May 23, 2024 • 45 mins
Welcome to a very special episode of the State of Flux podcast. Today, we are joined by Blake Armstrong, Dane Penttila, and the one and only TillaVision. These talented individuals are my partners in Metimmerse, our new immersive VR web building platform.
If you're unfamiliar with Metimmerse, it's a platform where you can build out your world in 360 degrees, even if you have zero coding or design experience. We delve into the origins of Metimmerse, the journey of building it, and the unique features that set it apart.
From rewarding user engagement to democratizing 360-degree website creation, this episode covers it all. Tune in to hear from the minds behind Metimmerse and get excited about the future of immersive web experiences.
Join the Metimmerse Waitlist: www.metimmerse.io
Follow Metimmerse:
Website: https://www.metimmerse.io
Newsletter/Blog: www.metimmerse.substack.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/metimmerse
Twitter (X): https://twitter.com/metimmerse_io
Threads: https://www.threads.net/@metimmerse
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@metimmerse
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1k5SPdp4UrH-mdowM-_dyg
Follow Our Guests:
TillaVision: https://www.instagram.com/tillavision
Dane Penttila: https://www.instagram.com/mindpower.dev/
Blake Armstrong: https://www.instagram.com/blakerarmstrong/
Follow Flux88
Newsletter: Flux88.substack.com
Website: flux-88.com
Instagram: instagram.com/fluxeightyeight
TikTok: tiktok.com/@flux88_studios
YouTube: youtube.com/@flux88studios
Episode Hosted by Rich Nardo.
Intro contains music from "Plan A" by Dmytro Somov.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.
(00:13):
Welcome to a very special episode of the State of Flux podcast.
Today I am joined by Blake Armstrong, Dane Pantilla, and the one and only TillaVision.
What do all three of these extremely talented individuals have in common?
Besides the fact that I love all of them, they are all also my partners in MetaMers.
If you're unfamiliar with MetaMers, it's our new immersive VR web building platform
(00:34):
where you can build out your world in 360 degrees, even if you have zero coding or design experience.
Experience it's probably one of the coolest things i've ever been a part of
and after two plus years of building we're actually getting ready to release
it learn all about it here on the pod and then go sign up for the waitlist at
metamurse.io i hope you're as excited for this one as i am let's dive in are you ready.
(00:56):
Music.
And dan since you've never done a podcast before just the way these things generally
work if you want a successful podcast, we have to talk about true crime for
at least 45 minutes of the hour.
So if you guys want to pick a case, we'll jump into it. True crime.
(01:16):
That's the secret. Okay. All right. Cool. No. Again, thank you guys so much for doing this.
Obviously, MetaMers is something that we've all been super excited for.
We've been working our butts off here for what's been about two years that we've
been working on this project.
Yeah, give or take two years, but I think far Far longer as far as just our
own personal research, our interests go back even maybe like five or six years.
(01:41):
I'm not sure what our first project was, but yeah, we need to jump off date.
Yeah, and I wanted to dig deep here. I wanted to get back into the origins of everything.
So Dane and Matt, you guys have known each other since you were born,
kind of what happens with brothers.
Tilla, you and I, we go back like 15 years at this point.
Since you were doing kick drums and I was working for the Stevenson's and Joanna
(02:03):
and we were managing you guys. Yeah, totally.
I think that just dope people just tend to continue crossing paths in life one way or another.
But yeah, it was a different world then. But from the jump, always thought the
most of you and thought you were a great person.
So it doesn't surprise me we continue to collaborate. Dude, I'm always grateful
to have you as a friend and a collaborator.
(02:24):
And speaking of great people, Blake hasn't said anything yet.
But another person I'm super grateful for here is my partner,
Blake Armstrong, who I get the chance to work with for Flux and Engagency.
Yeah, and to put some chime in, because my origin story doesn't go back 15 years. I think it was 2017.
And so I don't remember what was the first project we collaborated on with you
(02:45):
along the journey, whether it was you talking to us about a little Bitcoin or
Death Row Museum or one of the...
Projects we've jammed on over the years.
Yeah, that is the great thing about, you know, working together digitally is
you kind of have this digital trail that we can go back down the rabbit hole
one of these days and we could be like, ah, there it is. That was the first email.
But yeah, it's been a pleasure from day one. And then we've been building 360
(03:07):
sites together as a team long before.
We called it MetaMers and set it up as its own company. We kind of collaborated
as a crew here and we're building what we call kind of Web 2.5 and jumping into
the space and building immersive sites and hacking real estate platforms to
do it in a really rudimentary way that kind of brings us to today.
So super stoked on what we're building and the team and everything we've got cooking. For sure.
(03:29):
And I remember since you guys are talking about when we first started working
together, Blake and I were doing marketing for Death Row Records.
And we had this idea to do the Death Row Museum during the pandemic, right? So it was 2020.
And I hit you up, Taylor, because you had done the Busta Bunker.
And I thought you did such a great job with that. And then you looped Dane in, obviously.
(03:50):
That Death Row Museum was just bonkers successful.
Still one of the biggest things we've ever worked on together.
And then we hit you up again to talk about Mia.
And you had said, oh, I've got this project called Lil Bitcoin.
And then it just seems like every month over month that we've been finding new
ways to collaborate ever since. You know what?
You nailed it. You've got a better memory than us. You're looking at notes over
(04:14):
there, timelines over there on your computer or something. Yeah,
the death row was insane.
And the pandemic was just such a blur of projects that were just rolling in.
I think that's why I'm having a hard time piecing together those early days
because it was just rapid fire, cool stuff happening.
And it's really been happening ever since.
So it was trial by fire initially getting in and we've just been banging them out. Yeah.
(04:38):
And Matt, you had a lot of success during that time period too, in the NFT space as well.
Like you were already an established artist, already had success,
but that was really, you kind of jumped a level there.
So that when you were really on the tip of everyone's tongue with your work,
I remember you coming and saying, I'm focused on these NFT things, but I have this idea.
(04:59):
And the first iteration of MetaMers, when you started talking about it beyond
the 360 sites that we were building for musicians and celebrities and everything like that,
that first inkling that you came up with, and I believe it was you and Dane
together who came up with this,
you had the idea for MediMall. Oh, MallBall.
MallBall, which obviously evolved into MetaMers, but why don't you tell us a
(05:22):
little bit about MallBall? Well, yeah, yeah.
It was Mall Ball, and users of Mall Ball were ballers.
And, you know, it was kind of a funny initial idea, but let's take it back to,
you know, the early days, as I was mentioning earlier, Dane had been working
for years on a site called, well, Dane, why don't you tell them about it?
(05:42):
Yeah, it's a good segue into a little bit of my origin story is a career long
growth into this VR and 360 space.
Like you said, Matt, this goes back all the way to 2010, 2011,
around there with an idea that I had for live events 360.
And it was the idea of being able to go to concerts and go to venues that you
(06:05):
don't have physical access to, but that you could watch the shows in a 360 environment
and, you know, virtually be there.
So that was the first version of this turned into another version called QuickVR.app
was another website that I had built that was more towards this way of being
(06:25):
able to quickly build a VR scene and being able to do that in a rapid fire way.
So closer towards where we were going here.
And then, you know, Matt, with the connections and the networking that he's
done, working with the media space there,
you know, he had this idea for using those 360 scenes and being able to do this
(06:46):
and building a vault for Busta Rhymes to store all of his archive of music.
And from there, it just evolved into one thing after another and seeing how
we can use this to further launch other other artists, VR worlds,
going from Busta Rhymes to Death Row and meeting with you guys.
I feel like we've put this team together that can do this in a way that we want to and do it right.
(07:10):
So I feel like this is the natural next progression of this whole virtual experience.
So Dane, you were doing stuff in VR back in like 2010, 2011?
I mean, I was playing around with it. At the time, I was looking at realty a lot.
And this also goes back. One of the first websites I built was a real estate website.
(07:32):
And the real estate website was your online listing. And it was a way to sell your home yourself.
You would take pictures of your house. And I always thought virtual tours are
something that would be great.
Right. And through the course of buying and selling my house back in the day,
I tried to build a virtual tour for myself, a way that I could show people and
(07:53):
that they could come look at the house. And it never really worked.
We ended up going with a realtor and they had their own platform and everything
else. So it didn't become a priority.
And it was kind of just a hobby at that point. So it was always in the back
of my mind, but nothing really commercialized it in a way that I thought could work.
And what made you make the jump then from being focused mostly on real estate
(08:16):
to going more into the entertainment and the quick VR app?
Getting into VR. I mean, I've always been into video games, playing VR games.
I bought a Valve Index, got into Half-Life Alyx, best VR game out there, kind of blew my mind.
And it was just wanting to work in media and games.
(08:37):
And when Matt brought the Busta Rhymes project and you guys came in with Death
Row, it's like, that's the music I've always listened to.
Working with the music that I like, the media that I like. It's advanced coding.
So it's all coming together in a way that hits everything that I like.
If you could build a MetaMers for any game, what would it be?
(08:57):
Oh man, I don't know. There's so many out there that are being turned into VR games.
Half-Life's one of my favorites. That's it. So I would love to see a Half-Life MetaMers.
I'm sorry, the correct answer was Big Buck Hunter. So of course,
clearly Dane is our dev guy building the most important part of what we are doing.
(09:18):
We talked about how Tilla is an amazing artist and it's his visuals that have
won us the awards that we have on our sites and everything.
And then I want to just talk a little bit about Blake and his background and
his vision because we don't really have official titles here at MetaMers.
