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What Kanye West’s Parler Acquisition Signals About What’s Coming With Web 3.0

So let’s look at three stories and see if we can spot a trend:

What’s the trend? I think this is the start of people who have built successful brands either acquiring or creating new social media platforms. The Dorsey Bluesky Social news is breaking and to be honest, it’s a bit different from the Parler and Truth Social news, but I think it offers a nice bridge to what this could mean for Web 3.0.

Will any of these efforts be successful?  I have my doubts.  I tried Parler for a few months in 2021, and I just didn’t like it.  It was far too focused on politics, and too much politics is….too much politics.  I’ve been checking out Truth Social for a few months and while it is growing rapidly, content-wise it seems to be headed down the same path Parler did.  Kayne’s brand will spark new interest in Parler just like Trump’s brand is pushing a lot of people to Truth Social.

The Bluesky Social news is slightly different.  Dorsey clearly doesn’t have the personal brand that Ye or Trump have, but Bluesky is promising to be a decentralized platform that’s more Web 3.0 native in functionality and structure. Plus, if it positions itself as being ‘the web3 version of Twitter’, that will attract a lot of people. On the other hand, those of us who didn’t completely trust Dorsey while he was running Twitter probably won’t completely trust him running the potential web3 version of Twitter.

Still, I believe influencers creating platforms to connect with fans and around topics they want to focus on is something we will see more of in web3. I think it will be a transition, I could see Web 2.0 influencers who already have a built audience being first.  Maybe someone like a Mr. Beast could have his own platform devoted to videos.  Then over time, as the crop of web3 influencers emerge, they would have similar offerings associated with their brands.  For example, I could see a @Coopahtroopa having a web3 platform devoted to web3 music.

Should Web3 Money Flow to Influencers or Topics?

This is where the rubber will meet the road in web3.  I believe there is enormous potential for web3 to create decentralized communities that are organized around a niche focus.  This could be an influencer creating a web3 platform for their fans so they can connect with them around topics the influencer enjoys. I think this is where a lot of money will flow once this ball gets rolling.

But I think the TRUE value for all of us will be in decentralized web3 communities that are driven and curated by the community itself. These communities would form around an idea, a topic, a vision.  Something that like-minded people are passionate about, and can find value in connect with other people that share the same excitement.  It could something as simple as a platform for Cleveland Browns fans to connect. Or it could be ham radio enthusiasts, or people dealing with chronic health issues who need a community for information and support.

These type of communities will be different from Web 2.0 counterparts, because the participants will have more ways to contribute and create value. For instance, a person who spends 4 hours a day on a platform connecting with people who are dealing with the same chronic illness has created value for the community. That value could be compensated in the form of tokens or something similar, which that person could either use as a form of personal income, or they could pool back into the community. Tokens could be pooled back into the community to crowd-fund initiatives that benefit the entire community. Maybe the community chips in and purchases a day of time with a medical expert to speak to the community and give customized advice to participants.  The possibilities are endless.

Growing Slow Sometimes Beats Growing Fast

I talked a couple of weeks ago about how a community cannot go mainstream. The underlying message in that post was that as a community grows, it will eventually reach a point where the overall experience of the community begins to degrade. The community managers and the community itself needs to be aware of when this point is reached, and dial it back. If growth continues past that point, the community experience will continue to degrade and eventually the community could shatter.

When you add in the desire by a community to monetize its efforts, that can push for growth that may not be sustainable. It’s totally a balancing act and it will require smart managers who are rooted in their communities and have a deep understanding and appreciation of what the group is and wants to be.

The concept of what an online community is or could be will grow and evolve over the next few years as web3 technologies begin to take hold. I think you will see online communities that look different from Web 2.0 counterparts. I think you will see different structures, and you will see more integration with the offline world.  The connections and value created online won’t be locked there, they will float and merge with the offline world.

It will be exciting to watch, I’m looking forward to seeing what happens.

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The Creator Economy Will Not Make You Rich

You will hear the term Creator Economy a lot over the coming years. It’s closely attached to the web3 or Web 3.0 movement, and promises that content creators will have never before seen ways to monetize their content. The story goes that you will see content creators be able to tokenize their content, turn it into NFTs, and create vibrant communities of fans who will happily support creators and even give them the chance to become rich. All off creating content regularly.

But the reality is, it’s not gonna happen.

And I say that as a person who has been getting paid to create content since 2006. I was the first person to successfully monetize a Twitter chat, I believe I was also the first person to get sponsors for a live version of a Twitter chat, when Dell sponsored a Live version of #Blogchat at South By Southwest in 2011. There were some years when content creation was my main source of income, yet there’s also been a year or two where it barely made me a penny.

It’s very difficult to make a good living just from content creation.  A new survey from influencer marketing platform Aspire backs this up:

And let’s be honest: In some areas of the country, $100,000 a year is not much.

