt for a wild-card berth. The Phillies have 31 games remaining this season, 12 against winning teams seven games against the Atlanta Braves, two games against the Toronto Blue Jays, and three against the Houston Astros.

As of Friday, FiveThirtyEight gives the Phillies an 87% chance to make the playoffs, which would end a 10-year drought. But history is not a friend of the Phillies since 2018, the teams record after Sept. 1 is 47-69.

Here is the Phillies upcoming schedule:

Friday, Sept. 2: Phillies at Giants, 10:15 p.m. (Apple TV+, 94.1 WIP)

Saturday, Sept. 3: Phillies at Giants, 4:05 p.m. (NBC Sports Philadelphia, 94.1 WIP)

Sunday, Sept. 4: Phillies at Giants, 4:05 p.m. (NBC Sports Philadelphia, 94.1 WIP)

Tuesday, Sept. 6: Marlins at Phillies, 6:45 p.m. (NBC Sports Philadelphia, 94.1 WIP)

Wednesday, Sept. 7: Marlins at Phillies, 6:45 p.m. (NBC Sports Philadelphia, 94.1 WIP)

Thursday, Sept. 8: Marlins at Phillies, 6:45 p.m. (NBC Sports Philadelphia, 94.1 WIP)

See the article here:

Tonights Phillies game wont be on NBC Sports Philadelphia - The Philadelphia Inquirer

2022 is on pace to be another record-setting year in venture capital investment in the crypto, blockchain, and web3 space investors poured almost $18 billion into the space in the first half of the year alone. This meaningful influx of capital is funding extraordinary innovation. As brands and enterprises continue to see the value in digital ownership and identity (which are core tenets of web3), they will need to develop strong alliances to execute their web3 ambitions. They will need to build a strategic partner ecosystem that supports business activities across functional areas like marketing, treasury, financial reporting, tech, and operations, and they will need to perform a meaningful amount of diligence and joint-business planning with these fast-growing upstarts.

At Vayner3 (my employer, a leading web3 consultancy), we help brands and enterprises navigate the emerging world of web3, from strategy to creative to execution. We also help forge these types of strategic alliances between Fortune 500 organizations, established technology platforms, and emerging start-ups. Our role is tech- and blockchain-agnostic; we help our clients consider the right solutions for their business strategies, existing tech stacks, and ambitions in web3. To that end, we recently held our inaugural web3 Demo Day, which was a live-streamed, eight-hour showcase of 50 interesting web3 organizations and their offerings.

In this article, I want to share lessons I learned throughout the day and my evolving views on how enterprises should consider strategic alliance-building in the web3 space. The views expressed here are just mine, not those of my employer, and Im not incentivized or interested in promoting any specific offering I might mention here. Im just excited about the ridiculous volume of innovation happening in this corner of the internet, and I hope its a helpful primer on the way enterprises may consider forming their new tech stacks for web3.

More From Chris LiquinVaynerNFTs Head of Strategy: An Executives Guide to NFTs

In working with executives at global organizations considering web3 opportunities, Ive found the need to build new mental models for jobs to be done in web3. In more traditional digital marketing, this notion is well-understood: if I want to orchestrate my social media, I might consider platforms like Hootsuite; for email campaigns, I might consider MailChimp; for consumer surveys, perhaps Qualtrics. In web3, these jobs to be done are new web3 enables organizations to develop new products (e.g. NFTs), interact with consumers in new ways (e.g. in immersive digital worlds), and build on top of new technology and infrastructure (e.g. the blockchain).

As the famous wisdom goes, All models are wrong, but some are useful. Im presenting here a quick and helpful way to interpret the 50-plus partners we showcased at web3 Demo Day and not a perfectly designed model for every web3 tech solution. New, awesome partners come online every week, and Im always refining my ways of thinking about the space in real time.

