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If youre in the mood for a yummy and extremely affordable burger today, youll be glad to know that the hamburger fast-food chain Whataburger is offering them for just 75 cents. Here’s why, and how to get your burger for less than a buck. Whataburger turns 75 today Headquartered in San Antonio, Whataburger was first founded in Corpus Christi, Texas, exactly 75 years ago today, on August 8, 1950. Since then, the company has expanded to more than 1,100 locations across 17 states. The burger chain, which was one of Fast Companys 2024 Brands that Matter, actively engages with its fans through outreach events. And today, the company is giving back to those fans in several ways in honor of its birthday. Whataburger is giving away limited edition 75th anniversary cups and, in its founding hometown of Corpus Christi, is holding an Orange Out night, featuring a minor league baseball game, giving away Whataguy masks and capes, and providing an all-orange fireworks display. But today the company is also giving everyone the opportunity to buy a Whataburger for just 75 cents. How to get a Whataburger for just 75 cents Whataburger is making it easy to get one of their burgers for just 75 cents today. The deal is available to anyone who signs up to be a Whataburger Rewards member and downloads the Whataburger app. Heres how Whataburger says you can get your classic No. 1 Whataburger for just 75 cents: Sign up for a Whataburger Rewards account here. Download the Whataburger app (iOS or Android). In the app, redeem the option to get a classic No. 1 Whataburger for just 75 cents. But be sure to act fast Whataburger says the 75-cent burger offer runs today only (Friday, August 8), and only from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. local time. Each Whataburger Rewards account is limited to one 75-cent burger. Full details of Whataburgers 75th birthday offering can be found here.
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Greetings, salutations, and thanks for reading Fast Companys Plugged In. On August 4, Amazon announced that it was restructuring its Wondery podcast studio. The companys CEO and about 110 employees are leaving. Those who remain are being divvied between Amazon’s audiobook arm Audible and a new group called Creator Services, reported The New York Timess Jessica Testa. Observers, including my colleague Grace Snelling, connected Amazons reevaluation of Wonderys future with YouTubes emergence as, arguably, podcastings dominant platform. As of October 2024, according to Edison Research, the video giant had more podcast listeners than Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Calling podcast fans listeners may already be an anachronism, though: In February of this year, YouTube itself claimed 1 billion podcast viewers. Overall, says Edison, Americans spend 773 million hours per week consuming podcasts, up more than 350% in a decade. That translates into 7.7 hours per week per podcast consumer. The medium has changed tremendously in those 10 years. Back in 2015, the hottest podcast was the spellbinding true-crime show Serial, which won a Peabody Award that April after debuting in October 2014. It proved that podcastinglike terrestrial radio in its pre-TV golden agecould conjure up a theater of the mind. A podcast could keep you on the edge of your seat, maybe even more so because you provided the visuals yourself. In Serials wake, plenty of compelling narrative podcasts did emerge. Still, the field always seemed a little stunted. True crime provided a disproportionate percentage of shows, as you can tell from the titles of such Wondery series as Dr. Death, Killer Privilege, Morbid, American Scandal, and Blood and Vines. As engrossing as tales of murder and scandal can be, I expected more kinds of stories to emerge over time. Instead, storytelling in general has been on the wane. Podcasting is now awash in talking headshosts gabbing with guests about a given topic, most often relating to current events. Im not knocking shows dedicated to discussion of news of the day: I consume scads of them and appear on my share. Yet I do feel a twinge of sadness that theyve overwhelmed other types of programming. A medium capable of anything has morphed into a giant talk show. This trend helps explain why podcasts have become so important to YouTube, and vice versa. As the medium has focused on conversation, its become typified by hosts who are glib and charismatic, such as Joe Rogan, Theo Von, Alex Cooper of Call Her Daddy, and Armchair Experts Dax Shepard. You dont have to like all of them to acknowledge that theyre vivid personalities and good at expressing themselves in a memorable way. That gives them a lot in common with the creators who have long attracted mass audiences on YouTube. Some audio-only podcasts are repurposed on YouTube without a real visual element. But the ones that feel at home are full-blown video productions. Sometimes, theyre shot with fancy equipment in a studio and meticulously edited; other times, their production values are reminiscent of a staff meeting held on Zoom. Either way, video podcastings popularity on YouTube shows that it can command attentioneven if all youre seeing is people sitting around and chatting. Now, video podcasts are