I’m not trying to discourage anyone from being a content creator. I just want you to go into your efforts with both eyes open. View your entry into the creator economy as one where you have multiple revenue streams. Content creation could be one stream. Another could be selling courses or consulting services based around the type of content you create. But unless you are the next Mr Beast or NICKMERCS, content creation alone will not make you rich.

Sidenote:  If you’ve read this blog or followed me on Twitter for any amount of time, you know I’m a huge fanboy for the #MFAM community that NICKMERCS has created. I love this tweet Nick reshared a couple of years ago from his excitement in 2014 for hitting 170 viewers of his Twitch stream:

Today, it’s not uncommon for Nick’s streams to have 500k up to a million or more views. Today, Nick is one of the most successful content creators on the planet. Which ties into another point: Even if you do make big money from content creation, it will take time and consistency. Learn to #RespectTheGrind.

 

The Creator Economy Won’t Make You Rich, But It Might Make You Enemies

The creator economy will get more people in the coming years. Since 2020, we have seen a shift to working from home. The creator economy has been an offshoot of this, and will continue to progress.

As it does, many content creators WILL figure out ways to monetize their efforts. As this happens, we will see some silliness and jealousy enter the conversation.

I’ve never told this story before. I started taking on social media content and consulting clients in 2006. In 2011, I started talking to publishers about writing a book that would later become Think Like a Rock Star. In early 2012, I got a deal signed with McGraw-Hill to publish TLAR.  At the time, I was coming off 2011, which had been my best year so far working for myself. I didn’t make a ton of money, but I felt like I had turned a corner, plus I saw the book deal as being my way to take my career to the next level. So when I signed the book deal in early 2012, I decided not to take on ANY new client work for 6 months, so I could focus all my attention on writing TLAR.

In hindsight, this might not have been the best choice, but at the time it made sense to me, so I stand by the decision. I got to work on writing TLAR, and a few weeks later, I announced here, and on social media that the book would be out early the following year.

The reaction was overwhelmingly positive and supportive. However, there was some criticism. A few people left snarky comments here and elsewhere saying I wasn’t qualified to write a book. Or that my book was unnecessary. One person even seemed to imply I had stolen the idea for my book from another author’s book (which I had never read).

I’ll never forget, there was one guy who worked for a major brand who occasionally left snarky comments towards me and other social media consultants. When I announced my book, he went to Twitter and told his followers NOT to buy my book, that I wasn’t qualified cause I didn’t work for a company like he did. I had to laugh cause I’m thinking ‘Dude you are likely making double if not triple what I am right now, and you’re jealous of my book deal’.

So as some content creators find new ways to monetize their efforts, look for the same controversy to follow.  I’m already seeing this happening in some circles where you have a group of content creators who are covering breaking news stories, but suddenly one girl has found a way to successfully monetize her efforts. Now the community she was a part of is calling her a ‘shill’ or that she shouldn’t be monetizing her efforts, she’s a ‘sellout’ etc. I saw the same things when Web 2.0 got off the ground, the same silliness will repeat during Web 3.0.

The Creator Economy Is a Piece of the Pie, it Ain’t the Whole Pie

The odds are, you won’t make a lot of money from creating content. You may not directly make a single dime off it. So manage your expectations when it comes to monetizing the content you create. Don’t think of it as a way to pay the bills, but maybe as a way to HELP you pay the bills. You can have other revenue streams, and many of those can develop as an offshoot of your content creation efforts.

Employers, you have to understand that your employees will be drawn to the freedom that the creator economy offers. It’s enticing to think about working from home, for yourself, doing much of the same work that they are currently doing in a cubicle for you. If you want to keep your best employees, you have to think about how to more creatively compensate and reward them for their efforts. Maybe you give them a bigger salary, or maybe more flexibility in work requirements. Appreciating your employees helps build trust and loyalty.

 

The creator economy will be a driving force in the coming years. It may not mint a million new millionaires, but it will give a lot of people the ability and freedom to pursue a new career path working for themselves. I’m excited to see where it takes us all!

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A Community Cannot Go Mainstream

For the last couple of weeks, I have been beta-testing the Farcaster mobile app on my iPhone. Farcaster describes itself as ‘a sufficiently decentralized social network’.  I call it a sort of web3 hybrid of Twitter and Facebook.  Right now the app is in closed invite-only beta, and founder Dan Romero claims it has about a thousand active users.

So far, I absolutely love it.  The userbase is very techy and some of the stuff (ok a LOT of the stuff) is over my head, but I am loving the vibe of Farcaster.  Here’s what I am seeing there from the users:

  • Almost no self-promotion
  • No politics
  • No arguing
  • A lot of questions being asked that lead to organic conversations

What I am seeing on Farcaster right now reminds me a lot of how Twitter was in 2008/2009.

And that’s the problem.

Two of the overarching themes on Farcaster are:

1 – Wow I love the experience here versus Twitter!

2 – What are the plans to ensure that we keep this same experience as the userbase grows?

 

To his credit, Dan has thought about this a lot, and has a plan in place to protect the community on Farcaster, while growing.

