Episode Description

A discussion about the future of digital art displays with Poppy Simpson, Head of Product and Content for Netgear’s Meural product line. In the conversation, we discuss a number of issues around the use of digital art frames, including the evolving user experience, the advantages of providing a library of curated content and Netgear’s pioneering work with the SuperRare DAO to develop a licensing and royalty model for displaying NFTs on digital displays.

Transcript

Craig: [00:00:09] This is Art Sense, a podcast focus on educating and informing listeners about the past, present and future of art. I'm Craig Gould. On today's episode, I discuss the future of digital art displays with Poppy Simpson, Head of Product and Content for Netgear's Meural Product Line. In the conversation, we discuss a number of issues around the use of digital art frames, including the evolving user experience, the advantages of providing a library of curated content and Netgear's pioneering work with the SuperRare DAO to develop a licensing and royalty model for displaying NFTs on digital displays. And now a conversation about a device's ability to open a world of possibilities with Netgear's Poppy Simpson.

Craig: [00:01:06] Poppy Simpson, thank you so much for joining me this week on the Art Sense podcast. Poppy, you are the Head of Product and Content at Meural. And I've really been looking forward to our conversation because, you know, I'm involved in and passionate about the smart art frame space and because of my role at Canvia. And so, Poppy, for those who don't know what we're talking about, when we refer to smart art frames or digital art displays, can you kind of explain what we're talking about, the types of benefits enjoyed by both creators and consumers?

Poppy: [00:01:42] Sure. First of all, thank you so much for having me on. I'm very excited to be here. Yeah, it's funny you say smart art frame and digital display and like, that's kind of a little hint into the market we're in, right? It's young. There's no standard phrase that we consistently use to describe what it is we do. But a digital display, I mean, at least as it comes to Meural, is a Wi-Fi-connected, let's say, smart art frame. So it allows you to change the art on your wall. And it has all sorts of features typically that make that experience elegant and enjoyable. So in Meural's case, we have an ambient light sensor, so the art changes with the light in the room, there's a matte, anti-glare kind of glass-like cover on the screen itself that allows it to kind of not have that kind of harsh backlight. Look, there's a gesture control on the Meural. You can schedule your art by hour, by day, even by month. And we also have some proprietary hardware that optimizes the kind of the colors in any kind of given image. But I guess I also want to emphasize that in this space and again, for Meural, it's also really kind of about a full platform offer, right?

Craig: [00:03:00] Right.

Poppy: [00:03:01] We have an app and it works as a remote and it's integrated now with crypto wallets like Metamask, Coinbase and Phantom for those who want to display their NFT. But we also have this content offer, right? I call it the Meural Art Library. It's a membership offer and that is, you know, a library of 30,000 artworks. It's dynamic, it's updated weekly and it has everything from kind of classic to contemporary works, native digital works. We work with independent artists, we work with museums, we work with collectors archives, so it's really about the display, but also also the content piece, right? Because...I mean, that kind of answers your question, I can carry on a little bit. I mean, when...

Craig: [00:03:48] You can carry on as much as you want, I'm loving this.

Poppy: [00:03:52] I mean, when Meural was started back in the day, like 2015, I think, you know, it was born out of this desire to kind of harness technology to do for visual culture what has been done for film and music. Righ? And that is, I mean, at the most basic or simplest of levels is to make it part of people's everyday lives. Right? So that's on the consumer side. So in the same way that you might listen to a song when you were sad or in fact, let's say when you're happy, you know, can you then start bringing that kind of experience around visual culture?

Craig: [00:03:52] Mm hmm.

Poppy: [00:04:29] Especially in people's homes now. Art is not a time-based medium, and I think that there's a lot about the medium that has meant that culturally it doesn't have necessarily the same kind of position in people's lives. But I also think there's this other thing about it's kind of still considered as somewhat of an elitist pursuit. Right? And so what Meural was also about and what I think digital displays in general are about, I don't know, making access to visual culture, making exploration and discovery a greater possibility.

Craig: [00:04:29] Sure.

