🐤 Pick up a McNFT

Markets: Wall Street’s post-election rally hit the skids to end the week with all three major indexes falling sharply by Friday’s closing bell. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite led the way, sliding more than 2%. Poor performances by multiple Big Pharma companies put downward pressure on the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq Composite.

Retail therapy: The latest economic reports show that retail sales nationwide ticked up by 0.4% last month. That’s a little bit better than most analysts predicted, in large part due to a rise in the sale of automobiles and electronics. Investors clearly saw it as good news, particularly in light of a correction to September’s retail report to improve that month’s numbers. Other positive economic indicators as the holiday shopping season approaches include slowing inflation, limited layoffs, robust consumer spending, and strong savings.

Health problems: President-elect Donald Trump has made news in recent days with some of his picks for top Cabinet positions and other roles, but perhaps none has been more controversial than nominating Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to helm the Department of Health and Human Services. A vocal vaccine skeptic for years, Kennedy has vowed that he doesn’t intend to take away anyone’s access to vaccines. His push for increased research into the safety of vaccines, however, has some critics concerned about what agenda he will pursue.

Washington’s slump: The Commanders have had a tough season of late, punctuated by a tough loss to the Eagles this week. A strong start gave way to a string of setbacks, which has led QB Jayden Daniels analyze recent events. Even as he is considered at the top of the heap in the search for the league’s Offensive Rookie of the Year, Daniels acknowledged that the team has to start executing plays more precisely in order to turn things around. If Washington wants to reach the postseason, it’ll probably require a win against Dallas next week.

Monkey business: A social media influencer has found herself at the center of a fight for custody of a spider monkey named Jorgie Boy. Brandi Botello was involved in a crash and subsequently accused of driving while intoxicated. Although she insists she was buckled into the passenger’s seat with Jorgie Boy, not behind the wheel, Botello was charged and the monkey was confiscated. Jorgie Boy was handed over to an animal sanctuary but a social media movement is calling for his return. “I just want him home,” Botello said. “That’s it.”

A few short years ago, you couldn’t scroll through any social media feed without seeing someone urging you to buy an NFT or somebody else bragging about having just purchased one. But there was always an air of skepticism across the general public that caused the market to fizzle out.

Now, an unlikely source appears to be throwing out a lifeline.

McDonald’s + Doodles

If you’ve been following what remains of the NFT sector, you might have heard of Doodles. Although it started out as a traditional NFT project, it attempted to emerge after the 2022 market collapse as something, well … different.

We’ve recently gotten a sneak peek into what Doodles has been working on … and it involves McDonald’s. Beginning on Nov. 18, the fast food giant will begin distributing coffee cups featuring characters from the Doodles project.

The collaboration stands to benefit both companies by reigniting interest in the NFT market while pushing coffee sales for McDonald’s.

Beware of scammers

Doodles has been hyping the partnership a lot on social media, but the way it ended one thread on the topic highlights a prevalent risk for those involved in trading NFTs. The post advised users to “beware of impersonator accounts & phishing links” and avoid clicking on “links that appear to be from Doodles” without ensuring their validity.

Scams are rampant in the NFT market, but partnering with a global brand like McDonald’s might help increase Doodle’s credibility.

From the other perspective, McDonald’s Chief Marketing Officer Tariq Hassa said collaborating with Doodles made sense “because they are an agent of change in the cultural landscape, and they span beyond digital assets — an entertainment brand in itself with a fearless community we can't wait to interact with and more importantly, bring to more people across the US.”

As a number of high-profile users are ditching Elon Musk-owned X (or Twitter, as it was known when he bought it), other social media platforms stand to benefit. And Bluesky’s recent membership surge seems to suggest it is becoming a go-to destination for X refugees.

The post-election bump

Election Day and the news updates that followed have created a lot of demand for social media this month, but even by that standard it’s been a big week for Bluesky. According to recent data, the app has grown by 2.5 million users in just the days since the election and now boasts more than 16 million members.

Bluesky, which was launched by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey but is no longer affiliated with that platform, is now being led by a board featuring Big Tech heavyweights like Jabber inventor Jeremie Miller, Blockchain Capital general partner Kinjal Shah, and Techdirt founder Mike Masnick.

The app’s stated goal is to provide enhanced freedom through its decentralized platform and features including:

• Algorithms curated by users
• Limits for unwanted interactions
• Allowing removal of quote posts

There are also creativity tools like video posts and custom fonts that have been driving the app’s recent boom.

But it’s not the only option

Twitter has been spawning copycats since well before Musk bought it, and one relatively recent addition to the fray is seeing its own growth spurt.

Threads, a division of Instagram, got off to a somewhat slow start but hit its stride over the past couple of weeks.

Whether fueled by election interest, disaffection with X, or any number of other reasons, Instagram’s CEO announced this week that Threads has received “more than 15 million signups in November alone.”

Some saw this as a jab at Bluesky, which had only recently reached 15 million members.

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If you were wondering where else artificial intelligence would show up this year, we’ve got an answer. NASA is reportedly working with Microsoft to develop a tool powered by AI with the capabilities of answering just about any question imaginable on the topic of our home planet.

Getting to know Earth Copilot

We don’t know exactly what this new chatbot’s capabilities will be or even when we’ll first have a chance to use it, but NASA’s motivation in creating it is becoming pretty clear.

According to the agency, this tool — known as Earth Copilot — will make Earth’s most complex subjects easier for ordinary folks to understand. All it will take is a simple question.

Essentially, Earth Copilot will be a powerful library of all the information in NASA’s extensive database. The chatbot will reportedly be designed to instantly access any relevant information and turn it into a clear and intelligible response.

By releasing its trove of data to be cataloged by AI, NASA says Earth Copilot will “democratize” access to the information.

For now, only a select few specialists at NASA are able to access the chatbot’s features. The agency has yet to announce when Earth Copilot will be rolled out on a larger scale, though reports indicate it is expected to be added to the agency’s Visualization, Exploration, and Data Analysis platform.

Microsoft has an important role

The information might be coming from NASA’s database, but Microsoft’s tech is responsible for powering Earth Copilot.

Microsoft exec Tyler Bryson says the company strives to create an AI platform that can “streamline” the research process, “reducing time to gain insights from Earth’s data to a matter of seconds.”

Earth Copilot, he predicted, will automate “specialized skills that very few non-technical users possess.”

What do you call a pig with three eyes?

Piiig.