But history has shown us that it won’t work. A community cannot go mainstream. A community can only scale so far before it snaps. And that breaking point typically arrives long before it achieves mainstream appeal.

What is a Community?

For the purposes of this post, let’s define a community.  A community is a group of like-minded individuals who have a shared sense of ownership in something larger than themselves.

Let’s go back to my early Twitter experience. It greatly mirrored what I am seeing now on Farcaster.  A lot of organic conversations.  It was quite easy to ask a simple question on Twitter in those early days and get sucked into an hour-long discussion. And make 10 new connections in the process.

There was no politics, no fighting, no broadcasting, no self-promotion.

Ironically, we all looked forward to the day when Twitter would go mainstream. Our reasoning was when EVERYONE knew what Twitter was, it would be even better!

Then it happened…

A Community Cannot Go Mainstream

I was driving down the highway in rural Alabama, I believe in 2009, when I saw this billboard.  I had to pull over and take a picture (and immediately post to Twitter). I immediately knew that Twitter was about to go mainstream.

And I was right.  Ashton Kutcher’s campaign to get Twitter followers opened the floodgates for other celebrities like Oprah, Britney Spears and the Kardashians to join Twitter. When celebs started flocking to the bird app, journalists were right behind them.

Overnight, Twitter went from our cozy bird app with around a million users in March of 2008, to having over 100 Million users in 2011.

And almost just as quickly, the experience on Twitter completely changed.  It seems celebs like to talk about themselves.  And it seems the media that followed them to Twitter wanted to talk about them.

Meanwhile, those of us who were enjoying our organic conversations and lack of self-promotion or fighting, suddenly felt like some fat, smelly guy had just cannonballed, uninvited, into our quiet and peaceful pool.  Now we were all soaked, and ready to leave.

Be Careful What You Wish For…

But the thing is, we had wanted this.  At least we thought we did. We wanted Twitter to go mainstream.  We wanted to see everyone enjoying the bird app and its community as we did.

Yet we didn’t think about how new people joining Twitter would fundamentally change the experience on Twitter.

And it totally did. Organic conversations gave way to ‘broadcasting’ from ‘thought leaders’. Or if an organic conversation did get off the ground, it was quickly sabotaged by a troll, who had likely joined Twitter sometime after Oprah did.

Why did this happen? Because the new users that Twitter rapidly picked up hadn’t help build the community that had been there since 2006/2007. They didn’t have that vested interest in growing and sustaining something that they hadn’t help build. They came to Twitter completely detached from the current users, so they wanted to use the bird app in their own way.

So Twitter went mainstream, but that small community of a million or so users from 2008 did not.  If Farcaster goes mainstream in a few years, the small community of users it has now will not.  It’s just the nature of how communities evolve and grow.

Why Can’t a Community Go Mainstream?

Let’s go back to the above definition of what a community is: A group of like-minded individuals who have a shared sense of ownership in something larger than themselves.

Those two bolded qualifiers are important.  A community is a group of people who are both like-minded AND who have a shared sense of OWNERSHIP in the community itself. By its very nature, these two qualifiers restrict the size of a community and prevent it from going mainstream.

Think about the size of a community.  As the community grows, it becomes more difficult to find new members who are of like mind as the current community AND who want to join the community as someone who will build and sustain the properties that make that community unique.

Every time a community welcomes a member who is NOT like-minded and/or who doesn’t have a desire to build or sustain the current community, the overall experience and value of that community degrades. If it happens often enough, the community itself can fracture and come undone.

Think of every community, online or offline, that you’ve ever joined and participated in.  The odds are the reason why you left that community came down to one of two reasons:

1 – It was too small

2 – It added people and you felt the values and spirit of the community was no longer appealing to you

When a community is pursuing growth, it should focus first on adding members who are like-minded with the existing community and who have a desire to work with the community to help it grow and create more value for all.

Community Growth is About Growing Value, Not Size

For years, I’ve been writing about how the social web needs to move back to a decentralized model vs a centralized one. I’ve been on the internet since the late 1980s. Over that time, I’ve been a member of countless communities covering countless topics, beliefs and ideas.

These communities have always, without fail, followed the same pattern.

1 – Start small, usually just a handful of passionate people.  Sometimes the community never grows past this point.

2 – If the community continues to grow, then its growth will either be fueled by simple word of mouth, or by the community itself personally vetting and bringing in new members. Word of mouth leads to faster growth, but the overall experience typically degrades faster.  If the community itself drives growth, the community typically stays smaller, but the experience can actually improve even more.

3 – At some point, the community either stops growing (often on purpose), or the community continues to grow and the overall experience of the community is altered to a point where the community itself becomes too detached from its original experience, and the community itself fractures.

 

Let me give you a simple example:  I joined CompuServe in the early 1990s. CompuServe had a number of chat rooms and I loved these.  One chat it had, every Sunday night, was called College Chat.  As I was still early on in my college journey at the time, having a weekly chat where I could talk to students around the country going through the same period of life I was, well it was really cool.  At first, the community was really small, about 20 or so regular members.  You had a few who would be moderators, who would drive the conversation.  After a few weeks you would start to get to know members and you’d make friends.  And all this did was deepen my connection to this group, since I would only see them once a week, for an hour every Sunday night.