Poppy: [00:05:06] So that's on the consumer side. And then I think for the creative side and this is equally important, it's about granting or finding new economic and creative opportunities for artists, right? It's about saying, we want to find you new audiences. We want to provide you with new revenue streams, streams that don't cannibalize of existing ones. We want to broaden your access to global audiences, not just the ones that you're able to find. Find yourself right now.

Craig: [00:05:06] Sure.

Poppy: [00:05:34] So I think that's that's my long-winded... 

Craig: [00:05:37] And it's great because, you know, this is something I have to communicate a lot to people because our platform is similar. And a lot of times for the person that's kind of not able to wrap their head around exactly what I'm trying to describe in terms of content platform, I try to describe it as being sort of a Spotify user experience for visual art, right? You know, your ability to search for a new artist, find work that you like, be able to create a playlist and for like the consumer and the creator, both obviously creators on Spotify that direct licensing income isn't huge, but it's the prospect of people finding you and becoming new fans is a great benefit. Also, sometimes people kind of lump things together. Well, you know, if you are providing a display for artwork, I mean, this is the same as like a digital photo frame, isn't it? Or why can't I just plug a cable into my TV and see my digital artwork? And I think there's some obvious differences there, right?

Speaker2: [00:06:46] Yeah. I mean, before I come to that, I just want to say I think that's such a crucial thing. You were talking about the curation part, which I didn't really kind of expand on. Like one of the things that both of our platforms do right is it allows people we have teams, obviously curatorial teams that put together collections. It might be by museum, it might be by theme color, whatever it is, right? That sort of like lovely little moments. And it also makes visual culture timely, which I think is something that is quite difficult to do, right? You know, a very obvious example is like, "have some delightful classical work that's of Fall as we move into that season", you know, very simple kind of ideas, but also giving curatorial powers to consumers, right? Allowing them to pull together kind of creative artworks and photographs that they, for whatever reason, find to be illuminating together or enjoyable for whatever reason. I mean, to speak to your kind of second point, there's like...I've always had a problem, right? Because of those 1980s, 1990s photo digital photo albums. There's always that bit where you're going, "No, no, just don't think about those because it's not that". Right?

Craig: [00:08:05] Right.

Poppy: [00:08:06] Yeah. And the message is broad, right? Because you can put your photography on these digital displays and there's a whole class of consumers who are investing like thousands of dollars in photographic equipment and really interested in that kind of space. So this makes sense for a lot of people who just like, have their iOS or their Android kind of photo albums and again, being able to put them on the wall in this kind of large format and high kind of impact way...like is really lovely. I'm not saying that that's not an element of it, but definitely in Meural's case, it was built with art in mind. It was built with artists...in fact, when we were first prototyping these, we built alongside an artist collective in the Lower East Side. We were asking them,"What do you want from this? What do you like? What do you not like?" You know? So this is very much a kind of purpose built art experience. And then now we see, of course, in this emerging NFT world native digital art becoming that much more kind of ubiquitous If not yet ubiquitous, certainly like a lot, lot more popular and having a lot more kind of...well, pushing somewhat into the mainstream.

Craig: [00:09:26] Absolutely.

Poppy: [00:09:28] So I think it also makes the kind of always expanded uses. Right? For this for this category.

Craig: [00:09:35] Obviously, the last year and a half, two years, you know, it's been a real changing landscape. And, again when you refer to designing these products to meet the needs of painters and photographers, and now we have to keep in mind the needs of digital artists and making their work look as great as possible. Right? And I think that kind of leads us into a discussion about how have our lives changed as folks that are managing this type of product, since the rise of NFTs in the last 18-24 months.

Poppy: [00:10:14] It's fundamentally changed in one way, right? And because NFTs have for the first time, at least in terms of consumer confidence, have created the idea of digital scarcity, right? And in doing so, have allowed for, I guess, much more traditional model as it pertains to art to be to kind of evolve. Right? And so there are obvious...I wish I had a crystal ball, but there's going to be lots of ways that this new kind of world impacts this space. But I also think that in an odd sort of way not much has changed, certainly from my perspective. Right? I'm still trying to get art.

