• Pepsi, oh Pepsi… Quand vas-tu enfin te libérer de ton obsession maladive pour Coca-Cola ? C'est comme si tu étais ce petit frère qui passe son temps à essayer de prouver qu'il peut être aussi cool que l'aîné, mais qui finit par se vautrer dans un soda tiède, à moitié ouvert, et complètement oublié dans le frigo.

    Il serait peut-être temps d'envisager une campagne publicitaire originale. Oui, tu sais, celle qui pourrait faire parler de toi sans avoir besoin de mentionner le nom de ton rival. Il est difficile d'ignorer à quel point tu t'accroches à cette image de seconde zone, comme si tu souhaitais toujours être l'ombre de Coca-Cola. Peut-être que tu devrais envisager de consulter un spécialiste en marketing pour régler cette crise d'identité prolongée ?

    Les consommateurs ne cherchent pas seulement une boisson gazeuse ; ils veulent une expérience. Alors, pourquoi ne pas sortir de l'ombre et proposer quelque chose de vraiment innovant ? Une nouvelle saveur, un packaging audacieux, ou même une histoire qui fasse vibrer les cordes sensibles de ton public ? En fait, tout ce que tu as à faire, c'est d'oser être… toi-même !

    Chaque nouvelle campagne que tu lances semble être une compétition pour voir qui peut copier le mieux Coca-Cola. Nous savons tous que tu es capable de mieux. Peut-être que, juste peut-être, tu pourrais arrêter de te soucier de ce que fait le concurrent et te concentrer sur tes propres forces. Après tout, il y a une raison pour laquelle tant de gens ont tes produits dans leur frigo. Ils t’aiment, mais cela ne veut pas dire qu’ils souhaitent que tu deviennes une simple copie de ton rival.

    Et soyons honnêtes, la dernière fois que tu as essayé d'être original, c'était probablement à l'époque où les téléphones portables avaient encore des antennes rétractables. Il est temps de faire un reset. Laissez de côté les vieilles recettes et les idées éculées. Pensez à quelque chose qui pourrait vraiment marquer les esprits. Les gens adorent les histoires authentiques, pas les copies conformes.

    En attendant, nous continuerons à te regarder, un peu comme on regarde un train qui déraille. C'est fascinant et triste à la fois. Alors, Pepsi, prends un moment pour te regarder dans le miroir et demande-toi : "Suis-je vraiment prêt à sortir de l'ombre de Coca-Cola ?" La réponse pourrait être la clé de ton succès futur.

    #Pepsi #CocaCola #Publicité #Innovation #Marketing
    Pepsi, oh Pepsi… Quand vas-tu enfin te libérer de ton obsession maladive pour Coca-Cola ? C'est comme si tu étais ce petit frère qui passe son temps à essayer de prouver qu'il peut être aussi cool que l'aîné, mais qui finit par se vautrer dans un soda tiède, à moitié ouvert, et complètement oublié dans le frigo. Il serait peut-être temps d'envisager une campagne publicitaire originale. Oui, tu sais, celle qui pourrait faire parler de toi sans avoir besoin de mentionner le nom de ton rival. Il est difficile d'ignorer à quel point tu t'accroches à cette image de seconde zone, comme si tu souhaitais toujours être l'ombre de Coca-Cola. Peut-être que tu devrais envisager de consulter un spécialiste en marketing pour régler cette crise d'identité prolongée ? Les consommateurs ne cherchent pas seulement une boisson gazeuse ; ils veulent une expérience. Alors, pourquoi ne pas sortir de l'ombre et proposer quelque chose de vraiment innovant ? Une nouvelle saveur, un packaging audacieux, ou même une histoire qui fasse vibrer les cordes sensibles de ton public ? En fait, tout ce que tu as à faire, c'est d'oser être… toi-même ! Chaque nouvelle campagne que tu lances semble être une compétition pour voir qui peut copier le mieux Coca-Cola. Nous savons tous que tu es capable de mieux. Peut-être que, juste peut-être, tu pourrais arrêter de te soucier de ce que fait le concurrent et te concentrer sur tes propres forces. Après tout, il y a une raison pour laquelle tant de gens ont tes produits dans leur frigo. Ils t’aiment, mais cela ne veut pas dire qu’ils souhaitent que tu deviennes une simple copie de ton rival. Et soyons honnêtes, la dernière fois que tu as essayé d'être original, c'était probablement à l'époque où les téléphones portables avaient encore des antennes rétractables. Il est temps de faire un reset. Laissez de côté les vieilles recettes et les idées éculées. Pensez à quelque chose qui pourrait vraiment marquer les esprits. Les gens adorent les histoires authentiques, pas les copies conformes. En attendant, nous continuerons à te regarder, un peu comme on regarde un train qui déraille. C'est fascinant et triste à la fois. Alors, Pepsi, prends un moment pour te regarder dans le miroir et demande-toi : "Suis-je vraiment prêt à sortir de l'ombre de Coca-Cola ?" La réponse pourrait être la clé de ton succès futur. #Pepsi #CocaCola #Publicité #Innovation #Marketing
    Pepsi really needs to get over its Coca-Cola obsession
    Is an original ad campaign too much to ask?
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  • Letterheads Per L'Horta: An Intimate International Meet

    Events

    Letterheads Per L'Horta: An Intimate International Meet
    The masses amass in Almàssera for an inspiring four days painting in the Valencian sun.

    Better Letters

    Jun 5, 2025
    • 8 min read

    Letterheads Per L'Horta in Almàssera, Valencia, 1–4 May 2025.

    This time last month, over 45 guests from 11 countries were feeling the post-Letterheads blues after four days in the small town of Almàssera, just outside Valencia, Spain. Letterheads Per L'Horta was organised by Nico Barrios, and it was a wonderfully intimate experience, with a host of activities to enjoy and learn from.Something that made the event feel extra special was the involvement of people from the local community, who were just as much a part of it as those that had travelled from as far afield as Australia and Mexico to attend. This included bidding in the auction for a souvenir of the long weekend in May spent with friends, new and old.Almàssera and L'HortaAlmàssera is a small town set within a vast expanse of small-scale agricultural production. While each plot of land is known as a huerto, they are collectively referred to as horta, which doesn't really have a direct translation. The Horta Nordthat surrounds Almàssera is the largest and best surviving example of this type of terrain.We were based in the town's Museu de l'Horta, which consists of an old and a modern building with a yard between them that housed the panel jam area.A traditional alqueríain l'horta, a view down on the meet, and the tents protecting the panel jam area.Inside the modern building there was a selection of pieces from Juan Nava's 2022 Gráfica Urbana de Valenciaexhibition. There was also a trip down memory lane for Valencian locals in the form of another exhibition, L'ombra de les lletres, with photos of signs spanning the period 1880–2000.L'ombra de les lletres was originally curated by Tomàs Gorria in 2024. Pedal PowerAlmàssera, and the city of Valencia, are easily navigated by bicycle, which Nico used to facilitate a cycling tour of the old signs of l'horta. In addition to the stories of the individual companies advertised, he was also able to identify the painters responsible for some of the signs.The tour took guests into the heart of l'horta, which, as a largely agricultural area, boasts a surprising number of old and hand-painted signs.Panel JammingAfter a windy first day or so, the event was bathed in beautiful Mediterranean sunshine. The protective tents were essential, although those in the middle had to carefully manage their colour schemes in light of the red hue they cast across the easels.Getting painty in l'horta: Nathan Collis, Xis Gomes, Maria Cano, Mike Meyer, and Loughlin Brady Smith.Panels set to dry in the early evening sun.WorkshopsAcross the first three days, Thursday to Saturday, there was a series of lettering and calligraphy workshops that were also open to those outside of the Letterheads event proper.Pictured are workshops being led by Ester Gradolí, Juanjo López, and Joan Quiros.TV TimeThe meet was profiled in the local newspaper on the day before it opened, and then a TV crew turned up to cover proceedings.Local press coverage and Letterheads Per L'Horta host Nico Barrios being interviewed for the TV report.

    0:00

    /1:34

    Letterheads Per L'Horta makes the news! If you look closely at the top of the paper that Daniel Esteve Carbonell is working on it says "Collons de rètol"which clearly escaped the attention of the censors.
    Talks & DemosIn addition to workshops, the museum building also hosted a busy programme of talks. These were delivered by the Asociación de Diseñadores de la Comunidad Valenciana, the errorerror.studio creative typography studio, graphic designer Juan Nava, and type designer Juanjo López.Juan Nava talking about the evolution of his Letras Recuperadasproject, previously featured here at bl.ag online.One of the highlights was hearing from veteran local sign painters Ricardo Moreno and Paco Vivó, both of whom appear in the Tipos Que Importan film that was screened. They were interviewed by Nico and brought a host of goods with them, including their sign kits, photographic portfolios, work samples, books, and other reference materials.Ricardoand Pacowere mobbed after talking about their lives on the brush in Valencia.Following the session, everyone moved outside to watch Paco Vivó paint one of the motifs that he produced many times in his career: the Pepsi-Cola bottle top.Paco Vivó painted his demonstration piece on a canvas which was subsequently sold in the auction.Meanwhile, over in the town square, David Vanderh had set up his screenprinting station to apply Nico's event design in a single colour to any material that the public brought to him.The live screenprinting was in just blue, while the official event t-shirt combined this with a striking orange.Panels on Show and on SaleOn the Sunday, a small exhibition was mounted with the panels that folks could bid on in the auction. This was an open invitation, with those from the neighbourhood stopping by to inspect and snag some goods.Panels getting ready for new owners in the charity auction.Panels by Veronika Skilte, Joe Coleman, Rachel E Millar, and Victor Calligraphy.This panelby Joe Coleman was inspired by the truck lettering that was a lucky incidental on the earlier cycling tour.The auction raised over 2,000€ in support of those affected by the devastating DANA floods in 2024.The assembled crowd were ready with open wallets as the auction got underway.The auction was expertly hosted by Mike Meyer and Nico Barrios, with Nil Muge logging all the winning bids and accounting for the cash payments.Thank YouAs with any event, the photos never show the challenges that must be overcome behind the scenes. Some of these were substantial but Nico took each one in his stride, maintaining a smile throughout. Thank you, Nico, for facilitating these special days that will live long in the collective memory.Letterheads Per L'Horta host Nico Barrios.Letterheads Per L'Horta was hosted by Nico Barrios with the support of the following organisations: AVV Carraixet d'Almàssera; Ajuntament d'Almàssera; BLAG; A.S. Handover; 1 Shot; ADCV; gráffica. Also check out the event's dedicated Instagram account, @letterheadsperlhorta, for even more photos and videos. More LetterheadsFuture Meets
    #letterheads #per #l039horta #intimate #international
    Letterheads Per L'Horta: An Intimate International Meet
    Events Letterheads Per L'Horta: An Intimate International Meet The masses amass in Almàssera for an inspiring four days painting in the Valencian sun. Better Letters Jun 5, 2025 • 8 min read Letterheads Per L'Horta in Almàssera, Valencia, 1–4 May 2025. This time last month, over 45 guests from 11 countries were feeling the post-Letterheads blues after four days in the small town of Almàssera, just outside Valencia, Spain. Letterheads Per L'Horta was organised by Nico Barrios, and it was a wonderfully intimate experience, with a host of activities to enjoy and learn from.Something that made the event feel extra special was the involvement of people from the local community, who were just as much a part of it as those that had travelled from as far afield as Australia and Mexico to attend. This included bidding in the auction for a souvenir of the long weekend in May spent with friends, new and old.Almàssera and L'HortaAlmàssera is a small town set within a vast expanse of small-scale agricultural production. While each plot of land is known as a huerto, they are collectively referred to as horta, which doesn't really have a direct translation. The Horta Nordthat surrounds Almàssera is the largest and best surviving example of this type of terrain.We were based in the town's Museu de l'Horta, which consists of an old and a modern building with a yard between them that housed the panel jam area.A traditional alqueríain l'horta, a view down on the meet, and the tents protecting the panel jam area.Inside the modern building there was a selection of pieces from Juan Nava's 2022 Gráfica Urbana de Valenciaexhibition. There was also a trip down memory lane for Valencian locals in the form of another exhibition, L'ombra de les lletres, with photos of signs spanning the period 1880–2000.L'ombra de les lletres was originally curated by Tomàs Gorria in 2024. Pedal PowerAlmàssera, and the city of Valencia, are easily navigated by bicycle, which Nico used to facilitate a cycling tour of the old signs of l'horta. In addition to the stories of the individual companies advertised, he was also able to identify the painters responsible for some of the signs.The tour took guests into the heart of l'horta, which, as a largely agricultural area, boasts a surprising number of old and hand-painted signs.Panel JammingAfter a windy first day or so, the event was bathed in beautiful Mediterranean sunshine. The protective tents were essential, although those in the middle had to carefully manage their colour schemes in light of the red hue they cast across the easels.Getting painty in l'horta: Nathan Collis, Xis Gomes, Maria Cano, Mike Meyer, and Loughlin Brady Smith.Panels set to dry in the early evening sun.WorkshopsAcross the first three days, Thursday to Saturday, there was a series of lettering and calligraphy workshops that were also open to those outside of the Letterheads event proper.Pictured are workshops being led by Ester Gradolí, Juanjo López, and Joan Quiros.TV TimeThe meet was profiled in the local newspaper on the day before it opened, and then a TV crew turned up to cover proceedings.Local press coverage and Letterheads Per L'Horta host Nico Barrios being interviewed for the TV report. 0:00 /1:34 Letterheads Per L'Horta makes the news! If you look closely at the top of the paper that Daniel Esteve Carbonell is working on it says "Collons de rètol"which clearly escaped the attention of the censors. Talks & DemosIn addition to workshops, the museum building also hosted a busy programme of talks. These were delivered by the Asociación de Diseñadores de la Comunidad Valenciana, the errorerror.studio creative typography studio, graphic designer Juan Nava, and type designer Juanjo López.Juan Nava talking about the evolution of his Letras Recuperadasproject, previously featured here at bl.ag online.One of the highlights was hearing from veteran local sign painters Ricardo Moreno and Paco Vivó, both of whom appear in the Tipos Que Importan film that was screened. They were interviewed by Nico and brought a host of goods with them, including their sign kits, photographic portfolios, work samples, books, and other reference materials.Ricardoand Pacowere mobbed after talking about their lives on the brush in Valencia.Following the session, everyone moved outside to watch Paco Vivó paint one of the motifs that he produced many times in his career: the Pepsi-Cola bottle top.Paco Vivó painted his demonstration piece on a canvas which was subsequently sold in the auction.Meanwhile, over in the town square, David Vanderh had set up his screenprinting station to apply Nico's event design in a single colour to any material that the public brought to him.The live screenprinting was in just blue, while the official event t-shirt combined this with a striking orange.Panels on Show and on SaleOn the Sunday, a small exhibition was mounted with the panels that folks could bid on in the auction. This was an open invitation, with those from the neighbourhood stopping by to inspect and snag some goods.Panels getting ready for new owners in the charity auction.Panels by Veronika Skilte, Joe Coleman, Rachel E Millar, and Victor Calligraphy.This panelby Joe Coleman was inspired by the truck lettering that was a lucky incidental on the earlier cycling tour.The auction raised over 2,000€ in support of those affected by the devastating DANA floods in 2024.The assembled crowd were ready with open wallets as the auction got underway.The auction was expertly hosted by Mike Meyer and Nico Barrios, with Nil Muge logging all the winning bids and accounting for the cash payments.Thank YouAs with any event, the photos never show the challenges that must be overcome behind the scenes. Some of these were substantial but Nico took each one in his stride, maintaining a smile throughout. Thank you, Nico, for facilitating these special days that will live long in the collective memory.Letterheads Per L'Horta host Nico Barrios.Letterheads Per L'Horta was hosted by Nico Barrios with the support of the following organisations: AVV Carraixet d'Almàssera; Ajuntament d'Almàssera; BLAG; A.S. Handover; 1 Shot; ADCV; gráffica. Also check out the event's dedicated Instagram account, @letterheadsperlhorta, for even more photos and videos. More LetterheadsFuture Meets #letterheads #per #l039horta #intimate #international
    BL.AG
    Letterheads Per L'Horta: An Intimate International Meet
    Events Letterheads Per L'Horta: An Intimate International Meet The masses amass in Almàssera for an inspiring four days painting in the Valencian sun. Better Letters Jun 5, 2025 • 8 min read Letterheads Per L'Horta in Almàssera, Valencia, 1–4 May 2025. This time last month, over 45 guests from 11 countries were feeling the post-Letterheads blues after four days in the small town of Almàssera, just outside Valencia, Spain. Letterheads Per L'Horta was organised by Nico Barrios, and it was a wonderfully intimate experience, with a host of activities to enjoy and learn from.Something that made the event feel extra special was the involvement of people from the local community, who were just as much a part of it as those that had travelled from as far afield as Australia and Mexico to attend. This included bidding in the auction for a souvenir of the long weekend in May spent with friends, new and old.Almàssera and L'HortaAlmàssera is a small town set within a vast expanse of small-scale agricultural production. While each plot of land is known as a huerto (allotment), they are collectively referred to as horta, which doesn't really have a direct translation. The Horta Nord (North Horta) that surrounds Almàssera is the largest and best surviving example of this type of terrain.We were based in the town's Museu de l'Horta (Horta Museum), which consists of an old and a modern building with a yard between them that housed the panel jam area.A traditional alquería (farmhouse) in l'horta, a view down on the meet, and the tents protecting the panel jam area.Inside the modern building there was a selection of pieces from Juan Nava's 2022 Gráfica Urbana de Valencia (Urban Graphics of Valencia) exhibition. There was also a trip down memory lane for Valencian locals in the form of another exhibition, L'ombra de les lletres (the shadow of the letters), with photos of signs spanning the period 1880–2000.L'ombra de les lletres was originally curated by Tomàs Gorria in 2024. Pedal PowerAlmàssera, and the city of Valencia, are easily navigated by bicycle, which Nico used to facilitate a cycling tour of the old signs of l'horta. In addition to the stories of the individual companies advertised, he was also able to identify the painters responsible for some of the signs.The tour took guests into the heart of l'horta, which, as a largely agricultural area, boasts a surprising number of old and hand-painted signs.Panel JammingAfter a windy first day or so, the event was bathed in beautiful Mediterranean sunshine. The protective tents were essential, although those in the middle had to carefully manage their colour schemes in light of the red hue they cast across the easels.Getting painty in l'horta: Nathan Collis, Xis Gomes, Maria Cano, Mike Meyer, and Loughlin Brady Smith.Panels set to dry in the early evening sun.WorkshopsAcross the first three days, Thursday to Saturday, there was a series of lettering and calligraphy workshops that were also open to those outside of the Letterheads event proper.Pictured are workshops being led by Ester Gradolí, Juanjo López, and Joan Quiros.TV TimeThe meet was profiled in the local newspaper on the day before it opened, and then a TV crew turned up to cover proceedings.Local press coverage and Letterheads Per L'Horta host Nico Barrios being interviewed for the TV report. 0:00 /1:34 Letterheads Per L'Horta makes the news! If you look closely at the top of the paper that Daniel Esteve Carbonell is working on it says "Collons de rètol" (it's only a fucking sign) which clearly escaped the attention of the censors. Talks & DemosIn addition to workshops, the museum building also hosted a busy programme of talks. These were delivered by the Asociación de Diseñadores de la Comunidad Valenciana (Valencian Graphic Design Association), the errorerror.studio creative typography studio, graphic designer Juan Nava, and type designer Juanjo López.Juan Nava talking about the evolution of his Letras Recuperadas (Recovered Letters) project, previously featured here at bl.ag online.One of the highlights was hearing from veteran local sign painters Ricardo Moreno and Paco Vivó, both of whom appear in the Tipos Que Importan film that was screened. They were interviewed by Nico and brought a host of goods with them, including their sign kits, photographic portfolios, work samples, books, and other reference materials.Ricardo (in glasses) and Paco (with beard) were mobbed after talking about their lives on the brush in Valencia.Following the session, everyone moved outside to watch Paco Vivó paint one of the motifs that he produced many times in his career: the Pepsi-Cola bottle top.Paco Vivó painted his demonstration piece on a canvas which was subsequently sold in the auction.Meanwhile, over in the town square, David Vanderh had set up his screenprinting station to apply Nico's event design in a single colour to any material that the public brought to him.The live screenprinting was in just blue, while the official event t-shirt combined this with a striking orange.Panels on Show and on SaleOn the Sunday, a small exhibition was mounted with the panels that folks could bid on in the auction. This was an open invitation, with those from the neighbourhood stopping by to inspect and snag some goods.Panels getting ready for new owners in the charity auction.Panels by Veronika Skilte (Vermut), Joe Coleman (Mental on the Rental), Rachel E Millar (Rotulos, Gracias), and Victor Calligraphy.This panel (right) by Joe Coleman was inspired by the truck lettering that was a lucky incidental on the earlier cycling tour.The auction raised over 2,000€ in support of those affected by the devastating DANA floods in 2024.The assembled crowd were ready with open wallets as the auction got underway.The auction was expertly hosted by Mike Meyer and Nico Barrios, with Nil Muge logging all the winning bids and accounting for the cash payments.Thank YouAs with any event, the photos never show the challenges that must be overcome behind the scenes. Some of these were substantial but Nico took each one in his stride, maintaining a smile throughout. Thank you, Nico, for facilitating these special days that will live long in the collective memory.Letterheads Per L'Horta host Nico Barrios.Letterheads Per L'Horta was hosted by Nico Barrios with the support of the following organisations: AVV Carraixet d'Almàssera; Ajuntament d'Almàssera; BLAG; A.S. Handover; 1 Shot; ADCV; gráffica. Also check out the event's dedicated Instagram account, @letterheadsperlhorta, for even more photos and videos. More LetterheadsFuture Meets
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  • Interns designed Coca-Cola’s new Sprite + Tea flavor

