SOCIAL
Meta Announces New Avatar Fashion Store, Featuring a Range of Designer Collections
Avatars are the future of social interaction, and as such, Meta’s looking to provide more means of self-expression via your digital twin, with the launch of a new avatar fashion store, which will be accessible across Facebook, Instagram and Messenger.
As you can see in this example, Meta’s avatar fashion store will feature a range of avatar clothing options, with initial collections from fashion houses Balenciaga, Prada and Thom Browne.
The broader scope, however, is that Meta will also eventually enable digital creators to launch their own avatar fashion items, which they’ll then be able to sell in the store as well, providing new monetization options for both fashion brands and individual developers/artists.
Which is similar to Roblox, where users already buy clothing upgrades for their digital characters, or acquire them via in-game achievements. Indeed, Roblox has a range of exclusive digital fashion items available from Gucci, GAP, Tommy Hilfiger and more.
Fortnite too makes the majority of its money from the sale of in-game ‘skins’ or character designs, which enable users to select and customize the look of their in-game character, with a growing range of variations available.
That’s a key mode of self-expression within these virtual spaces, where kids are increasingly interacting and spending time, and both platforms provide a template, of sorts, for how Meta sees its metaverse evolving. And by the time these youngsters are reaching adulthood, it could well be that these formative social experiences become the template for their future engagement, which is where the metaverse could truly take shape.
But Meta needs to build the groundwork now, and avatars are a key part of this. Meta has also recently made its avatar reactions available on Instagram, while it’s also launched improved 3D avatars for use across both Facebook and Instagram, in various ways.
Meta’s additionally working on its new photo-realistic avatars, and developing new ways to create more true-to-life avatar characters for the VR space – though Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently noted that these more true-to-life depictions may serve a separate purpose in digital engagement, with your cartoonish avatar for day-to-day interaction, and a realistic version for, say, professional meetings in digital worlds.
Either way, the more Meta can align users with their 3D characters, the more people will feel comfortable using these depictions as a representation of themselves within virtual spaces, and the addition of new fashion options provides another means to express who you are via your on-screen doppelganger.
More expensive, exclusive fashion items will also give users a chance to show off, and showcase their wealth, status, presence, etc. And as social media has shown us over time, vanity representations of popularity and status are a massive element, which is currently being reflected via expensive NFTs.
More exclusive, more rare, more expensive digital items are a mark of pride for people already, and you can bet that they’ll also end up being popular in Meta’s platforms.
It may seem strange to some, or even ridiculous that people will spend money on how their digital characters look. But younger users already are, to the tune of millions per year, and as Meta’s metaverse vision takes shape, this will become an increasingly important element.
It’s a smart move by Zuck and Co., aligning with existing and emerging trends.
Meta’s Avatar Store will begin rolling out next week, starting in the US, Canada, Thailand, and Mexico.
SOCIAL
TikTok spends $1.5B on Tokopedia JV to get around Jakarta social e-commerce ban
Just two months ago, ByteDance-owned TikTok abruptly closed its shopping platform in Indonesia to comply with surprise regulations from the Southeast Asian country’s government. Jakarta ordered social media companies like TikTok and Facebook to stop selling goods on their platforms, demanding a separation of social media and e-commerce services.
TikTok now seems to have found a way to revive its e-commerce dreams in Indonesia by spending billions to start a joint venture with Indonesian tech giant GoTo. On Monday, the two companies announced that TikTok Shop will now be available on GoTo’s Tokopedia platform.
“Tokopedia and TikTok Shop Indonesia’s businesses will be combined under the existing PT Tokopedia entity in which TikTok will take a controlling stake. The shopping features within the TikTok app in Indonesia will be operated and maintained by the enlarged entity,” TikTok said in a statement Monday.
TikTok will invest over $1.5 billion into Tokopedia, taking a 75% stake in the platform. GoTo will remain an ecosystem partner to Tokopedia and receive an “ongoing revenue stream from Tokopedia commensurate with its scale and growth,” but will not be required to continue funding the platform. Further funding from TikTok also won’t reduce GoTo’s remaining 25% stake.
Getting back into the Indonesian ecommerce market will be a win for TikTok. Indonesia, which is the platform’s largest market outside of the U.S., is key to Tiktok’s online shopping aspirations. In June, CEO Shou Zi Chew pledged to “invest billions in Indonesia and Southeast Asia over the next few years.”