Craig: [00:11:02] Right.

Poppy: [00:11:02] To a wider audience, Right. It's great if some artists are making much, much more money and that they are providing me with an inbuilt structure by which to help them capitalize. And I use that term actually it's kind of appropriate, but like on their creative output. But, but still, I still think technology in general was, you know, I guess nfts are the latest innovation, technological innovation in a space that was already kind of evolving in this way.

Craig: [00:11:37] I think one of the big pieces of news from you guys in the last six months or so has been how you guys have joined the SuperRare DAO to help develop a licensing and royalty model for displaying NFTs on digital art displays. So can you kind of tell us what that means? What's this licensing standard going to look like?

Poppy: [00:11:58] I can't tell you, and that's kind of the point. I mean, I can speak generally about it. I'm being glib, but I can't tell you. And that's generally the point. And what I what I mean by that is this When we built out the mural art library, you know, we started with zero artworks and we got at some point two 30,000, right? One of the ways that I did that when I was talking to artists, when I was talking to museums, when I was talking to brands as diverse as Magnum Photography, the kind of iconic photography collective right through to sort of Peanuts and Marvel, we had to have a licensing agreement like a format, Right?

Craig: [00:12:34] Right.

Poppy: [00:12:34] And I had to...well I had in concert with with lawyers and, you know, these partners to basically develop it. Right? Because it didn't exist.

Craig: [00:12:34] I understand. 

Poppy: [00:12:34] And that is something that we've had to continuously evolve. You know, as it pertains to whether it's royalties or a membership fee, whether it kind of is for crass comparison like Amazon Prime or Netflix. Right? And there's lots of things to consider here, primarily being will creators be in some way compensated. And in that instance, we just did it, right? We went, we looked and we said, "okay, well, this is a this is a smart economic model. This is not a smart economic model. This is this will work. This won't work. This is the size of the market, etc."  In this instance, we're not doing that at all. And we're not doing that because of the nature of the NFT and Web3 specifically community. Right? This is all about community feedback, inputs. It is not about like Meural and the SuperRare sort of management team going like we have decided this is the license standard and this is what we're going to do. The reason we joined the DAO (a decentralized autonomous organization), just like saying that, the reason we joined the DAO, the reason we bought into the $RARE kind of ecosystem and tokens in order to become part of the DAO is precisely so that we can learn from, speak to, gain insight from and respond to the community. Right? The people who are invested in the way that community develops. Now they will have...we will put forward what is called an SIP (a SuperRare Improvement Proposal) to the DAO with some suggestions about how we plan to move forward.

Poppy: [00:14:39] It'll likely involve putting together groups of interested parties to consult on it. And of course, you know, Meural Netgear will need to have a position on how they think this standard might what it might look like, what is logistically possible within the kind of the the the the existing platform or what we might be able to develop or build. But the key part of it, right, is that it comes from community participation. And I'm seeing already in lots of DAOs as well is that there's interest in the licensing aspect as it relates to artwork from creators and owners or creators and collectors. But there's also a real interest in the curatorial part, right, in how the platforms develop in terms of who they are promoting, why they're promoting, when they're promoting them, how the...what kind of online or metaverse type exhibitions get promoted, you know, these kinds of things. So I think there's still a lot of a lot of exciting things to come in this space that will inform what will ultimately be a kind of incrementally enhanced. Or innovated licensing standard.

Craig: [00:15:57] You know, that's really interesting. You know, that whole difference between Web2 being top down and Web3 kind of coming up from the roots and, you know, the masses kind of being in control. You know, it has a very egalitarian feel to it, but it just seems...it seems a little scary in how do you consensus build? How do you come to a place where you can get people behind the right idea? How do you maintain a level of standard in that curatorial space that matches what your original intent was? I mean, it's almost like some things are kind of being taken out of your hands, right? Is that a little nerve wracking or is it is it exciting?

Poppy: [00:16:46] I mean, personally, I find it exciting. I think it's messier for sure. Takes longer. Definitely. I also don't think it's rocket science. Right. I don't think it's like, you know, the hard thing with art is the concept of value.