    The Coca-Cola Co. just announced its newest limited-time soda, and it’s a combination of Sprite and tea that was initially floated by a team of interns six years ago.

    Sprite + Tea just hit shelves earlier across the U.S. and Canada, and is expected to remain on the market through October. The soda is available in both regular and zero-sugar varieties, and, according to a press release, it “blends the crisp, lemon-lime refreshment of Sprite with the classically refreshing flavor of tea.” The new product arrives just a month after Coca-Cola announced better-than-anticipated first-quarter 2025 financial results, logging a 2% year-over-year revenue decline but maintaining its growth forecasts for 2025, unlike rival PepsiCo.

    For years now, Coca-Cola has been experimenting with new, unexpected flavor combinations designed to attract younger consumers, ranging from Spiced Coke to last summer’s Sprite Chill and the ever-popular seasonal rerelease Sprite Winter Spiced Cranberry. Most recently, the company introduced Orange Cream Coke, citing “growing demand among millennials and Gen Z-ers for fun, unexpected tastes and sensory experiences” as the inspiration behind the nostalgic flavor.Unlike these other flavor plays from the company, Sprite + Tea might already be familiar to many fans. That’s because before it became an official product, the soda started as an idea floated by Coca-Cola interns that later became a viral DIY TikTok trend.

    TikTok saw it first

    In an interview with Ad Age, Coca-Cola Co. senior creative director A.P. Chaney explained that Sprite + Tea first landed on executives’ radars back in 2019, when a group of interns pitched a combination of the two beverages. 

    “It was an R&D project, and interns were asked to come up with different innovations and marketing ideas for different brands, and Sprite + Tea was an ideation of that,” Chaney told Ad Age.

    From there, the idea seems to have sat on the back burner until summer 2023, when a DIY Sprite tea started popping up on TikTok. In an initial TikTok by Malaysian chef Hisham Raus, Raus is shown steeping Lipton tea bags in a regular bottle of Sprite and enjoying the concoction with a slice of lemon. The video, which has since racked up 19.8 million views and 1.3 million likes, has spawned dozens of copycat videos across platforms like YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels.

    Food influencer @shophocho7798 re-created the concept in a YouTube video with 3.7 million views, calling the result “literally a carbonated Arnold Palmer.” In another YouTube short with 8.3 million views, creator Jordan Howlett declared the hack “delicious” and encouraged his 4.4 million subscribers to give it a try.

    “Whenblew up on TikTok with millions of views, it was a gut check that we were on the right track,” Chaney said in the company’s press release.

    While it’s unlikely that Coca-Cola is actually using the tea bag hack to mass-produce Sprite + Tea, the release does note that Coca-Cola’s North American R&D team “completed several rounds of consumer testing to fine-tune the formula for the amber-colored sparkling beverage.” 

    For Coca-Cola, Sprite seems to be a reliable base for flavor remixes: In 2024, the limited-time Sprite Chill became the company’s best-selling drink innovation, and Sprite Winter Spiced Cranberry has returned several times as a holiday fan favorite since 2013. Meanwhile, the recent Spiced Coke experiment was phased out after just six months when it failed to land with customers. 

    TikTok is already flooded with videos of fans trying Sprite + Tea, with some reviews commending the drink’s “strong tea flavor,” while others recommend that viewers stick with the DIY version.
    #interns #designed #cocacolas #new #sprite
    Interns designed Coca-Cola’s new Sprite + Tea flavor
    The Coca-Cola Co. just announced its newest limited-time soda, and it’s a combination of Sprite and tea that was initially floated by a team of interns six years ago. Sprite + Tea just hit shelves earlier across the U.S. and Canada, and is expected to remain on the market through October. The soda is available in both regular and zero-sugar varieties, and, according to a press release, it “blends the crisp, lemon-lime refreshment of Sprite with the classically refreshing flavor of tea.” The new product arrives just a month after Coca-Cola announced better-than-anticipated first-quarter 2025 financial results, logging a 2% year-over-year revenue decline but maintaining its growth forecasts for 2025, unlike rival PepsiCo. For years now, Coca-Cola has been experimenting with new, unexpected flavor combinations designed to attract younger consumers, ranging from Spiced Coke to last summer’s Sprite Chill and the ever-popular seasonal rerelease Sprite Winter Spiced Cranberry. Most recently, the company introduced Orange Cream Coke, citing “growing demand among millennials and Gen Z-ers for fun, unexpected tastes and sensory experiences” as the inspiration behind the nostalgic flavor.Unlike these other flavor plays from the company, Sprite + Tea might already be familiar to many fans. That’s because before it became an official product, the soda started as an idea floated by Coca-Cola interns that later became a viral DIY TikTok trend. TikTok saw it first In an interview with Ad Age, Coca-Cola Co. senior creative director A.P. Chaney explained that Sprite + Tea first landed on executives’ radars back in 2019, when a group of interns pitched a combination of the two beverages.  “It was an R&D project, and interns were asked to come up with different innovations and marketing ideas for different brands, and Sprite + Tea was an ideation of that,” Chaney told Ad Age. From there, the idea seems to have sat on the back burner until summer 2023, when a DIY Sprite tea started popping up on TikTok. In an initial TikTok by Malaysian chef Hisham Raus, Raus is shown steeping Lipton tea bags in a regular bottle of Sprite and enjoying the concoction with a slice of lemon. The video, which has since racked up 19.8 million views and 1.3 million likes, has spawned dozens of copycat videos across platforms like YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels. Food influencer @shophocho7798 re-created the concept in a YouTube video with 3.7 million views, calling the result “literally a carbonated Arnold Palmer.” In another YouTube short with 8.3 million views, creator Jordan Howlett declared the hack “delicious” and encouraged his 4.4 million subscribers to give it a try. “Whenblew up on TikTok with millions of views, it was a gut check that we were on the right track,” Chaney said in the company’s press release. While it’s unlikely that Coca-Cola is actually using the tea bag hack to mass-produce Sprite + Tea, the release does note that Coca-Cola’s North American R&D team “completed several rounds of consumer testing to fine-tune the formula for the amber-colored sparkling beverage.”  For Coca-Cola, Sprite seems to be a reliable base for flavor remixes: In 2024, the limited-time Sprite Chill became the company’s best-selling drink innovation, and Sprite Winter Spiced Cranberry has returned several times as a holiday fan favorite since 2013. Meanwhile, the recent Spiced Coke experiment was phased out after just six months when it failed to land with customers.  TikTok is already flooded with videos of fans trying Sprite + Tea, with some reviews commending the drink’s “strong tea flavor,” while others recommend that viewers stick with the DIY version. #interns #designed #cocacolas #new #sprite
    WWW.FASTCOMPANY.COM
    Interns designed Coca-Cola’s new Sprite + Tea flavor
    The Coca-Cola Co. just announced its newest limited-time soda, and it’s a combination of Sprite and tea that was initially floated by a team of interns six years ago. Sprite + Tea just hit shelves earlier across the U.S. and Canada, and is expected to remain on the market through October. The soda is available in both regular and zero-sugar varieties, and, according to a press release, it “blends the crisp, lemon-lime refreshment of Sprite with the classically refreshing flavor of tea.” The new product arrives just a month after Coca-Cola announced better-than-anticipated first-quarter 2025 financial results, logging a 2% year-over-year revenue decline but maintaining its growth forecasts for 2025, unlike rival PepsiCo. For years now, Coca-Cola has been experimenting with new, unexpected flavor combinations designed to attract younger consumers, ranging from Spiced Coke to last summer’s Sprite Chill and the ever-popular seasonal rerelease Sprite Winter Spiced Cranberry. Most recently, the company introduced Orange Cream Coke, citing “growing demand among millennials and Gen Z-ers for fun, unexpected tastes and sensory experiences” as the inspiration behind the nostalgic flavor. [Photo: Coca-Cola] Unlike these other flavor plays from the company, Sprite + Tea might already be familiar to many fans. That’s because before it became an official product, the soda started as an idea floated by Coca-Cola interns that later became a viral DIY TikTok trend. TikTok saw it first In an interview with Ad Age, Coca-Cola Co. senior creative director A.P. Chaney explained that Sprite + Tea first landed on executives’ radars back in 2019, when a group of interns pitched a combination of the two beverages.  “It was an R&D project, and interns were asked to come up with different innovations and marketing ideas for different brands, and Sprite + Tea was an ideation of that,” Chaney told Ad Age. From there, the idea seems to have sat on the back burner until summer 2023, when a DIY Sprite tea started popping up on TikTok. In an initial TikTok by Malaysian chef Hisham Raus, Raus is shown steeping Lipton tea bags in a regular bottle of Sprite and enjoying the concoction with a slice of lemon. The video, which has since racked up 19.8 million views and 1.3 million likes, has spawned dozens of copycat videos across platforms like YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels. Food influencer @shophocho7798 re-created the concept in a YouTube video with 3.7 million views, calling the result “literally a carbonated Arnold Palmer.” In another YouTube short with 8.3 million views, creator Jordan Howlett declared the hack “delicious” and encouraged his 4.4 million subscribers to give it a try. “When [the trend] blew up on TikTok with millions of views, it was a gut check that we were on the right track,” Chaney said in the company’s press release. While it’s unlikely that Coca-Cola is actually using the tea bag hack to mass-produce Sprite + Tea, the release does note that Coca-Cola’s North American R&D team “completed several rounds of consumer testing to fine-tune the formula for the amber-colored sparkling beverage.”  For Coca-Cola, Sprite seems to be a reliable base for flavor remixes: In 2024, the limited-time Sprite Chill became the company’s best-selling drink innovation, and Sprite Winter Spiced Cranberry has returned several times as a holiday fan favorite since 2013. Meanwhile, the recent Spiced Coke experiment was phased out after just six months when it failed to land with customers.  TikTok is already flooded with videos of fans trying Sprite + Tea, with some reviews commending the drink’s “strong tea flavor,” while others recommend that viewers stick with the DIY version.
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  • Interview: Rom Kosla, CIO, Hewlett Packard Enterprise

    When Rom Kosla, CIO at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, joined the technology giant in July 2023, the move represented a big shift in direction. Previously CIO at retailer Ahold Delhaize and CIO for enterprise solutions at PepsiCo, Kosla was a consumer specialist who wanted to apply his knowledge in a new sector.
    “I liked the idea of working in a different industry,” he says. “I went from consumer products to retail grocery. Moving into the tech industry was a bit nerve-wracking because the concept of who the customers are is different. But since I grew up in IT, I figured I’d have the ability to navigate my way through the company.”
    Kosla had previously worked as a project manager for Nestlé and spent time with the consultancy Deloitte. Now approaching two years with HPE, Kosla leads HPE’s technology strategy and is responsible for how the company harnesses artificial intelligenceand data. He also oversees e-commerce, app development, enterprise resource planningand security operations.
    “The role has exceeded my expectations,” he says. “When you’re a CIO at a multinational, like when I was a divisional CIO at PepsiCo, you’re in the back office. Whether it’s strategy, transformation or customer engagement, the systems are the enablers of that back-office effort. At HPE, it’s different because we are customer zero.”
    Kosla says he prefers the term “customer gold” because he wants HPE to develop high-quality products. In addition to setting the internal digital strategy, he has an outward-facing role providing expert advice to customers. That part of his role reminds him of his time at Deloitte.
    “Those are opportunities to flex my prior experience and capabilities, and learn how to take our products, enable them, and share best practices,” he says. “HPE is like any other company. We use cloud systems and software-as-a-service products, including Salesforce and others. But underneath, we have HPE powering a lot of the capabilities.”