ByteDance wants to replicate its Chinese e-commerce successaround the globe. Last year, consumers spent in China 1.41 trillion yuan ($196 billion) on products sold on Douyin, the version of TikTok for the Chinese market, The Information reported in January. ByteDance, through TikTok, is expanding its online shopping services in both Southeast Asia and the U.S. Yet the company is struggling to win over American consumers: The Information reported in August that U.S. shoppers are spending just $4 million a day, equivalent to $1.4 billion over a whole year, on goods sold on the social media platform. (TikTok officially launched TikTok Shop in the U.S. in September, though sellers have complained about a flood of low-quality products on the platform).
Before Indonesia imposed its ban in September, the country’s president, Joko Widodo, complained that social media platforms were threatening local micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises. Government officials also accused TikTok of engaging in predatory pricing.
GoTo’s deal with TikTok means the Indonesian tech giant is giving up its majority ownership of Tokopedia . Tokopedia started in 2008 and grew to be one of Indonesia’s largest e-commerce platforms. The company merged with ride-hailing startup GoJek in 2021, becoming GoTo Group. The company debuted on Jakarta’s stock exchange in April last year.
Yet the company has struggled to wow investors since then. GoTo has yet to make a profit since becoming a public company. The tech firm reported 2.4 trillion Indonesian rupiah ($147 million) in net losses last quarter, significantly less than the 6.7 trillion rupiah ($428 million) it lost this time last year.
Investors do not appear to be thrilled by the news of GoTo’s TikTok partnership. Shares fell by over 19% by 2:30pm Indonesia time on Monday, erasing gains made late last week as rumors began to build of the new partnership.
SOCIAL
How to Train ChatGPT to Write in Your Brand’s Tone of Voice [Infographic]
![How to Train ChatGPT to Write in Your Brand’s Tone of Voice [Infographic]](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/1702266964_How-to-Train-ChatGPT-to-Write-in-Your-Brands-Tone.jpg "How to Train ChatGPT to Write in Your Brand’s Tone of Voice [Infographic]")
Are you looking for ways to improve your ChatGPT output? Want to train it to write in a more unique tone of voice, in order to better suit your branding?
The Creative Marketer shares his ChatGPT prompt tips in this infographic. To enact these, add “Write like [INSERT CHARACTER]” at the start of your ChatGPT instructions.
TCM breaks things down into the following categories:
- Innocent
- Sage
- Explorer
- Ruler
- Creator
- Caregiver
- Lover
- Hero
- Everyman
- Magician
- Jester
- Outlaw
Check out the infographic for more information.
A version of this post was first published on the Red Website Design blog.
SOCIAL
Elon Musk reinstates far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on X
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has been reinstated on X, formerly known as Twitter, by company owner Elon Musk – Copyright GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File Joe Buglewicz
Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, on Sunday reinstated far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on the social media platform, a year after vowing never to let him return.
Jones, who claimed that a December 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut that killed 20 children and six educators was a hoax, was banned from the platform — then still known as Twitter — in 2018 for violating its “abusive behavior policy.”
He was also sued by families of the victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting and ordered by a judge in the case to pay up more than a billion dollars in damages last year.
Musk had himself promised never to let the Infowars host back on the social media platform, which he bought last year for $44 billion.
But following a poll Musk conducted on X asking whether Jones should be reinstated, to which some two million users responded, he flipped that decision.
“I vehemently disagree with what he said about Sandy Hook, but are we a platform that believes in freedom of speech or are we not?” the SpaceX founder said on X.
But Shannon Watts, founder of the group Moms Demand Action group which pushes for tighter gun laws, said that “defamation is not free speech.”
Musk’s decision comes the same week that the Sandy Hook families commemorate the 11th anniversary of the December 14 shooting, which Jones alleged was staged to allow the government to crack down on gun rights.
Jones’ followers harassed the bereaved families for years, accusing parents of murdered children of being “crisis actors” whose children had never existed.
It also came a week after Musk had responded to advertisers pulling out of X because of far-right posts and hate speech, including an apparent endorsement by Musk himself of an anti-Semitic tweet.
Asked whether he would respond to the advertising exodus, Musk said in an interview with journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin that the advertisers could “go f*** yourself.”
Jones, who has a million followers on X, returned to the site with his first post re-tweeting Andrew Tate, the controversial former kickboxer facing rape and human trafficking charges in Romania, in which he hailed Jones’ “triumphant return”
US media reported that as of Sunday, the account of Jones’ controversial show Infowars was still banned.
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