Craig: [00:17:05] Right?

Poppy: [00:17:06] And very often we just rely on like the dollar value, right? Because it's just the easiest way to measure success. And the way that that dollar value is landed on is complex in the extreme, right? And it often takes a long time for the concept of value to sort of settle. And there's lots of people who get to sort of help work out what that value of that particular artist or artwork is. It's always been my hope that we might be able to broaden that to somewhat change that ecosystem, right? With in a small way, with this kind of in this kind of segment of the market. Yeah, it is messier, but I think consensus building is always useful, right? It promotes some form of stability and sustainability for the future. And art is a highly speculative and sometimes not always completely stable sort of market. Right? So I think there's a benefit there. But you know, that's not to say that that that Netgear Meural SuperRare won't have sort of opinions it's just that...or ideas rather, it's just that it's very important to kind of gain feedback and be informed by by the kind of the community. And, you know, there will also be there's a lot that's sort of mimicked from the traditional art world currently in the NFT space. Right? And so I think that there's also a chance to try and think beyond that. Sure. And think about ways in which it might be might be different. And, you know, the people collecting and the people creating will have really crucial ideas in that regard.

Craig: [00:19:03] In the proposal that you guys will take before the DAO, who do you anticipate being the beneficiary of the licensing revenue? Like who's offering up the NFT artwork for display? Is it the original creator or is it or is this an opportunity for collectors to earn residual income while they hold onto these assets?

Poppy: [00:19:31] I mean, again, I don't know because, you know, it's in process. But why does it have to be either or? You know, already in the traditional art market, you have unenforceable actually sort of models like in the UK where I'm originally from, every time an artwork is resold, the artist is actually under law supposed to get a small percentage is totally, utterly untrackable, totally unenforceable. Right? 

Craig: [00:20:00] Right.

Poppy: [00:20:00] So the collector makes money, but the artists should too. It seems to me that in this world at least, that will be much easier. But like it underscores my point, that doesn't need to be it doesn't need to be one or the other. It could actually it could actually be both. And again, I think it'll be...it's such a fast evolving market. You know, in some of these projects that have emerged the most, the kind of the blue chip of the NFT world, you know, they didn't even have kind of smart contracts or agreements in place when they started as to artist compensation or collector, etc.. And they're sort of only now coming to to a point of doing that. And I think that that's this this kind of fast pace of change is one of the things that people are beginning to to respond to. Right. And say, well, actually we really need to this kind of coalescing like constituents around particular ideas. Right? Well, actually, this is a technology that was designed to help creators. So let's make sure that we actually encode that somewhere in a standard. Right? And so this is a small way for Netgear and Superrare to do that. And we hope that the standard ultimately that we develop is something that that other people find useful and can, can can take on.

Craig: [00:21:19] Another thing that I think of when we talk about this opportunity is the value of data. Right? And you know, in my mind I see the the opportunity to be able to capture or kind of quantify the popularity of a particular artwork. And it seems like that is an additional metric that might help determine an artwork's future value when when someone's trying to assess its popularity or its appeal. Do you foresee the ability for someone a year or two down the line be able to say, "well, here you can see the popularity that it had on this platform?"

Poppy: [00:22:00] Yeah, I definitely I think and I don't necessarily again, think that that needs to necessarily be specific to NFTs. Even before the advent of NFTs, I thought about data and spoke with partners and creators about data. You know, if you're a museum and you provide content to a platform like us, you know for sure you're interested in engagement, right, with different artworks or, or collections or playlists. You're also interested in like in connections people are making, right? Maybe with, with a with pieces or that aren't from your collection and why, etc.. But yes, for sure. I think there's a as a sort of metric, another metric for value, definitely. And you can see that in the NFT space. And you know, I think it's yet to be seen. What am I trying to say? I think transparency. I don't know if it's transparency, but at the moment, like your wallet, your crypto wallet is a public thing, right? Sales and transactions in the primary and secondary market are public. That is a huge change from the traditional model, right? So that level of transparency is going to be interesting, right? And I don't really know how that's going to play out in terms of of how value is determined in the market. Because, you know, without your gallerist or your agent or you're doing some very deft kind of managing of your of your of your collection, artists are left right now very much in this kind of peer to peer. That's the point of blockchain, right? Transactional kind of relationship. But yeah, I do think data will be important. And in the same way that I guess on social channels engagement is as well, right? People go onto Instagram. I'm not on Instagram, I just want to tell everyone that because I feel very...

