⚛️ Ready to dive into the Future?… The Seed #7
Futurism, the Audio revolution, Quantum Computers…
🌱 Welcome to the seventh issue of the Seed and welcome to our new subscribers!
⚙️The Seed is a weekly newsletter with easy-to-read content focusing on Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Technology. Our slogan: "Growing ideas through seeds of information"
💡 This week’s concepts
2021 FIT Tech Trends report
The Future Today Institute has just released its 14th edition of the Tech Trends report.
The institute specializes in analyzing future uncertainties for its clients, to help them "determine strategic actions, to aid in decision-making, to build long-range plans, or to simply imagine alternate future states". This field of study is called "Futurism", and we will talk more in-depth about it in a future newsletter.
The report presents 500 tech and science trends that will influence business, government, education, media, and society in the near future.
We invite you to go and read it to learn more about the future in different fields such as artificial intelligence, deepfakes…
📈 News and Trends
Some news
🏠 Do you have $500K to invest in a virtual house?
Contemporary artist Krista Kim sold Mars House, an NFT-minted digital house for 288 ether, valued at over $500K based on Wednesday cryptocurrency’s trading price. The owner will be able to upload this NFT house into various metaverses - 3D universes.
💰 You can buy a Tesla using Bitcoin
Earlier this week, Tesla’s Technoking Elon Musk has announced on his Twitter account that Tesla was accepting Bitcoin as a means of payment. The Bitcoins used to pay for Teslas will not be converted into dollars, Elon Musk stated.
Trends - The future is Audio
Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Clubhouse… You are probably using one of these services daily. In fact, 41% of Americans listen to podcasts and 25% use Spotify at least once a month, with 22% of Americans using Spotify weekly.
🎙The increasing popularity of Podcasts led the way…
While the concept of Podcast dates back to the 1980s, it became extremely popular after Apple made it easy to listen to podcasts through iTunes, in 2005. Unlike videos, listening to podcasts is extremely convenient even when you are commuting.
Nowadays, 78% of Americans are at least familiar with the concept of Podcasts. Basically, Podcasts are audio recordings available online, allowing individuals to share their messages and stories, and build an audience with similar interests.
Since 2005, the popularity of Podcasts has only increased. One reason for this is our love of stories as they are a powerful means to teach and inspire us. So much so that more than 730,000 active podcasts were reported on Apple Podcasts in March 2021 (the most popular podcast listening app, 30%+ market share).
This popularity is leading the way to the development of audio apps like Clubhouse.
🏠 … to new generation apps like Clubhouse
Clubhouse is a new audio social media app, that can be described as a live podcasting service. It allows its users to enter or host chat rooms, and participate in live discussions, with up to 5,000 people at the same time.
Clubhouse is not the first audio social media, but it’s definitely one of the most popular. Released in April 2020 on the AppStore, the startup has now more than 10 million weekly users (vs 600,000 in December 2020!).
It is valued at over a billion dollars, making it a unicorn. Its popularity is in part due to its invite-only access, and the participation of celebrities like Elon Musk in some rooms.
However, its early and rapid success has led social media giants like Twitter and Facebook to develop similar services that could threaten its existence.
Twitter has already launched Spaces, which allows anyone to host a room with an unlimited number of listeners, but a maximum of 11 speakers. Unlike Clubhouse, which is currently only available on iOS devices, Spaces has already an Android version. This may be a turning point for Clubhouse, as 87% of smartphones globally run on Android.
❤️ Weekly Crush
Looking for inspiring content? Try Majelan
🎵 What is Majelan?
Majelan is a B2C platform for premium podcasts co-founded by Mathieu Galet, formerly Head of the biggest French Radio group, and Arthur Perticoz who created Wynd, a FinTech which now figures in the Next120, the ranking of the most promising French startups.
Its main differentiators:
It is the only platform that produces and records its own content from start to finish.
Subscription-based business model rather than podcasts aggregation like Spotify or Deezer.
