Metaverse off to ominous start after VR headset sales shrank in 2022 – Sales of virtual reality headsets in the U.S. declined 2% year over year to $1.1 billion as of early December, according to NPD Group.
With the ad business mired in a slump, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been looking to VR devices and related technology to pull Meta into the future. But data from analyst firm CCS Insight reveals that worldwide shipments of VR headsets as well as augmented reality devices dropped more than 12% year over year to 9.6 million in 2022. [CNBC]
Finding Community, and Freedom, on the Virtual Dance Floor – During the height of the coronavirus pandemic, regular partygoers flocked to virtual clubs hosted on platforms like Zoom, but since physical venues have reopened, the popularity of these digital spaces has waned. Not so with VRChat. When much of the world was locked down, the platform’s daily user numbers steadily increased. That trend has mostly stuck, with numbers continuing to surpass prepandemic levels, according to data cited by the platform.
On any given weekend, there are dozens of VRChat parties. There is Mass, a rave inside the head of a giant robot; Shelter, a popular club that evolves according to a conceptual sci-fi narrative; and Ghost Club, a pioneering Japanese venue that users enter via a phone booth. Each “VRchitect” who constructs a club makes the most of their freedom from the constraints of budget and physical space.
Perhaps the biggest barrier to VRChat becoming more of a mainstream clubbing space is the limitations of V.R. hardware. The best headsets are still expensive, and many find them bulky and report experiencing headaches or nausea. But with continued heavy investment in virtual reality from Meta and Sony, and with Apple working on a headset, the technology should keep improving and becoming more accessible. [NY Times]
New roles for Washington Post Climate journalists – Michael Birnbaum has joined the Climate team to cover climate solutions, innovations and geopolitics. He moved over last year from the Foreign desk, where he reported over the years from more than 40 countries as The Post’s bureau chief in Berlin, Moscow and Brussels.
Brady Dennis has moved to Durham, N.C., to become one of our domestic climate correspondents, focused primarily on the South and Southeast.
Already this year, Brady has written about houses falling into the sea on the Outer Banks, described the phenomenon of ghost forests caused by climate change and delivered an illuminating dispatch about the rise in “billion-dollar disasters” through the tale of one N.C. mountain community ravaged by floods. [Washington Post]
Mastodon’s Growth: The Big Picture – Similarweb took a look at traffic at a bunch of aggregated Mastodon servers and found traffic for these servers was up more than 1000% year over year in November, according to Similarweb estimates. Or if we look at total annual traffic (trailing 12 months through November), traffic was up 140% thanks to the surge that started in October / November.
Daily traffic fluctuates but can peak with news coverage. Similarweb says the November 18 peak below may coincide with “How to Join Mastodon” articles in Axios and BuzzFeedNews. [Similarweb]
Twitter Rival Mastodon Rejects Funding to Protect Non-Profit Status – Mastodon has rejected more than five investment offers from Silicon Valley venture capital firms in recent months, as its founder pledged to protect the fast-growing social media platform’s non-profit status. [FT]
With New EVs Arriving, Brand Loyalty Goes Out the Window – As more car makers roll out electric vehicles, they are discovering an important trait among early customers: They are far more apt to try new brands.
Nearly 80% of people who bought Kia Corp.’s EV6 electric crossover since it went on sale early this year traded in something other than a Kia, according to research site Edmunds, compared with 61% for all its models. More than two-thirds of Ford Mustang Mach-E electric sport-utility buyers had non-Ford trade-ins, compared with Ford’s 42% brand-wide average, according to the Edmunds data. [WSJ]
‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ Crosses $1 Billion at the Global Box Office – 20th Century Studios and Lightstorm Entertainment’s Avatar: The Way of Water has surpassed $1 billion globally after just 14 days, becoming the fastest release to cross that box office threshold since Spider-Man: No Way Home in December 2021 and the fastest in 2022. The epic adventure, from visionary filmmaker James Cameron, is the sixth film ever to cross $1 billion in its first two weeks of release and the fourth Disney release to do so.
ESPN: 2022 Year in Review – ESPN will finish 2022 as the No. 1 full-time cable network among Men and Adults 18-34, 18-49 and 25-52 in total day.
This will mark the 31st consecutive year that ESPN has held the No. 1 spot for Men 18-34 and 18-49 specifically, and 13 straight years No. 1 among people 18-34 and 18-49.
For the ninth straight year, ESPN will be the No. 1 cable network in prime time among all key adult demos (P18-34, P18-49, P25-54)
ESPN+’s total paid subscribers grew to 24.3 million – up 42% during the year.
ESPN — by far the leading sports digital platform — continued to see growth in 2022 averaging 106.7 million unique visitors per month this year, up +3% from 2021.
In social media, ESPN led the sports media category in fan engagement this past year with 6.8 billion total actions across Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Facebook, up 44% year over year. [ESPN]