Enterprises entering web3 are bringing their IP into new digital formats, amplifying their existing brand priorities and commitments, creating genuinely new products, and elevating their creative storytelling. To execute, theyre working closely with emerging creative partners. Round21, DressX, and IYK are each putting their unique spin on the notion of phygital the blending of digital and physical experiences and products. Tafi is focused on digital character building, and Infinite Objects is bringing NFTs into your home decor. The sky's the limit on creative product development in web3!

In this article, Ill try not to go near the infamous m word, but I will say, although its early days, immersive digital worlds are continuing to impress and engage consumers in new ways. Zed Run, a digital horse-racing experience, has continued to evolve and innovate since its peak last year. Digital galleries like OnCyber and mobile-first immersive social platforms like some.place are giving brands and consumers new ways to explore, interact, and connect. Design studios like Lastslice are helping enterprises build digital, experiential activations. And, of course, tech giants like Meta are piloting new, immersive web3 experiences across their full product portfolio with early enterprise partnerships. All of these companies are giving brands the opportunity to tell their stories in new mediums and engage consumers in digital venues of the future.

Brands often want more options and control over the consumer experience in web3, which is often described as clunky and similar to dial-up internet in 1996. Although broadly true it is a bit clunky today a meaningful amount of that venture capital I mentioned earlier is funding organizations that are building cleaner user experiences. Often, that work happens at the platform or marketplace layer. CoinbaseNFT recently launched their beta NFT platform, which boasts a slick user interface and new social features. Curated platforms like SuperRare help digital art enthusiasts more easily discover high-caliber artists. Marketplaces like OneOf have picked specific areas of interest (sports, music, and lifestyle in this case) and are building familiar consumer experiences tailored towards specific target audiences with web3 technology.

Choosing the right blockchain is an important early step for a new entrant to web3. Enterprises may consider existing developer ecosystems, security, environmental impact, and transaction costs as key factors for choosing one over the other. As Ethereum, the leading chain for NFTs, goes through major tech upgrades (The Merge is set to happen here in the very near future), the prominence of Layer Two solutions built on top of Ethereums Layer One will continue. These L2s enable high speeds, greater throughput, and lower costs while maintaining the security of a decentralized L1. Polygon has recently signed partnerships with Disney and Instagram, while ImmutableX appears to be out in front in the gaming industry.

As Fortune 500s look to accept, exchange, and transact in digital assets, they need enterprise-grade financial partners that help facilitate, compile financial reports, and enable robust tax, treasury, and governance processes. Our three Demo Day participants in this category Fireblocks, Bitpay, and Ledger all boast a number of services tried and tested by leading CFOs, general counsels, and their teams.

NFTs are now commonly thought of as digital art, in-game items, or access passes, but under the hood, they involve a fair bit of computer code. Built on smart contract technology, NFTs need to start somewhere, and there are a host of minting platforms that take care of this step of the process for organizations. Some, like Manifold, are specifically designed for self-service use by artists and builders. Others, like Mojito and Salesforce NFT, are built as supporting back-end tools for enterprises to provide custom, branded consumer experiences. These partners are often judged by the robustness of their contracts, the flexibility of their solutions, their integrations, and their user-friendliness and robust support.

Ah, saving the best for last. Im particularly excited about this catch-all category because I think much of the new tools and use cases for web3 will emerge from these types of technical innovators. As a few examples: Hang is building specific tooling for web3 loyalty programs,Premint is experimenting with new on-chain raffles and allow lists, and Tokenproof is enabling verified credentialing for token-gated events, experiences, and e-commerce. Brands who want to be category leaders instead of fast-followers will want to learn more about the envelope-pushing solutions being enabled by leading builders like these.

More on Web3Which Web3 Predictions Can We Believe?

Organizations often need meaningful guidance in selecting the right web3 partners. Its a nascent ecosystem, the jobs to be done often involve developing new processes and capabilities inside of your organization, and it can feel a lot more like venture capital than traditional vendor procurement. To close, Ill share here a framework developed by my colleague, Naimul Huq, our SVP of operations, in how Vayner3 helps our clients diligence and identify the right partners to kickstart their web3 journey.

More here:

What Kinds of Partnerships Will Web3 Offer Your Business? - Built In