After a year or so, CompuServe’s growth really started taking off.  A flood of new members to the platform meant a lot of new people participating in College Chat. Unfortunately, this degraded the experience.  The moderators found it too much to deal with, and moved on.  When they left, other regular members followed.  The new members that joined hadn’t been here and built this community up and hadn’t seen what made it special.  So they didn’t have the vested interest in building and growing the community. The community grew too big and fractured, but for that one year or so I really enjoyed College Chat.

Why Decentralized Will Win Over Centralized

When it comes to communities, in most cases, smaller is better. A small community can create deeper connections between its members, and those connections are pivotal to having a community that creates maximum value for all.

Think of it this way:  Centralization would be all of the United States. Decentralization would be the individual cities that make up the United States.  Each city has its own vibe, its own culture.  And typically, the culture and vibe of a city becomes more distinct the smaller it is.

Think of that in terms of the internet.  Twitter would be the United States, a centralized body where everyone is.  The individual cities would be decentralized online communities that you could easily visit and participate in as you wished.  A smaller community typically means a more in depth experience with like-minded people who have a much sharper focus and aim for participating in said community.

This is a big reason why I am excited about web3.  Because the promise of decentralization is so immense. I just hope as these brilliant builders are growing in a decentralized web3 world, that they will forego the desire to grow too big, too fast. Let growth flow slowly, and from the community itself.  This is how you increase your chances of growing in a way that adds to the value of the community, rather than detracting from it.

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: a16z’s Can’t Be Evil NFT License, NCAA Prez Embraces Brand Ambassadors, Starbucks Adds Web3 to Loyalty Program

Happy Fall, y’all! Temps are still a bit warm but calendar says September so I’m calling it Fall.  Hope everyone has an amazing week, here’s a few marketing and business stories I read over the last week that caught my eye:

 

Investment firm a16z is pushing it’s Can’t Be Evil license as a way for NFT holders to allow others to use its token and build upon it’s image and properties.  The license is free to use and apply to NFTs, and the hope is that it will become a standard license for NFTs to help holders protect their IP rights, as well as more easily allow others to build upon and remix and share that IP within the confines of the license.

 

Kristi Dosh had an interesting sit-down recently with NCAA President Mark Emmert on a variety of topics. Obviously, NIL was a big focus of the conversation. Emmert lamented the fact that paying student athletes could change their role in the eyes of the law to being employees of a university.  Which opens up the SA and university to a lot of legal issues that neither side may want to entangle themselves in.

Emmert suggested that a better alternative may be to explore the idea of universities employing more Brand Ambassadors.  Emmert suggested that universities focus on quantifying the amount of brand value that its SAs are creating, and then compensate SAs from that ‘fund’ based on each SAs contributions, which could be measured using some formula or criteria.  Colleges have used ambassadors for years, but the idea of treating student athletes as ambassadors is a new untouched, so it will be interesting to see how this idea could play out as the NIL era emerges.

 

Starbucks is looking to incorporate NFT technology into its existing loyalty program.  This idea of brands incorporating NFTs into loyalty or ambassador programs is something I’ve talked about here before. In general, the Starbucks Odessey program will leverage the additional functionality that NFTs can provide into the structure of the loyalty programs it has used in the past.

This is a good start, but as more brands begin to incorporate NFTs and blockchain technologies into ambassador and loyalty programs, members will begin to want more.  As more web3 savvy customers become involved in these programs, they will expect their NFTs to grant more than digital perks and discounts.  They will expect their tokens to grant ownership and even governance over the programs.  Watch for this to become more common in the coming years.

 

So that’s it for this edition of Monday’s Marketing Minute, I hope everyone has a fantabulous week!

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Music Artists Using NFTs to Give Fans Direct Ownership of Songs/Royalties

So earlier this year, I wrote to you about how NFTs were evolving past simply being cute (and sometimes not so cute) artwork that was selling for insanely high prices. I showed you how MetafansNFT is using NFTs to grant its holders exclusive access to sporting events, communities, and more. I think it marks a sea change in how NFTs can provide real utility for owners. It also gives a glimpse of the potential of NFTs in the future as a way to unlock custom access and experiences.

Then in May, this happened:

The Chainsmokers released 5000 tokens, each one giving the owner a share of the streaming royalties for the ENTIRE album.

The Chainsmokers set aside 4,000 of the tokens for its ‘VIP’ fans, the ones that buy the most tickets, stream its songs the most, and who are the most active on its Discord channel. Another 700 tokens were given to people with a Royal account, the company facilitating the giveaway. The final 300 tokens are being held by the band to give to friends, family, and fans in the future.