Craig: [00:24:10] I think you're the only person in the US not on Instagram.

Poppy: [00:24:12] I actually am the only person and I need to probably get back onto Instagram. But like, I just I just I'm just not right now. But yeah, if you do go on to Instagram because I have been on Instagram, you know, you look at how many people like they follow follow them, right? Or, you know, there's any kind of like there are all these different data points in our digital lives, right? That are now working the kind of public data, right? To to show people who can make it some sort of evaluation about our work. Sounds horrible as I say out loud. I think that's not going to be any different in a kind of in a in in this in this world. There's also data that's not necessarily shown. So that's interesting. But as I think about it now, I can't see why we wouldn't make it public.

Craig: [00:25:07] It makes you think about whether that data would even need to reside on the blockchain with that NFT. Or could it? Should it? But, you know, it's an interesting...interesting thing to chew on. Right? And we can always talk about it with the DAO, right? Let the DAO choose.

Poppy: [00:25:25] Yeah. It's also complex, right? So one of the things and now I'm really getting out of my area of expertise, not that I really have one anyway. I couldn't claim to be an expert in an NF or crypto by any by any measure, but. You know the promise of the digital world in general, the Internet in general. You know, one of it was like, so you take academics, right? Academics currently don't like Google, right? Because they say actually the algorithm like ultimately prioritizes like the same ten studies or the same search term over and over and over and over again. And actually, you know, unless you know how to sort of play the SEO game and who in like the academic circles has been spending time doing that, you're not going to do. You know what I mean? You get like buried wherever you get buried. I'm not explaining myself particularly articulately, but you get what I'm saying. I do. There's problems with data too, right? There's problems with data. You know, you only need to look at the kind of the wash trading that went on in in the final quarter of 2021 and to a certain extent at the beginning of Q1 of this year in the NFT space to understand that it wasn't like a full picture of actually what was going on.

Craig: [00:26:45] Right.

Poppy: [00:26:46] So I think you have to be careful with data, too. You know, Meural remains at the moment, a curated platform. And, you know, we're constantly working the engineering team to try and make sure that people find the art that they want to find and also that they find out that they might not even know that they want to find. Right? Based on some of their other choices. That's, you know, that's a process led by humans and therefore not always totally reliable. So I would hate for data to become...what am I trying to say? I'm trying to say there are works that won't necessarily always get that high level of engagement. And that's not necessarily because they aren't beloved and deserve to do well and would be enormously popular if if if they were if they were seen. You know, and that's true in the in the physical art world too. Right? There are constantly rediscoveries or reinterpretations or sort of, you know curators who do the important work of going to find. Right now it's female artists and artists of color who have been neglected in their sort of larger scheme of typical art historical narratives. You know you want to make sure like digital is not foolproof either, right?

Craig: [00:28:12] Mm hmm. Well, you know, one of the things I think we keep on hearing in our conversation here is how you and I both see value in the platform in allowing people to have choice and to be curators and to have the enjoyment of a sense of discovery and having access. And I don't think all of the digital art frames out there offer that. Some of them are...and sometimes I even have prospective partners come to me and say, "Hey, we want to do this project and we want to ship, you know, one NFT and one frame and that's it". You know, I kind of have to like, back up and explain to them the benefits of this whole world of the platform. I think you'll agree. But do you think that the whole notion of the platform and the library, do you feel like that's really a defining feature in in this segment of the market?