    The press release announcing Kosla’s appointment in 2023 said HPE believed his prior experiences in the digital front-end and running complex supply chains made him the perfect person to build on its digital transformation efforts. So, how has that vision panned out?
    “What’s been interesting is helping the business and IT team think about the end-to-end value stream,” he says. “There was a lot of application-specific knowledge. The ability for processes to be optimised at an application layer versus the end-to-end value stream was only happening in certain spots.”
    Kosla discovered the organisation had spent two years moving to a private cloud installation on the company’s hardware and had consolidated 20-plus ERP systems under one SAP instance. With much of the transformation work complete, his focus turned to making the most of these assets.
    “The opportunity was not to shepherd up transformation, it was taking the next step, which was optimising,” says Kosla, explaining how he had boosted supply chain performance in his earlier roles. He’s now applying that knowledge at HPE.
    “What we’ve been doing is slicing areas of opportunity,” he says. “With the lead-to-quote process, for example, we have opportunities to optimise, depending on the type of business, such as the channel and distributors. We’re asking things like, ‘Can we get a quote out as quickly as possible, can we price it correctly, and can we rely less on human engagement?’”
    HPE announced a cost-reduction programme in March to reduce structural operating costs. The programme is expected to be implemented through fiscal year 2026 and deliver gross savings of approximately m by fiscal year 2027, including through workforce reductions. The programme of work in IT will help the company move towards these targets.
    Kosla says optimisation in financials might mean closing books faster. In the supply chain, the optimisation might be about predicting the raw materials needed to create products. He takes a term from his time in the consumer-packaged goods sector – right to play, right to win – to explain how his approach helps the business look for value-generating opportunities.
    “So, do we have the right to play, meaning do we have the skills? Where do we have the right to win, meaning do we have the funding, business resources and availability to deliver the results? We spend time focusing on which areas offer the right to play and the right to win.”

    Kosla says data and AI play a key role in these optimisations. HPE uses third-party applications with built-in AI capabilities and has developed an internal chat solution called ChatHPE, a generative AI hub used for internal processes.
    “There are lots of conversations around how we unlock the benefits of AI in the company,” he says. Professionals across the company use Microsoft Copilot in their day-to-day roles to boost productivity. Developers, meanwhile, use GitHub Copilot.
    Finally, there’s ChatHPE, which Kosla says is used according to the functional use case. HPE started developing the platform about 18 months ago. A pipeline of use cases has now been developed, including helping legal teams to review contracts, boosting customer service in operations, re-using campaign elements in marketing and improving analytics in finance.

    “We spend time focusing on which areas offer the right to play and the right to win”
    Rom Kosla, Hewlett Packard Enterprise

    “We have a significant amount of governance internally,” says Kosla, referring to ChatHPE, which is powered by Azure and OpenAI technology. “When I started, there wasn’t an internal HPE AI engine. We had to tell the teams not to use the standard tools because any data that you feed into them is ultimately extracted. So, we had to create our platform.”
    Embracing AI isn’t Kosla’s only concern. Stabilisation is a big part of what he needs to achieve during the next 12 months. He returns to HPE’s two major transformation initiatives – the shift to private cloud and the consolidation of ERP platforms – suggesting that the dual roll-out and management of these initiatives created a significant number of incidents.
    “When I look back at PepsiCo, we had about 300,000 employees and about 600,000 tickets, which means two tickets per person per year. I said to the executive committee at HPE, ‘We have 60,000 employees, and we have a couple of million tickets’, which is an insane number. The goal was to bring that number down by about 85%,” he says.
    “Now, our system uptime is 99% across our quoting and financial systems. That availability allows our business to do more than focus on internal IT. They can focus on the customer. Stabilisation means the business isn’t constantly thinking about IT systems, because it’s a challenge to execute every day when systems are going down because of issues.”

    Kosla says the long-term aim from an IT perspective is to align the technology organisation with business outcomes. In financials, for example, he wants to produce the data analytics the business needs across the supply chain and operational processes.
    “We have embedded teams that work together to look at how we enable data, like our chat capabilities, into some of the activities,” he says. “They’ll consider how we reduce friction, especially the manual steps. They’ll also consider planning, from raw materials to the manufacturing and delivery of products. That work involves partnering with the business.”
    The key to success for the IT team is to help the business unlock value quicker. “I would say that’s the biggest part for us,” says Kosla. “We don’t even like to use the word speed – we say velocity, because velocity equals direction, and that’s crucial for us. I think the business is happy with what we’ve been able to achieve, but it’s still not fast enough.”
    Being able to deliver results at pace will rely on new levels of flexibility. Rather than being wedded to a 12-month plan that maps out a series of deliverables, Kosla wants his team to work more in the moment. Prior experiences from the consumer sector give him a good sense of what excellence looks like in this area.
    “You don’t need to go back to the top, go through an annual planning review, go back down, and then have the teams twiddling their thumbs while they wait for the OK,” he says.
    “The goal is that teams are constantly working on what’s achievable during a sprint window. Many companies take that approach; I’ve done it in my prior working life. I know what can happen, and I think flexibility will drive value creation.”
    Kosla says some of the value will come from HPE’s in-house developed technologies. “One of the things that makes this role fun is that there’s a significant amount of innovation the company is doing,” he says, pointing to important technologies, such as Morpheus VM Essentials virtualisation software, the observability platform OpsRamp, and Aruba Networking Access Points.
    “What I’m proud of is that we now show up to customers with comparability,” he says, talking about the advisory part of his role. “We can say, ‘Look, we use both products, because in some cases, it’s a migration over time.’ So, for example, when a customer asks about our observability approach, we can compare our technology with other providers.”

    Kosla reflects on his career and ponders the future of the CIO role, suggesting responsibilities will vary considerably according to sector. “Digital leaders still maintain IT systems in some industries,” he says.
    “However, the rest of the business is now much more aware of technology. The blurring of lines between business and IT means it’s tougher to differentiate between the two areas. I think we’ll see more convergence.”
    Kosla says a growing desire to contain costs often creates a close relationship between IT and finance leaders. Once again, he expects further developments in that partnership. He also anticipates that cyber will remain at the forefront of digital leaders’ priority lists.
    More generally, he believes all IT professionals are becoming more focused on business priorities. “I think the blurring will continue to create interesting results, especially in technology companies,” he says. “We want to do things differently.”

    interviews with tech company IT leaders

    Interview: Joe Depa, global chief innovation officer, EY – Accounting firm EY is focused on ‘AI-ready data’ to maximise the benefits of agentic AI and enable the use of emerging frontier technologies for its business and clients.
    Interview: Cynthia Stoddard, CIO, Adobe – After nearly 10 years in post, Adobe’s CIO is still driving digital transformation and looking to deliver lasting change through technology.
    Interview: Tomer Cohen, chief product officer, LinkedIn – The professional social network’s product chief is leading the introduction of artificial intelligence for the firm’s in-house development processes and to enhance services for users.
    #interview #rom #kosla #cio #hewlett
    Interview: Rom Kosla, CIO, Hewlett Packard Enterprise
    When Rom Kosla, CIO at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, joined the technology giant in July 2023, the move represented a big shift in direction. Previously CIO at retailer Ahold Delhaize and CIO for enterprise solutions at PepsiCo, Kosla was a consumer specialist who wanted to apply his knowledge in a new sector. “I liked the idea of working in a different industry,” he says. “I went from consumer products to retail grocery. Moving into the tech industry was a bit nerve-wracking because the concept of who the customers are is different. But since I grew up in IT, I figured I’d have the ability to navigate my way through the company.” Kosla had previously worked as a project manager for Nestlé and spent time with the consultancy Deloitte. Now approaching two years with HPE, Kosla leads HPE’s technology strategy and is responsible for how the company harnesses artificial intelligenceand data. He also oversees e-commerce, app development, enterprise resource planningand security operations. “The role has exceeded my expectations,” he says. “When you’re a CIO at a multinational, like when I was a divisional CIO at PepsiCo, you’re in the back office. Whether it’s strategy, transformation or customer engagement, the systems are the enablers of that back-office effort. At HPE, it’s different because we are customer zero.” Kosla says he prefers the term “customer gold” because he wants HPE to develop high-quality products. In addition to setting the internal digital strategy, he has an outward-facing role providing expert advice to customers. That part of his role reminds him of his time at Deloitte. “Those are opportunities to flex my prior experience and capabilities, and learn how to take our products, enable them, and share best practices,” he says. “HPE is like any other company. We use cloud systems and software-as-a-service products, including Salesforce and others. But underneath, we have HPE powering a lot of the capabilities.” The press release announcing Kosla’s appointment in 2023 said HPE believed his prior experiences in the digital front-end and running complex supply chains made him the perfect person to build on its digital transformation efforts. So, how has that vision panned out? “What’s been interesting is helping the business and IT team think about the end-to-end value stream,” he says. “There was a lot of application-specific knowledge. The ability for processes to be optimised at an application layer versus the end-to-end value stream was only happening in certain spots.” Kosla discovered the organisation had spent two years moving to a private cloud installation on the company’s hardware and had consolidated 20-plus ERP systems under one SAP instance. With much of the transformation work complete, his focus turned to making the most of these assets. “The opportunity was not to shepherd up transformation, it was taking the next step, which was optimising,” says Kosla, explaining how he had boosted supply chain performance in his earlier roles. He’s now applying that knowledge at HPE. “What we’ve been doing is slicing areas of opportunity,” he says. “With the lead-to-quote process, for example, we have opportunities to optimise, depending on the type of business, such as the channel and distributors. We’re asking things like, ‘Can we get a quote out as quickly as possible, can we price it correctly, and can we rely less on human engagement?’” HPE announced a cost-reduction programme in March to reduce structural operating costs. The programme is expected to be implemented through fiscal year 2026 and deliver gross savings of approximately m by fiscal year 2027, including through workforce reductions. The programme of work in IT will help the company move towards these targets. Kosla says optimisation in financials might mean closing books faster. In the supply chain, the optimisation might be about predicting the raw materials needed to create products. He takes a term from his time in the consumer-packaged goods sector – right to play, right to win – to explain how his approach helps the business look for value-generating opportunities. “So, do we have the right to play, meaning do we have the skills? Where do we have the right to win, meaning do we have the funding, business resources and availability to deliver the results? We spend time focusing on which areas offer the right to play and the right to win.” Kosla says data and AI play a key role in these optimisations. HPE uses third-party applications with built-in AI capabilities and has developed an internal chat solution called ChatHPE, a generative AI hub used for internal processes. “There are lots of conversations around how we unlock the benefits of AI in the company,” he says. Professionals across the company use Microsoft Copilot in their day-to-day roles to boost productivity. Developers, meanwhile, use GitHub Copilot. Finally, there’s ChatHPE, which Kosla says is used according to the functional use case. HPE started developing the platform about 18 months ago. A pipeline of use cases has now been developed, including helping legal teams to review contracts, boosting customer service in operations, re-using campaign elements in marketing and improving analytics in finance. “We spend time focusing on which areas offer the right to play and the right to win” Rom Kosla, Hewlett Packard Enterprise “We have a significant amount of governance internally,” says Kosla, referring to ChatHPE, which is powered by Azure and OpenAI technology. “When I started, there wasn’t an internal HPE AI engine. We had to tell the teams not to use the standard tools because any data that you feed into them is ultimately extracted. So, we had to create our platform.” Embracing AI isn’t Kosla’s only concern. Stabilisation is a big part of what he needs to achieve during the next 12 months. He returns to HPE’s two major transformation initiatives – the shift to private cloud and the consolidation of ERP platforms – suggesting that the dual roll-out and management of these initiatives created a significant number of incidents. “When I look back at PepsiCo, we had about 300,000 employees and about 600,000 tickets, which means two tickets per person per year. I said to the executive committee at HPE, ‘We have 60,000 employees, and we have a couple of million tickets’, which is an insane number. The goal was to bring that number down by about 85%,” he says. “Now, our system uptime is 99% across our quoting and financial systems. That availability allows our business to do more than focus on internal IT. They can focus on the customer. Stabilisation means the business isn’t constantly thinking about IT systems, because it’s a challenge to execute every day when systems are going down because of issues.” Kosla says the long-term aim from an IT perspective is to align the technology organisation with business outcomes. In financials, for example, he wants to produce the data analytics the business needs across the supply chain and operational processes. “We have embedded teams that work together to look at how we enable data, like our chat capabilities, into some of the activities,” he says. “They’ll consider how we reduce friction, especially the manual steps. They’ll also consider planning, from raw materials to the manufacturing and delivery of products. That work involves partnering with the business.” The key to success for the IT team is to help the business unlock value quicker. “I would say that’s the biggest part for us,” says Kosla. “We don’t even like to use the word speed – we say velocity, because velocity equals direction, and that’s crucial for us. I think the business is happy with what we’ve been able to achieve, but it’s still not fast enough.” Being able to deliver results at pace will rely on new levels of flexibility. Rather than being wedded to a 12-month plan that maps out a series of deliverables, Kosla wants his team to work more in the moment. Prior experiences from the consumer sector give him a good sense of what excellence looks like in this area. “You don’t need to go back to the top, go through an annual planning review, go back down, and then have the teams twiddling their thumbs while they wait for the OK,” he says. “The goal is that teams are constantly working on what’s achievable during a sprint window. Many companies take that approach; I’ve done it in my prior working life. I know what can happen, and I think flexibility will drive value creation.” Kosla says some of the value will come from HPE’s in-house developed technologies. “One of the things that makes this role fun is that there’s a significant amount of innovation the company is doing,” he says, pointing to important technologies, such as Morpheus VM Essentials virtualisation software, the observability platform OpsRamp, and Aruba Networking Access Points. “What I’m proud of is that we now show up to customers with comparability,” he says, talking about the advisory part of his role. “We can say, ‘Look, we use both products, because in some cases, it’s a migration over time.’ So, for example, when a customer asks about our observability approach, we can compare our technology with other providers.” Kosla reflects on his career and ponders the future of the CIO role, suggesting responsibilities will vary considerably according to sector. “Digital leaders still maintain IT systems in some industries,” he says. “However, the rest of the business is now much more aware of technology. The blurring of lines between business and IT means it’s tougher to differentiate between the two areas. I think we’ll see more convergence.” Kosla says a growing desire to contain costs often creates a close relationship between IT and finance leaders. Once again, he expects further developments in that partnership. He also anticipates that cyber will remain at the forefront of digital leaders’ priority lists. More generally, he believes all IT professionals are becoming more focused on business priorities. “I think the blurring will continue to create interesting results, especially in technology companies,” he says. “We want to do things differently.” interviews with tech company IT leaders Interview: Joe Depa, global chief innovation officer, EY – Accounting firm EY is focused on ‘AI-ready data’ to maximise the benefits of agentic AI and enable the use of emerging frontier technologies for its business and clients. Interview: Cynthia Stoddard, CIO, Adobe – After nearly 10 years in post, Adobe’s CIO is still driving digital transformation and looking to deliver lasting change through technology. Interview: Tomer Cohen, chief product officer, LinkedIn – The professional social network’s product chief is leading the introduction of artificial intelligence for the firm’s in-house development processes and to enhance services for users. #interview #rom #kosla #cio #hewlett
    WWW.COMPUTERWEEKLY.COM
    Interview: Rom Kosla, CIO, Hewlett Packard Enterprise
    When Rom Kosla, CIO at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), joined the technology giant in July 2023, the move represented a big shift in direction. Previously CIO at retailer Ahold Delhaize and CIO for enterprise solutions at PepsiCo, Kosla was a consumer specialist who wanted to apply his knowledge in a new sector. “I liked the idea of working in a different industry,” he says. “I went from consumer products to retail grocery. Moving into the tech industry was a bit nerve-wracking because the concept of who the customers are is different. But since I grew up in IT, I figured I’d have the ability to navigate my way through the company.” Kosla had previously worked as a project manager for Nestlé and spent time with the consultancy Deloitte. Now approaching two years with HPE, Kosla leads HPE’s technology strategy and is responsible for how the company harnesses artificial intelligence (AI) and data. He also oversees e-commerce, app development, enterprise resource planning (ERP) and security operations. “The role has exceeded my expectations,” he says. “When you’re a CIO at a multinational, like when I was a divisional CIO at PepsiCo, you’re in the back office. Whether it’s strategy, transformation or customer engagement, the systems are the enablers of that back-office effort. At HPE, it’s different because we are customer zero.” Kosla says he prefers the term “customer gold” because he wants HPE to develop high-quality products. In addition to setting the internal digital strategy, he has an outward-facing role providing expert advice to customers. That part of his role reminds him of his time at Deloitte. “Those are opportunities to flex my prior experience and capabilities, and learn how to take our products, enable them, and share best practices,” he says. “HPE is like any other company. We use cloud systems and software-as-a-service products, including Salesforce and others. But underneath, we have HPE powering a lot of the capabilities.” The press release announcing Kosla’s appointment in 2023 said HPE believed his prior experiences in the digital front-end and running complex supply chains made him the perfect person to build on its digital transformation efforts. So, how has that vision panned out? “What’s been interesting is helping the business and IT team think about the end-to-end value stream,” he says. “There was a lot of application-specific knowledge. The ability for processes to be optimised at an application layer versus the end-to-end value stream was only happening in certain spots.” Kosla discovered the organisation had spent two years moving to a private cloud installation on the company’s hardware and had consolidated 20-plus ERP systems under one SAP instance. With much of the transformation work complete, his focus turned to making the most of these assets. “The opportunity was not to shepherd up transformation, it was taking the next step, which was optimising,” says Kosla, explaining how he had boosted supply chain performance in his earlier roles. He’s now applying that knowledge at HPE. “What we’ve been doing is slicing areas of opportunity,” he says. “With the lead-to-quote process, for example, we have opportunities to optimise, depending on the type of business, such as the channel and distributors. We’re asking things like, ‘Can we get a quote out as quickly as possible, can we price it correctly, and can we rely less on human engagement?’” HPE announced a cost-reduction programme in March to reduce structural operating costs. The programme is expected to be implemented through fiscal year 2026 and deliver gross savings of approximately $350m by fiscal year 2027, including through workforce reductions. The programme of work in IT will help the company move towards these targets. Kosla says optimisation in financials might mean closing books faster. In the supply chain, the optimisation might be about predicting the raw materials needed to create products. He takes a term from his time in the consumer-packaged goods sector – right to play, right to win – to explain how his approach helps the business look for value-generating opportunities. “So, do we have the right to play, meaning do we have the skills? Where do we have the right to win, meaning do we have the funding, business resources and availability to deliver the results? We spend time focusing on which areas offer the right to play and the right to win.” Kosla says data and AI play a key role in these optimisations. HPE uses third-party applications with built-in AI capabilities and has developed an internal chat solution called ChatHPE, a generative AI hub used for internal processes. “There are lots of conversations around how we unlock the benefits of AI in the company,” he says. Professionals across the company use Microsoft Copilot in their day-to-day roles to boost productivity. Developers, meanwhile, use GitHub Copilot. Finally, there’s ChatHPE, which Kosla says is used according to the functional use case. HPE started developing the platform about 18 months ago. A pipeline of use cases has now been developed, including helping legal teams to review contracts, boosting customer service in operations, re-using campaign elements in marketing and improving analytics in finance. “We spend time focusing on which areas offer the right to play and the right to win” Rom Kosla, Hewlett Packard Enterprise “We have a significant amount of governance internally,” says Kosla, referring to ChatHPE, which is powered by Azure and OpenAI technology. “When I started, there wasn’t an internal HPE AI engine. We had to tell the teams not to use the standard tools because any data that you feed into them is ultimately extracted. So, we had to create our platform.” Embracing AI isn’t Kosla’s only concern. Stabilisation is a big part of what he needs to achieve during the next 12 months. He returns to HPE’s two major transformation initiatives – the shift to private cloud and the consolidation of ERP platforms – suggesting that the dual roll-out and management of these initiatives created a significant number of incidents. “When I look back at PepsiCo, we had about 300,000 employees and about 600,000 tickets, which means two tickets per person per year. I said to the executive committee at HPE, ‘We have 60,000 employees, and we have a couple of million tickets’, which is an insane number. The goal was to bring that number down by about 85%,” he says. “Now, our system uptime is 99% across our quoting and financial systems. That availability allows our business to do more than focus on internal IT. They can focus on the customer. Stabilisation means the business isn’t constantly thinking about IT systems, because it’s a challenge to execute every day when systems are going down because of issues.” Kosla says the long-term aim from an IT perspective is to align the technology organisation with business outcomes. In financials, for example, he wants to produce the data analytics the business needs across the supply chain and operational processes. “We have embedded teams that work together to look at how we enable data, like our chat capabilities, into some of the activities,” he says. “They’ll consider how we reduce friction, especially the manual steps. They’ll also consider planning, from raw materials to the manufacturing and delivery of products. That work involves partnering with the business.” The key to success for the IT team is to help the business unlock value quicker. “I would say that’s the biggest part for us,” says Kosla. “We don’t even like to use the word speed – we say velocity, because velocity equals direction, and that’s crucial for us. I think the business is happy with what we’ve been able to achieve, but it’s still not fast enough.” Being able to deliver results at pace will rely on new levels of flexibility. Rather than being wedded to a 12-month plan that maps out a series of deliverables, Kosla wants his team to work more in the moment. Prior experiences from the consumer sector give him a good sense of what excellence looks like in this area. “You don’t need to go back to the top, go through an annual planning review, go back down, and then have the teams twiddling their thumbs while they wait for the OK,” he says. “The goal is that teams are constantly working on what’s achievable during a sprint window. Many companies take that approach; I’ve done it in my prior working life. I know what can happen, and I think flexibility will drive value creation.” Kosla says some of the value will come from HPE’s in-house developed technologies. “One of the things that makes this role fun is that there’s a significant amount of innovation the company is doing,” he says, pointing to important technologies, such as Morpheus VM Essentials virtualisation software, the observability platform OpsRamp, and Aruba Networking Access Points. “What I’m proud of is that we now show up to customers with comparability,” he says, talking about the advisory part of his role. “We can say, ‘Look, we use both products, because in some cases, it’s a migration over time.’ So, for example, when a customer asks about our observability approach, we can compare our technology with other providers.” Kosla reflects on his career and ponders the future of the CIO role, suggesting responsibilities will vary considerably according to sector. “Digital leaders still maintain IT systems in some industries,” he says. “However, the rest of the business is now much more aware of technology. The blurring of lines between business and IT means it’s tougher to differentiate between the two areas. I think we’ll see more convergence.” Kosla says a growing desire to contain costs often creates a close relationship between IT and finance leaders. Once again, he expects further developments in that partnership. He also anticipates that cyber will remain at the forefront of digital leaders’ priority lists. More generally, he believes all IT professionals are becoming more focused on business priorities. “I think the blurring will continue to create interesting results, especially in technology companies,” he says. “We want to do things differently.” Read more interviews with tech company IT leaders Interview: Joe Depa, global chief innovation officer, EY – Accounting firm EY is focused on ‘AI-ready data’ to maximise the benefits of agentic AI and enable the use of emerging frontier technologies for its business and clients. Interview: Cynthia Stoddard, CIO, Adobe – After nearly 10 years in post, Adobe’s CIO is still driving digital transformation and looking to deliver lasting change through technology. Interview: Tomer Cohen, chief product officer, LinkedIn – The professional social network’s product chief is leading the introduction of artificial intelligence for the firm’s in-house development processes and to enhance services for users.
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  • Collage, courage and craft: Ionut Radulescu on identity, imperfection and the power of visual storytelling