Notice what The Chainsmokers did with this giveaway: 86% of the tokens are set aside for its biggest fans. I wrote about this in Think Like a Rock Star , but rock stars always focus on letting their fans do their marketing for them. Fans are leveraged as a channel to acquire new customers.

And this trend of music artists giving fans ownership of music via NFTs appears to be catching on:

 

Here, artist Timmy Trumpet is working with Royal to give away 50% of the ownership of his new single to fans.

The whole concept of NFTs feels a bit vague, nebulous and even out of touch to the average person, I believe.  But when you tell someone that ownership of an NFT allows them to actually OWN a part of a song they love from an artist they love, then that resonates with them.

Artists like The Chainsmokers and Timmy Trumpet are betting that by giving away a fraction of ownership to its fans, that doing so will expand the pie and they will end up with more sales by sharing ownership with its fans.

It’s a bet they are likely to win. And this could be the start of a revolution in the music industry. What if every new album release by artists like Kanye or Drake or Ed Sheeran came with 5% ownership set aside for its fans? What happens when you give fans an ownership stake in your music, your products, your brand?

I think we are about to find out. Welcome to web3.

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The Future of Work and Play in Web3

One of the key promises of web3 is that it will be much easier for participants in web3 to make money off their efforts versus web 2.0. This means content creators can (in theory) more easily make money off their content, and active participants in building a web3 platform can share in the profits that would otherwise accrue mostly to the platform itself, as we saw with web 2.0 platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.

Another area of web3 that promises compensation for participants is the emerging Play to Earn game space. The idea is simple; as you play the game, you are earning tokens that can later be redeemed for money, if you so desire.

A recent example of a Play to Earn game is the Artieverse, which is due to launch its first game later this year. In short, the game lets you play against other players, and you can improve the skills of your player by either purchasing items or by playing the game. As you win new items for your player, these new items give the player new skills and make it easier for them to win matches.

Eventually, you can acquire all the skills available for your player. When this happens, your player is then converted into an NFT. You can then keep your NFT, or sell it on an NFT marketplace like OpenSea. As you can see the current floor price (lowest selling price) for Artieverse NFTs is around $300. A recent Twitter Spaces by the company explains the process in greater detail:

It will be interesting to see how this evolves, but I am fascinated at the potential of finding ways to use web3 technologies to compensate people for engaging in their hobbies and interests. It’s not just Play to Earn games, think about genealogy. Millions of people just in the US research their own family history and those of others. What if they were all part of a Genealogy DAO that compensated them for their research? They could have a platform to share their research and discoveries with others (helping them flesh out the branches of their own family trees), but also they are compensated for their time in the form of tokens which they could either sell for money, or hold and use as governance over the platform itself.

The idea is to take activities that people are already engaging in for free, and give them a way to keep engaging in those same activities, but be paid for it. A hobby could quickly develop into a side income, and as you started making money from your hobby, that could give you the resources to expand it. Maybe making a few hundred dollars from your genealogy research could fund a few trips to cemeteries in your region for more research, or something similar.

In short, it’s about finding a way to let people spend more time engaging in the activities that they are truly passionate about. For all of mankind, our hobbies and passion projects have typically been our distraction from the boring drudgery of daily work and life. what if we could reach a point where our hobbies and passion projects BECOME our life’s work?

Web3 promises to bring us closer to that reality. Let’s see what happens.

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: BAYC Launches $APE, Magazine/Book NFTs Are Here, Your Grandparents Are Mobile Gamers

Happy Monday, y’all! Welcome to another edition of Monday’s Marketing Minute! Every Monday I bring you 3 news stories that caught my eye, covering business, marketing and web3.  Let’s dive in:

 

Bored Ape Yacht Club, the wildly successful NFT collection, launched its $APE coin last week.  The token will help fund community initiatives as well as reward current BAYC members.  The coin debuted at a dollar and quickly shot up to over $37 before settling down and is currently trading in the $10-14 dollar range. This will likely be the first of many such token offerings associated with NFT collections that we will see this year.

 

In January, I wrote about 3 NFT categories primed for growth in 2022; Music, photography, and books.  We are beginning to see some publishers begin to dabble with books and media, as Time has offered a recent edition of its magazine as an NFT for the first time:

 

I knew which age group was going to be the leaders in mobile gaming before I read the article. The age group that plays mobile games the most in the US and Canada?  The age group 45 years and older. This age group accounts for 32% of all mobile gamers.  Now to be fair, 45+ is a LARGE range.  But you would be surprised how many people over the age of 40 are playing mobile games.  I’ve been actively playing them for the last few years and the majority of the players are consistently over 40 years old.  Many are over 50.  Often, these games have chat functionality, and for older gamers, they may have limited mobility, and the friends they make while playing mobile games could be a significant part of their social circle.

 

So that’s it for this week, I hope all of you have a wonderful week and enjoy the Spring weather!

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I’m Ready For Web 3.0 to Give Me Twitter 2.0

Two weeks from today will mark my 15th year being a user of Twitter. Twitter likely had less than 500k users at that point, so it’s safe to say I was a very early adopter to the platform.

