We live in a world of second selves; of digital replicas and carbon copies for which there was never an original. In Post Corona, a string of innovations will be “created piece-meal ad hoc” from “unexplored connexions,” from “possibilities half-disclosed” and “half-concealed”. In this ferment lie the possibilities of a world in parenthesis.
The Art Décor “X” of Elon Musk has spawned confusion about what Tweets will now be called. But the new insignia marks the agility and nimbleness with which legacy systems must be set aside if they cannot deliver the future today. “X” is not an App. “X” is not a platform. “X” is an ecosystem. It will bring into being a singularity.
Over the Air (OTA) updates that deliver fixes and features wirelessly to embedded devices in EVs, and features similar to Snapchat such as text messaging, hold-to-talk voice messaging, broadcast (one-to-many) messaging, video calls and conferencing, video games, photograph, and video sharing will converge with Open Banking and peer to peer payments on platforms like “X”. “X” is FinTech. Eons ago Musk co-founded x.com which later transformed into PayPal.
The domain x.com now redirects to Twitter. “X” is the “network for everything”. Besides the messaging functions, “X” will allow users to make purchases and access government services, transfer money, plan experiences, hail a taxi, contact customer support, and market new products. “X” may become the WeChat of the West.
Every day, 1.3 billion users use WeChat in China. Apart from organizing social interactions, WeChat is a major marketing tool for companies doing business in China. WeChat is a multipurpose messaging and social media App designed by Tencent. WeChat has countless features and is by far the most powerful social network ecosystem in China.
In China, every new business venture can open a WeChat Official Account. This allows MSMEs to get in touch with customers, promote their merchandise and create a brand identity. Entrepreneurs can choose to open a subscription service or an enterprise account. WeChat Official Accounts offer a toolkit of innovative levers.
Paywalls
By setting up paid blogs, content producers can monetise their text creations using WeChat. Bloggers can also offer “tiered” content. Paywalls block unauthorised access to non-paying users in select areas.
Hashtags and Trends
To extend company reach, WeChat articles can add hashtags to blog articles. This helps articles to be discovered under trending topics.
WeChat Stores
WeChat stores, or “Weidian” are ecommerce platforms that focus only on the social network. A WeChat store gives shoppers a quick mechanism to make purchases. WeChat stores also offer push notifications, and promotions as part of the CX strategy of the entrepreneur.
Scan & Purchase
WeChat utilizes image recognition. Image analytics enables this function to recognise any product, before pairing it with online products with the same, or similar appearance.
Payment Gateway
WeChat has an integrated payment gateway. In China, Tenpay has quickly become the second most important payment gateway.
WeChat Work
WeChat Work is a productivity platform like “Slack” that can manage emails and phone calls to be automatically billed to the company. It can also be used to improve the efficiency and productivity of MSMEs.
Livestream Sales
Channels is a tool that allows broadcast videos to a wide audience for branded content and influencer marketing. WeChat’s Livestream supports the mushrooming trend of ecommerce livestream sales, as seen on Taobao Live and Douyin.
In the US and Europe, regulators are now paying closer attention to the takeover of iRobot’s Roomba vacuum cleaners. The acquisition has opened discussions on the range of “smart” home devices that ecommerce behemoths now sell, and the data that these gadgets gather unbeknownst to the homeowner. Regulators worry over how these devices provide ecommerce platforms with a far more detailed picture of their customers’ homes.
The US Federal Trade Commission has been looking into whether people have been harmed by the possibility of disinformation or misinformation created by ChatGPT about them. The commission is also looking into whether the new AI technology has engaged in deceptive or unfair data and privacy security practices. In its most recent crackdown on Digital Assets, the US Securities and Exchange Commission has taken enforcement action against some Nasdaq-listed crypto companies.
Growth can come only when there is a balance between the creative opportunity which the removal of unfreedoms can give and the knowledge we acquire from discipline. The future will not emerge full-blown, nor will the parts be systematically interwoven into a well-defined structure from the outset. The pieces we make every day are fragments of a specific vision that are all doing their own things, and they will work independently for now.
They are minimal viable products, that create new challenges for society with no intention to disintermediate governments. But state capacity for innovation since the launch of the Apollo space missions and the Concorde has ebbed. Worldcoin, which scans the human eye to distinguish people from robots is a segment in a string of recent digital advances. This eye-scanning crypto currency is part of the opus of OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT. Worldcoin aims to distribute financial services and social aid, and like many other technological innovations, it will be interrogated by regulators.