You know there's four of us so who needs a title but i
(09:41):
would say that blake in a lot of ways leads the charge
for us kind of playing that ceo role so i'd
love to hear a little bit more about blake how you envision
this when you first heard the idea why you're so excited about it and what you
see your role in metamers is yeah and for us none of us are particularly young
men at this table here so we've been around a long time my first you know interaction
(10:04):
with vr was back in i think I think 2011 or an agency I was a partner in,
we built a really crazy virtual reality experience,
augmented reality with Walmart and Nickelodeon, and it was when the relaunch
of the Ninja Turtles, which is, you know, that's one of my shows when I was
a kid that was that was my jam, Leo Dono and Raph and, you know,
(10:25):
the splinter and crew were such a big part of my childhood. So we had this opportunity.
And you had to have an actual marker on the flyer to download an app that then
take the families in store, hold your phone up in every different aisle or every
different section of the store.
And it would trigger a new character, a new game. And it was really pushing
the boundaries back. You know, we're talking more than a decade ago.
(10:46):
And I was hot on AR and VR back then. And I was surprised at the tortoise pace
that it's taken to get to where we're at to today. day, but along that journey
have always been in the agency world and building websites for brands and artists
and athletes and the whole gamut.
And one thing that I've always watched is just when you look under the hood
and look at the analytics, the analytics have been dying in a lot of web browsing
(11:07):
experiences where we're used to have a multi-paid site with a lot of depth.
You would start to look at the traffic and the traction and you would have such
a little time on page for all of your subsequent pages.
So then everyone said, let's do these long executive summary scrolling landing
pages became the new norm and your bounce rate was high.
(11:28):
And it was always such a tough challenge to try to build a website where social media was taking over.
And back in the day, we were building really elaborate Facebook fan pages and
apps within the Facebook fan page and hanging out where the consumers were engaging.
But I think it's thinking about why are they engaging there?
What is it that social media and a lot of these other platforms provide that
(11:48):
a website doesn't provide?
And when we started building these together and looking at how we were building
them, we always had a lot of conversations like, wouldn't it be great if we could do this?
Like we see all of this opportunity in white space where the consumer wants,
you know, X, we want to give them X, but all of the technology and tools available
were only allowing us to do Y.
And that's kind of the origin where all of the biz dev conversations we were
(12:09):
having as an agency at Flux88, people were so hyped on what we were building
with the Immersive website.
So we could be doing the coolest video or, you know, whatever project we're
working on. But at the end of the day, it kept coming back to MetaMers and all of the websites.
So then as we got into formulating this as a company and turning it into MetaMers,
which I do remember back in the day, we almost were MetiMall because it really
(12:30):
took Tilla a long time to get off the mall ball bandwagon.
We were very close to being MetiMall, I remember back two years ago.
But it's all about providing what consumers are looking for,
giving them a place where they're choosing to spend time and choosing to engage.
And for us, when we started looking at the analytics on the early sites where
we weren't using our own platform where we were just hacking a real estate platform,
the time on site was 65% higher than your average site, which is really telling.
(12:54):
That's not a small statistic.
And that was without gamification. And as Dano built in some of our tools that
allow us to gamify the experience,
we're now like what we did with Walmart and Nickelodeon back in the day where
you had to go to the seasonal section to find Leonardo and you had to go to
the apparel section to find Donatello.
We are giving people a reason to spend time and browse the entirety of someone's
(13:16):
experience, which now you can click on whatever artifacts or whatever objects.
And you're building that affinity with the brand. You're building that relationship.
You're providing them multiple points to transact.
So I've been hyped since day one because I've been waiting for the market to keep evolving.
And then we got on this journey and all of a sudden we're probably 12 months
into our journey when then we've had this kind of golden era of AI happening
(13:38):
for the last 12 months where it feels like we've lived 47 lives in the last
two years while we've been building this with just the speed the market's evolving.
So yeah, super hyped on what we're doing and helping lead this team to close
our financing and scale, scale, scale.
I think you just did a really good job of answering the why for MetaMers,
the demand and the fact that the time on site was 65% higher.
(14:00):
We're able to gamify our websites so that increases engagement and everything.
But for the people who are listening to this who don't know what MetaMers is,
I want to hear from each of you guys.
If somebody were to come up to you and say, what is MetaMers?
What would your answer be?
I'll start. This is Matt. I would say when people ask me what MetaMers is,
(14:22):
I say it's a virtual 360-degree website platform.
I define it as Web 2.5, which is kind of an upgrade from Web 2.0 in that we're
not doing the death scroll anymore.
Now we can see things in 360 degrees. And we're not quite fully Web 3 where
you're running around in a Fortnite game or something like that.
(14:44):
Even though I would say that we do lean towards Web 3 because we are moving
towards the future and there are Web 3 elements involved. But I think Web3 is
a scary term that sometimes turns people off a little.
And, you know, our point and click style websites feel more of a step up from
Web2 than fully Web3. And I think one important part.
(15:06):
Kind of building upon what I call them TILA to everyone listening.
We've always called them TILA, but now that we've got two brothers who have
the same last name as part of the crew, we started calling them Matt a little bit again.
But I think one of the big things that Matt didn't touch upon,
we often call it the square space of 360 degree websites.
And the reason we say that, the part that was kind of not included in what Matt
(15:26):
had shared is that we're democratizing the ability for users to create 360 degree immersive websites.
We're now without any tech background As a SaaS platform, we were giving people
the ability to log in, leverage templates, leverage AI, and build their own
360-degree universes, which there's nothing like that in the marketplace.
So we've always built these high-end, fee-for-service, really cool 360 websites.
(15:52):
And now we're giving that same power in the consumer's hands or the fan's hands
to be able to build their own world without needing some of the wizardry tool
set that a guy like Matt has that your average fan or average consumer is not,
because that's in that same tool belt. And Dano, did we miss anything?
Well, I mean, the way I see MetaMers and the way that I would describe it,
you know, I'm a very visual person.
And when I think about the way that you view MetaMers, almost like you're looking
(16:17):
through your phone into a portal to a website that wraps around you.
And that's how I would almost describe it is that it is a website that you can
use your phone, you can turn around, you can look around and it is all around you.
And that scene can be expanded infinitely to have many other scenes that they link together.
(16:39):
They could be photorealistic. They could be graphically depicted, you know, 3D scenes.
It could be anything that you can imagine, but it's still a website.
It's viewable and navigatable through a phone and through tools that everybody has.
So it's easy to set up for your average user. Like Blake mentioned,
it's not all the way into Web3.
(17:02):
Like Matt mentioned, it's halfway there.
And it's not VR where you need a virtual reality headset.
You use your phone, you look at it, and it's a cool, interactive, immersive experience.
I do think it's worth adding to what you guys are saying, though,
that yes, it caters to everyone, but it also works for those people that are tech forward.
(17:25):
So, you know, we're not Web3, but we have Web3 elements, right?
And then at the same time, you can look at Medi. Medi is what we call our rooms on the platform.
You could look at it on your phone. You could look at it on your desktop,
but you could also experience it using a headset.
So I think that's something really cool, too, because your Medi experience can
(17:45):
be whatever you want it to be.
Yeah, definitely levels to how deep you can go.
But I prefer the Web 2.5 term because, you know, even symbolically,
our Medis are a doorway into somebody's, you know, virtual world.
But it's also kind of an invitation to step out of Web 2.0.
Into the future. So I like what Web 2.5, I like how it feels a little bit more
(18:10):
inviting to those that are scared by some of the advances in technology.
It seems maybe a little less intimidating.
I think that's been one of the biggest challenges that the virtual reality space
has had with the public is that leap into the future.
You need a new device. It's a whole new experience.
These challenges are a bit scary to the average user.
(18:32):
And so having a platform form that's rooted in something that they are used
to, that is the fundamentals of an internet that they are accustomed to and know about,
but then have the steps into Web3, meaning like wallet integrations,
different virtual reality style gamification.
(18:52):
You know, all of these aspects introduce the user and bring them forward into the next level.
And also, I just wanted to add really quick the navigation of points and click.
I really enjoy point and click where, you know, that's a big hurdle for a lot
of people is the, you know, movement within a virtual space.
Again, that gets into kind of like you're playing Fortnite or Call of Duty or
(19:15):
something where point and click style feels in a way it's fun.
I think for any age, just seeing and clicking something is just something that
comes very natural to any human. And so there's a lot of enjoyment and not so
much frustration in learning.
There's not like a big learning curve of, oh, how do I maneuver through this
(19:36):
space? It's just something that you've been doing for a long time.
Previously, we've done high profile sites for big names.
So as we're transitioning into a site for anybody to use, what are you excited
about the idea for anybody to be able to have their own Medi?
I'll start this one again. Again, there's a lot of value in creating art as
(19:59):
I have been my entire life.
I'm an artist and I create my own personal viewpoint.
But there's a whole different level of enjoyment you get out of creating tools
for others to use so that they can create art.
So creating a tool set and putting it on a table for other people to pick up
those tools and carve out their art and seeing their viewpoint and their worldview,
(20:23):
literally through MetaMirse. there's a lot of enjoyment that comes from that.
Ultimately, I think those of us here on the pod are storytellers.
And when you look at building connection in real life, online,
in any aspect of life, it's all about getting to know somebody,
getting to know a brand, getting to know something, and really being along on
that narrative and that journey that their storyteller is taking you through.
(20:45):
And we've done that for years with all kinds of projects, whether music,
video, over 360 degree website.
