The Fragile Glory of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds," plus…
Why Apple is the right acquirer for Twitter, wearables, Web3, and more!
Before we get to today's main topics, some miscellaneous goodies…
I’m feeling grateful today for vaccines, boosters, and anti-COVID drugs. That’s right, after dodging it for more than two years it got me. Since I’m all vaxxed up and boosted, this is an inconvenience rather that a terrifying ride to a ventilator. If you haven’t gotten vaccinated, then I beg you: please get the shot! My energy and focus levels are 50% of usual, but I’m on the upswing.
From the “I was right” department: Was anybody surprised when Elon Musk put his Twitter acquisition on hold? He has already gotten all of the value out of the acquisition, so why bother going through with it? I’ve been talking about this for a while now. (See second big story, below for more on this.)
If you don’t have a clue about what Web3 is all about (people talk about it like it’s a Magic 8 Ball), then check out the new, quarterly “What is Web3?” digital publication from Harvard Business Review.
Last week’s Economist had a terrific Technology Quarterly piece about Wearables and Health Care, which is going to be an even bigger market once battery technology gets better. I’ve been talking about this for years. (Here’s a talk I did at the Nordic Media Festival.) See also this fascinating New York Times piece about a quadriplegic man who controls computers with his mind, which also reminded me of Interface, a 1990s novel co-authored by Neal Stephenson.
Flashback that will blow your mind: an agonizingly long, one minute commercial for an elective-neck-trauma-creating 1960s toy called the Swing Wing. (Before my time.) It oddly reminds me of A Night at the Roxbury…
The CW canceled Naomi and a bunch of other shows ahead of its acquisition by Nexstar. I liked the show and thought that it was gaining steam over its 13 episodes. My two critiques: 1. It was Buffy the Vampire Slayer written by people who enjoyed high school and got along with their parents, which lacks tension. The five-word narrative engine of Buffy was “high school is hell… literally.” 2. The opening sequence of the show had Superman flying over Naomi’s small town and activating her superpowers… which means that sometime during the show Superman must meet Naomi. Never happened. I’m still bummed that the two superhero shows fronted by Black women (Naomi and Batwoman) were among those to get the axe.
This week’s Bradism: Don't take things personally even when the other person means it that way. This is a key takeaway from one of my “this changed everything” books, The Four Agreements. This book has been so important to me that I always travel with a copy so that I can give it to somebody who needs it.
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Two smaller stories this issue…
The Fragile Glory of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds”
I’m a nerd. A big nerd. Across many directions. (Just ask my kids.) One of my biggest and longest-term nerdy interests is Star Trek. For just one piece of proof, in the 1980s I went to a design-your-own t-shirt store called “Chicken Shirt” in my home town (Encino, California) and created a t-shirt that said “Trekkie” on the back.* (This was from the heart but—shocker!—did not win me cool kid points at school.)
You can imagine my joy when Star Trek: Strange New Worlds premiered two Thursdays ago on Paramount+.
The show is fantastic!
It’s a prequel to and stylistically hearkens back to The Original Series (TOS, from the 1960s) with self-contained adventures rather than season-long arcs, although the character development arcs do extend from episode to episode. Strange New Worlds has the breakthrough racial and gender diversity of the original (although it’s strangely devoid of LGBTQ+ characters, unlike its sibling show, Discovery, and why are there no Jewish characters?), and shares the original’s “we can build a better future” optimism.
We really need that now.
In essence, Strange New Worlds takes everything that was great about TOS and updates it with faster-paced storytelling and better effects.
Anson Mount as Captain Christopher Pike is different than any other Starfleet captain: he’s empathetic and affectionate while still being a decisive, admirable leader. It’s a great performance.
If you are a fan, then the show is also chock full of covert references to earlier shows, particularly TOS.
If you’ve never seen a Star Trek show, Strange New Worlds is a great place to start. You don’t need to know anything about the universe (in all its different incarnations) to understand and enjoy the show.