Twitter, warts and all, remains the best social platform we have for creating and participating in free-flowing conversations. This is almost completely due to the determination and ingenuity of Twitter users. When Jack, Ev and Biz started Twitter in 2006, they were very clear about their intentions for Twitter.

Twitter was designed to be a broadcast and promotional platform. You broadcast what you are doing.  You promote what you are doing. But organic conversations springing up around those broadcasts? Not a big care for Twitter. Users engaging their networks organically and making connections and creating new conversations on the platform? Again, not a priority for Twitter.

Twitter was designed to be a broadcast and promotional platform.

For a decade, I ran the most popular chat on Twitter, #Blogchat. It was not uncommon for #Blogchat to generate over 100M impressions in ONE HOUR every Sunday night, and create thousands of tweets. I had people refuse to join the chat as a co-host, citing ‘I can’t keep up with how fast it is’. At the height of its popularity from say 2010-2012, #Blogchat was the top trending topic on Twitter almost every Sunday night.

#Blogchat generated hundreds of organic conversations on the platform every Sunday night.  It drew thousands of people to the platform.

Twitter never once reached out to me about the massive engagement that #Blogchat created on its platform every Sunday night. Never a thank you, never a we see what you are doing, keep it up. Nothing.  Actually, I take that back.  Twitter did reach out once about #Blogchat; to let me know about its options for running a PAID PROMOTION to help #Blogchat reach an even larger audience.

This story is offered to illustrate that Twitter has never viewed its platform as a way to create conversations. Which is a shame, because the platform remains the best place in social media where you can create and participate in conversations.

Twitter is a better networking tool than LinkedIn will ever be. I have been saying this for 15 years. Just yesterday, I left a tweet. Someone who I follow, but have never interacted with, replied to me. We started chatting. Now we are connected. It’s that simple and this happens EVERY day on Twitter.

It’s time we apply the potential of Web 3.0 to create Twitter 2.0

The promise of Web3 or Web 3.0 is that creators will own their content and have shared ownership of the platforms that they help create and grow. In Web 2.0, the platforms take our content and monetize it. In exchange, we get back Likes and RTs.

The promise of Web 3.0 is that our activity on a Web 3.0 platform would reward us with tokens that would grant us ownership in the platform itself.

With this in mind, let’s consider if we created Twitter 2.0 using Web 3.0 technologies. Let’s say we created a platform similar to Twitter, that was focused not on broadcasting and promoting content, but instead its focus was on helping people create and engaging in organic conversations.  I talked about this yesterday, of course on Twitter:

Think about the possibilities. Everything on the platform would be based around creating and contributing to conversations. Think about how much easier it would be to meet new and interesting people! You could meet people who shared both your personal and business interests. You could use it to dive into personal conversations around your life and hobbies, or use it as a professional tool to grow your business or career.

To be fair, Twitter was very much like this in its first couple of years. Conversations were free-flowing and organic. You could easily lose yourself for hours on Twitter just by scanning your timeline and finding so many interesting conversations to jump into.  And it was so easy to pull someone else into a conversation as it was happening.

But eventually, Twitter began courting investors and investors wanted more revenue and that led to pushing for more promotional content and fewer conversations.

We have a chance to get back what we lost from the early days of Twitter. Back before our timeline was 90% link sharing.  Back when you made new connections every single day on Twitter due to the conversations happening on the platform.

Think about a Web 3.0 platform similar in functionality to Twitter, but designed from the bottom up to facilitate the creation of conversations. It’s a digital happy hour, a chance to meet and engage with new people every single day.

And if you perform the desired actions (creating and participating in conversations on the platform) then you are rewarded with tokens, not Likes and RTs. These tokens have monetary value, but also give you ownership of the platform and let you participate in the platform’s governance. So you can either hodl the tokens, or sell some/all of them.

Either way, the users who are working to grow the conversations, and by extension the platform facilitating those conversations, are being rewarded monetarily for their work. That makes us more invested in the platform and seeing it grow.  The more successful the platform is, the more valuable our tokens become.

But the reality is, the conversations themselves have far more value. The ability to meet and connect with people from all over the world was the promise of Web 2.0. That promise has been met with gated access and platforms taking our content and monetizing it to grow itself.

It’s time for Web 3.0 to realize its promise and give us Twitter 2.0.

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How LooksRare Used Guerilla Marketing Tactics at Launch at Instantly Compete With OpenSea

OpenSea was the 800 pound gorilla in the NFT marketplace space. On Jan 4th, the company announced a $300M funding round at a $13 Billion plus valuation. All the momentum was with OpenSea and it was poised to get a strangehold on the exploding NFT marketplace space.

But all that changed over the course of 24 hours.

Two weeks into January, OpenSea had already received over 2 billion in Ethereum from its sales and was on pace for another record sales month.

On January 10th, NFT marketplace competitor LooksRare launched. Along with the website launch, LooksRare also launched its LOOKS token.  The token would be given to users of the website to incentivize certain activities, such as buying and selling NFTs.