But for your average user, it's not easy with a website to be able to take people
on a journey. That's something that's quite a challenging task.
And especially if you don't have the tool belt to be able to build in all kinds
of strong video content to be able to weave narrative in.
(21:05):
And with our platform, you can easily weave that narrative into your site.
And democratizing that, giving people the ability to really allows them to tell their story.
Right now, if you look at a prime example, we always talked about one of our
early features is a simple product where there's so many people around the world
who have their socials linking to a very generic list of links to their various
(21:26):
endeavors or charitable donation links or whatever they might have cooking.
And here you can put it in a place where this room feels like my space.
This is my loft with links to all the things that matter to me.
But you can also, when you're visiting it, get a sense of my taste and my style
and my personality. And I think that's something that we all crave and we all want.
Just at the park last night with one of my little ones, or actually with both
(21:47):
of our little ones there.
And just talking to neighbors and interacting, people crave that,
getting to know each other and understanding each other and the whys.
And I think a Metaverse gives people the ability to share so much more than
they would get in a traditional site.
Yeah, me and Matt, growing up, one of the things that we had always done was
we were really big into world building and board game playing and building these
(22:10):
stories and creating these worlds.
With the introduction of the internet and web development, that was one thing
that we got into and that we noticed a lot of people wanted was their own websites.
And everybody wants their own world, their own website. They want to tell their
story, and they want to tell that narrative.
And one thing me and Matt did was we often told separate stories,
(22:32):
but we found ways to link them together.
And in building these worlds.
That's one thing that we want to do. And that's what we're going to bring with
MetaMers is the social aspect of being able to build your own world,
create your own narrative,
link to all the different aspects of what make you, you, and also connect with
other people who are doing the same.
(22:53):
So you can connect your communities, you can build your networks,
and you can really tell your own story. I do want to stay with you here,
Dane, for a minute, talk a little coder to us.
You are the one to say, you know what, this is limiting for us to be using this real estate platform.
We want to do other stuff. I'm going to build a back end. And then you are also
the one who was able to say, you know what, I built our own back end.
(23:15):
And it's a super easy jump to make it so anybody could use our back end.
So I kind of just want to hear a little bit about your thought process of when
you decided this is limiting to be working on this other platform,
I'm going to build our own backend and then take us through that into figuring
out that you can so easily make it usable for somebody who has no coding or design experience.
(23:36):
One of the things that I get the most satisfaction out of is building systems for other people to use.
And it's like, it's building a robot that everybody can utilize without knowing
the inner workings of it.
And so working with the other libraries and other frameworks.
I'm able to kind of see what works and what doesn't and what benefits we can use.
(23:56):
And I think we mentioned it earlier, we are building these kind of one-off applications
for Busta Rhymes, for Death Row Records, for Young Thug.
And we're building them and releasing them, building them and releasing them.
And I thought, if we're repeating the same work over again, I could at least
make it easier for myself and build a way that I can do this in a more streamlined
(24:17):
fashion. And if that's the case, why can't more people do this?
Why can't we build a system for everybody to get their hands in and to build their own system?
I enjoy building these one-off applications for clients and users,
but really I enjoy empowering them to do it themselves.
I want them to feel invested in it and that it's theirs and that they are really
(24:43):
the creator of the world that they're inhabiting.
So that was kind of the motivation there.
And that's where it kind of just went towards, you know, how can this application
benefit the most people in the easiest way? Dane was also hacking the existing
platforms pretty crazy to make them do things that they weren't even meant to do.
So there was a lot of shortcomings in the existing creation tools to make these
(25:07):
worlds, and Dane was adding more value.
So just being able to have full control...
And then offer people more. Just discussing between the both of us,
we just saw the potential for so much more than what was out there and how it was being used.
There was a lot of manual labor to get the applications to work well and to
(25:29):
give it the enhanced functionality that we were adding to it.
So we thought if we could just replace that backend and build it ourselves,
we could have that enhanced functionality and more control over the underlying
architecture at the same time.
What are some features of MetaMers that we're building out that you guys think
are the most unique and revolutionary component of MetaMers?
(25:52):
For me, it's the item collections and the awards and badges I'm excited about.
When a MetaMers is set up, you can set up hidden collectible items, Easter eggs.
When you collect those items, if you have an account, you can save them to your
profile. You can collect them.
In the future, I see a marketplace where these items can be traded or where
(26:16):
they have unique value to them or stored on the blockchain and have a transaction history.
The sky's the limit, but being able to collect items that are unique and linked
to the MetaMerses that you're subscribed to or interested in, I'm excited about that.
When you look at the most valuable companies in the world, it's clear that one
(26:38):
of the biggest currencies in today's day and age is data.
And ultimately, as marketers, we've asked for data for years,
whether it's an email address or a cell phone number, the various pieces of
information that consumers may not realize are being tracked on them.
And ultimately, the marketing team is asking for it and often offering very
little in return, just trying everything you can to get data from your consumers.
(27:01):
And I'm super excited in the value exchange with a metamercy where now if you're
a brand or an artist wanting to build your email list.
You can add that as a gate to a room. And by providing your email address,
which is the currency that everyone wants, you're now getting something in exchange.
You might get into a room that contains a vault or an unreleased track or you
name it. The user has the ability to put whatever they want in a room.
(27:24):
Or we can tie it to the gamification where after they spend the time browsing
the site and collecting all the items, and now they're rewarded with entry into
a really interesting contest with some great prizing in exchange for providing
email or phone number. I think that's game-changing.
Ultimately, we're all happy to give our email address and phone number if we
believe in the reason why.
And we believe that this is a value exchange versus just a straight marketing plan.
(27:49):
I think that's the beautiful thing about MetaMers is it is completely a value
exchange at every step where it is an immersive experience that is being built
for entertainment in addition to info and transaction that is the traditional goal of website.
Yeah, I would say that rewarding me for going on your website and exploring is very exciting.
(28:09):
It'll give me a reason to visit websites again. They're all this is tied into
an ecosystem where, oh, I'm in this website exploring, but now I jumped to this website.
And so the game is expansive and it's not like you're just investing in some
one off website and kind of there's no reason to ever interact ever again.
You're going to visit more and the community is going to grow.
(28:30):
So there's a larger goal that you're working towards and the digital assets
actually mean something.
And I think that that aspect is extremely exciting.
The gamification of the web through Metaverse is insane.
But I would say that, you know, as a designer and a content creator and digital artist,
the thing that I'm excited about is the tools that we're going to give other
(28:51):
3D artists out there to create their imaginary worlds that are in their heads
and make those worlds for us to explore.
I know some of the best digital artists in the world.
I've gotten to know some of them personally through my work in the space,
but also through the NFT world and Crossing Pad.
I want to explore what's going on inside their brain.
(29:14):
So I'm very excited to ingest these amazing artists and having them illustrate
their world for us to explore.
So the actual creation tools, which there'll be templates available for people
that don't have any experience.
But then they'll also, we're working on.
New ways to reskin existing templates using AI that I'm very excited about.
(29:38):
And then also offering people the tools to create on their own with Blender or Cinema 4D.
So then they can create in their software of choice and then import those worlds into MetaMirror.
Touching on one more aspect of the social aspect of it that I'm excited for
is the connections that the owners of the MetaMirror can have with the communities.
(30:01):
Two illustrations of that were the Tupac Memorial page that we put up on the
Death Row site where users could visit a page and interact with the Google form
to leave a message in memoriam for Tupac.
We got hundreds of responses from that, and those responses went straight to
the owners of the site and shows to them what a community there is behind their platform.
(30:27):
And the other aspect was the Juice World gardens that we created and graffiti
wall that we implemented that recreated a real world location and allowed users
to leave messages there that showed connection and community.
And that was shared also with the family of Juice World. world.
So these things create a unique way for the community to connect with the content
(30:49):
creator in ways that Twitter had revolutionized in the past.
And I see VR worlds and these MetaMerses revolutionizing in the future.
It's funny, we talk about the social aspect of MetaMers a lot.
And, you know, obviously, the first thing that people think about is modern
social media, Instagram, you know, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, what have you.
(31:11):
But the platform that it most makes me think about is actually MySpace.
Because when MySpace came out, Dane's over there laughing, but I'm going somewhere with this.
When MySpace first came out, it was the only social that I remember you would
just do your MySpace as your website.
And it was so good at managing community.
(31:33):
People were able to talk to each other in the comments. You had your top eight
and your friends and there was communities built around people's MySpace page.
And I grew up in the punk and hardcore world. And some of the bands that I would
go see play in front of 10, 15 people like Fall Out Boy or My Chemical Romance,
I'd see them play at a VFW hall.
(31:54):
Six months later, they're on tour in these big stadiums and have major label deals.
And that was all because of the community they built on MySpace.
And that's where I like to think of MetaMers going is almost a VR 360 immersive
MySpace because the community aspect is so important. Especially correlates
with the custom design aspect of it.
(32:15):
I can tell you that I know more than a couple people that got into coding because
they were trying to figure out how to customize their MySpace page.
And they had to dig into the HTML and figure out what they can do to customize colors and whatnot.
It's a creative space and it's a community building space.
And both of those things are definitely there for MetaMers. The big thing about
(32:40):
MySpace was that top eight. The top eight was the community.
If you were included in someone's top eight, that could be big for a lot of
people because a lot of eyeballs, you know, it was like, oh,
who's on your top eight? It became a big thing.
And with MetaMers, we'll be able to link rooms together as well.