Poppy: [00:29:18] I do. I mean, we're in the jobs we are in, right? Precisely because we do believe that. And I also I also wonder whether that will change the thing you're describing. Right? So I've had it, too. Right? Funnily enough, it was mainly digital assets back in the day pre-NFTs. Right? They would say, "love this product. Can you just put my image on it and no one else's" Right? Because the mental model that they're working with, the levers that they had at that time to sort of use to kind of control their price, their standing, their reputation in the market. Right? With scarcity.

Craig: [00:29:51] Mm hmm.

Poppy: [00:29:52] And so the idea of like being on a device where, you know, you put up next to, you know, you would have no control over what you would be shown next to is scary. I wonder if that will change. I mean, I would love to know your perspective on this. I think it might Now that the blockchain gives you this security, however much it might be, you know, in the same way that, a lot of things are essentially a degree of consumer confidence that underpins it, right? But it gives you scarcity, right? So in that sense, maybe there will be a sea change in that, in that in that there will be a shift in our mental model of like what constitutes scarcity or originality. And my only the only way I think about it, the only way but one of the ways I think about it is photography. And I think about the problem the traditional art world had with photography for the longest time, right? They were like, "Wait, what? It's like infinitely reproducible? And how do we sell it?" you know? And then eventually they worked out how to sell it, right? And they, they educated a market and they did their limited editions and they did their particular printers or they, you know, they did the kind of estate stamps or whatever it is. Right? But they worked out how to position it in the market. And I think that's what Nfts is doing to a certain extent for digital or one of the things that Nfts will do for for digital art, and I hope it is my hope that it will somewhat allay that fear. Right? I think there's a second trend that's happening, and I'm just thinking about this as I'm saying it, so it may not come out particularly well, but I think there's a second trend in culture in general, and it's you see it in the music in the fashion space where it used to be just like "high art, high art". You only do the...but actually this idea of like mass consumption is much, much more acceptable today. Right? You see people doing I mean, in fashion, right? You see people doing collaborations with High Street brands. You see that there's this idea of it be...of like of controlling supply is like culturally feels like it's losing some degree of power. I mean, it'll never lose power, right? But there are...you can see where it's shifting.

Craig: [00:32:16] I feel like there's this this whole sense of people. Beginning to understand and appreciate the value of ubiquity. Like the more pervasive the brand is, the more value it has. When I speak to younger people, they seem to have a better understanding and hold on having a piece of digital art that's viewed by many but owned by one. And they're able to like grab hold of that and say, I get it. I understand. I think you're right. I think bigger brands are thinking about ways to grab on to that. And, you know, if you start doing research on what luxury brands are dipping their toes into the NFT space and particularly like the the 3D object space, it's it's every big name on the list, right?

Poppy: [00:33:17] Yeah. And I don't want to do down this idea of like a premium like, like individual, like owned experience. I think that's really, really, really crucial. And I'm excited about what NFTs mean for our space, right? In that respect, I do think that you want to display these artworks with the gravity and ceremony that they deserve. You want to be able to have this...I think the jury's out on what NFT collectors want, whether they want closed systems or open systems. And, and we shall see. Right? But my guess really is or I guess my bet really is that it'll be a sort of mixture, right? We partnered with Async and SuperRare. Superrare for the DAO and the licensing standard, but also for content, right? So we provide NFT content to our wider community and I think that's something and it's hugely popular and these are people who also love classic art because you take away the kind of you've got to have it up for the next seven years because you're definitely not going to frame anything again, you know, And people are people are much more likely to sort of indulge that curiosity. But yeah, yeah, I think I think the market is definitely evolving as I keep on saying. Sorry, repeating myself.

Craig: [00:34:48] No, it's great. So I know earlier you stated that you didn't have a crystal ball, but let's imagine you did. What do you see on the horizon? Where do you think the opportunities for growth are in this space?