    What does it mean to design from the inside out? For Ionut Radulescu, the answer lies in work that's unapologetically personal, often intimate, sometimes raw, and always resonant.
    Whether crafting bold editorial collages, expressive lettering or hand-drawn brand campaigns, the Romanian-born, Brooklyn-based designer and illustrator builds visual worlds with heart. "I think there's a certain power in being vulnerable, raw, authentic," he says. "And people can feel that – they can resonate and react to these visual messages."
    Ionut's creative language spans illustration, type, print and digital, often sitting at the intersection of identity and motivation. His clients include The New York Times, Peloton, Converse, Teen Vogue, Pepsi, and Dipsea, but his visual voice first gained traction through personal projects. Posted to Instagram like visual diary entries, these self-initiated pieces soon caught the attention of like-minded brands seeking a similar honesty and intensity.
    "The series Shapes and Flesh, these collages, shapes, sometimes mixed with type, were inspired by my queer life. I wanted to translate those experiences into abstract visuals," he explains. "The same goes for my Words Are Images typographical quotes. Words have a strong visual impact, and I wanted to explore that."

    Ionut's is an instinctive, emotion-led approach shaped by more than a decade of exploration. Originally trained in industrial design at the Marin Sorescu Art High School in Craiova, Ionut later studied graphic arts at the National Art and Design University in Bucharest, where he would go on to co-teach illustration and lettering classes alongside professor Stela Lie. The two remain close collaborators through Romania's Illustrator's Club, which is a creative community from which Ionut still draws inspiration.
    "Europe and Romania have a more experimental approach to visual culture in general. There are a lot of indie artistic festivals and platforms that play more and explore interesting ways of storytelling," he says. "I'm part of the Illustrator's Club Romania, and we have members in there with very unique, experimental voices."

    While his early influences included British illustrators Marion Deuchars and Sara Fanelli, a move to New York helped sharpen Ionut's visual style, stripping it back and simplifying the language but dialling up the emotional directness. Bold colour, graphic forms, and a preference for hand-crafted imperfection became key to his work, whether for print, editorial, or branding.
    "It's important to me that you can feel the human touch. Even if it's a final digital piece, I want it to have that emotion," he says. For a Dipsea cover, for instance, the ink-drawn type was sketched on large sheets of paper before being digitised. "The computer can't always capture the spontaneity, the energy, the roughness. I like seeing that imperfection."
    It's a philosophy that shaped his recent award-winning work, too. His recent American Illustration win celebrated a collage and type piece that plays with balance, boldness and visual rhythm – a kind of structured chaos that invites interpretation. This blend of freedom and form is what makes Ionut's output feel both striking and sincere.

    Beyond the craft, it's the message that always matters most for Ionut. From collages on queer identity to affirming typographic statements on confidence and self-worth, his illustrations often speak directly to viewers' emotional states. That connection is part of the goal.
    "I want to inspire and motivate people," he says. "I want them to feel, react, reflect and stay with the artwork for a bit, even if it's just a short moment. That makes me happy. That means the message came across."
    He recalls messages from strangers who've seen his work and felt lifted or comforted by the sentiment. "It goes beyond aesthetics and creative craft," he adds. "Sometimes we just need to hear something or see it in order to feel better."
    That personal resonance translates into his commercial work, too. Ionut's ability to channel emotional and cultural themes has led to collaborations with brands that value not just good design but meaningful storytelling. From feminist and sex-positive narratives at Thinx and Dipsea to identity-affirming work for Hello Mr. magazine, the thread between personal and professional remains strong.
    "Queer themes, identity, sexuality, feminism, motivation — these are important to the clients I've worked with, and I was fortunate to be able to come in and express those things to a wider audience," he says.

    Of course, Ionut's process can differ with each project. Editorial and personal projects might be led by instinct and reflection, but campaigns and branding briefs often require strategic alignment, mood boards, deck presentations, and collaborative iteration. Still, Ionut welcomes the structure, especially when it allows space for meaning.
    "I've learned to enjoy the creative journey," he says. "The most important thing is working with a good team toward a common goal: to make something great and meaningful that makes you feel, that makes you react."
    Outside of client work, Ionut has also been active as a mentor, educator, and awards judge, most recently for global platforms like The One Club. Teaching, he says, is a way to give back and keep learning.
    "I think we live in exciting but challenging times. Technology is moving fast, so I try to ground students to ask the right questions and think beyond trends," he says. "It made me really happy to see some using analogue mediums in really experimental ways. There's still so much potential in that."

    For someone who began his creative life before touching a computer, print remains a powerful medium. His limited-edition screen prints for Print Club London speak to that love: tactile, imperfect, handmade. "Print has tactility," he says. "You can touch it, hold it, experience it in a way digital can't replicate."
    Yet he isn't precious about tools. While Ionut still favours hand-drawn elements and lo-fi media, he's curious about technology's role, including animation and, tentatively, AI.
    "I want to animate my lettering, type and illustration pieces more and maybe explore sound," he says. "I've experimented a bit with Blender while keeping that handmade feeling. And I've used AI in subtle ways to enhance images or speed up production."
    But for Ionut, the tools are secondary. "Ultimately, it's just that – tools. What matters is the craft and the voice. That took me years to build, and I'm still evolving."
    As for what's next, Ionut is pretty open. "I want to let myself be surprised," he says. "I want to work with great people, be excited about the process, and be part of a community. Keep learning, keep exploring."
    That sense of curiosity and openness runs through all of Ionut's work. Whether working with global brands or drawing for himself, he returns to a simple, striking idea: creativity as self-expression, crafted with care and shared without shame.
    #collage #courage #craft #ionut #radulescu
    Collage, courage and craft: Ionut Radulescu on identity, imperfection and the power of visual storytelling
    What does it mean to design from the inside out? For Ionut Radulescu, the answer lies in work that's unapologetically personal, often intimate, sometimes raw, and always resonant. Whether crafting bold editorial collages, expressive lettering or hand-drawn brand campaigns, the Romanian-born, Brooklyn-based designer and illustrator builds visual worlds with heart. "I think there's a certain power in being vulnerable, raw, authentic," he says. "And people can feel that – they can resonate and react to these visual messages." Ionut's creative language spans illustration, type, print and digital, often sitting at the intersection of identity and motivation. His clients include The New York Times, Peloton, Converse, Teen Vogue, Pepsi, and Dipsea, but his visual voice first gained traction through personal projects. Posted to Instagram like visual diary entries, these self-initiated pieces soon caught the attention of like-minded brands seeking a similar honesty and intensity. "The series Shapes and Flesh, these collages, shapes, sometimes mixed with type, were inspired by my queer life. I wanted to translate those experiences into abstract visuals," he explains. "The same goes for my Words Are Images typographical quotes. Words have a strong visual impact, and I wanted to explore that." Ionut's is an instinctive, emotion-led approach shaped by more than a decade of exploration. Originally trained in industrial design at the Marin Sorescu Art High School in Craiova, Ionut later studied graphic arts at the National Art and Design University in Bucharest, where he would go on to co-teach illustration and lettering classes alongside professor Stela Lie. The two remain close collaborators through Romania's Illustrator's Club, which is a creative community from which Ionut still draws inspiration. "Europe and Romania have a more experimental approach to visual culture in general. There are a lot of indie artistic festivals and platforms that play more and explore interesting ways of storytelling," he says. "I'm part of the Illustrator's Club Romania, and we have members in there with very unique, experimental voices." While his early influences included British illustrators Marion Deuchars and Sara Fanelli, a move to New York helped sharpen Ionut's visual style, stripping it back and simplifying the language but dialling up the emotional directness. Bold colour, graphic forms, and a preference for hand-crafted imperfection became key to his work, whether for print, editorial, or branding. "It's important to me that you can feel the human touch. Even if it's a final digital piece, I want it to have that emotion," he says. For a Dipsea cover, for instance, the ink-drawn type was sketched on large sheets of paper before being digitised. "The computer can't always capture the spontaneity, the energy, the roughness. I like seeing that imperfection." It's a philosophy that shaped his recent award-winning work, too. His recent American Illustration win celebrated a collage and type piece that plays with balance, boldness and visual rhythm – a kind of structured chaos that invites interpretation. This blend of freedom and form is what makes Ionut's output feel both striking and sincere. Beyond the craft, it's the message that always matters most for Ionut. From collages on queer identity to affirming typographic statements on confidence and self-worth, his illustrations often speak directly to viewers' emotional states. That connection is part of the goal. "I want to inspire and motivate people," he says. "I want them to feel, react, reflect and stay with the artwork for a bit, even if it's just a short moment. That makes me happy. That means the message came across." He recalls messages from strangers who've seen his work and felt lifted or comforted by the sentiment. "It goes beyond aesthetics and creative craft," he adds. "Sometimes we just need to hear something or see it in order to feel better." That personal resonance translates into his commercial work, too. Ionut's ability to channel emotional and cultural themes has led to collaborations with brands that value not just good design but meaningful storytelling. From feminist and sex-positive narratives at Thinx and Dipsea to identity-affirming work for Hello Mr. magazine, the thread between personal and professional remains strong. "Queer themes, identity, sexuality, feminism, motivation — these are important to the clients I've worked with, and I was fortunate to be able to come in and express those things to a wider audience," he says. Of course, Ionut's process can differ with each project. Editorial and personal projects might be led by instinct and reflection, but campaigns and branding briefs often require strategic alignment, mood boards, deck presentations, and collaborative iteration. Still, Ionut welcomes the structure, especially when it allows space for meaning. "I've learned to enjoy the creative journey," he says. "The most important thing is working with a good team toward a common goal: to make something great and meaningful that makes you feel, that makes you react." Outside of client work, Ionut has also been active as a mentor, educator, and awards judge, most recently for global platforms like The One Club. Teaching, he says, is a way to give back and keep learning. "I think we live in exciting but challenging times. Technology is moving fast, so I try to ground students to ask the right questions and think beyond trends," he says. "It made me really happy to see some using analogue mediums in really experimental ways. There's still so much potential in that." For someone who began his creative life before touching a computer, print remains a powerful medium. His limited-edition screen prints for Print Club London speak to that love: tactile, imperfect, handmade. "Print has tactility," he says. "You can touch it, hold it, experience it in a way digital can't replicate." Yet he isn't precious about tools. While Ionut still favours hand-drawn elements and lo-fi media, he's curious about technology's role, including animation and, tentatively, AI. "I want to animate my lettering, type and illustration pieces more and maybe explore sound," he says. "I've experimented a bit with Blender while keeping that handmade feeling. And I've used AI in subtle ways to enhance images or speed up production." But for Ionut, the tools are secondary. "Ultimately, it's just that – tools. What matters is the craft and the voice. That took me years to build, and I'm still evolving." As for what's next, Ionut is pretty open. "I want to let myself be surprised," he says. "I want to work with great people, be excited about the process, and be part of a community. Keep learning, keep exploring." That sense of curiosity and openness runs through all of Ionut's work. Whether working with global brands or drawing for himself, he returns to a simple, striking idea: creativity as self-expression, crafted with care and shared without shame. #collage #courage #craft #ionut #radulescu
    WWW.CREATIVEBOOM.COM
    Collage, courage and craft: Ionut Radulescu on identity, imperfection and the power of visual storytelling
    What does it mean to design from the inside out? For Ionut Radulescu, the answer lies in work that's unapologetically personal, often intimate, sometimes raw, and always resonant. Whether crafting bold editorial collages, expressive lettering or hand-drawn brand campaigns, the Romanian-born, Brooklyn-based designer and illustrator builds visual worlds with heart. "I think there's a certain power in being vulnerable, raw, authentic," he says. "And people can feel that – they can resonate and react to these visual messages." Ionut's creative language spans illustration, type, print and digital, often sitting at the intersection of identity and motivation. His clients include The New York Times, Peloton, Converse, Teen Vogue, Pepsi, and Dipsea, but his visual voice first gained traction through personal projects. Posted to Instagram like visual diary entries, these self-initiated pieces soon caught the attention of like-minded brands seeking a similar honesty and intensity. "The series Shapes and Flesh, these collages, shapes, sometimes mixed with type, were inspired by my queer life. I wanted to translate those experiences into abstract visuals," he explains. "The same goes for my Words Are Images typographical quotes. Words have a strong visual impact, and I wanted to explore that." Ionut's is an instinctive, emotion-led approach shaped by more than a decade of exploration. Originally trained in industrial design at the Marin Sorescu Art High School in Craiova, Ionut later studied graphic arts at the National Art and Design University in Bucharest, where he would go on to co-teach illustration and lettering classes alongside professor Stela Lie. The two remain close collaborators through Romania's Illustrator's Club, which is a creative community from which Ionut still draws inspiration. "Europe and Romania have a more experimental approach to visual culture in general. There are a lot of indie artistic festivals and platforms that play more and explore interesting ways of storytelling," he says. "I'm part of the Illustrator's Club Romania, and we have members in there with very unique, experimental voices." While his early influences included British illustrators Marion Deuchars and Sara Fanelli, a move to New York helped sharpen Ionut's visual style, stripping it back and simplifying the language but dialling up the emotional directness. Bold colour, graphic forms, and a preference for hand-crafted imperfection became key to his work, whether for print, editorial, or branding. "It's important to me that you can feel the human touch. Even if it's a final digital piece, I want it to have that emotion," he says. For a Dipsea cover, for instance, the ink-drawn type was sketched on large sheets of paper before being digitised. "The computer can't always capture the spontaneity, the energy, the roughness. I like seeing that imperfection." It's a philosophy that shaped his recent award-winning work, too. His recent American Illustration win celebrated a collage and type piece that plays with balance, boldness and visual rhythm – a kind of structured chaos that invites interpretation. This blend of freedom and form is what makes Ionut's output feel both striking and sincere. Beyond the craft, it's the message that always matters most for Ionut. From collages on queer identity to affirming typographic statements on confidence and self-worth, his illustrations often speak directly to viewers' emotional states. That connection is part of the goal. "I want to inspire and motivate people," he says. "I want them to feel, react, reflect and stay with the artwork for a bit, even if it's just a short moment. That makes me happy. That means the message came across." He recalls messages from strangers who've seen his work and felt lifted or comforted by the sentiment. "It goes beyond aesthetics and creative craft," he adds. "Sometimes we just need to hear something or see it in order to feel better." That personal resonance translates into his commercial work, too. Ionut's ability to channel emotional and cultural themes has led to collaborations with brands that value not just good design but meaningful storytelling. From feminist and sex-positive narratives at Thinx and Dipsea to identity-affirming work for Hello Mr. magazine, the thread between personal and professional remains strong. "Queer themes, identity, sexuality, feminism, motivation — these are important to the clients I've worked with, and I was fortunate to be able to come in and express those things to a wider audience," he says. Of course, Ionut's process can differ with each project. Editorial and personal projects might be led by instinct and reflection, but campaigns and branding briefs often require strategic alignment, mood boards, deck presentations, and collaborative iteration. Still, Ionut welcomes the structure, especially when it allows space for meaning. "I've learned to enjoy the creative journey," he says. "The most important thing is working with a good team toward a common goal: to make something great and meaningful that makes you feel, that makes you react." Outside of client work, Ionut has also been active as a mentor, educator, and awards judge, most recently for global platforms like The One Club. Teaching, he says, is a way to give back and keep learning. "I think we live in exciting but challenging times. Technology is moving fast, so I try to ground students to ask the right questions and think beyond trends," he says. "It made me really happy to see some using analogue mediums in really experimental ways. There's still so much potential in that." For someone who began his creative life before touching a computer, print remains a powerful medium. His limited-edition screen prints for Print Club London speak to that love: tactile, imperfect, handmade. "Print has tactility," he says. "You can touch it, hold it, experience it in a way digital can't replicate." Yet he isn't precious about tools. While Ionut still favours hand-drawn elements and lo-fi media, he's curious about technology's role, including animation and, tentatively, AI. "I want to animate my lettering, type and illustration pieces more and maybe explore sound," he says. "I've experimented a bit with Blender while keeping that handmade feeling. And I've used AI in subtle ways to enhance images or speed up production." But for Ionut, the tools are secondary. "Ultimately, it's just that – tools. What matters is the craft and the voice. That took me years to build, and I'm still evolving." As for what's next, Ionut is pretty open. "I want to let myself be surprised," he says. "I want to work with great people, be excited about the process, and be part of a community. Keep learning, keep exploring." That sense of curiosity and openness runs through all of Ionut's work. Whether working with global brands or drawing for himself, he returns to a simple, striking idea: creativity as self-expression, crafted with care and shared without shame.
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  • 12 Cool Games We Saw At PAX East, A Fond Farewell To Andor, And More Of The Week's Takes

