Spotlight: Humans (and dogs) vs machines and bringing people together, apart
The Thursday Trio: Three notes across entrepreneurship, culture, and community
🐶 Spot, the 4-legged robot by Boston Dynamics, is now available for $74,500.
Can you teach an old dog new tricks? Hudson sure thinks so. At the very least, he wants a chance to train Spot to be a Superdog.
Do you know how many treats $74,500 could buy? For that, I will learn tons of cool tricks AND give you lots of love and companionship. Isn’t that what you humans need these days anyways?
- Hudson
The Thursday Trio
Three notes across entrepreneurship, culture, and community every Thursday.
📺⚽️ Most watched Premier League match in 3 years.
Last night, English football-starved fans tuned in big on the first night of football matches since the pandemic started. I happened to be at the second to the last match pre-lockdown when Manchester United beat Man City at Old Trafford. That was the loudest sports event I had ever been to and may very well be the last of its kind. The Arsenal vs Man City match last night drew the largest audience on Sky Sports in 3 years with 75% of the viewers choosing to watch WITH crowd noise. Another example of people craving some sort of normality.
More here.
Do you think once stadiums open to fans, online viewership will continue to be as strong? This startup’s FanFest product is certainly banking on reaching sports fans beyond stadiums and monetising them.
🧠 Never say never.
Another momentous occasion happened last night. For the first time, Hawk-Eye’s goal line technology failed to capture a goal at the Sheffield United vs Aston Villa match, so the goal didn’t count. All seven of its cameras monitoring the goal were obscured by either the goalkeeper, a defender or the goalpost. It has never happened before in more than 9,000 matches using the system which is why the referees didn’t question the technology.
The video assistant referee had not intervened due to the "unique" situation of the on-field match officials not receiving a signal. - Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL)
More here.
My take: As it turns out, we can’t rely on technology by itself. But, shouldn’t we as humans leverage the qualities that make us human…like intelligence?
🎟 Together, apart.
How do you build products that bring people together, in the most human way possible, when they are physically apart? This is the challenge and opportunity for many startups at the moment. When it comes to events, I rarely found the content at conferences to be all that useful. The primary reason for attending was to meet people. Now that everything is online, there is that added pressure for the content to be super high quality and differentiated. But even more so, how do you create those moments of serendipity where you meet someone interesting and have an insightful conversation? Here are some companies that are tackling this:
Run the World
Hopin
HeySummit
Eventloop
My take: The events industry is ripe for transformation. Nothing can replace IRL experiences, but long gone are the days of general, big-budget, multi-day, multi-track conferences. There is a real opportunity for startups to address how to bring highly curated groups of people together around shared interests without friction.
✁ And now, this week’s dose of delight…
If only I could get in for a haircut…goals.
Be well,
Gina 🥂
Hi! 👋🏼 It’s Gina King from Rooks Nest Ventures and Supernode. Thanks for reading Spotlight. I’d love your feedback - feel free to email me at gina@supernodeglobal.com.