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Netflix Doubles Down on ‘Stranger Things,’ ‘Squid Game’ Spin-Offs
Christian Hetrick
Christian Hetrick is dot.LA's Entertainment Tech Reporter. He was formerly a business reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and reported on New Jersey politics for the Observer and the Press of Atlantic City.
Netflix’s subscriber numbers have been a bit Upside Down lately, with the streaming giant shedding customers last quarter instead of adding them.
But one thing that’s still worked well for Netflix is “Stranger Things,” the hit sci-fi horror series that just wrapped up its fourth season. The latest installment surpassed 1 billion hours watched, making it the second-most-viewed title in Netflix history. The show dominates the cultural zeitgeist like few others, with the ability to send singer Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” near the top of the charts 37 years after its release.
So it’s no surprise that Netflix is now doubling down on “Stranger Things,” planning a spinoff series developed by the show’s creators Matt and Ross Duffer. On Wednesday, the streaming giant announced the Duffer brothers launched a new production company called Upside Down Pictures, which is working on several projects for Netflix, including the “Stranger Things” spinoff.
Details are light, but the Duffer brothers have said the new show will be a ”1,000% different” than the flagship series, one that’s unlikely to be centered on main characters Eleven (played by Millie Bobbie Brown) or Steve (Joe Keery). Netflix and the Duffer brothers also confirmed a forthcoming stage play “set within the world and mythology” of “Stranger Things.”
The announcements show that even at a time when Netflix is slashing staff to reign in costs, the company is investing more money into its fan-favorite franchises. The streaming service is making a reality TV series based on “Squid Game,” which Netflix claims will offer the biggest cash prize for a TV competition but presumably less death. That’s in addition to a second season of the Korean dystopian hit.
The company’s expansion into gaming includes a host of mobile titles based on popular series like “The Queen’s Gambit” and “La Casa de Papel.” “Stranger Things” has already gotten the video game treatment.
Building upon proven blockbusters is, of course, not a new idea in Hollywood. But the streaming wars have put the strategy on steroids. Just take a look at Disney Plus, which next month releases “Andor,” a “Star Wars” spinoff that’s a prequel to the spinoff “Rogue One,” as well as “Lego Star Wars Summer Vacation,” in which the galactic battles are put on hold for some much needed R&R. All told, Disney had planned for 10 new Star Wars series and 10 Marvel shows in the near future.
While Netflix lacks that kind of franchise firepower, “Stranger Things” is one of their biggest arsenals. It makes sense that, even as Netflix grasps at new ideas like reversing its resistance to advertising, the company is betting big on something that already works.
The streaming service needs all the help it can get: Netflix not only reported its first subscriber loss in a decade during the first quarter, but predicted that the second quarter would be even worse. That dire prediction came despite knowing that “Stranger Things 4” was set to stream this summer. It’s a sign that, for Netflix, simply adding more “Stranger Things” monsters won’t be a silver bullet.
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Christian Hetrick
Christian Hetrick is dot.LA's Entertainment Tech Reporter. He was formerly a business reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and reported on New Jersey politics for the Observer and the Press of Atlantic City.
Thrive Market’s Nick Green on Making Healthy Options Accessible
05:00 AM | July 29, 2022
Image courtesy of Thrive Market
On this episode of Office Hours, host Spencer Rascoff talks with Thrive Market co-founder and CEO Nick Green about his company’s mission to make healthy groceries more accessible.
Most people in his middle-class, Midwest neighborhood where Green grew up were used to diets built on the carb-based food pyramid, along with junk food. His family, however, tried to fill the dinner table with nourishing options.
“I had a mom who was very different,” Green said. “We were that weird house on the block that had no soda, no sugared cereal…She came from a big Mexican-American family. And a lot of her siblings, cousins, parents—it was diabetes, it was heart disease, it was all of these what we now recognize as lifestyle diseases. She basically was just hyper-committed to changing that for her kids.”
That commitment was difficult to sustain without nearby stores dedicated to healthy food, and most people’s understanding of nutrition at the time was lackluster. Add a slim budget to those constraints. and finding quality ingredients was even more challenging, he said. Many people still face the same barriers his mom encountered.
“It's like, you don't live near a healthy retailer. If you do, you can't afford it,” he said. “And even if you can afford it, it's like, where do you start?”
When Thrive Market co-founder Gunnar Lovelace pitched him an idea to invest in a company that was “like Groupon for healthy food,” Green said he perked up.
“It just resonated with me super personally,” he said.
They later abandoned the Groupon-esque concept in favor of a membership-based model that could get non-perishable items to consumers faster and an online platform offering natural, organic items at an affordable price.
“It was really Whole Foods-meets-Costco membership model for the best-selling highest-quality, natural, organic food products,” he said
Thrive Market launched in 2014 with plans to make revenue off of their annual membership fees and then pass along the savings by pricing products at or below the conventional cost.
“Let's get a Kind bar at the price of a Snickers bar, nontoxic laundry detergent below the price of Tide, that kind of thing,” he said.
Thrive worked hard to make their platform easy to use, so that people with families and jobs could quickly search for what they needed. They introduced smart filters to sort by diet and lifestyle, and also let customers get all their items at once, rather than in separate shipments.
Thrive Market has since grown to over a million members and 1,000 employees, Green said.
The pandemic posed a major challenge to the young company, Green said, as more people turned to online shopping and the company had to consider how to rapidly scale, while protecting its employees and customers—in particular those who were at risk.