Poppy: [00:35:02] I think we are in the metaverse. I don't know how to think about it. Right? Other than that, we're in the metaverse. Right? I know that there's a very specific way of understanding it. You go online, you interact and but we are that that's where we are right now. Our lives are in many ways fundamentally digital. Right? And, you know, we haven't really discussed this, but like when people say, "well, what's the difference, I can just throw this up on my television or whatever." Meural was never conceived of as for the TV wall, right? It's for all the other walls in your house, right? Yeah. And it's I mean, it's also often displayed as it has behind you right now, vertically. Right? But yeah, I just think our lives are so digital. I can't see how this space does not become increasingly important to the way that we experience our kind of everyday lives. And I do think that we are still...I don't want to check my email or watch television on the same screen that I look at like art that I love and and enjoy.

Poppy: [00:36:15] I don't. And that's important to me. But I also think that there's going to be new ways that I cannot possibly conceive of right now. I think often underpinned by this blockchain technology. I do think that blockchain technology is going to become just ubiquitous in our digital lives as a way of like just identifying digital assets. You know, that sounds very wonky speak, but you know, but like I, you know, and so I do believe that that they they will play a big role. I also think they have a role in shaping how we think about visual culture. And, you know, we were talking about Spotify earlier on and I remember very distinctly the first year I was introduced to Spotify because I was still buying albums right on iTunes. And even in the digital world, I was still like downloading sort of like...I remember I tunes did this great thing, like they would take an artist. And they would do like, you know, the introduction, deep cuts go deep. Do you know what I mean? They would give you this curated like.

Craig: [00:37:26] No, I totally get it. And I hate to interrupt you, but, you know, I hadn't opened up Apple Music on my phone in years. And just recently I clicked on the app and I was looking and I was like, "Wow, it says, I own these 80 songs". I was like, "Wait, I paid for these songs?" Like what? I know, Like how many? Like it's like $100. Like, what was that thinking? You know.

Poppy: [00:37:53] I went down to the to my basement the other day and I found a box of CD's. Imagine my surprise found like Tori Amos from the 1990s.

Craig: [00:38:02] Yes.

Poppy: [00:38:03] Yeah. No, it was great. No, I remember Spotify and I remember being like, "Oh, this is weird". And then now it's just the way we consume, right? And Spotify had a lot to do with changing that...like changing consumer habits, right? And so I do think that there's also...we will obviously be responsive to the market. We will, we will be. But I also think that there will be, you know, opportunities to sort of think about how we want people what is the best possible experience for, you know, for our photography. You know, I get really excited. We have a lot of video work as well recently and and what was sound increasingly, as well. So like that's this that's kind of and that's in the NFT world that's big as well, righ? That's a really big kind of element of it. So yeah, there's lots of exciting things that that I think will come down the line.

Craig: [00:39:07] I'm a big believer in the space for, you know, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing right. And so I agree with you. I agree with everything you've said so. Well, Poppy, I really appreciate you taking the time today to to have a discussion with me about one of my favorite topics and wish you the best of luck with consensus building at the DAO.

Poppy: [00:39:33] Well, thank you.

Craig: [00:39:35] And so if if folks wanted to to learn more about mural or the different things that are coming and going there at Netgear's, where's the best place to keep track of you guys?

Poppy: [00:39:49] So for the platform the content piece my.meural.netgear.com. I should say Meural is spelled m-e-u-r-a-l. And then also just for the kind of the product features and specifically like what we're doing with NFTs and that space which I'm really excited about and which we're focusing on right now, really on the main Netgear site, you can go to netgear.com and navigate towards the page which is called "digital art canvas" and all the information is there. And thanks for having me. It's been great.

Craig: [00:40:27] Yeah, absolutely.

Poppy: [00:40:28] It's good to have a chat about how to change the art world. One one step design.

Craig: [00:40:36] Exactly.

Craig: [00:40:41] That's all the time we have for this week. You've been listening to Art Sense. You can find the show on Apple podcast, iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher Radio, Spotify or your favorite podcast app. If you've enjoyed this podcast, be sure to subscribe. And while you're there, please rate the show and leave a quick review. Your feedback is the key to other folks finding us. And if you'd like to see images related to the conversation, read the transcript and find other bonus features. You can go to canvia.art and click on the podcast tab. If you'd like to reach out to me, you can email me at craig@canvia.art. Thanks for listening.