hardly newIve somehow managed to hold on to a few I downloaded 15 years ago using Apples iTunes, which helped popularize podcasts in the first place. Apples present-day Podcasts app supports video as well. Meanwhile, Spotify has lately been beefing up its video experience, adding features such as the ability to flip back and forth between video Joe Rogan and audio-only Joe Rogan in mid-podcast. Even so, the recent boom in video podcasting may have snuck up on the rest of the industry. And in case you havent noticed, its tough to beat YouTube at creating an environment thats conducive to watching video. App developers taking video at least as seriously as audio might be critical to the future of podcasting, a mode of communication that has thrived in part because its so open. Theres no vast content repository controlled by a single company; instead, podcast feeds run on RSS, which is why you can subscribe to all your favorite shows in the app of your choice. (From 2020 to 2024, when a deal reportedly worth $200 million made The Joe Rogan Experience exclusive to Spotify, it wasnt a podcast by the strictest sense of the term.) By its nature, RSS also respects privacy: Creators can tell how many downloads theyre getting, and can detect subscribers IP addresses, but they cant use data on individual listeners for ad targeting or other purposes. YouTube lets creators pipe RSS feeds of their podcasts onto the platform to automate their distribution. But a pedant might contend that theyre no longer podcasts once they get there. Theyre just YouTube shows monetized via YouTube advertising, inhabiting a parallel universe distinct from RSS-powered podcasting as it exists in other apps. Which is why not all podcasts are available on YouTube and nobody assumes that every YouTube show will be available elsewhere. Last year, Google doubled down on YouTube as its podcasting hub by discontinuing its own podcast app in favor of YouTube Music. As that apps name indicates, its mostly a portal to stuff on YouTube. But it does let you subscribe to podcasts by plugging in their RSS feeds. That preserves a link to podcasting in its most open form, even if its more of a backup than the primary interface. None of this matters much as long as the greater podcast ecosystem beyond YouTube remains viable. Id be alarmed if YouTube started cutting exclusivity deals for popular podcasts, or if its position grew so commanding that creators just didnt bother making their shows available elsewhere. So far, neither scenario is panning out. Heres hoping they never do. Its fine for the lines between podcasting and YouTube to blur a bitas long as they dont fade away altogether. Youve been reading Plugged In, Fast Companys weekly tech newsletter from me, global technology editor Harry McCracken. If a friend or colleague forwarded this edition to youor if you’re reading it on FastCompany.comyou can ceck out previous issues and sign up to get it yourself every Friday morning. I love hearing from you: Ping me at hmccracken@fastcompany.com with your feedback and ideas for future newsletters. I’m also on Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads, and you can follow Plugged In on Flipboard. More top tech stories from Fast Company Instagram launches map feature. It looks a lot like Snap MapThe new opt-in tool lets users see friends’ real-time locations, explore creator-recommended spots, and leave notes on a shared map. Read More Character.AI launches social feed to let users interact, create, and share with AI personasThe new Character.AI feed brings social-media-style features to its app, allowing users to post chat snippets, share AI-generated videos, and co-create content with more than 100 million virtual characters. Read More Pinterest’s male audience is booming. Here’s what they’re searching forPinterest now counts more than 171 million male users, driven by Gen Z interest in wellness, grooming, AI tools, and fatherhood content. Read More Roku’s new streaming service, Howdy, looks like McDonald’s. Here’s why it’s geniusThe budget streamer is setting itself apart from the crowd with a color scheme that no one else has dared to try. Read More Inside World, the first-ever human verification brandTools for Humanity CMO John Patroulis talks about the brand strategy behind World, the Orb, and being human in the AI age. Read More Is Elon Musk’s behavior making liberals dislike all EVsnot just Teslas?The ‘Tesla backlash effect’ might be impacting the broader EV market. Read More
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Crypto is booming again. Bitcoin is near record highs, Walmart and Amazon are reportedly exploring stablecoins, Robinhood is tokenizing shares of public and private companies, and NFTsonce left for deadare stirring back to life. Even crypto-powered network states are inching toward reality. But one star from the last bull run hasnt joined the rally: the metaverse. Back in 2020 and 2021, the metaverse was the tech industrys favorite toyan immersive digital frontier where wed work, play, and shop. Facebook rebranded to Meta, VR headsets flew off shelves, and internet searches for metaverse jumped 7,200% in a single year. JPMorgan called it a $1 trillion opportunity that would likely infiltrate every sector. Decentraland was among the breakout stars