    Start SlideshowStart SlideshowImage: Denkiworks / Polyhedra Games / Playdigious / Kotaku, Sandfall Interactive, Microsoft / Kotaku, Screenshot: Lucasfilm, Lost Saved Data_ / KotakuThis week, we share our boots-on-the-ground takeaways about some of the best games we saw at PAX East, bid the great Star Wars Andor a fond farewell, and talk about just how much it’s possible to get attached to a particular type of keyboard, even years after it stops being manufactured. Previous SlideNext SlideList slides12 Cool Games We Saw At PAX East 2025Image: Denkiworks / Polyhedra Games / Playdigious / KotakuThis year’s PAX East felt small. There were a few big names on the show floor, like Bandai Namco which was there showing off Elden Ring: NightreignBaldur’s Gate 3Read MorePrevious SlideNext SlideList slidesBaldur’s Gate 3 Director Predicted Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's Success At Last Year’s Game AwardsImage: Sandfall InteractiveClair Obscur: Expedition 33 came out of nowhere. Yes, it made waves at Microsoft’s Xbox showcase last summer. And true, it continued to look exceptional as it revealed its star-studded cast. But I don’t know that anyone expected it to get quite so much love as it has, and not just from diehard RPG fans. It’s currently the highest-rated game of 2025 on Metacritic and a possible frontrunner for Game of the Year at the Game Awards. No one could have predicted this. Except someone did: the director of Baldur’s Gate 3. - Ethan Gach Read MorePrevious SlideNext SlideList slidesI Just Murdered A Very Rare, Near-Worthless Keyboard And I Might Have To Stop Playing PC Games ForeverImage: Microsoft / KotakuI just threw half a pint of Cherry Pepsi Max across my keyboard. It was the penultimate keyboard I’ll ever be able to use. I’m down to my last one.I am very aware that I’m entirely wrong about keyboards. I am told, by just about every single person in my life, that I should be using a mechanical keyboard, with removable switches, clickity-clackity sounds, and probably enough neon lighting to open a nightclub. I do not. I use a Microsoft MultiMedia Keyboard 1.0A, with a blob of Blu-Tac over the Num Lock LED, and I have done so for as long as I can remember. And as of today, I’m down to my last one. When this one goes, that’s it. I’m done. - John Walker Read MorePrevious SlideNext SlideList slidesWe Say Goodbye To Andor, One Of The Best TV Shows Of 2025Screenshot: LucasfilmWell, we’ve reached the end of the road. Andor’s second and final season brought us 12 episodes ofexceptional Star Wars drama released in three-episode chunks, a format which served the structure of the show brilliantly, with each chunk representing one year in the four years leading up to Rogue One, but also meant that we didn’t get to savor the show for nearly as long. - Zack Zwiezen Read MorePrevious SlideNext SlideList slidesThis Lo-Fi No Man’s Sky Has You Exploring Incredible Alien WorldsScreenshot: Lost Saved Data_ / KotakuImagine a modest No Man’s Sky set in Proteus. That gets you a long way toward understanding the splendid Miro, both in style and substance. This is a vast game of exploring planets, combined with a solid sci-fi storyline told to you as you progress, all presented in super-lo-fi graphics that allow everything to feel significantly more organic. - John Walker Read More
    #cool #games #saw #pax #east
    12 Cool Games We Saw At PAX East, A Fond Farewell To Andor, And More Of The Week's Takes
    Start SlideshowStart SlideshowImage: Denkiworks / Polyhedra Games / Playdigious / Kotaku, Sandfall Interactive, Microsoft / Kotaku, Screenshot: Lucasfilm, Lost Saved Data_ / KotakuThis week, we share our boots-on-the-ground takeaways about some of the best games we saw at PAX East, bid the great Star Wars Andor a fond farewell, and talk about just how much it’s possible to get attached to a particular type of keyboard, even years after it stops being manufactured. Previous SlideNext SlideList slides12 Cool Games We Saw At PAX East 2025Image: Denkiworks / Polyhedra Games / Playdigious / KotakuThis year’s PAX East felt small. There were a few big names on the show floor, like Bandai Namco which was there showing off Elden Ring: NightreignBaldur’s Gate 3Read MorePrevious SlideNext SlideList slidesBaldur’s Gate 3 Director Predicted Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's Success At Last Year’s Game AwardsImage: Sandfall InteractiveClair Obscur: Expedition 33 came out of nowhere. Yes, it made waves at Microsoft’s Xbox showcase last summer. And true, it continued to look exceptional as it revealed its star-studded cast. But I don’t know that anyone expected it to get quite so much love as it has, and not just from diehard RPG fans. It’s currently the highest-rated game of 2025 on Metacritic and a possible frontrunner for Game of the Year at the Game Awards. No one could have predicted this. Except someone did: the director of Baldur’s Gate 3. - Ethan Gach Read MorePrevious SlideNext SlideList slidesI Just Murdered A Very Rare, Near-Worthless Keyboard And I Might Have To Stop Playing PC Games ForeverImage: Microsoft / KotakuI just threw half a pint of Cherry Pepsi Max across my keyboard. It was the penultimate keyboard I’ll ever be able to use. I’m down to my last one.I am very aware that I’m entirely wrong about keyboards. I am told, by just about every single person in my life, that I should be using a mechanical keyboard, with removable switches, clickity-clackity sounds, and probably enough neon lighting to open a nightclub. I do not. I use a Microsoft MultiMedia Keyboard 1.0A, with a blob of Blu-Tac over the Num Lock LED, and I have done so for as long as I can remember. And as of today, I’m down to my last one. When this one goes, that’s it. I’m done. - John Walker Read MorePrevious SlideNext SlideList slidesWe Say Goodbye To Andor, One Of The Best TV Shows Of 2025Screenshot: LucasfilmWell, we’ve reached the end of the road. Andor’s second and final season brought us 12 episodes ofexceptional Star Wars drama released in three-episode chunks, a format which served the structure of the show brilliantly, with each chunk representing one year in the four years leading up to Rogue One, but also meant that we didn’t get to savor the show for nearly as long. - Zack Zwiezen Read MorePrevious SlideNext SlideList slidesThis Lo-Fi No Man’s Sky Has You Exploring Incredible Alien WorldsScreenshot: Lost Saved Data_ / KotakuImagine a modest No Man’s Sky set in Proteus. That gets you a long way toward understanding the splendid Miro, both in style and substance. This is a vast game of exploring planets, combined with a solid sci-fi storyline told to you as you progress, all presented in super-lo-fi graphics that allow everything to feel significantly more organic. - John Walker Read More #cool #games #saw #pax #east
    KOTAKU.COM
    12 Cool Games We Saw At PAX East, A Fond Farewell To Andor, And More Of The Week's Takes
    Start SlideshowStart SlideshowImage: Denkiworks / Polyhedra Games / Playdigious / Kotaku, Sandfall Interactive, Microsoft / Kotaku, Screenshot: Lucasfilm, Lost Saved Data_ / KotakuThis week, we share our boots-on-the-ground takeaways about some of the best games we saw at PAX East, bid the great Star Wars Andor a fond farewell, and talk about just how much it’s possible to get attached to a particular type of keyboard, even years after it stops being manufactured. Previous SlideNext SlideList slides12 Cool Games We Saw At PAX East 2025Image: Denkiworks / Polyhedra Games / Playdigious / KotakuThis year’s PAX East felt small. There were a few big names on the show floor, like Bandai Namco which was there showing off Elden Ring: NightreignBaldur’s Gate 3Read MorePrevious SlideNext SlideList slidesBaldur’s Gate 3 Director Predicted Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's Success At Last Year’s Game AwardsImage: Sandfall InteractiveClair Obscur: Expedition 33 came out of nowhere. Yes, it made waves at Microsoft’s Xbox showcase last summer. And true, it continued to look exceptional as it revealed its star-studded cast. But I don’t know that anyone expected it to get quite so much love as it has, and not just from diehard RPG fans. It’s currently the highest-rated game of 2025 on Metacritic and a possible frontrunner for Game of the Year at the Game Awards. No one could have predicted this. Except someone did: the director of Baldur’s Gate 3. - Ethan Gach Read MorePrevious SlideNext SlideList slidesI Just Murdered A Very Rare, Near-Worthless Keyboard And I Might Have To Stop Playing PC Games ForeverImage: Microsoft / KotakuI just threw half a pint of Cherry Pepsi Max across my keyboard. It was the penultimate keyboard I’ll ever be able to use. I’m down to my last one.I am very aware that I’m entirely wrong about keyboards. I am told, by just about every single person in my life, that I should be using a mechanical keyboard, with removable switches, clickity-clackity sounds, and probably enough neon lighting to open a nightclub. I do not. I use a Microsoft MultiMedia Keyboard 1.0A, with a blob of Blu-Tac over the Num Lock LED, and I have done so for as long as I can remember. And as of today, I’m down to my last one. When this one goes, that’s it. I’m done. - John Walker Read MorePrevious SlideNext SlideList slidesWe Say Goodbye To Andor, One Of The Best TV Shows Of 2025Screenshot: LucasfilmWell, we’ve reached the end of the road. Andor’s second and final season brought us 12 episodes of (mostly) exceptional Star Wars drama released in three-episode chunks, a format which served the structure of the show brilliantly, with each chunk representing one year in the four years leading up to Rogue One, but also meant that we didn’t get to savor the show for nearly as long. - Zack Zwiezen Read MorePrevious SlideNext SlideList slidesThis Lo-Fi No Man’s Sky Has You Exploring Incredible Alien WorldsScreenshot: Lost Saved Data_ / KotakuImagine a modest No Man’s Sky set in Proteus. That gets you a long way toward understanding the splendid Miro, both in style and substance. This is a vast game of exploring planets, combined with a solid sci-fi storyline told to you as you progress, all presented in super-lo-fi graphics that allow everything to feel significantly more organic. - John Walker Read More
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  • The official pre-painted Baldur's Gate 3 minis are here, and seem to have succeeded in stealth roll against the quality assurance

    Paroni
    Member

    Dec 17, 2020

    4,769

    Expectation:

    Reality:

    There has also been a documented case of a headless Shadowheart, without a doubt a victim of very vicious paintbrush.

    News on the subject:

    Baldur's Gate 3 companions got official D&D minis, and I am casting Vicious Mockery because what in the Nine Hells is this

    Gale, you feeling all right?

    www.gamesradar.com

    The Baldur's Gate 3 cast got a new set of pre-painted minis and—oh, oh no, oh no no no

    Maybe the mind flayer tadpoles finally got to 'em.

    www.pcgamer.com

    Paint a lock if old. 

    MangoUltz
    "This guy are sick"
    Member

    Mar 24, 2019

    4,087

    Oof. Brutal paint job.
     

    hydro94530
    Chicken Chaser
    Member

    Oct 27, 2017

    8,159

    Bay Area

    Man those are butt ugly lol.
     

    nsilvias
    Member

    Oct 25, 2017

    29,963

    whose kid did they pay to paint these?
     

    Jawmuncher
    Crisis Dino
    Moderator

    Oct 25, 2017

    44,753

    Ibis Island

    Got two of these for a friend, sadly we did not get any of the main cast. The paint jobs on them weren't this bad though.
     

    tapdancingFreak
    Member

    Dec 12, 2017

    4,854

    Charlotte, NC

    Lmfao!
     