So laugh all you want at MySpace, but that was the godfather of them all and
(33:02):
definitely influenced a lot of platforms moving forward. So I think we can all
owe MySpace a little bit of a tip of the hat. Shout out to Tony.
And diving into that kind of community aspect, something that we haven't talked
a lot about, but pie in the sky feature that's on our roadmap that I'm super hyped on.
There's a lot of politics involved in the curation of content right now and
(33:27):
the algorithm that shows you the content that whatever platform deems to be
the right content for you.
And we've always been really hyped on building communities in areas where you
imagine that there's a Metaverse city that is built for 3D artists.
And they can apply to get a spot in that and they can build their Metaverse within that.
So now, you know, you can browse from place to place, loft to loft,
(33:51):
studio to studio within this community.
And as the user, that is so rich because it's highly curated.
And it's, you know, like-minded people doing the things you want.
And I know one of our partners at Flux88 is a former Toronto Maple Leaf hockey
player named Mikhail Grabovsky. And we're building a little metamers for him.
And as a sports fan and a hockey fan, I think how incredible would it be as
(34:12):
a fan of a team to be able to see a connected community of the athletes from
that team and what they're up to in their current state of life,
what they're up to in their prime and having that evolve over time.
And then also for the individuals, I know there's a former Maple Leaf player
that I've met through all of this that has an incredible cookie business.
But I don't think the fan base really knows that because he's got an isolated
(34:37):
site that's doing this stuff and talks about it a little bit,
but isn't in the public eye.
And I think as a band, how cool would it be to really just immerse yourself
in the names and the personalities that you grow up with and seeing as they
evolve on their journey and their narrative evolves.
And I think that's something that we're excited to launch into the market.
For sure. And I think that goes even beyond sports too. Same thing with music.
(34:57):
There's a lot of bands that meant a lot to me that didn't quite break.
All these bands that didn't get that that longevity that they're still out there making music.
But imagine your media is an old VFW Hall or all basement venue where different
band are connected to different rooms.
So even if it's an old band, you could go check in and see what they're up to.
Growing up on the Long Island music scene, some kid built an extensive Long
(35:21):
Island music scene wiki.
So like it literally there's hundreds and hundreds of bands and how they correlate
to other bands and stuff like that on this wiki.
And imagine being able to visualize that with a Medi. I mean,
that just goes back to the MySpace top eight thing was it became a rabbit hole.
But you just start, oh, well, who's on their top eight? And then it takes you
(35:42):
to their friends. And then you, you know, who's on theirs? And then it takes you there.
So MetaMers will be the same way in that you'll get that same feeling,
except it'll be even more immersive.
Thus, MetaMers, immerse, where, you know, going down that rabbit hole is going
to feel that much more cool. Cool.
And then we have the gamification reward aspect, which kind of fuels your journey
(36:03):
deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole and doesn't only fuel it,
it rewards it. So how cool is that?
Do you guys see any in real life integrations for MetaMers? Do you think that's a possibility?
I absolutely think so. What's natural to correlate between a 360 virtual space
and a physical space, the connection between the two is a geolocation.
(36:27):
These 360 scenes that we've been creating are digital creations or created in other ways.
But in the future, I imagine with the expansion of 360 cameras or apps that
stitch photos together to create a 360 or 180 scene.
I imagine that you're going to want to tag those scenes with a geotag and be
(36:50):
able to navigate and jump to those in a virtual way.
So the connection between in real life 360 scenes and MetaMers is a natural
connection in my mind. Yeah.
And again, Dane, having created or thinking of other applications like Live
Events 360 website so long ago, there were real life locations attached to the
(37:12):
different venues that he had cataloged on the website.
And then also around the same time, Dane, what was the game you were playing
where in real life you were going to different locations? Oh yeah, Pokemon Go.
It was the predecessor to Pokemon Go. It was called Ingress.
And it was by the Niantic company that ended up going on to create Pokemon Go.
(37:35):
But Ingress used Google Maps as a base and built a game layer on top of the Google Maps framework.
So i coordinated with people
in my local area you know i would drive around to
different physical locations with my phone geo location
turned on and earning points and basically playing
(37:56):
in real life capture the flag through this game and
it was a lot of fun and dane was telling me
about it and i just thought it was insane like i was like
what is this this sounds like the whole idea just sounded
like a movie or something like that i
was finding these these random locations out
in the middle of nowhere and you'd had to physically get within the
(38:17):
geo location to be able to do it
and you'd be watching out for other people because if they got noticed that
you were attacking a spot they would come and defend it and so you were actually
seeing people in real life that were playing the same game as you sometimes
and it was different but it was it was a lot of fun but it It proved to me the...
(38:38):
Viability of an in real life game. People will go places if they have a reason.
And if you give them a fun, engaging experience, that's something people would do.
And that's why I bring it up and why I wanted to go into it was just to let
people know like how invested we are in the actual experience and kind of real world application.
(38:58):
We've been out, we've played with different platforms that are multidimensional
or however you want to put it.
And all of those experiences were funneling into creating a MetaMirror.
And one more thing on that was just the, in terms of building that Live Events
360 and tagging the venues,
I spent many nights for weeks looking up different venues from cities all around the world,
(39:23):
the major coliseums, getting their geolocations, their latitude and longitude,
and storing it in a database
so that I could look up events for all these venues all around the country in
an idea that it might be a competitor to Songkick,
which ended up going on to becoming a major player in the event and venue space.
(39:44):
But it was at that point that I was just manually entering geolocations.
And it's very much in line with what is going to happen in the future.
You're going to tag geolocations to pictures.
So while we have our vision narrowed to what MetaMers is, is we do have very
broad and ambitious goals that could expand outside of the virtual world.
(40:04):
Yeah, and without being able to name drop on this next one, because I think
this pod episode is going to come out before the project comes out,
we've actually got a bunch of really cool Metaverse projects that are going
to be launching in the coming weeks.
And we're working on one right now where we build an avatar character for the artist.
And we're building a music video for the artist that is depicted in a scene
that is being brought to life in a 3D immersive world.
(40:26):
And then those scenes will also be brought to life in stage visuals where you
now you imagine you can leave a show.
Maybe you buy a shirt at the merch table that has the QR code or something that
jumps you right in to the immersive world that you were already brought into in the live show.
And by having that shirt, maybe you get tokens
or some kind of in-medi currency that allows you to have a discount on something
(40:49):
or to convert those to get a new template or something along those lines that
really is so much richness in the integration with real world that we're already
in the not so distant future going to be sharing some pretty cool stuff there.
I know we're running out of time here, guys, but I do want to ask one question
until I think you queued us up here for this one.
So in closing, what are each of your blue sky goals for the company?
(41:14):
For me, I think we've got really ambitious blue sky goals where ultimately what
we're building, we don't see anything like in the marketplace.
But when we start thinking about it through the lens of us as marketers and
the brands or the artists or the creatives that we interact with,
it feels like a perfect fit for all of those categories.
When we start thinking Thinking about it just as fans and as consumers,
(41:37):
it feels like a perfect fit.
So for me, the Blue Sky goal is that everybody has their own MetaMers and they're
stitched together in a really compelling way.
Community building and for discovery and for curation where everyone is using
these things where ultimately we've been talking about the metaverse for a while.
And I think during the pandemic, there was a lot of chatter where people were
starting to believe, are we all going to be hanging on to the metaverse here
(41:58):
in the next six months while COVID is happening?
And the reality is, I think there's going to be a little bit of a revolt into
fully jumping and spending our entire lives in a virtual universe where for
me, this is augmentation.
This is supplemental where you could have these really rich experiences and
stitch them together and then bring them together in real life.
(42:19):
And then we can all get together as individuals in real life and connect in
the way that as humans, I think is such an important part of our experience.
I'll say that my blue sky vision for this is having a home for my personal digital twin.
If it's good enough for me, I feel very comfortable about that being good enough
(42:40):
If I can create a platform that my digital twin, my future digital twin,
which is going to become more and more advanced in the coming years,
if we build a home for them, I feel safe.
I feel safe for my family. And if I feel that good enough for myself and my
family, and we can open those doors to the world, I think that,
(43:01):
you know, that's just the nicest thing that you could do is invite somebody into your home.
So creating a platform that's good enough for my digital twin and hopefully
good enough for everybody else.
I would say my blue sky goal is rooted in something that we touched on,
but goes beyond that in terms of what I'd like to do, which is based on the
(43:21):
storytelling. I think that, you know...
Tagging geolocated metamerses and
tagging that to real world locations and real world memories and stories that
the users want to be able to share and tell or store is a way for them to build
(43:41):
their own personal story and their own narrative and to tell about their journey.
So my blue sky goal is that people would be able to tell their story and to do it in an immersive.
Interactive way that other people can quite literally or figuratively walk in
the shoes of the people who are telling the story.
(44:03):
And I know, Rich, you're the moderator of State of Flux podcast,
but on this particular episode, you're not just a moderator.
So I don't think it would be fair if we didn't kick it over to you to share
your blue sky. My blue sky has already come true because I get to work with
you guys and do innovative shit every fucking day on this project and this company.
So that's my blue sky. I get to do it every day. If we could keep doing that
(44:23):
and build something that people really love and find ways for people to genuinely
connect and be able to use their digital twin in a way that also creates cool
opportunities in the real world.
That's something really special, I think, that we could do.
And just piggybacking off of that, I want to say, you know, this being the Flux podcast.