of the metaverse, a bustling virtual city with casinos, concerts, branded events from Dolce & Gabbana to Nestlé, and even a JPMorgan lounge. But now, in 2025, the future of the internet looks far from the Ready Player One-esque revolution once promised. Once-booming world hits record low Built on the Ethereum blockchain and powered by its own cryptocurrency (dubbed MANA), Decentraland allowed users to buy and sell land as non-fungible tokens and customize avatars with tokenized wearables. Blockchains, NFTs, and Web3 overall are similar,” says Matthew Ball, CEO of the venture capital firm Epyllion. “There are those who believe these technologies and/or systems will be needed to build the metaverse, others who say its the best way to do so, and some who believe that these technologies are irrelevant to the metaverse and in general. While some saw Decentraland as a financial opportunity, most used it to socialize, attending concerts by artists like Grimes, Ozzy Osbourne, and Björk, or gambling in a virtual casino that reportedly generated $7.5 million in just three months. But last year, reports surfaced claiming the once-thriving world had become a ghost town, with fewer than 50 active users during a 24-hour period. Other blockchain-based worlds have also struggled to maintain engagement. The Sandbox, another decentralized platform, has attracted just 5.7 million usersin totalsince its founding in 2011. Decentraland refuted the low usage claims, asserting that it had 8,000 daily active users instead. Still, user sentiment paints a complicated picture. One Reddit user shared their early excitement but noted they “lost interest for a number of reasons,” citing poor user experience, low engagement, and abandoned projects. I wanted it to work, perhaps it still could, but not without an enormous overhaul to the overall design and leadership approach. Others had similar experiences: Some made money and left, while others simply moved on. Made a shit ton of money from it,” one Reddit user said, “but when crypto winter came in 2021, that shit died. Another added: Used to log in during COVID and play in the casino for fun. There was never anyone around even then. Crypto-based worlds taking the back seat When asked for more recent figures, the Decentraland Foundationthe nonprofit overseeing the open-source platformreported 2.3 million unique visitors to platform properties and 24 million all-time unique visitors. At Decentraland, we believe success in a virtual world isnt measured by how many people log in every day, Decentraland Foundation marketing chief Kim Currier tells Fast Company. Daily active users is a metric borrowed from social media and gaming platforms that are designed to keep people endlessly scrolling or grinding. Thats never been our goal. Instead, the foundation emphasizes engagement. More than 274,000 friendships accepted, 19 million chat messages exchanged, and over 616 million Emotes [actions for your avatar like dance moves or a wave] expressed to date, Currier shared. These are signs of real presence and connection. To improve user experience, the foundation has continued to build. In October, it made a major shift from a browser-based platform to a downloadable desktop version. It also removed the requirement for Web3 wallets, aiming to make the platform more accessible. According to the foundation, the desktop version has been downloaded over 196,000 times. It added that third-party usage trackers can no longer reliably measure activity. Any numbers they share today are outdated and incomplete, a foundation spokesperson tells Fast Company. Changing expectations While blockchain-based metaverse platforms havent taken off as once expected, others have succeeded in offering immersive digital experiences without relying on VR or cryptocurrency. Theyre thinking, like, way further in the future, Currier says. The misconception is that the metaverse is something where you put a headset on and youre fully immersed in a world that is photorealistic and completely different from your physical experience. Many see the metaverse as VR, because when Zuckerberg renamed Facebook, their sole produt in market was a VR headset, Ball notes. Still, he adds, the technology isnt advanced enough yet, and its not essential for the metaverse to exist. I think now we are in a place where people have more realistic expectations about whats physically possible and technologically possible, Currier says. Todays metaverse may look more like platforms such as Roblox or Minecraftvast, user-driven spaces where social interaction is central. The clearest market leader is Roblox, a virtual world platformand one which described itself as a metaverse company long before Facebook or Microsoft ever declared for the same ambitions, Ball says. He points out that during Roblox Corp.s IPO, the word metaverse appeared in its SEC filing 16 timesmore than it ever had before. As the dust settles on early hype, the concept of the metaverse is also shifting in how its meant to fit into peoples lives. At Decentraland, we really, firmly believe its not meant to replace your real life, Currier says. People are spending a little bit more time in the physical world with their real families, their friends, and thats okay.
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