    Nostalgic Feeling
    Member

    Oct 19, 2024

    511

    LMAO
     

    y0shizawa
    Member

    May 3, 2021

    635

    Good lord that's awful
     

    MadJosh04
    Member

    Nov 9, 2022

    2,734

    Good lord that's bad lol
     

    Foolhardy
    Member

    May 4, 2024

    3,301

    Pre-painted paired with D&D Minis have long been a recipe for hilarity and I am so happy the tradition has continued.
     

    Derkon
    Member

    Oct 25, 2017

    3,609

    yikes
     

    MadMod
    Member

    Dec 4, 2017

    4,791

    Like a 5 year old painted them from their mums nail polish draw.
     

    onibirdo
    Member

    Dec 9, 2020

    3,559

     

    Pepsimaaan
    Member

    Oct 20, 2023

    757

    Shadowheart is missing her head in the packaged picture.....
     

    LewieP
    Member

    Oct 26, 2017

    19,790

    The smart move here for Larian would be to immediately 3D scan these figures and then add them to the game as characters.
     

    Sai
    Prophet of Truth
    The Fallen

    Oct 25, 2017

    6,977

    Chicago

    holy lol. incredible work.
     

    shodgson8
    Shinra Employee
    Member

    Aug 22, 2018

    5,233

    EDIT: Ninja'd 

    Spacejaws
    "This guy are sick" of the One Winged Slayer
    Member

    Oct 27, 2017

    8,828

    Scotland

    Yi-fucking-ikes

    Top is the press release. Bottom is the pic from the store webpage. Something went wrong here lol. 

    Banjo_
    Member

    Mar 16, 2025

    64

    what have they done to my girl shadowheart
     

    jph139
    One Winged Slayer
    Member

    Oct 25, 2017

    15,666

    Hoenstly, that's par for the course with pre-painted mass produced plastic minis - I feel like the quality standards have dropped considerably over the past 10-20 years. Back in the day you'd be spending -2 per mini and they'd look consistently good. Not hand-painted quality, but solid. Now to get anything near quality it's like a mini? Maybe?Like, I used to play Heroscape, and the Master Set with 30 miniatures and a shitton of terrain was only The rebooted version that came out last year is 20 unpainted miniatures and like half the terrain for or the version with painted minis for It's crazy.

    I've just learned to settle for unpainted. 

    Takamura-San
    Member

    Oct 25, 2017

    1,235

    I haven't opened mine, and just looked up close and ooffff lol
     

    Yerffej
    Prophet of Regret
    Member

    Oct 25, 2017

    29,351

    Poor Gale had his eyes scooped out. Shame.
     

    Feral Gingy
    Member

    Oct 30, 2017

    434

    Finland

    Absolutely disgusting!
     

    DanteMenethil
    Member

    Oct 25, 2017

    8,972

    FIFTY BUCKS HAHAHA
     

    Nostalgic Feeling
    Member

    Oct 19, 2024

    511

    It's Tomb Raider all over again
     

    Takamura-San
    Member

    Oct 25, 2017

    1,235

    Here's mine
    View:
     

    Harmen
    Member

    Aug 30, 2023

    1,372

    Hahahaha, I love it
     

    Brawly Likes to Brawl
    Member

    Oct 25, 2017

    16,464

    Ryohei Suzuki's bedroom

    Boulder's Gape 3
     

    DiceHands
    Member

    Oct 27, 2017

    4,783

    someone tell them to thin their paints before applying
     

    Apath
    Member

    Oct 25, 2017

    3,493

    That is worse than fast food promo pics vs the real thing. Hopefully they are giving refunds.
     

    Jubilant Duck
    Member

    Oct 21, 2022

    9,189

    It's possibly confirmation bias but I don't think I've ever seen a mass-market pre-painted figure line that wasn't messy as fuck? There's just no way to ensure the quality across so many figures.
     

    SpellSwordFoxx
    Member

    Feb 27, 2025

    317

    whoever they paid to do the pain jobs really didn't give a fuck XD
     

    Ring Dings and Pepsi
    Member

    Jan 23, 2024

    1,537

    Spacejaws said:

    Yi-fucking-ikes

    Top is the press release. Bottom is the pic from the store webpage. Something went wrong here lol.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    The colors don't even remotely match, wow 

    OP

    OP

    Paroni
    Member

    Dec 17, 2020

    4,769

    DiceHands said:

    someone tell them to thin their paints before applying

    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    View:
     

    dreamfall
    Member

    Oct 25, 2017

    7,330

    Beyond hideous ! Paint job looks insane!
     

    Praxis
    Sausage Tycoon
    Member

    Oct 25, 2017

    8,141

    UK

    Shadowheart shall be avenged
     

    Anoregon
    Member

    Oct 25, 2017

    16,115

    texture and definition are crutches used by weak artists
     

    Alvis
    Saw the truth behind the copied door
    Member

    Oct 25, 2017

    12,089

    EU

    That's pathetic lmao
     

    Mandos
    Member

    Nov 27, 2017

    39,102

    Welcome to prepainted minis! This is why you do it yourself. Even if you can't do details you can do a fun shaded look
     

    Stabi
    Member

    Oct 25, 2017

    2,033

    France / san francisco

    Tsk'va!