But LooksRare decided to do something else with the LOOKS token.  LooksRare decided to give away 120 Million of the LOOKS tokens to current OpenSea users.  LooksRare targeted OpenSea users who had bought and sold at least 3 ETH worth of NFTs from June-December on OpenSea.  That’s roughly $8,000 worth of activity as of this writing.

The more activity on OpenSea, the more LOOKS tokens you received, in a range of at least 125 tokens, all the way up to 10,000 for the biggest OpenSea users. As of this writing, the LOOKS token is trading for roughly $4 a token.  So the airdropped LOOKS tokens to OpenSea users had a value of between $500-$40,000.

Yikes!

Here’s the brilliant part: In order to ‘activate’ the LOOKS tokens, the OpenSea user has to go to the LooksRare website and list an NFT for sale. So the move not only encourages OpenSea users to check out LooksRare, but it makes receiving the LOOKS tokens dependent on actually listing an NFT on the platform.

As you might expect, listing volume on LooksRare immediately spiked, and after a week LooksRare was realizing trading volume of two to three times what OpenSea was seeing!

Another brilliant move LooksRare made is by taking an actual sale on OpenSea, and then calculating how much money the seller would have made if the same NFT had been listed and sold on LooksRare:

To be honest, LooksRare should be doing these comparison tweets every day.  It’s a great way to clearly demonstrate the price difference in selling on LooksRare versus OpenSea.

How would this apply to an ‘average’ business?

Let’s revisit what LooksRare did in airdropping LOOKS tokens to OpenSea users.  What LooksRare did was send LOOKS tokens directly to the wallets that OpenSea users were using.  The buyer history was available on the blockchain, so LooksRare had access to sales history and could easily identify the wallets that had generated the sales that met their criteria.

How could this work in the more mainstream business world? Here’s an example: Your fast food brand decides to launch a mobile app where you connect your digital wallet to the app and pay through the app.  That means the sales history of your wallet (your digital identity) would be trackable on the blockchain.

Let’s say a competitor fast food chain launches their own mobile app, which is also setup as your mobile app is, so you connect your wallet. When someone signs up for your competitor’s app, they receive 10 free FOOD tokens, that can be used to buy food via your app. Think of FOOD tokens as rewards points that many current fast food apps such as Chick Fil A use today.

What your competitor could also do is airdrop FOOD tokens directly into the wallets of YOUR customers who are using YOUR mobile app! And they could set the same qualifications on the FOOD tokens as LooksRare did on its LOOKS tokens; Your customers would have to go to your competitor’s app to redeem the FOOD tokens.  This is also called a ‘vampire attack’, in marketing terms, because the intent is to suck the best users away from your app, and into the competitor’s app.

Be aware of how web3 technologies are impacting marketing

Now is a wonderful time to watch how companies and even individuals are leveraging and experimenting with emerging web3 technologies in their marketing and branding efforts. As these technologies emerge and develop, they will create new and exciting opportunities for companies to market themselves, and deliver better experiences to customers.

 

Note: Thank you to the brilliant Adel de Meyer for giving me assistance explaining the technical aspects of how the web3 technologies in this article would work. Please follow Adel on Twitter, she’s my go-to expert on crypto, NFTs and web3.

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Why Should Your Business Care About NFTs?

Non-Fungible Tokens. Can we all agree that’s the worst name ever?

What does it even mean? And they are selling for millions of dollars??? Suddenly EVERYONE is talking about Bored Apes this and Crypto Punks that.

And you don’t understand any of it. This is the position a LOT of us are in as we begin the new year. NFTs are one of the areas of the burgeoning web3 space that I’ve been trying to wrap my head around for the last few months. In doing so, I’ve been focusing on the potential business impact, ie “Why should your business care?”

What are NFTs

Non-Fungible Tokens. That word ‘fungible’ trips people up. It almost sounds like fungus. Non-fungus token?  Yeech!

Fungible means interchangeable. Think of currency. My dollar is interchangeable with your dollar.  My $3 in Bitcoin is interchangeable with your $3 in Bitcoin.

So it stands to reason that non-fungible means the item is NOT interchangeable. A non-fungible token is unique. An NFT has unique properties and characteristics. You can have two NFTs that are similar, but they will both be different in ways that makes each unique. And when items are unique, that means they aren’t the same, so they aren’t equal. You may have a 1978 Firebird Trans Am, and I may have a 2010 Ford Focus. Both are similar, in that they are both cars, but they are unique cars and as such, they have wildly different values and aren’t considered interchangeable.

Wait, can’t I just copy that JPEG?

Ah the ‘right-click’ theory. That you can easily copy an NFT as an image on your computer and have it as well.

The NFT is much more than simply an image. It is the unique data and provenance associated only with that particular NFT. This is where much of the value of NFTs are derived, and you can’t simply right-click and copy that.