Flux has been such a cool company to work with and for
(44:45):
me to get to know blake through rich and get introduced
to flux and everything you guys have and feel comfortable enough
to bring my brother in as a family member and for
us to work as a team it's like flux has been the best
so just want to state that you're on the flux podcast that you
guys do an amazing job you've opened some incredible opportunities for me that
i've now been able to open the doors for my family it's been a pleasure and
(45:07):
we've risen to every challenge that we've been up against and we've We've created
award winning projects that are some of my most cherished goals that I've not
reached in life getting the Nix award and then the Clio award.
That's something you can hang your hat on and be very proud of.
So shout out to Fluk. Thank you, brother. Honored to have you guys as friends and collaborators.
For those listening, you can join the MetaMers mailing list right now at metamers.io
(45:31):
I'll put a link down in the description below. Thank you guys for doing this.
Music.
Music.
(00:13):
Welcome to a very special episode of the State of Flux podcast.
Today I am joined by Blake Armstrong, Dane Pantilla, and the one and only TillaVision.
What do all three of these extremely talented individuals have in common?
Besides the fact that I love all of them, they are all also my partners in MetaMers.
If you're unfamiliar with MetaMers, it's our new immersive VR web building platform
(00:34):
where you can build out your world in 360 degrees, even if you have zero coding or design experience.
Experience it's probably one of the coolest things i've ever been a part of
and after two plus years of building we're actually getting ready to release
it learn all about it here on the pod and then go sign up for the waitlist at
metamurse.io i hope you're as excited for this one as i am let's dive in are you ready.
(00:56):
Music.
And dan since you've never done a podcast before just the way these things generally
work if you want a successful podcast, we have to talk about true crime for
at least 45 minutes of the hour.
So if you guys want to pick a case, we'll jump into it. True crime.
(01:16):
That's the secret. Okay. All right. Cool. No. Again, thank you guys so much for doing this.
Obviously, MetaMers is something that we've all been super excited for.
We've been working our butts off here for what's been about two years that we've
been working on this project.
Yeah, give or take two years, but I think far Far longer as far as just our
own personal research, our interests go back even maybe like five or six years.
(01:41):
I'm not sure what our first project was, but yeah, we need to jump off date.
Yeah, and I wanted to dig deep here. I wanted to get back into the origins of everything.
So Dane and Matt, you guys have known each other since you were born,
kind of what happens with brothers.
Tilla, you and I, we go back like 15 years at this point.
Since you were doing kick drums and I was working for the Stevenson's and Joanna
(02:03):
and we were managing you guys. Yeah, totally.
I think that just dope people just tend to continue crossing paths in life one way or another.
But yeah, it was a different world then. But from the jump, always thought the
most of you and thought you were a great person.
So it doesn't surprise me we continue to collaborate. Dude, I'm always grateful
to have you as a friend and a collaborator.
(02:24):
And speaking of great people, Blake hasn't said anything yet.
But another person I'm super grateful for here is my partner,
Blake Armstrong, who I get the chance to work with for Flux and Engagency.
Yeah, and to put some chime in, because my origin story doesn't go back 15 years. I think it was 2017.
And so I don't remember what was the first project we collaborated on with you
(02:45):
along the journey, whether it was you talking to us about a little Bitcoin or
Death Row Museum or one of the...
Projects we've jammed on over the years.
Yeah, that is the great thing about, you know, working together digitally is
you kind of have this digital trail that we can go back down the rabbit hole
one of these days and we could be like, ah, there it is. That was the first email.
But yeah, it's been a pleasure from day one. And then we've been building 360
(03:07):
sites together as a team long before.
We called it MetaMers and set it up as its own company. We kind of collaborated
as a crew here and we're building what we call kind of Web 2.5 and jumping into
the space and building immersive sites and hacking real estate platforms to
do it in a really rudimentary way that kind of brings us to today.
So super stoked on what we're building and the team and everything we've got cooking. For sure.
(03:29):
And I remember since you guys are talking about when we first started working
together, Blake and I were doing marketing for Death Row Records.
And we had this idea to do the Death Row Museum during the pandemic, right? So it was 2020.
And I hit you up, Taylor, because you had done the Busta Bunker.
And I thought you did such a great job with that. And then you looped Dane in, obviously.
(03:50):
That Death Row Museum was just bonkers successful.
Still one of the biggest things we've ever worked on together.
And then we hit you up again to talk about Mia.
And you had said, oh, I've got this project called Lil Bitcoin.
And then it just seems like every month over month that we've been finding new
ways to collaborate ever since. You know what?
You nailed it. You've got a better memory than us. You're looking at notes over
(04:14):
there, timelines over there on your computer or something. Yeah,
the death row was insane.
And the pandemic was just such a blur of projects that were just rolling in.
I think that's why I'm having a hard time piecing together those early days
because it was just rapid fire, cool stuff happening.
And it's really been happening ever since.
So it was trial by fire initially getting in and we've just been banging them out. Yeah.
(04:38):
And Matt, you had a lot of success during that time period too, in the NFT space as well.
Like you were already an established artist, already had success,
but that was really, you kind of jumped a level there.
So that when you were really on the tip of everyone's tongue with your work,
I remember you coming and saying, I'm focused on these NFT things, but I have this idea.
(04:59):
And the first iteration of MetaMers, when you started talking about it beyond
the 360 sites that we were building for musicians and celebrities and everything like that,
that first inkling that you came up with, and I believe it was you and Dane
together who came up with this,
you had the idea for MediMall. Oh, MallBall.
MallBall, which obviously evolved into MetaMers, but why don't you tell us a
(05:22):
little bit about MallBall? Well, yeah, yeah.
It was Mall Ball, and users of Mall Ball were ballers.
And, you know, it was kind of a funny initial idea, but let's take it back to,
you know, the early days, as I was mentioning earlier, Dane had been working
for years on a site called, well, Dane, why don't you tell them about it?
(05:42):
Yeah, it's a good segue into a little bit of my origin story is a career long
growth into this VR and 360 space.
Like you said, Matt, this goes back all the way to 2010, 2011,
around there with an idea that I had for live events 360.
And it was the idea of being able to go to concerts and go to venues that you
(06:05):
don't have physical access to, but that you could watch the shows in a 360 environment
and, you know, virtually be there.
So that was the first version of this turned into another version called QuickVR.app
was another website that I had built that was more towards this way of being
(06:25):
able to quickly build a VR scene and being able to do that in a rapid fire way.
So closer towards where we were going here.
And then, you know, Matt, with the connections and the networking that he's
done, working with the media space there,
you know, he had this idea for using those 360 scenes and being able to do this
(06:46):
and building a vault for Busta Rhymes to store all of his archive of music.
And from there, it just evolved into one thing after another and seeing how
we can use this to further launch other other artists, VR worlds,
going from Busta Rhymes to Death Row and meeting with you guys.
I feel like we've put this team together that can do this in a way that we want to and do it right.
(07:10):
So I feel like this is the natural next progression of this whole virtual experience.
So Dane, you were doing stuff in VR back in like 2010, 2011?
I mean, I was playing around with it. At the time, I was looking at realty a lot.
And this also goes back. One of the first websites I built was a real estate website.
(07:32):
And the real estate website was your online listing. And it was a way to sell your home yourself.
You would take pictures of your house. And I always thought virtual tours are
something that would be great.
Right. And through the course of buying and selling my house back in the day,
I tried to build a virtual tour for myself, a way that I could show people and
(07:53):
that they could come look at the house. And it never really worked.
We ended up going with a realtor and they had their own platform and everything
else. So it didn't become a priority.
And it was kind of just a hobby at that point. So it was always in the back
of my mind, but nothing really commercialized it in a way that I thought could work.
And what made you make the jump then from being focused mostly on real estate
(08:16):
to going more into the entertainment and the quick VR app?
Getting into VR. I mean, I've always been into video games, playing VR games.
I bought a Valve Index, got into Half-Life Alyx, best VR game out there, kind of blew my mind.
And it was just wanting to work in media and games.
(08:37):
And when Matt brought the Busta Rhymes project and you guys came in with Death
Row, it's like, that's the music I've always listened to.
Working with the music that I like, the media that I like. It's advanced coding.
So it's all coming together in a way that hits everything that I like.
If you could build a MetaMers for any game, what would it be?
(08:57):
Oh man, I don't know. There's so many out there that are being turned into VR games.
Half-Life's one of my favorites. That's it. So I would love to see a Half-Life MetaMers.
I'm sorry, the correct answer was Big Buck Hunter. So of course,
clearly Dane is our dev guy building the most important part of what we are doing.
(09:18):
We talked about how Tilla is an amazing artist and it's his visuals that have
won us the awards that we have on our sites and everything.
And then I want to just talk a little bit about Blake and his background and
his vision because we don't really have official titles here at MetaMers.
You know there's four of us so who needs a title but i
(09:41):
would say that blake in a lot of ways leads the charge
for us kind of playing that ceo role so i'd
love to hear a little bit more about blake how you envision
this when you first heard the idea why you're so excited about it and what you
see your role in metamers is yeah and for us none of us are particularly young
men at this table here so we've been around a long time my first you know interaction
(10:04):
with vr was back in i think I think 2011 or an agency I was a partner in,
we built a really crazy virtual reality experience,
augmented reality with Walmart and Nickelodeon, and it was when the relaunch
of the Ninja Turtles, which is, you know, that's one of my shows when I was
a kid that was that was my jam, Leo Dono and Raph and, you know,
(10:25):
the splinter and crew were such a big part of my childhood. So we had this opportunity.