    My most regretted purchase ever. I'm first time i bought dnd pre painted because the press release pictures looked amazing. Never again. 
    #official #prepainted #baldur039s #gate #minis
    The official pre-painted Baldur's Gate 3 minis are here, and seem to have succeeded in stealth roll against the quality assurance
    Paroni Member Dec 17, 2020 4,769 Expectation: Reality: There has also been a documented case of a headless Shadowheart, without a doubt a victim of very vicious paintbrush. News on the subject: Baldur's Gate 3 companions got official D&D minis, and I am casting Vicious Mockery because what in the Nine Hells is this Gale, you feeling all right? www.gamesradar.com The Baldur's Gate 3 cast got a new set of pre-painted minis and—oh, oh no, oh no no no Maybe the mind flayer tadpoles finally got to 'em. www.pcgamer.com Paint a lock if old.  MangoUltz "This guy are sick" Member Mar 24, 2019 4,087 Oof. Brutal paint job.   hydro94530 Chicken Chaser Member Oct 27, 2017 8,159 Bay Area Man those are butt ugly lol.   nsilvias Member Oct 25, 2017 29,963 whose kid did they pay to paint these?   Jawmuncher Crisis Dino Moderator Oct 25, 2017 44,753 Ibis Island Got two of these for a friend, sadly we did not get any of the main cast. The paint jobs on them weren't this bad though.   tapdancingFreak Member Dec 12, 2017 4,854 Charlotte, NC Lmfao!   Nostalgic Feeling Member Oct 19, 2024 511 LMAO 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣   y0shizawa Member May 3, 2021 635 Good lord that's awful   MadJosh04 Member Nov 9, 2022 2,734 Good lord that's bad lol   Foolhardy Member May 4, 2024 3,301 Pre-painted paired with D&D Minis have long been a recipe for hilarity and I am so happy the tradition has continued.   Derkon Member Oct 25, 2017 3,609 yikes   MadMod Member Dec 4, 2017 4,791 Like a 5 year old painted them from their mums nail polish draw.   onibirdo Member Dec 9, 2020 3,559   Pepsimaaan Member Oct 20, 2023 757 Shadowheart is missing her head in the packaged picture.....   LewieP Member Oct 26, 2017 19,790 The smart move here for Larian would be to immediately 3D scan these figures and then add them to the game as characters.   Sai Prophet of Truth The Fallen Oct 25, 2017 6,977 Chicago holy lol. incredible work.   shodgson8 Shinra Employee Member Aug 22, 2018 5,233 EDIT: Ninja'd  Spacejaws "This guy are sick" of the One Winged Slayer Member Oct 27, 2017 8,828 Scotland Yi-fucking-ikes Top is the press release. Bottom is the pic from the store webpage. Something went wrong here lol.  Banjo_ Member Mar 16, 2025 64 what have they done to my girl shadowheart 😭   jph139 One Winged Slayer Member Oct 25, 2017 15,666 Hoenstly, that's par for the course with pre-painted mass produced plastic minis - I feel like the quality standards have dropped considerably over the past 10-20 years. Back in the day you'd be spending -2 per mini and they'd look consistently good. Not hand-painted quality, but solid. Now to get anything near quality it's like a mini? Maybe?Like, I used to play Heroscape, and the Master Set with 30 miniatures and a shitton of terrain was only The rebooted version that came out last year is 20 unpainted miniatures and like half the terrain for or the version with painted minis for It's crazy. I've just learned to settle for unpainted.  Takamura-San Member Oct 25, 2017 1,235 I haven't opened mine, and just looked up close and ooffff lol   Yerffej Prophet of Regret Member Oct 25, 2017 29,351 Poor Gale had his eyes scooped out. Shame.   Feral Gingy Member Oct 30, 2017 434 Finland Absolutely disgusting!   DanteMenethil Member Oct 25, 2017 8,972 FIFTY BUCKS HAHAHA   Nostalgic Feeling Member Oct 19, 2024 511 It's Tomb Raider all over again   Takamura-San Member Oct 25, 2017 1,235 Here's mine View:   Harmen Member Aug 30, 2023 1,372 Hahahaha, I love it   Brawly Likes to Brawl Member Oct 25, 2017 16,464 Ryohei Suzuki's bedroom Boulder's Gape 3   DiceHands Member Oct 27, 2017 4,783 someone tell them to thin their paints before applying   Apath Member Oct 25, 2017 3,493 That is worse than fast food promo pics vs the real thing. Hopefully they are giving refunds.   Jubilant Duck Member Oct 21, 2022 9,189 It's possibly confirmation bias but I don't think I've ever seen a mass-market pre-painted figure line that wasn't messy as fuck? There's just no way to ensure the quality across so many figures.   SpellSwordFoxx Member Feb 27, 2025 317 whoever they paid to do the pain jobs really didn't give a fuck XD   Ring Dings and Pepsi Member Jan 23, 2024 1,537 Spacejaws said: Yi-fucking-ikes Top is the press release. Bottom is the pic from the store webpage. Something went wrong here lol. Click to expand... Click to shrink... The colors don't even remotely match, wow  OP OP Paroni Member Dec 17, 2020 4,769 DiceHands said: someone tell them to thin their paints before applying Click to expand... Click to shrink... View:   dreamfall Member Oct 25, 2017 7,330 Beyond hideous ! Paint job looks insane!   Praxis Sausage Tycoon Member Oct 25, 2017 8,141 UK Shadowheart shall be avenged   Anoregon Member Oct 25, 2017 16,115 texture and definition are crutches used by weak artists   Alvis Saw the truth behind the copied door Member Oct 25, 2017 12,089 EU That's pathetic lmao   Mandos Member Nov 27, 2017 39,102 Welcome to prepainted minis! This is why you do it yourself. Even if you can't do details you can do a fun shaded look   Stabi Member Oct 25, 2017 2,033 France / san francisco Tsk'va! My most regretted purchase ever. I'm first time i bought dnd pre painted because the press release pictures looked amazing. Never again.  #official #prepainted #baldur039s #gate #minis
    WWW.RESETERA.COM
    The official pre-painted Baldur's Gate 3 minis are here, and seem to have succeeded in stealth roll against the quality assurance
    Paroni Member Dec 17, 2020 4,769 Expectation: Reality: There has also been a documented case of a headless Shadowheart, without a doubt a victim of very vicious paintbrush. News on the subject: Baldur's Gate 3 companions got official $50 D&D minis, and I am casting Vicious Mockery because what in the Nine Hells is this Gale, you feeling all right? www.gamesradar.com The Baldur's Gate 3 cast got a new set of pre-painted minis and—oh, oh no, oh no no no Maybe the mind flayer tadpoles finally got to 'em. www.pcgamer.com Paint a lock if old.  MangoUltz "This guy are sick" Member Mar 24, 2019 4,087 Oof. Brutal paint job.   hydro94530 Chicken Chaser Member Oct 27, 2017 8,159 Bay Area Man those are butt ugly lol.   nsilvias Member Oct 25, 2017 29,963 whose kid did they pay to paint these?   Jawmuncher Crisis Dino Moderator Oct 25, 2017 44,753 Ibis Island Got two of these for a friend, sadly we did not get any of the main cast. The paint jobs on them weren't this bad though.   tapdancingFreak Member Dec 12, 2017 4,854 Charlotte, NC Lmfao!   Nostalgic Feeling Member Oct 19, 2024 511 LMAO 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣   y0shizawa Member May 3, 2021 635 Good lord that's awful   MadJosh04 Member Nov 9, 2022 2,734 Good lord that's bad lol   Foolhardy Member May 4, 2024 3,301 Pre-painted paired with D&D Minis have long been a recipe for hilarity and I am so happy the tradition has continued.   Derkon Member Oct 25, 2017 3,609 yikes   MadMod Member Dec 4, 2017 4,791 Like a 5 year old painted them from their mums nail polish draw.   onibirdo Member Dec 9, 2020 3,559   Pepsimaaan Member Oct 20, 2023 757 Shadowheart is missing her head in the packaged picture.....   LewieP Member Oct 26, 2017 19,790 The smart move here for Larian would be to immediately 3D scan these figures and then add them to the game as characters.   Sai Prophet of Truth The Fallen Oct 25, 2017 6,977 Chicago holy lol. incredible work.   shodgson8 Shinra Employee Member Aug 22, 2018 5,233 EDIT: Ninja'd  Spacejaws "This guy are sick" of the One Winged Slayer Member Oct 27, 2017 8,828 Scotland Yi-fucking-ikes Top is the press release. Bottom is the pic from the store webpage. Something went wrong here lol.  Banjo_ Member Mar 16, 2025 64 what have they done to my girl shadowheart 😭   jph139 One Winged Slayer Member Oct 25, 2017 15,666 Hoenstly, that's par for the course with pre-painted mass produced plastic minis - I feel like the quality standards have dropped considerably over the past 10-20 years. Back in the day you'd be spending $1-2 per mini and they'd look consistently good. Not hand-painted quality, but solid. Now to get anything near quality it's like $10 a mini? Maybe? (And with D&D minis you're spending that much and still getting garbage.) Like, I used to play Heroscape, and the Master Set with 30 miniatures and a shitton of terrain was only $40. The rebooted version that came out last year is 20 unpainted miniatures and like half the terrain for $125... or the version with painted minis for $225. It's crazy. I've just learned to settle for unpainted.  Takamura-San Member Oct 25, 2017 1,235 I haven't opened mine, and just looked up close and ooffff lol   Yerffej Prophet of Regret Member Oct 25, 2017 29,351 Poor Gale had his eyes scooped out. Shame.   Feral Gingy Member Oct 30, 2017 434 Finland Absolutely disgusting!   DanteMenethil Member Oct 25, 2017 8,972 FIFTY BUCKS HAHAHA   Nostalgic Feeling Member Oct 19, 2024 511 It's Tomb Raider all over again   Takamura-San Member Oct 25, 2017 1,235 Here's mine View: https://imgur.com/a/dzkTguT   Harmen Member Aug 30, 2023 1,372 Hahahaha, I love it   Brawly Likes to Brawl Member Oct 25, 2017 16,464 Ryohei Suzuki's bedroom Boulder's Gape 3   DiceHands Member Oct 27, 2017 4,783 someone tell them to thin their paints before applying   Apath Member Oct 25, 2017 3,493 That is worse than fast food promo pics vs the real thing. Hopefully they are giving refunds.   Jubilant Duck Member Oct 21, 2022 9,189 It's possibly confirmation bias but I don't think I've ever seen a mass-market pre-painted figure line that wasn't messy as fuck? There's just no way to ensure the quality across so many figures.   SpellSwordFoxx Member Feb 27, 2025 317 whoever they paid to do the pain jobs really didn't give a fuck XD   Ring Dings and Pepsi Member Jan 23, 2024 1,537 Spacejaws said: Yi-fucking-ikes Top is the press release. Bottom is the pic from the store webpage. Something went wrong here lol. Click to expand... Click to shrink... The colors don't even remotely match, wow  OP OP Paroni Member Dec 17, 2020 4,769 DiceHands said: someone tell them to thin their paints before applying Click to expand... Click to shrink... View: https://youtu.be/m3p_VuPIS2c   dreamfall Member Oct 25, 2017 7,330 Beyond hideous ! Paint job looks insane!   Praxis Sausage Tycoon Member Oct 25, 2017 8,141 UK Shadowheart shall be avenged   Anoregon Member Oct 25, 2017 16,115 texture and definition are crutches used by weak artists   Alvis Saw the truth behind the copied door Member Oct 25, 2017 12,089 EU That's pathetic lmao   Mandos Member Nov 27, 2017 39,102 Welcome to prepainted minis! This is why you do it yourself. Even if you can't do details you can do a fun shaded look   Stabi Member Oct 25, 2017 2,033 France / san francisco Tsk'va! My most regretted purchase ever. I'm first time i bought dnd pre painted because the press release pictures looked amazing. Never again. 
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  • #333;">Why one obscure app could help crumble Meta’s empire
    If the question, “Who is Meta’s biggest rival?” were on a Family Feud survey, TikTok would likely be the winning answer.
    In the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust case against the Facebook and Instagram owner, the government’s response probably wouldn’t even make the top 10: a small blockchain-based platform called MeWe.
    MeWe looks a fair amount like Facebook at first glance, except that you make an account using the Frequency blockchain — which the company explains is a decentralized protocol that lets you move your social connections to other (mostly hypothetical at this point) apps that support Frequency.
    The company says 20 million users have joined, but when I make a MeWe account and log in, I scroll through my autopopulated feed and think, “Who are these people?” I search for a few of my Verge colleagues, figuring if anyone has tried this obscure app, it might be one of them, but I come up short.
    I try some public figures: Tim Cook? Jeff Bezos? Mark Zuckerberg? There are some accounts with these names, but it seems unlikely they’re the ones I have in mind.The claim that MeWe is a closer competitor to Facebook and Instagram than TikTok might be baffling if you’re not steeped in antitrust law or the specifics of the FTC’s complaint.
    Meta CEO Zuckerberg testified he hadn’t even heard of the app before this case was filed.
    But the FTC has spent the past three weeks laying out its logic.
    Using Meta’s own internal discussions about how it views itself and its competition, it says that Meta has historically, and to this day, competed in a market for connecting with friends and family online — and when it saw its dominance in that space threatened by the rise of Instagram and WhatsApp, it bought them to squash the competition.Whether Judge James Boasberg buys this could determine who wins the case — if the FTC can also show that Meta acted illegally through its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp to solidify its alleged monopoly power.Antitrust law is supposed to ensure fair competition, which usually means that people have options for a useful class of goods and services — what’s known as a relevant market.
    The FTC says that here, that market is “personal social networking services,” or PSNs: spaces where a core purpose is helping people connect with friends and family.
    While there are many online platforms that overlap with Meta’s services, the FTC argues that virtually none of them serve that market.
    If internet users want to find and hang out with people they know — as opposed to, say, watching influencers or making work connections — then it’s Mark Zuckerberg’s way or… in the government’s telling, Snapchat, BeReal, and MeWe.
    Beyond that core definition, PSNs have some other unique features and norms: The apps feature a social graph of users’ friends and family connections, as opposed to mapping users primarily based on their interests.
    Users can look up and find people they know in real life.
    And they come to the app to share personal updates with those people.Facebook and Instagram increasingly display videos and photos from influencers and celebrities, but the FTC argues personal social networking remains a core service.
    It used Instagram chief Adam Mosseri’s testimony to most clearly make this point.
    In that testimony as well as posts to his own Instagram account, Mosseri said that it’s still important for the app to connect users with their friends.
    The FTC argues that even if that use case is a smaller portion of what Meta’s apps do these days, it’s still a significant need users have that can virtually only be fulfilled by Facebook and Instagram.
    While someone might connect with people they know in real life on LinkedIn, they likely won’t primarily share personal updates there.
    And while they also could follow and interact with people they know on TikTok or YouTube, they’re more likely to passively watch videos from people they don’t.Meta says this is an entirely wrong way to think about it.
    Social media platforms compete for users’ time and attention, so whether a particular app is squarely aimed at so-called friends and family sharing is beside the point.
    Facebook and Instagram have evolved to show more content from people like influencers, shifting further from the use case the FTC says Meta has illegally dominated.
    The company has already landed some important points that could help its case, and it will get more time to push back on the agency’s framing when it calls its own witnesses in the coming weeks.But as the FTC’s case-in-chief continues into its fifth week, its argument for Meta’s dominance is becoming a lot clearer.Why do people use Facebook?When defining a market, each side is trying to answer a key question: why are people choosing one particular company’s product? A lot of goods and services compete with each other in some sense, but this doesn’t mean they serve the same niche.
    In the case of sodas, for example, “you could buy lemon-lime, but many people would never see that as a close substitute for buying Coke or Pepsi,” says George Washington Law professor and former FTC Chair Bill Kovacic.
    In the tech world, Netflix has claimed its biggest competitors are Fortnite and sleep — but those comparisons probably wouldn’t stand up in court.The FTC says that outside of Facebook and Instagram, only apps like Snapchat and MeWe can fulfill a users’ desire to broadcast personal updates with friends and family online.
    To make its case, it brought in a string of executives from other social media companies to explain why their apps can’t quite scratch the same itch for users.
    Strava’s former VP of connected partnerships Mateo Ortega testified that sure, users of the fitness-tracking social media app could share baby photos on the platform, but they probably wouldn’t unless it was in a running stroller.
    “It’s all about fitness, and while you can post other stuff, it just doesn’t seem as relevant,” he said.
    “You could buy lemon-lime, but many people would never see that as a close substitute for buying Coke or Pepsi”Pinterest’s former head of user growth Julia Roberts testified that users who come to Pinterest “expecting it to be like other social media apps … tend to be confused about how to use the product.” That’s because the app is so much not about connecting with other people that it works much differently from other social media platforms.
    Pinterest is more about finding things users are interested in, she said, so “following is not a big part of the Pinterest experience.”TikTok has a tab where users can watch videos from their friends — identified as people who mutually follow each other.
    But head of operations Adam Presser testified only about 1 percent of videos watched on the platform are there.
    The company doesn’t think of itself as competing with Meta’s apps for personal social networking, he testified.
    And even though side-by-side screenshots of TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts look identical, Presser said, “when you click out of this view for these other platforms, you would get to essentially what I think of as their core business,” which for Instagram, includes a feed and stories that often contain at least some content from family and friends.At times, Meta’s cross-examination of rival company executives showed the limits of apps’ similarities.
    When questioning Apple director of product marketing Ronak Shah, Meta sought to show that group chats in Apple’s messaging feature could serve as a social media feed for friends and family sharing.
    But Shah testified that feed would be limited to 32 people at most, and users can’t just look up each others’ profiles like they would on social platforms.
    Still, Meta pointed out, Apple’s messages app is listed under social media on its own app store.However, Meta also made important arguments about why the judge should question the FTC’s framing.
    It pointed out that some documents from TikTok and YouTube owner Google claiming their products are very different from Meta’s were submitted to foreign officials to try to avoid getting drafted into potentially frustrating regulations.
    It also pointed out when TikTok briefly went dark in the US ahead of a (now-aborted) ban, users flocked to Meta apps, showing consumers see it as a substitute on at least some level.
    That’s because, Meta argued, competition for users is really about winning their time and attention.Companies can “sometimes make mistakes.
    They misjudge who their users are”But X VP of product Keith Coleman testified it’s not that useful to think about competition this way.
    Instead, “it’s much more helpful to understand what people are trying to accomplish in their lives and to try to help them accomplish that.” Under former CEO Jack Dorsey, then-Twitter leaned into focusing on news and users’ interests, Coleman testified, because that’s why people were coming to the platform.
    Coleman was later surprised at how his own website characterized the product in its help center as a “service for friends, family, and coworkers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent messages.” “I can’t believe that’s on the website,” he said.
    “That’s pretty wacky.”This point was “a caution that not everything a company writes down or says is necessarily decisive in establishing what the boundary of a market is,” Kovacic said.
    Companies can “sometimes make mistakes.
    They misjudge who their users are.”There are real ramifications for internet users here.
    Going back to Netflix’s comparisons, if the streaming video service went down, some people would probably be happy to play a video game or get a few hours of shut-eye instead.
    But others would be frustrated that they couldn’t watch a movie, which is why it’s good that Hulu, HBO, and Amazon Prime Video also exist.
    The FTC’s argument isn’t that Meta owns the only social apps on the internet, it’s that the company faces little competition for a service many people specifically want — so the fact that you probably don’t know anyone using MeWe is sort of the point.How will the judge decide?Ultimately, Boasberg’s market definition — whether it’s Meta’s, the FTC’s, or his own — will come down to a few things: how Meta views itself, how competitors see it, and his own intuition, says Kovacic.
    ”Notice how much the FTC has been questioning Meta witnesses on the basis of its own internal documents,” he says.
    “Does the story in the courtroom match the story of your own internal documents?” So far, the documents have shown that Meta has clocked that at least some portion of users come to its products to connect with family and friends, but also that the rise of TikTok has had it looking over its shoulder.
    In September 2020, Meta told its board that Instagram revenue would be “meaningfully lower” than planned in the second half of the fiscal year because TikTok was drawing users’ attention.
    But other internal documents have shown Meta’s well aware that at different points in time, users have come to its apps to connect with family and friends, and worriedly took note of other apps entering that space.
    In a 2018 presentation, Meta found that the highest percentage of surveyed users said they come to Facebook, Instagram, and Snap to “see daily casual moments” and “see special moments.” By contrast, users came to Twitter’s feed for news and YouTube’s for entertainment.
    And even as Instagram expands into entertainment, the FTC notes that it still advertises its sign-up page as a place to “see photos and videos from your friends.”“Instagram will always need to focus on friends”In a 2018 email, Zuckerberg told Mosseri that “Instagram will always need to focus on friends.” And even though a lot has changed in the social media landscape since then, Mosseri testified that to this day on the app, “friends are an important part of the experience.” Even though users may share fewer of their own updates on Facebook and Instagram, Mosseri admitted that two friends talking in the comments of a public figure’s post counts as an interaction between friends — and one that Instagram actively tries to facilitate.Meta has argued that this special focus on friends and family sharing makes up a shrinking portion of its offerings as it works to compete with fierce rivals like TikTok.
    But the FTC says it’s still significant enough to monopolize.
    It’s a scenario that came up in another major tech monopolization case, Kovacic says: the late-1990s lawsuit US v.
    Microsoft.
    In that case, Microsoft argued the Justice Department was ignoring how computing would soon move beyond the personal computer to the Internet of Things, meaning it couldn’t truly lock up the computing ecosystem as much as the government alleged.“Judge Jackson in the Microsoft case said, yeah, those things are happening, but not happening fast enough to deny you real market power in this PC and laptop-based market that the Justice Department is emphasizing,” Kovacic says.Still, he adds, a market niche can at some point become so small that it’s no longer significant in the eyes of antitrust law.
    “You can have a process of change that ultimately renders the market segment unimportant,” he says.
    “And the hard task of analysis for the judge is to say, has it already happened?”See More:
    #666;">المصدر: https://www.theverge.com/antitrust/665308/meta-ftc-antitrust-trial-market-definition-tiktok-mewe-snap" style="color: #0066cc; text-decoration: none;">www.theverge.com
    #0066cc;">#why #one #obscure #app #could #help #crumble #metas #empire #the #question #who #biggest #rival #were #family #feud #survey #tiktok #would #likely #winning #answerin #federal #trade #commissions #antitrust #case #against #facebook #and #instagram #owner #governments #response #probably #wouldnt #even #make #top #small #blockchainbased #platform #called #mewemewe #looks #fair #amount #like #first #glance #except #that #you #account #using #frequency #blockchain #which #company #explains #decentralized #protocol #lets #move #your #social #connections #other #mostly #hypothetical #this #point #apps #support #frequencythe #says #million #users #have #joined #but #when #mewe #log #scroll #through #autopopulated #feed #think #are #these #people #search #for #few #verge #colleagues #figuring #anyone #has #tried #might #them #come #shorti #try #some #public #figures #tim #cook #jeff #bezos #mark #zuckerberg #there #accounts #with #names #seems #unlikely #theyre #ones #mindthe 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#mewebeyond #definition #unique #features #norms #feature #graph #mapping #primarily #based #their #interestsusers #look #real #lifeand #share #updates #those #peoplefacebook #increasingly #display #videos #photos #from #celebrities #remains #serviceit #used #chief #adam #mosseris #testimony #most #clearly #pointin #well #posts #his #mosseri #said #still #important #friendsthe #use #smaller #portion #what #days #significant #need #only #fulfilled #instagramwhile #someone #life #linkedin #wont #thereand #while #follow #interact #youtube #more #passively #watch #dontmeta #entirely #wrong #itsocial #media #compete #time #attention #whether #particular #squarely #aimed #socalled #sharing #beside #pointfacebook #evolved #content #shifting #further #dominatedthe #already #landed #points #will #get #push #back #agencys #framing #calls #witnesses #coming #weeksbut #caseinchief #continues #into #fifth #week #argument #becoming #lot #clearerwhy #facebookwhen #defining #each #side #trying #answer 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#caution #everything #writes #down #necessarily #decisive #establishing #boundary #kovacic #saidcompanies #arethere #ramifications #heregoing #netflixs #streaming #video #happy #play #game #hours #shuteye #insteadbut #frustrated #couldnt #movie #good #hulu #hbo #amazon #prime #existthe #isnt #owns #faces #little #specifically #fact #dont #sort #pointhow #decideultimately #boasbergs #intuition #kovacicnotice #been #basis #saysdoes #story #courtroom #match #far #shown #clocked #had #looking #over #shoulderin #september #told #board #revenue #meaningfully #lower #planned #second #half #fiscal #year #drawing #attentionbut #aware #worriedly #took #note #entering #spacein #presentation #found #highest #percentage #surveyed #snap #daily #casual #moments #special #contrast #came #twitters #youtubes #entertainmentand #expands #entertainment #notes #advertises #signup #page #place #friendsinstagram #always #focus #friendsin #email #changed #landscape #since #experience #may #fewer #admitted #two #talking #comments #counts #interaction #between #actively #tries #facilitatemeta #makes #shrinking #offerings #fierce #rivals #tiktokbut #enough #monopolizeits #scenario #another #major #monopolization #late1990s #lawsuit #vmicrosoftin #microsoft #justice #department #ignoring #computing #soon #beyond #computer #meaning #truly #lock #ecosystem #government #allegedjudge #jackson #yeah #happening #fast #deny #power #laptopbased #emphasizing #saysstill #adds #niche #become #longer #eyes #lawyou #process #change #ultimately #renders #segment #unimportant #saysand #hard #task #analysis #happenedsee