“You go from a world where some people are shopping online to [one where] everybody all of a sudden…had to be shopping online,” Green said. “You went from a world where some people are thinking about their health to [one where] everybody is concerned about their health. So for us, it was kind of an acceleration of both of the secular trends that we're betting on.”
Thrive launched a COVID Relief Fund to provide free memberships to members and staff who were most affected by the pandemic, which was funded by member donations. It also allowed senior citizens to sign up for a membership for free. But, for others, the company’s membership model, which forces users to sign up for a year, helped keep that growth sustainable.
“So we didn’t get people who just wanted, like, toilet paper and hand sanitizer,” Green said. “We only got people that actually were interested in what the Thrive Market value proposition was”.
Thrive has been able to avoid the steep drop-off that many of its online delivery rivals are now seeing, as customers return to in-store shopping.
“And what's been really heartening for us is seeing that we're retaining the members that we brought in during COVID,” Green said
Want to hear more episodes? Subscribe to Office Hours on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio or wherever you get your podcasts.
dot.LA Editorial Intern Kristin Snyder contributed to this post.
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Spencer Rascoff
Spencer Rascoff serves as executive chairman of dot.LA. He is an entrepreneur and company leader who co-founded Zillow, Hotwire, dot.LA, Pacaso and Supernova, and who served as Zillow's CEO for a decade. During Spencer's time as CEO, Zillow won dozens of "best places to work" awards as it grew to over 4,500 employees, $3 billion in revenue, and $10 billion in market capitalization. Prior to Zillow, Spencer co-founded and was VP Corporate Development of Hotwire, which was sold to Expedia for $685 million in 2003. Through his startup studio and venture capital firm, 75 & Sunny, Spencer is an active angel investor in over 100 companies and is incubating several more.
https://twitter.com/spencerrascoff
https://www.linkedin.com/in/spencerrascoff/
admin@dot.la
Here's How To Get a Digital License Plate In California
03:49 PM | October 14, 2022
Photo by Clayton Cardinalli on Unsplash
Thanks to a new bill passed on October 5, California drivers now have the choice to chuck their traditional metal license plates and replace them with digital ones.
The plates are referred to as “Rplate” and were developed by Sacramento-based Reviver. A news release on Reviver’s website that accompanied the bill’s passage states that there are “two device options enabling vehicle owners to connect their vehicle with a suite of services including in-app registration renewal, visual personalization, vehicle location services and security features such as easily reporting a vehicle as stolen.”
Reviver Auto Current and Future CapabilitiesFrom Youtube
There are wired (connected to and powered by a vehicle’s electrical system) and battery-powered options, and drivers can choose to pay for their plates monthly or annually. Four-year agreements for battery-powered plates begin at $19.95 a month or $215.40 yearly. Commercial vehicles will pay $275.40 each year for wired plates. A two-year agreement for wired plates costs $24.95 per month. Drivers can choose to install their plates, but on its website, Reviver offers professional installation for $150.
A pilot digital plate program was launched in 2018, and according to the Los Angeles Times, there were 175,000 participants. The new bill ensures all 27 million California drivers can elect to get a digital plate of their own.
California is the third state after Arizona and Michigan to offer digital plates to all drivers, while Texas currently only provides the digital option for commercial vehicles. In July 2022, Deseret News reported that Colorado might also offer the option. They have several advantages over the classic metal plates as well—as the L.A. Times notes, digital plates will streamline registration renewals and reduce time spent at the DMV. They also have light and dark modes, according to Reviver’s website. Thanks to an accompanying app, they act as additional vehicle security, alerting drivers to unexpected vehicle movements and providing a method to report stolen vehicles.
As part of the new digital plate program, Reviver touts its products’ connectivity, stating that in addition to Bluetooth capabilities, digital plates have “national 5G network connectivity and stability.” But don’t worry—the same plates purportedly protect owner privacy with cloud support and encrypted software updates.
5 Reasons to avoid the digital license plate | Ride TechFrom Youtube
After the Rplate pilot program was announced four years ago, some raised questions about just how good an idea digital plates might be. Reviver and others who support switching to digital emphasize personalization, efficient DMV operations and connectivity. However, a 2018 post published by Sophos’s Naked Security blog pointed out that “the plates could be as susceptible to hacking as other wireless and IoT technologies,” noting that everyday “objects – things like kettles, TVs, and baby monitors – are getting connected to the internet with elementary security flaws still in place.”
To that end, a May 2018 syndicated New York Times news service article about digital plates quoted the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which warned that such a device could be a “‘honeypot of data,’ recording the drivers’ trips to the grocery store, or to a protest, or to an abortion clinic.”
For now, Rplates are another option in addition to old-fashioned metal, and many are likely to opt out due to cost alone. If you decide to go the digital route, however, it helps if you know what you could be getting yourself into.
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Steve Huff
Steve Huff is an Editor and Reporter at dot.LA. Steve was previously managing editor for The Metaverse Post and before that deputy digital editor for Maxim magazine. He has written for Inside Hook, Observer and New York Mag. Steve is the author of two official tie-ins books for AMC’s hit “Breaking Bad” prequel, “Better Call Saul.” He’s also a classically-trained tenor and has performed with opera companies and orchestras all over the Eastern U.S. He lives in the greater Boston metro area with his wife, educator Dr. Dana Huff.
steve@dot.la
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