The value proposition lies in the offering of exclusive content with heritage value. Majelan doesn’t deal with "burning issues" but rather with subjects whose value does not erode with time.
👉 Metrics and History
2018
Majelan was created, and the founders raised €3M in the pre-seed round with only a pitch deck.
Twofold service with an aggregation of free podcasts in several languages and a few exclusive programs available only by subscription.
2019
Because of low customer retention, Majelan tightens its editorial line and focuses only on educational and inspiring themes that are popular within its audience.
Raises €6M to provide more specific content and acquire customers.
Reaches 50k+ customers as of 2019YE.
2020
Definition of its product based on four pillars: create, engage, understand and undertake.
Pivot towards a subscription model with timeless content and a promise to help people progress and discover themselves through expert masterclasses.
Since Majelan pivoted:
100% YoY growth in the subscription rate
400% YoY growth in minutes listened per user
92% of completion (i.e fully completed episodes)
😎 Why is it so cool?
Majelan enables you to get access to inspiring content from people who generally do not appear in the media. With 176 podcasts of about 8 episodes each, you can easily find the teachings you came for thanks to the experience and the testimony of experts.
Another advantage is the short duration of each episode, which allows you to learn step by step and capitalize on each piece of advice you hear. One episode lasts on average 10 minutes which is enough to get wonderful pieces of information as well as having time to digest it.
Besides, if you're not willing to pay for something you don't know yet, Majelan provides 1 free piece of content per week for you to get insights into what you'll find in the masterclasses.
🔎 Focus
Quantum Computers
💻 What is a quantum computer?
You may have seen one in a sci-fi movie and it’s actually a current challenge in our reality! Basically, a quantum computer is a computer using quantum physics mechanisms to perform calculations.
⚛️ What about quantum physics?
We could later dive into this topic, but for now, let’s focus on its most intriguing property: In classical physics, which governs large-scale objects’ behaviors, an element/object can only be in 1 state at a time. If we take the example of a light, it’s whether on or off. But in quantum physics, an element can be in multiple states at a time. It is called “superposition”. Or in the light example, on and off at the same time. Confused? That’s perfectly normal. As John Wheeler, a major 20th-century physicist said:
If you are not completely confused by quantum mechanics, you do not understand it.
Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment that illustrates the apparent paradox of superposition. Read more here.
🤔 What is the link with a computer?
In a computer, the processor works with a binary system, which means it’s composed of Bits that can either have a value of 0 or a value of 1. But, what if these Bits could have multiple states at the same time? Well, that is a Qubit, a bit that can have a combination of 0 and 1 using "superposition"!
😅 Why is it useful?
Even though our computers are already really efficient, many calculations are still too difficult for computers to resolve. Using a Quantum computer could help to solve this issue as it’s way more powerful than the current ones.
It may be used for computationally expensive algorithms, cryptography but also, to simulate molecule interactions and complex chemical reactions.
🚧 What is the main challenge?
The principle of "superposition" works, but when it comes to interacting with its environment, the quantum states of a Qubits may radically change, which is named “decoherence” and could create errors in its calculation (😅).
The more you accumulate Qubits in a processor, the more likely you are to face errors in calculation.
Currently, the most reliable quantum computer makes 1 error over 1000 operations, while classical computers basically… don’t!
🏭 Who are the main stakeholders?
Quantum computers were for a long time a university laboratory subject, as it was way too hypothetical for businesses to invest in it.
But recently, many web giants started investing in it. For instance, Google already created a quantum computer named Sycamore.
Amazon, IBM... they all started investing in it, creating a race for quantum computing!
In fact, they all believe it represents the future of computers, and the one that owns the best quantum computer technologies may become the world leader in the whole tech industry.
Even some startups started focusing on this new challenge! Alice & Bob for instance created a solution to keep the "coherence" in a Qubit, with a system with their own regulation!
Now you can tell your friends: quantum computing is coming...
That’s it for this week! Hope you enjoyed it and see you next Friday 🙌
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