    Why one obscure app could help crumble Meta’s empire
    If the question, “Who is Meta’s biggest rival?” were on a Family Feud survey, TikTok would likely be the winning answer. In the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust case against the Facebook and Instagram owner, the government’s response probably wouldn’t even make the top 10: a small blockchain-based platform called MeWe. MeWe looks a fair amount like Facebook at first glance, except that you make an account using the Frequency blockchain — which the company explains is a decentralized protocol that lets you move your social connections to other (mostly hypothetical at this point) apps that support Frequency. The company says 20 million users have joined, but when I make a MeWe account and log in, I scroll through my autopopulated feed and think, “Who are these people?” I search for a few of my Verge colleagues, figuring if anyone has tried this obscure app, it might be one of them, but I come up short. I try some public figures: Tim Cook? Jeff Bezos? Mark Zuckerberg? There are some accounts with these names, but it seems unlikely they’re the ones I have in mind.The claim that MeWe is a closer competitor to Facebook and Instagram than TikTok might be baffling if you’re not steeped in antitrust law or the specifics of the FTC’s complaint. Meta CEO Zuckerberg testified he hadn’t even heard of the app before this case was filed. But the FTC has spent the past three weeks laying out its logic. Using Meta’s own internal discussions about how it views itself and its competition, it says that Meta has historically, and to this day, competed in a market for connecting with friends and family online — and when it saw its dominance in that space threatened by the rise of Instagram and WhatsApp, it bought them to squash the competition.Whether Judge James Boasberg buys this could determine who wins the case — if the FTC can also show that Meta acted illegally through its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp to solidify its alleged monopoly power.Antitrust law is supposed to ensure fair competition, which usually means that people have options for a useful class of goods and services — what’s known as a relevant market. The FTC says that here, that market is “personal social networking services,” or PSNs: spaces where a core purpose is helping people connect with friends and family. While there are many online platforms that overlap with Meta’s services, the FTC argues that virtually none of them serve that market. If internet users want to find and hang out with people they know — as opposed to, say, watching influencers or making work connections — then it’s Mark Zuckerberg’s way or… in the government’s telling, Snapchat, BeReal, and MeWe. Beyond that core definition, PSNs have some other unique features and norms: The apps feature a social graph of users’ friends and family connections, as opposed to mapping users primarily based on their interests. Users can look up and find people they know in real life. And they come to the app to share personal updates with those people.Facebook and Instagram increasingly display videos and photos from influencers and celebrities, but the FTC argues personal social networking remains a core service. It used Instagram chief Adam Mosseri’s testimony to most clearly make this point. In that testimony as well as posts to his own Instagram account, Mosseri said that it’s still important for the app to connect users with their friends. The FTC argues that even if that use case is a smaller portion of what Meta’s apps do these days, it’s still a significant need users have that can virtually only be fulfilled by Facebook and Instagram. While someone might connect with people they know in real life on LinkedIn, they likely won’t primarily share personal updates there. And while they also could follow and interact with people they know on TikTok or YouTube, they’re more likely to passively watch videos from people they don’t.Meta says this is an entirely wrong way to think about it. Social media platforms compete for users’ time and attention, so whether a particular app is squarely aimed at so-called friends and family sharing is beside the point. Facebook and Instagram have evolved to show more content from people like influencers, shifting further from the use case the FTC says Meta has illegally dominated. The company has already landed some important points that could help its case, and it will get more time to push back on the agency’s framing when it calls its own witnesses in the coming weeks.But as the FTC’s case-in-chief continues into its fifth week, its argument for Meta’s dominance is becoming a lot clearer.Why do people use Facebook?When defining a market, each side is trying to answer a key question: why are people choosing one particular company’s product? A lot of goods and services compete with each other in some sense, but this doesn’t mean they serve the same niche. In the case of sodas, for example, “you could buy lemon-lime, but many people would never see that as a close substitute for buying Coke or Pepsi,” says George Washington Law professor and former FTC Chair Bill Kovacic. In the tech world, Netflix has claimed its biggest competitors are Fortnite and sleep — but those comparisons probably wouldn’t stand up in court.The FTC says that outside of Facebook and Instagram, only apps like Snapchat and MeWe can fulfill a users’ desire to broadcast personal updates with friends and family online. To make its case, it brought in a string of executives from other social media companies to explain why their apps can’t quite scratch the same itch for users. Strava’s former VP of connected partnerships Mateo Ortega testified that sure, users of the fitness-tracking social media app could share baby photos on the platform, but they probably wouldn’t unless it was in a running stroller. “It’s all about fitness, and while you can post other stuff, it just doesn’t seem as relevant,” he said. “You could buy lemon-lime, but many people would never see that as a close substitute for buying Coke or Pepsi”Pinterest’s former head of user growth Julia Roberts testified that users who come to Pinterest “expecting it to be like other social media apps … tend to be confused about how to use the product.” That’s because the app is so much not about connecting with other people that it works much differently from other social media platforms. Pinterest is more about finding things users are interested in, she said, so “following is not a big part of the Pinterest experience.”TikTok has a tab where users can watch videos from their friends — identified as people who mutually follow each other. But head of operations Adam Presser testified only about 1 percent of videos watched on the platform are there. The company doesn’t think of itself as competing with Meta’s apps for personal social networking, he testified. And even though side-by-side screenshots of TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts look identical, Presser said, “when you click out of this view for these other platforms, you would get to essentially what I think of as their core business,” which for Instagram, includes a feed and stories that often contain at least some content from family and friends.At times, Meta’s cross-examination of rival company executives showed the limits of apps’ similarities. When questioning Apple director of product marketing Ronak Shah, Meta sought to show that group chats in Apple’s messaging feature could serve as a social media feed for friends and family sharing. But Shah testified that feed would be limited to 32 people at most, and users can’t just look up each others’ profiles like they would on social platforms. Still, Meta pointed out, Apple’s messages app is listed under social media on its own app store.However, Meta also made important arguments about why the judge should question the FTC’s framing. It pointed out that some documents from TikTok and YouTube owner Google claiming their products are very different from Meta’s were submitted to foreign officials to try to avoid getting drafted into potentially frustrating regulations. It also pointed out when TikTok briefly went dark in the US ahead of a (now-aborted) ban, users flocked to Meta apps, showing consumers see it as a substitute on at least some level. That’s because, Meta argued, competition for users is really about winning their time and attention.Companies can “sometimes make mistakes. They misjudge who their users are”But X VP of product Keith Coleman testified it’s not that useful to think about competition this way. Instead, “it’s much more helpful to understand what people are trying to accomplish in their lives and to try to help them accomplish that.” Under former CEO Jack Dorsey, then-Twitter leaned into focusing on news and users’ interests, Coleman testified, because that’s why people were coming to the platform. Coleman was later surprised at how his own website characterized the product in its help center as a “service for friends, family, and coworkers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent messages.” “I can’t believe that’s on the website,” he said. “That’s pretty wacky.”This point was “a caution that not everything a company writes down or says is necessarily decisive in establishing what the boundary of a market is,” Kovacic said. Companies can “sometimes make mistakes. They misjudge who their users are.”There are real ramifications for internet users here. Going back to Netflix’s comparisons, if the streaming video service went down, some people would probably be happy to play a video game or get a few hours of shut-eye instead. But others would be frustrated that they couldn’t watch a movie, which is why it’s good that Hulu, HBO, and Amazon Prime Video also exist. The FTC’s argument isn’t that Meta owns the only social apps on the internet, it’s that the company faces little competition for a service many people specifically want — so the fact that you probably don’t know anyone using MeWe is sort of the point.How will the judge decide?Ultimately, Boasberg’s market definition — whether it’s Meta’s, the FTC’s, or his own — will come down to a few things: how Meta views itself, how competitors see it, and his own intuition, says Kovacic. ”Notice how much the FTC has been questioning Meta witnesses on the basis of its own internal documents,” he says. “Does the story in the courtroom match the story of your own internal documents?” So far, the documents have shown that Meta has clocked that at least some portion of users come to its products to connect with family and friends, but also that the rise of TikTok has had it looking over its shoulder. In September 2020, Meta told its board that Instagram revenue would be “meaningfully lower” than planned in the second half of the fiscal year because TikTok was drawing users’ attention. But other internal documents have shown Meta’s well aware that at different points in time, users have come to its apps to connect with family and friends, and worriedly took note of other apps entering that space. In a 2018 presentation, Meta found that the highest percentage of surveyed users said they come to Facebook, Instagram, and Snap to “see daily casual moments” and “see special moments.” By contrast, users came to Twitter’s feed for news and YouTube’s for entertainment. And even as Instagram expands into entertainment, the FTC notes that it still advertises its sign-up page as a place to “see photos and videos from your friends.”“Instagram will always need to focus on friends”In a 2018 email, Zuckerberg told Mosseri that “Instagram will always need to focus on friends.” And even though a lot has changed in the social media landscape since then, Mosseri testified that to this day on the app, “friends are an important part of the experience.” Even though users may share fewer of their own updates on Facebook and Instagram, Mosseri admitted that two friends talking in the comments of a public figure’s post counts as an interaction between friends — and one that Instagram actively tries to facilitate.Meta has argued that this special focus on friends and family sharing makes up a shrinking portion of its offerings as it works to compete with fierce rivals like TikTok. But the FTC says it’s still significant enough to monopolize. It’s a scenario that came up in another major tech monopolization case, Kovacic says: the late-1990s lawsuit US v. Microsoft. In that case, Microsoft argued the Justice Department was ignoring how computing would soon move beyond the personal computer to the Internet of Things, meaning it couldn’t truly lock up the computing ecosystem as much as the government alleged.“Judge Jackson in the Microsoft case said, yeah, those things are happening, but not happening fast enough to deny you real market power in this PC and laptop-based market that the Justice Department is emphasizing,” Kovacic says.Still, he adds, a market niche can at some point become so small that it’s no longer significant in the eyes of antitrust law. “You can have a process of change that ultimately renders the market segment unimportant,” he says. “And the hard task of analysis for the judge is to say, has it already happened?”See More:
    المصدر: www.theverge.com
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    WWW.THEVERGE.COM
    Why one obscure app could help crumble Meta’s empire
    If the question, “Who is Meta’s biggest rival?” were on a Family Feud survey, TikTok would likely be the winning answer. In the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust case against the Facebook and Instagram owner, the government’s response probably wouldn’t even make the top 10: a small blockchain-based platform called MeWe. MeWe looks a fair amount like Facebook at first glance, except that you make an account using the Frequency blockchain — which the company explains is a decentralized protocol that lets you move your social connections to other (mostly hypothetical at this point) apps that support Frequency. The company says 20 million users have joined, but when I make a MeWe account and log in, I scroll through my autopopulated feed and think, “Who are these people?” I search for a few of my Verge colleagues, figuring if anyone has tried this obscure app, it might be one of them, but I come up short. I try some public figures: Tim Cook? Jeff Bezos? Mark Zuckerberg? There are some accounts with these names, but it seems unlikely they’re the ones I have in mind.The claim that MeWe is a closer competitor to Facebook and Instagram than TikTok might be baffling if you’re not steeped in antitrust law or the specifics of the FTC’s complaint. Meta CEO Zuckerberg testified he hadn’t even heard of the app before this case was filed. But the FTC has spent the past three weeks laying out its logic. Using Meta’s own internal discussions about how it views itself and its competition, it says that Meta has historically, and to this day, competed in a market for connecting with friends and family online — and when it saw its dominance in that space threatened by the rise of Instagram and WhatsApp, it bought them to squash the competition.Whether Judge James Boasberg buys this could determine who wins the case — if the FTC can also show that Meta acted illegally through its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp to solidify its alleged monopoly power.Antitrust law is supposed to ensure fair competition, which usually means that people have options for a useful class of goods and services — what’s known as a relevant market. The FTC says that here, that market is “personal social networking services,” or PSNs: spaces where a core purpose is helping people connect with friends and family. While there are many online platforms that overlap with Meta’s services, the FTC argues that virtually none of them serve that market. If internet users want to find and hang out with people they know — as opposed to, say, watching influencers or making work connections — then it’s Mark Zuckerberg’s way or… in the government’s telling, Snapchat, BeReal, and MeWe. Beyond that core definition, PSNs have some other unique features and norms: The apps feature a social graph of users’ friends and family connections, as opposed to mapping users primarily based on their interests. Users can look up and find people they know in real life. And they come to the app to share personal updates with those people.Facebook and Instagram increasingly display videos and photos from influencers and celebrities, but the FTC argues personal social networking remains a core service. It used Instagram chief Adam Mosseri’s testimony to most clearly make this point. In that testimony as well as posts to his own Instagram account, Mosseri said that it’s still important for the app to connect users with their friends. The FTC argues that even if that use case is a smaller portion of what Meta’s apps do these days, it’s still a significant need users have that can virtually only be fulfilled by Facebook and Instagram. While someone might connect with people they know in real life on LinkedIn, they likely won’t primarily share personal updates there. And while they also could follow and interact with people they know on TikTok or YouTube, they’re more likely to passively watch videos from people they don’t.Meta says this is an entirely wrong way to think about it. Social media platforms compete for users’ time and attention, so whether a particular app is squarely aimed at so-called friends and family sharing is beside the point. Facebook and Instagram have evolved to show more content from people like influencers, shifting further from the use case the FTC says Meta has illegally dominated. The company has already landed some important points that could help its case, and it will get more time to push back on the agency’s framing when it calls its own witnesses in the coming weeks.But as the FTC’s case-in-chief continues into its fifth week, its argument for Meta’s dominance is becoming a lot clearer.Why do people use Facebook?When defining a market, each side is trying to answer a key question: why are people choosing one particular company’s product? A lot of goods and services compete with each other in some sense, but this doesn’t mean they serve the same niche. In the case of sodas, for example, “you could buy lemon-lime, but many people would never see that as a close substitute for buying Coke or Pepsi,” says George Washington Law professor and former FTC Chair Bill Kovacic. In the tech world, Netflix has claimed its biggest competitors are Fortnite and sleep — but those comparisons probably wouldn’t stand up in court.The FTC says that outside of Facebook and Instagram, only apps like Snapchat and MeWe can fulfill a users’ desire to broadcast personal updates with friends and family online. To make its case, it brought in a string of executives from other social media companies to explain why their apps can’t quite scratch the same itch for users. Strava’s former VP of connected partnerships Mateo Ortega testified that sure, users of the fitness-tracking social media app could share baby photos on the platform, but they probably wouldn’t unless it was in a running stroller. “It’s all about fitness, and while you can post other stuff, it just doesn’t seem as relevant,” he said. “You could buy lemon-lime, but many people would never see that as a close substitute for buying Coke or Pepsi”Pinterest’s former head of user growth Julia Roberts testified that users who come to Pinterest “expecting it to be like other social media apps … tend to be confused about how to use the product.” That’s because the app is so much not about connecting with other people that it works much differently from other social media platforms. Pinterest is more about finding things users are interested in, she said, so “following is not a big part of the Pinterest experience.”TikTok has a tab where users can watch videos from their friends — identified as people who mutually follow each other. But head of operations Adam Presser testified only about 1 percent of videos watched on the platform are there. The company doesn’t think of itself as competing with Meta’s apps for personal social networking, he testified. And even though side-by-side screenshots of TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts look identical, Presser said, “when you click out of this view for these other platforms, you would get to essentially what I think of as their core business,” which for Instagram, includes a feed and stories that often contain at least some content from family and friends.At times, Meta’s cross-examination of rival company executives showed the limits of apps’ similarities. When questioning Apple director of product marketing Ronak Shah, Meta sought to show that group chats in Apple’s messaging feature could serve as a social media feed for friends and family sharing. But Shah testified that feed would be limited to 32 people at most, and users can’t just look up each others’ profiles like they would on social platforms. Still, Meta pointed out, Apple’s messages app is listed under social media on its own app store.However, Meta also made important arguments about why the judge should question the FTC’s framing. It pointed out that some documents from TikTok and YouTube owner Google claiming their products are very different from Meta’s were submitted to foreign officials to try to avoid getting drafted into potentially frustrating regulations. It also pointed out when TikTok briefly went dark in the US ahead of a (now-aborted) ban, users flocked to Meta apps, showing consumers see it as a substitute on at least some level. That’s because, Meta argued, competition for users is really about winning their time and attention.Companies can “sometimes make mistakes. They misjudge who their users are”But X VP of product Keith Coleman testified it’s not that useful to think about competition this way. Instead, “it’s much more helpful to understand what people are trying to accomplish in their lives and to try to help them accomplish that.” Under former CEO Jack Dorsey, then-Twitter leaned into focusing on news and users’ interests, Coleman testified, because that’s why people were coming to the platform. Coleman was later surprised at how his own website characterized the product in its help center as a “service for friends, family, and coworkers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent messages.” “I can’t believe that’s on the website,” he said. “That’s pretty wacky.”This point was “a caution that not everything a company writes down or says is necessarily decisive in establishing what the boundary of a market is,” Kovacic said. Companies can “sometimes make mistakes. They misjudge who their users are.”There are real ramifications for internet users here. Going back to Netflix’s comparisons, if the streaming video service went down, some people would probably be happy to play a video game or get a few hours of shut-eye instead. But others would be frustrated that they couldn’t watch a movie, which is why it’s good that Hulu, HBO, and Amazon Prime Video also exist. The FTC’s argument isn’t that Meta owns the only social apps on the internet, it’s that the company faces little competition for a service many people specifically want — so the fact that you probably don’t know anyone using MeWe is sort of the point.How will the judge decide?Ultimately, Boasberg’s market definition — whether it’s Meta’s, the FTC’s, or his own — will come down to a few things: how Meta views itself, how competitors see it, and his own intuition, says Kovacic. ”Notice how much the FTC has been questioning Meta witnesses on the basis of its own internal documents,” he says. “Does the story in the courtroom match the story of your own internal documents?” So far, the documents have shown that Meta has clocked that at least some portion of users come to its products to connect with family and friends, but also that the rise of TikTok has had it looking over its shoulder. In September 2020, Meta told its board that Instagram revenue would be “meaningfully lower” than planned in the second half of the fiscal year because TikTok was drawing users’ attention. But other internal documents have shown Meta’s well aware that at different points in time, users have come to its apps to connect with family and friends, and worriedly took note of other apps entering that space. In a 2018 presentation, Meta found that the highest percentage of surveyed users said they come to Facebook, Instagram, and Snap to “see daily casual moments” and “see special moments.” By contrast, users came to Twitter’s feed for news and YouTube’s for entertainment. And even as Instagram expands into entertainment, the FTC notes that it still advertises its sign-up page as a place to “see photos and videos from your friends.”“Instagram will always need to focus on friends”In a 2018 email, Zuckerberg told Mosseri that “Instagram will always need to focus on friends.” And even though a lot has changed in the social media landscape since then, Mosseri testified that to this day on the app, “friends are an important part of the experience.” Even though users may share fewer of their own updates on Facebook and Instagram, Mosseri admitted that two friends talking in the comments of a public figure’s post counts as an interaction between friends — and one that Instagram actively tries to facilitate.Meta has argued that this special focus on friends and family sharing makes up a shrinking portion of its offerings as it works to compete with fierce rivals like TikTok. But the FTC says it’s still significant enough to monopolize. It’s a scenario that came up in another major tech monopolization case, Kovacic says: the late-1990s lawsuit US v. Microsoft. In that case, Microsoft argued the Justice Department was ignoring how computing would soon move beyond the personal computer to the Internet of Things, meaning it couldn’t truly lock up the computing ecosystem as much as the government alleged.“Judge Jackson in the Microsoft case said, yeah, those things are happening, but not happening fast enough to deny you real market power in this PC and laptop-based market that the Justice Department is emphasizing,” Kovacic says.Still, he adds, a market niche can at some point become so small that it’s no longer significant in the eyes of antitrust law. “You can have a process of change that ultimately renders the market segment unimportant,” he says. “And the hard task of analysis for the judge is to say, has it already happened?”See More:
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