Hey there 👋 ,

This week, I’ve picked out two articles on the Metaverse (virtual land ownership and musical metaverse concerts) and a mind-boggling tweet thread about tennis star Naomi Osaka 🎾 .

You don’t have to read everything, just skim through what’s interesting to you and reply back with your feedback.

Living In Beta is a digest of interesting things I find each week, and any new posts from me. If this is your first issue, welcome!

Articles of the Week:

🛣 Who owns your streets?

In the real world, you’d probably guess your local council or similar. But in the virtual world? It could be anyone.

Upland.me, a virtual property metaverse that allows people to buy, develop, rent out and sell virtual land parcels based on real-world property addresses, has rapidly grown over the past 24 months to now reach 100k daily active users.

The concept allows anyone to buy virtual property - for example, you could purchase the plot of land the real-life White House is on.

The plus side: Upland is trying to build a true market-based economy in the metaverse, by combining aspects of the real world (property/land ownership) with a virtual layer (augmented reality & digital assets).

But is any of this legal? I don’t think anyone has figured this out yet. Who would even have the rights to this, if this somehow caused an issue for the real-life owner?

My take: Companies that combine aspects of virtual and physical will become more commonplace and I can see why there are 100k daily active users. However, similar to the debates around AI ethics, there isn’t really an answer to where the legal boundaries of this are.

🎸 Rock out in the Metaverse

Warner Brothers are planning to open an “Estate”, that will a combination of musical theme park” concert venue to enjoy collective musical experiences.

Warner Bros is partnering with The Sandbox Network, one of the most popular metaverse projects out there (most famous for a collab with Snoop Dogg, to create “The Snoopverse”).

My take: Similar to how Fortnite, Minecraft and Roblox created virtual concerts inside their own game for players, I can see how The Sandbox network offers the opportunity for Warner Bros to offer unique experiences to fans such as: exclusive events, ‘listening’ parties and even provide a platform to artists to launch new music and connect with their fanbase (in turn, bringing more fans to the Warner Bros community). Smart move.

🧑‍🍳 How to Win the Great British Bake Off

As a Brit, I’m a big fan of The Great British Bake Off.

I’m even more of a fan of how ambitious people organize their time and achieve huge results.

This article has both. There’s a paywall (but I can forward the newsletter to you if reply back), so here are the key lessons:

• Reflect on your priorities, what you’re working on and how you can improve

• Capture ideas quickly (have a notebook or write a digital note to de-clutter ideas from your mind

• Tactics for dealing with anxiety include:

  • separating thoughts & feelings into smaller chunks to assess how they are impacting you

  • Attempting to alter some of those negative thoughts and feelings impacting you

  • Reflecting on what impact the changes have had

  • Continue the cycle of recognition, conscious alteration and reflection so the automatic responses are more positive.

There’s a ton more, and Peter seems like a genuinely good guy. You can find his Instagram account here.

🐦 Tweet Threads of the Week:

❓ Important questions to ask:

Asking good questions is key to solving problems, as well as challenging the status quo in order to help those around us to think bigger.

💰 Naomi Osaka’s Earnings:

Loved this thread - insane to think she earned $57m in 2021, with 96.4% of that coming off the court. 🤯

She has brand partnerships with or has invested in:

• Nike ($10m/year)

• Sweetgreen (IPO’d at a $3bn valuation in November 2021)

• BodyArmor (valued at $2bn when she invested, was acquired by Coke for $8bn)

• Daring Foods (saw 900% growth in 2021)

• Endorsement deals with: LV, Beats, Mastercard, Tag Heuer

🧠 20+ Wise quotes:

My top 5:

• “What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.” –Henry David Thoreau

• “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.” –Helen Keller

• "The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity." –Amelia Earhart

• “We are what we repeatedly do, Excellence is therefore not an act but a habit." –Aristotle

Until next time

As always, if you're enjoying Living In Beta, I'd love it if you shared it with a friend or two. If anything stood out, whether good or bad, I would love to hear about it. Reply to this email or tweet at me and let’s chat.

Until next time,

Fahim