The ownership of an NFT can be verified on a blockchain, as well as its history. We’ll talk more about the business implications of this in a minute. When you right-click that NFT you saw on Twitter, you can copy the image on your computer, but there’s no claim of ownership. For instance, if you wanted to take that image and sell it as an NFT, we would be able to verify that it’s not the same one that already exists, and which has a set value in the marketplace.

Ok, but it’s still just an image, right? I’m still not getting it.

Let’s go back to ownership and the history of ownership. More specifically, let’s go back to The Legend of Zelda.

One of the most prized toys of the 1980s was a Nintendo Entertainment System. I still remember getting that HUGE Sears catalog in the mail in 1985 and seeing that beauty for the first time! I bet a lot of you reading this can remember losing the hours of your youth playing Super Mario Bros, Metroid, Double Dribble, and so many more great games!

Let’s say you and your family are shopping at an indoor flea market. And you walk by a booth with a lot of those old Nintendo video games. You see a copy of The Legend of Zelda sitting there. “Hey!”, you exclaim to your son, “I had this when I was your age! I loved this game!” You see a price tag of $5, and decide to get it. You take your copy home, smiling as you are reunited with your childhood.

I’ve done the same thing. Occasionally over the years I would spot an old Nintendo game at a flea market or store, and I’d pick it up. I’ve accumulated a few over the years, and a few weeks ago as I was going through some old boxes, I came across my treasure trove of old Nintendo cartridges. One of them was The Legend of Zelda. I smiled as I saw the golden cartridge, and flipped it over.

And that’s when I saw it.

Faded, written in black permanent marker were two words: ‘Mack Collier’. That’s when it hit me: This wasn’t a copy of The Legend of Zelda that I had picked up at a flea market, this was actually THE copy of The Legend of Zelda I had owned as a kid! I even remembered why I had written my name on the back of it (in permanent marker, no less!), because at the time I was trading NES games with buddies at school. We would swap games for a week or so, then give them back. Well I traded a game and after a week, the kid I traded with said he had ‘lost’ my game.  I suspected he simply liked my game better and decided to keep it.  So I wrote my name on my copy of The Legend of Zelda to avoid this happening in the future. Ha!

The point in this story is, while there are many copies of The Legend of Zelda game out there in the wild, there’s only one copy IN THE WORLD that Mack Collier owned as a teenager in the 1980s. Luckily, I still have that copy. And my name being written on the back helps verify (at least to me) my ownership, and the record of ownership and the associated story that comes with it. That adds value to this item (at least to me).

The history of ownership helps tell the story of the item (in this case an NFT), and that helps assign value to the piece.

What would be a business example of using NFTs?

Let’s say your supermarket chain wants to start a brand ambassador program. Your program will launch with 100 members. Each member will receive their own, unique and numbered NFT. This will represent their ‘digital identity’ within the program. What the NFT is really doesn’t matter in this example, it’s more about the functionality it enables for the holder. Think of it as an ambassador’s Membership Card that proves they are a member of the supermarket’s ambassador program.

So if you join the brand ambassador program, you are given an NFT that gives you Level One privileges within the program. Additionally, each year you are given 500 tokens that can be used as currency within the program and among its members (Think of these tokens as being similar to Rewards points in a loyalty program).

This is where it can get interesting.  The tokens allow you to purchase items (real and digital) associated with the program and brand. In addition, performing certain tasks can earn you more tokens. Such as signing up for the brand’s newsletter, referring a new member to the ambassador program, filling out a survey, etc.

So what can you do with your tokens?  There are a million possibilities, but for simplicity sake, we’ll focus on three areas:

1 – Use the tokens to buy products directly from the supermarket. Basically, the tokens could replace cash. Or you could use the tokens to buy a discount for a set amount of time, etc.

2 – Sell the tokens to other members. As all members are using tokens to reach certain tiers in the ambassador program, users that have more tokens than they want or need could see their excess to another member.

3 – Using tokens to upgrade your NFT. Remember above that I said when you joined the supermarket’s brand ambassador program that you receive an NFT that gives you Level One privileges? What if you want to upgrade your NFT? Let’s say for 750 tokens, you can upgrade your NFT to give you Level Two privileges. These could include higher discounts, larger token payouts for performing tasks, and more access directly to the brand. This leveling up could go all the way up to Level Five (or Ten, Fifty, whatever). With better perks at each level.

 

The NFT becomes a sort of digital resume or history of that person’s activity within the brand ambassador program. And everyone could trace what the person had done by seeing on the blockchain how the NFT had changed over time. So the activity becomes the ‘story’ of the NFT, and that helps create value for the NFT itself. It’s that ambassador’s digital identity.

You owe it to yourself and your business to learn about NFTs

I started really investing some time in learning about emerging Web3 technologies like blockchains, cryptocurrencies and NFTs a few months ago. At first, I was totally unimpressed with NFTs and focused most of my attention on understanding crypto. But the more I learn about NFTs, the more confident I feel in saying that 2022 will be an even bigger year for the space.

Which would be pretty impressive:

 

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