And you had to have an actual marker on the flyer to download an app that then
take the families in store, hold your phone up in every different aisle or every
different section of the store.
And it would trigger a new character, a new game. And it was really pushing
the boundaries back. You know, we're talking more than a decade ago.
(10:46):
And I was hot on AR and VR back then. And I was surprised at the tortoise pace
that it's taken to get to where we're at to today. day, but along that journey
have always been in the agency world and building websites for brands and artists
and athletes and the whole gamut.
And one thing that I've always watched is just when you look under the hood
and look at the analytics, the analytics have been dying in a lot of web browsing
(11:07):
experiences where we're used to have a multi-paid site with a lot of depth.
You would start to look at the traffic and the traction and you would have such
a little time on page for all of your subsequent pages.
So then everyone said, let's do these long executive summary scrolling landing
pages became the new norm and your bounce rate was high.
(11:28):
And it was always such a tough challenge to try to build a website where social media was taking over.
And back in the day, we were building really elaborate Facebook fan pages and
apps within the Facebook fan page and hanging out where the consumers were engaging.
But I think it's thinking about why are they engaging there?
What is it that social media and a lot of these other platforms provide that
(11:48):
a website doesn't provide?
And when we started building these together and looking at how we were building
them, we always had a lot of conversations like, wouldn't it be great if we could do this?
Like we see all of this opportunity in white space where the consumer wants,
you know, X, we want to give them X, but all of the technology and tools available
were only allowing us to do Y.
And that's kind of the origin where all of the biz dev conversations we were
(12:09):
having as an agency at Flux88, people were so hyped on what we were building
with the Immersive website.
So we could be doing the coolest video or, you know, whatever project we're
working on. But at the end of the day, it kept coming back to MetaMers and all of the websites.
So then as we got into formulating this as a company and turning it into MetaMers,
which I do remember back in the day, we almost were MetiMall because it really
(12:30):
took Tilla a long time to get off the mall ball bandwagon.
We were very close to being MetiMall, I remember back two years ago.
But it's all about providing what consumers are looking for,
giving them a place where they're choosing to spend time and choosing to engage.
And for us, when we started looking at the analytics on the early sites where
we weren't using our own platform where we were just hacking a real estate platform,
the time on site was 65% higher than your average site, which is really telling.
(12:54):
That's not a small statistic.
And that was without gamification. And as Dano built in some of our tools that
allow us to gamify the experience,
we're now like what we did with Walmart and Nickelodeon back in the day where
you had to go to the seasonal section to find Leonardo and you had to go to
the apparel section to find Donatello.
We are giving people a reason to spend time and browse the entirety of someone's
(13:16):
experience, which now you can click on whatever artifacts or whatever objects.
And you're building that affinity with the brand. You're building that relationship.
You're providing them multiple points to transact.
So I've been hyped since day one because I've been waiting for the market to keep evolving.
And then we got on this journey and all of a sudden we're probably 12 months
into our journey when then we've had this kind of golden era of AI happening
(13:38):
for the last 12 months where it feels like we've lived 47 lives in the last
two years while we've been building this with just the speed the market's evolving.
So yeah, super hyped on what we're doing and helping lead this team to close
our financing and scale, scale, scale.
I think you just did a really good job of answering the why for MetaMers,
the demand and the fact that the time on site was 65% higher.
(14:00):
We're able to gamify our websites so that increases engagement and everything.
But for the people who are listening to this who don't know what MetaMers is,
I want to hear from each of you guys.
If somebody were to come up to you and say, what is MetaMers?
What would your answer be?
I'll start. This is Matt. I would say when people ask me what MetaMers is,
(14:22):
I say it's a virtual 360-degree website platform.
I define it as Web 2.5, which is kind of an upgrade from Web 2.0 in that we're
not doing the death scroll anymore.
Now we can see things in 360 degrees. And we're not quite fully Web 3 where
you're running around in a Fortnite game or something like that.
(14:44):
Even though I would say that we do lean towards Web 3 because we are moving
towards the future and there are Web 3 elements involved. But I think Web3 is
a scary term that sometimes turns people off a little.
And, you know, our point and click style websites feel more of a step up from
Web2 than fully Web3. And I think one important part.
(15:06):
Kind of building upon what I call them TILA to everyone listening.
We've always called them TILA, but now that we've got two brothers who have
the same last name as part of the crew, we started calling them Matt a little bit again.
But I think one of the big things that Matt didn't touch upon,
we often call it the square space of 360 degree websites.
And the reason we say that, the part that was kind of not included in what Matt
(15:26):
had shared is that we're democratizing the ability for users to create 360 degree immersive websites.
We're now without any tech background As a SaaS platform, we were giving people
the ability to log in, leverage templates, leverage AI, and build their own
360-degree universes, which there's nothing like that in the marketplace.
So we've always built these high-end, fee-for-service, really cool 360 websites.
(15:52):
And now we're giving that same power in the consumer's hands or the fan's hands
to be able to build their own world without needing some of the wizardry tool
set that a guy like Matt has that your average fan or average consumer is not,
because that's in that same tool belt. And Dano, did we miss anything?
Well, I mean, the way I see MetaMers and the way that I would describe it,
you know, I'm a very visual person.
And when I think about the way that you view MetaMers, almost like you're looking
(16:17):
through your phone into a portal to a website that wraps around you.
And that's how I would almost describe it is that it is a website that you can
use your phone, you can turn around, you can look around and it is all around you.
And that scene can be expanded infinitely to have many other scenes that they link together.
(16:39):
They could be photorealistic. They could be graphically depicted, you know, 3D scenes.
It could be anything that you can imagine, but it's still a website.
It's viewable and navigatable through a phone and through tools that everybody has.
So it's easy to set up for your average user. Like Blake mentioned,
it's not all the way into Web3.
(17:02):
Like Matt mentioned, it's halfway there.
And it's not VR where you need a virtual reality headset.
You use your phone, you look at it, and it's a cool, interactive, immersive experience.
I do think it's worth adding to what you guys are saying, though,
that yes, it caters to everyone, but it also works for those people that are tech forward.
(17:25):
So, you know, we're not Web3, but we have Web3 elements, right?
And then at the same time, you can look at Medi. Medi is what we call our rooms on the platform.
You could look at it on your phone. You could look at it on your desktop,
but you could also experience it using a headset.
So I think that's something really cool, too, because your Medi experience can
(17:45):
be whatever you want it to be.
Yeah, definitely levels to how deep you can go.
But I prefer the Web 2.5 term because, you know, even symbolically,
our Medis are a doorway into somebody's, you know, virtual world.
But it's also kind of an invitation to step out of Web 2.0.
Into the future. So I like what Web 2.5, I like how it feels a little bit more
(18:10):
inviting to those that are scared by some of the advances in technology.
It seems maybe a little less intimidating.
I think that's been one of the biggest challenges that the virtual reality space
has had with the public is that leap into the future.
You need a new device. It's a whole new experience.
These challenges are a bit scary to the average user.
(18:32):
And so having a platform form that's rooted in something that they are used
to, that is the fundamentals of an internet that they are accustomed to and know about,
but then have the steps into Web3, meaning like wallet integrations,
different virtual reality style gamification.
(18:52):
You know, all of these aspects introduce the user and bring them forward into the next level.
And also, I just wanted to add really quick the navigation of points and click.
I really enjoy point and click where, you know, that's a big hurdle for a lot
of people is the, you know, movement within a virtual space.
Again, that gets into kind of like you're playing Fortnite or Call of Duty or
(19:15):
something where point and click style feels in a way it's fun.
I think for any age, just seeing and clicking something is just something that
comes very natural to any human. And so there's a lot of enjoyment and not so
much frustration in learning.
There's not like a big learning curve of, oh, how do I maneuver through this
(19:36):
space? It's just something that you've been doing for a long time.
Previously, we've done high profile sites for big names.
So as we're transitioning into a site for anybody to use, what are you excited
about the idea for anybody to be able to have their own Medi?
I'll start this one again. Again, there's a lot of value in creating art as
(19:59):
I have been my entire life.
I'm an artist and I create my own personal viewpoint.
But there's a whole different level of enjoyment you get out of creating tools
for others to use so that they can create art.
So creating a tool set and putting it on a table for other people to pick up
those tools and carve out their art and seeing their viewpoint and their worldview,
(20:23):
literally through MetaMirse. there's a lot of enjoyment that comes from that.
Ultimately, I think those of us here on the pod are storytellers.
And when you look at building connection in real life, online,
in any aspect of life, it's all about getting to know somebody,
getting to know a brand, getting to know something, and really being along on
that narrative and that journey that their storyteller is taking you through.
(20:45):
And we've done that for years with all kinds of projects, whether music,
video, over 360 degree website.
But for your average user, it's not easy with a website to be able to take people
on a journey. That's something that's quite a challenging task.
And especially if you don't have the tool belt to be able to build in all kinds
of strong video content to be able to weave narrative in.
(21:05):
And with our platform, you can easily weave that narrative into your site.
And democratizing that, giving people the ability to really allows them to tell their story.
Right now, if you look at a prime example, we always talked about one of our
early features is a simple product where there's so many people around the world
who have their socials linking to a very generic list of links to their various
(21:26):
endeavors or charitable donation links or whatever they might have cooking.
And here you can put it in a place where this room feels like my space.
This is my loft with links to all the things that matter to me.
But you can also, when you're visiting it, get a sense of my taste and my style
and my personality. And I think that's something that we all crave and we all want.