And that’s the problem: I can’t imagine anybody who isn’t a long-time Star Trek fan like me jumping onboard this starship. That’s bad news for Paramount+, which has invested in a Rick and Morty-like cartoon show for adolescents called Star Trek: Lower Decks and a more earnest cartoon called Star Trek: Prodigy for even younger kids. However, Gen Z and Gen Alpha kids don’t watch a lot of either linear or streaming television: they watch TikTok, YouTube, Snap, and Instagram.
While there’s a cheaper ($4.99 per month), ad-supported version of Paramount+, no kid has that kind of cabbage—not when there are digital goods to buy on Roblox and Fortnite. That means that unless Dad and Mom make the kid watch (not a typical parenting win), then the Star Trek franchise will increasingly appeal only to older people who already know the brands.
Paramount+ is performing… adequately. It now has close to 40 million subscribers, which is nice growth, but the marketplace is crowded.
Now that the Ponzi scheme that is Netflix has been exposed, it’s clear from orbit that there’s a coming-real-soon massive collapse and consolidation across the streaming ecosystem. There are neither enough viewers to watch/subscribe nor enough advertisers to support the current dozens and dozens of streamers.
So I’m enjoying the current era of peak Star Trek… while it lasts.
Idea: What Paramount+ should do is create new, very short, self-contained TikTok-length stories in the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds universe and release them across TikTok, Triller, Snap, Instagram Reels, and YouTube. Fish where the fish are. (They could even be ad-supported, although not with 30 second spots.)
* I never realized until Googling “Chicken Shirt” while writing this issue that it’s a joke name if you take out the letter R.
Why Apple is the right acquirer for Twitter.
Regardless of why Elon Musk has sudden doubts about buying it, the wobbliness provoked me to wonder who should acquire Twitter. The usual suspects (Salesforce, Disney) have troubles of their own. As Twitter’s stock continues to plummet, it might become cheap enough for a new company to kick the tires.
One such company is Apple. (Apple’s stock is down in the short term, but it’s still a monster if you look at it long term.)
Here are my quick ideas about what Apple could do with Twitter:
Make Twitter free if you’re using an Apple device and cost $2.99/month if you are using any other device.
Overnight, Apple would create some revenue from Twitter, but more importantly it would increase its hardware differentiation in the marketplace. There aren’t really any big functional differences between Macs and PCs or iOS and Android phones, but the perceived loss of three bucks a month just to tweet would be a quiet factor when you need a new phone, tablet or laptop.
Making people not using Apple devices pay would also naturally eliminate a lot of fake/troll accounts, which is a nice bonus. (I’m sure plenty of trolls use Apple devices: it’s just that making anybody pay on any device will eliminate trolls.)
Integrate Twitter with Messages: Apple quietly wrecked a multibillion dollar business for the telcos when it made texting over data free with Messages, and Messages is a huge social technology without also being a social media platform. Apple has never successfully done anything with social media. But if it integrated Twitter and Messages, then from one platform users could send a text to a friend, a text to a group, or a tweet to the world.
As the EU considers its Digital Markets Act that would require messaging interoperability, Apple linking Messages and Twitter might be an anticipatory move towards interoperability.
Integrate Twitter with AppleTV+: People in different locations can already watch videos together with Apple FaceTime, but what if you don’t want to watch videos on your phone or laptop? With Twitter, Apple could create real-time watch parties on the big screens in our living rooms, or with a mix of different screens. “Hey everybody, in ten minutes I’m going to watch the new episode of Slow Horses, want to join me? Click this link.”
Call it Appointment Viewing On Demand.
Integrate the Twitter data with Apple’s ad-driven services: Twitter has the lowest EBIDTA of any social media company. While the data it throws off isn’t compelling by itself, combined with Apple’s News, Music, Games, Podcasts, and App Store data it would bolster the Apple First-Party data ecosystem for targeted ads.
If Twitter’s market cap continues to shrink and/or if Elon Musk wriggles off the hook, watch for movement from Cupertino.
Thanks for reading. See you next Sunday.
Wishing you full recovery, Brad!