Just at the park last night with one of my little ones, or actually with both
(21:47):
of our little ones there.
And just talking to neighbors and interacting, people crave that,
getting to know each other and understanding each other and the whys.
And I think a Metaverse gives people the ability to share so much more than
they would get in a traditional site.
Yeah, me and Matt, growing up, one of the things that we had always done was
we were really big into world building and board game playing and building these
(22:10):
stories and creating these worlds.
With the introduction of the internet and web development, that was one thing
that we got into and that we noticed a lot of people wanted was their own websites.
And everybody wants their own world, their own website. They want to tell their
story, and they want to tell that narrative.
And one thing me and Matt did was we often told separate stories,
(22:32):
but we found ways to link them together.
And in building these worlds.
That's one thing that we want to do. And that's what we're going to bring with
MetaMers is the social aspect of being able to build your own world,
create your own narrative,
link to all the different aspects of what make you, you, and also connect with
other people who are doing the same.
(22:53):
So you can connect your communities, you can build your networks,
and you can really tell your own story. I do want to stay with you here,
Dane, for a minute, talk a little coder to us.
You are the one to say, you know what, this is limiting for us to be using this real estate platform.
We want to do other stuff. I'm going to build a back end. And then you are also
the one who was able to say, you know what, I built our own back end.
(23:15):
And it's a super easy jump to make it so anybody could use our back end.
So I kind of just want to hear a little bit about your thought process of when
you decided this is limiting to be working on this other platform,
I'm going to build our own backend and then take us through that into figuring
out that you can so easily make it usable for somebody who has no coding or design experience.
(23:36):
One of the things that I get the most satisfaction out of is building systems for other people to use.
And it's like, it's building a robot that everybody can utilize without knowing
the inner workings of it.
And so working with the other libraries and other frameworks.
I'm able to kind of see what works and what doesn't and what benefits we can use.
(23:56):
And I think we mentioned it earlier, we are building these kind of one-off applications
for Busta Rhymes, for Death Row Records, for Young Thug.
And we're building them and releasing them, building them and releasing them.
And I thought, if we're repeating the same work over again, I could at least
make it easier for myself and build a way that I can do this in a more streamlined
(24:17):
fashion. And if that's the case, why can't more people do this?
Why can't we build a system for everybody to get their hands in and to build their own system?
I enjoy building these one-off applications for clients and users,
but really I enjoy empowering them to do it themselves.
I want them to feel invested in it and that it's theirs and that they are really
(24:43):
the creator of the world that they're inhabiting.
So that was kind of the motivation there.
And that's where it kind of just went towards, you know, how can this application
benefit the most people in the easiest way? Dane was also hacking the existing
platforms pretty crazy to make them do things that they weren't even meant to do.
So there was a lot of shortcomings in the existing creation tools to make these
(25:07):
worlds, and Dane was adding more value.
So just being able to have full control...
And then offer people more. Just discussing between the both of us,
we just saw the potential for so much more than what was out there and how it was being used.
There was a lot of manual labor to get the applications to work well and to
(25:29):
give it the enhanced functionality that we were adding to it.
So we thought if we could just replace that backend and build it ourselves,
we could have that enhanced functionality and more control over the underlying
architecture at the same time.
What are some features of MetaMers that we're building out that you guys think
are the most unique and revolutionary component of MetaMers?
(25:52):
For me, it's the item collections and the awards and badges I'm excited about.
When a MetaMers is set up, you can set up hidden collectible items, Easter eggs.
When you collect those items, if you have an account, you can save them to your
profile. You can collect them.
In the future, I see a marketplace where these items can be traded or where
(26:16):
they have unique value to them or stored on the blockchain and have a transaction history.
The sky's the limit, but being able to collect items that are unique and linked
to the MetaMerses that you're subscribed to or interested in, I'm excited about that.
When you look at the most valuable companies in the world, it's clear that one
(26:38):
of the biggest currencies in today's day and age is data.
And ultimately, as marketers, we've asked for data for years,
whether it's an email address or a cell phone number, the various pieces of
information that consumers may not realize are being tracked on them.
And ultimately, the marketing team is asking for it and often offering very
little in return, just trying everything you can to get data from your consumers.
(27:01):
And I'm super excited in the value exchange with a metamercy where now if you're
a brand or an artist wanting to build your email list.
You can add that as a gate to a room. And by providing your email address,
which is the currency that everyone wants, you're now getting something in exchange.
You might get into a room that contains a vault or an unreleased track or you
name it. The user has the ability to put whatever they want in a room.
(27:24):
Or we can tie it to the gamification where after they spend the time browsing
the site and collecting all the items, and now they're rewarded with entry into
a really interesting contest with some great prizing in exchange for providing
email or phone number. I think that's game-changing.
Ultimately, we're all happy to give our email address and phone number if we
believe in the reason why.
And we believe that this is a value exchange versus just a straight marketing plan.
(27:49):
I think that's the beautiful thing about MetaMers is it is completely a value
exchange at every step where it is an immersive experience that is being built
for entertainment in addition to info and transaction that is the traditional goal of website.
Yeah, I would say that rewarding me for going on your website and exploring is very exciting.
(28:09):
It'll give me a reason to visit websites again. They're all this is tied into
an ecosystem where, oh, I'm in this website exploring, but now I jumped to this website.
And so the game is expansive and it's not like you're just investing in some
one off website and kind of there's no reason to ever interact ever again.
You're going to visit more and the community is going to grow.
(28:30):
So there's a larger goal that you're working towards and the digital assets
actually mean something.
And I think that that aspect is extremely exciting.
The gamification of the web through Metaverse is insane.
But I would say that, you know, as a designer and a content creator and digital artist,
the thing that I'm excited about is the tools that we're going to give other
(28:51):
3D artists out there to create their imaginary worlds that are in their heads
and make those worlds for us to explore.
I know some of the best digital artists in the world.
I've gotten to know some of them personally through my work in the space,
but also through the NFT world and Crossing Pad.
I want to explore what's going on inside their brain.
(29:14):
So I'm very excited to ingest these amazing artists and having them illustrate
their world for us to explore.
So the actual creation tools, which there'll be templates available for people
that don't have any experience.
But then they'll also, we're working on.
New ways to reskin existing templates using AI that I'm very excited about.
(29:38):
And then also offering people the tools to create on their own with Blender or Cinema 4D.
So then they can create in their software of choice and then import those worlds into MetaMirror.
Touching on one more aspect of the social aspect of it that I'm excited for
is the connections that the owners of the MetaMirror can have with the communities.
(30:01):
Two illustrations of that were the Tupac Memorial page that we put up on the
Death Row site where users could visit a page and interact with the Google form
to leave a message in memoriam for Tupac.
We got hundreds of responses from that, and those responses went straight to
the owners of the site and shows to them what a community there is behind their platform.
(30:27):
And the other aspect was the Juice World gardens that we created and graffiti
wall that we implemented that recreated a real world location and allowed users
to leave messages there that showed connection and community.
And that was shared also with the family of Juice World. world.
So these things create a unique way for the community to connect with the content
(30:49):
creator in ways that Twitter had revolutionized in the past.
And I see VR worlds and these MetaMerses revolutionizing in the future.
It's funny, we talk about the social aspect of MetaMers a lot.
And, you know, obviously, the first thing that people think about is modern
social media, Instagram, you know, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, what have you.
(31:11):
But the platform that it most makes me think about is actually MySpace.
Because when MySpace came out, Dane's over there laughing, but I'm going somewhere with this.
When MySpace first came out, it was the only social that I remember you would
just do your MySpace as your website.
And it was so good at managing community.
(31:33):
People were able to talk to each other in the comments. You had your top eight
and your friends and there was communities built around people's MySpace page.
And I grew up in the punk and hardcore world. And some of the bands that I would
go see play in front of 10, 15 people like Fall Out Boy or My Chemical Romance,
I'd see them play at a VFW hall.
(31:54):
Six months later, they're on tour in these big stadiums and have major label deals.
And that was all because of the community they built on MySpace.
And that's where I like to think of MetaMers going is almost a VR 360 immersive
MySpace because the community aspect is so important. Especially correlates
with the custom design aspect of it.
(32:15):
I can tell you that I know more than a couple people that got into coding because
they were trying to figure out how to customize their MySpace page.
And they had to dig into the HTML and figure out what they can do to customize colors and whatnot.
It's a creative space and it's a community building space.
And both of those things are definitely there for MetaMers. The big thing about
(32:40):
MySpace was that top eight. The top eight was the community.
If you were included in someone's top eight, that could be big for a lot of
people because a lot of eyeballs, you know, it was like, oh,
who's on your top eight? It became a big thing.
And with MetaMers, we'll be able to link rooms together as well.
So laugh all you want at MySpace, but that was the godfather of them all and
(33:02):
definitely influenced a lot of platforms moving forward. So I think we can all
owe MySpace a little bit of a tip of the hat. Shout out to Tony.
And diving into that kind of community aspect, something that we haven't talked
a lot about, but pie in the sky feature that's on our roadmap that I'm super hyped on.
There's a lot of politics involved in the curation of content right now and
(33:27):
the algorithm that shows you the content that whatever platform deems to be
the right content for you.
And we've always been really hyped on building communities in areas where you
imagine that there's a Metaverse city that is built for 3D artists.
And they can apply to get a spot in that and they can build their Metaverse within that.
So now, you know, you can browse from place to place, loft to loft,
(33:51):
studio to studio within this community.
And as the user, that is so rich because it's highly curated.
And it's, you know, like-minded people doing the things you want.
And I know one of our partners at Flux88 is a former Toronto Maple Leaf hockey
player named Mikhail Grabovsky. And we're building a little metamers for him.
And as a sports fan and a hockey fan, I think how incredible would it be as
(34:12):
a fan of a team to be able to see a connected community of the athletes from
that team and what they're up to in their current state of life,
what they're up to in their prime and having that evolve over time.
And then also for the individuals, I know there's a former Maple Leaf player
that I've met through all of this that has an incredible cookie business.
But I don't think the fan base really knows that because he's got an isolated
(34:37):
site that's doing this stuff and talks about it a little bit,
but isn't in the public eye.
And I think as a band, how cool would it be to really just immerse yourself
in the names and the personalities that you grow up with and seeing as they
evolve on their journey and their narrative evolves.
And I think that's something that we're excited to launch into the market.
For sure. And I think that goes even beyond sports too. Same thing with music.
(34:57):
There's a lot of bands that meant a lot to me that didn't quite break.
All these bands that didn't get that that longevity that they're still out there making music.
But imagine your media is an old VFW Hall or all basement venue where different
band are connected to different rooms.
So even if it's an old band, you could go check in and see what they're up to.
Growing up on the Long Island music scene, some kid built an extensive Long
(35:21):
Island music scene wiki.
So like it literally there's hundreds and hundreds of bands and how they correlate
to other bands and stuff like that on this wiki.
And imagine being able to visualize that with a Medi. I mean,
that just goes back to the MySpace top eight thing was it became a rabbit hole.
But you just start, oh, well, who's on their top eight? And then it takes you
(35:42):
to their friends. And then you, you know, who's on theirs? And then it takes you there.
So MetaMers will be the same way in that you'll get that same feeling,
except it'll be even more immersive.
Thus, MetaMers, immerse, where, you know, going down that rabbit hole is going
to feel that much more cool. Cool.
And then we have the gamification reward aspect, which kind of fuels your journey
(36:03):
deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole and doesn't only fuel it,
it rewards it. So how cool is that?
Do you guys see any in real life integrations for MetaMers? Do you think that's a possibility?
I absolutely think so. What's natural to correlate between a 360 virtual space
and a physical space, the connection between the two is a geolocation.
(36:27):
These 360 scenes that we've been creating are digital creations or created in other ways.
But in the future, I imagine with the expansion of 360 cameras or apps that
stitch photos together to create a 360 or 180 scene.
I imagine that you're going to want to tag those scenes with a geotag and be
(36:50):
able to navigate and jump to those in a virtual way.
So the connection between in real life 360 scenes and MetaMers is a natural
connection in my mind. Yeah.
And again, Dane, having created or thinking of other applications like Live
Events 360 website so long ago, there were real life locations attached to the
(37:12):
different venues that he had cataloged on the website.
And then also around the same time, Dane, what was the game you were playing
where in real life you were going to different locations? Oh yeah, Pokemon Go.
It was the predecessor to Pokemon Go. It was called Ingress.
And it was by the Niantic company that ended up going on to create Pokemon Go.
(37:35):
But Ingress used Google Maps as a base and built a game layer on top of the Google Maps framework.
So i coordinated with people
in my local area you know i would drive around to
different physical locations with my phone geo location
turned on and earning points and basically playing
(37:56):
in real life capture the flag through this game and
it was a lot of fun and dane was telling me
about it and i just thought it was insane like i was like
what is this this sounds like the whole idea just sounded
like a movie or something like that i
was finding these these random locations out
in the middle of nowhere and you'd had to physically get within the
(38:17):
geo location to be able to do it
and you'd be watching out for other people because if they got noticed that
you were attacking a spot they would come and defend it and so you were actually
seeing people in real life that were playing the same game as you sometimes
and it was different but it was it was a lot of fun but it It proved to me the...
(38:38):
Viability of an in real life game. People will go places if they have a reason.
And if you give them a fun, engaging experience, that's something people would do.
And that's why I bring it up and why I wanted to go into it was just to let
people know like how invested we are in the actual experience and kind of real world application.
(38:58):
We've been out, we've played with different platforms that are multidimensional
or however you want to put it.
And all of those experiences were funneling into creating a MetaMirror.
And one more thing on that was just the, in terms of building that Live Events
360 and tagging the venues,
I spent many nights for weeks looking up different venues from cities all around the world,
(39:23):
the major coliseums, getting their geolocations, their latitude and longitude,
and storing it in a database
so that I could look up events for all these venues all around the country in
an idea that it might be a competitor to Songkick,
which ended up going on to becoming a major player in the event and venue space.
(39:44):
But it was at that point that I was just manually entering geolocations.
And it's very much in line with what is going to happen in the future.
You're going to tag geolocations to pictures.
So while we have our vision narrowed to what MetaMers is, is we do have very
broad and ambitious goals that could expand outside of the virtual world.
(40:04):
Yeah, and without being able to name drop on this next one, because I think
this pod episode is going to come out before the project comes out,
we've actually got a bunch of really cool Metaverse projects that are going
to be launching in the coming weeks.
And we're working on one right now where we build an avatar character for the artist.
And we're building a music video for the artist that is depicted in a scene
that is being brought to life in a 3D immersive world.
(40:26):
And then those scenes will also be brought to life in stage visuals where you
now you imagine you can leave a show.
Maybe you buy a shirt at the merch table that has the QR code or something that
jumps you right in to the immersive world that you were already brought into in the live show.
And by having that shirt, maybe you get tokens
or some kind of in-medi currency that allows you to have a discount on something
(40:49):
or to convert those to get a new template or something along those lines that
really is so much richness in the integration with real world that we're already
in the not so distant future going to be sharing some pretty cool stuff there.
I know we're running out of time here, guys, but I do want to ask one question
until I think you queued us up here for this one.
So in closing, what are each of your blue sky goals for the company?
(41:14):
For me, I think we've got really ambitious blue sky goals where ultimately what
we're building, we don't see anything like in the marketplace.
But when we start thinking about it through the lens of us as marketers and
the brands or the artists or the creatives that we interact with,
it feels like a perfect fit for all of those categories.
When we start thinking Thinking about it just as fans and as consumers,
(41:37):
it feels like a perfect fit.
So for me, the Blue Sky goal is that everybody has their own MetaMers and they're
stitched together in a really compelling way.
Community building and for discovery and for curation where everyone is using
these things where ultimately we've been talking about the metaverse for a while.
And I think during the pandemic, there was a lot of chatter where people were
starting to believe, are we all going to be hanging on to the metaverse here
(41:58):
in the next six months while COVID is happening?
And the reality is, I think there's going to be a little bit of a revolt into
fully jumping and spending our entire lives in a virtual universe where for
me, this is augmentation.
This is supplemental where you could have these really rich experiences and
stitch them together and then bring them together in real life.
(42:19):
And then we can all get together as individuals in real life and connect in
the way that as humans, I think is such an important part of our experience.
I'll say that my blue sky vision for this is having a home for my personal digital twin.
If it's good enough for me, I feel very comfortable about that being good enough
(42:40):
If I can create a platform that my digital twin, my future digital twin,
which is going to become more and more advanced in the coming years,
if we build a home for them, I feel safe.
I feel safe for my family. And if I feel that good enough for myself and my
family, and we can open those doors to the world, I think that,
(43:01):
you know, that's just the nicest thing that you could do is invite somebody into your home.
So creating a platform that's good enough for my digital twin and hopefully
good enough for everybody else.
I would say my blue sky goal is rooted in something that we touched on,
but goes beyond that in terms of what I'd like to do, which is based on the
(43:21):
storytelling. I think that, you know...
Tagging geolocated metamerses and
tagging that to real world locations and real world memories and stories that
the users want to be able to share and tell or store is a way for them to build
(43:41):
their own personal story and their own narrative and to tell about their journey.
So my blue sky goal is that people would be able to tell their story and to do it in an immersive.
Interactive way that other people can quite literally or figuratively walk in
the shoes of the people who are telling the story.
(44:03):
And I know, Rich, you're the moderator of State of Flux podcast,
but on this particular episode, you're not just a moderator.
So I don't think it would be fair if we didn't kick it over to you to share
your blue sky. My blue sky has already come true because I get to work with
you guys and do innovative shit every fucking day on this project and this company.
So that's my blue sky. I get to do it every day. If we could keep doing that
(44:23):
and build something that people really love and find ways for people to genuinely
connect and be able to use their digital twin in a way that also creates cool
opportunities in the real world.
That's something really special, I think, that we could do.
And just piggybacking off of that, I want to say, you know, this being the Flux podcast.
Flux has been such a cool company to work with and for
(44:45):
me to get to know blake through rich and get introduced
to flux and everything you guys have and feel comfortable enough
to bring my brother in as a family member and for
us to work as a team it's like flux has been the best
so just want to state that you're on the flux podcast that you
guys do an amazing job you've opened some incredible opportunities for me that
i've now been able to open the doors for my family it's been a pleasure and
(45:07):
we've risen to every challenge that we've been up against and we've We've created
award winning projects that are some of my most cherished goals that I've not
reached in life getting the Nix award and then the Clio award.
That's something you can hang your hat on and be very proud of.
So shout out to Fluk. Thank you, brother. Honored to have you guys as friends and collaborators.
For those listening, you can join the MetaMers mailing list right now at metamers.io
(45:31):
I'll put a link down in the description below. Thank you guys for doing this.
Music.
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