MackCollier.com

by

What is Your Product’s ‘Job to Be Done’?

job to be done Whenever I talk with clients about positioning a new or even existing product or service, I stress the need for there to be a clear benefit to the customer, that the customer can clearly understand. The customer needs to understand how a product or service will fit into their lives, and immediately make a positive impact.

Some would argue, that the ease of collecting data about modern customers can actually make it more difficult to correctly identify the value that a product can create for a customer. Sometimes, customers simply buy a product for reasons that are their own, that really aren’t easily uncovered by simply looking at data or demographics.

Let me give you a couple of examples:

1 – I never chew gum UNLESS I am about to board a plane for a flight. If I am at an airport, one of the last purchases I will make will be to run into a gift shop or Hudson News and grab a pack of chewing gum. I want the gum because chewing the gum as the plane is taking off and climbing helps lower the chance of my ears popping! So I never need chewing gum UNLESS I am about to board a plane, then it’s a purchase I always make.

2 – I am currently playing a war game on my iPhone. The game includes chat functionality, and in playing the game, you can chat with other players and get to know them. I was talking to a player recently who said they enjoyed playing this game. They went on to explain that one of their parents had just died, and they were having to deal with the stress and worry associated with a parent’s death. They added that playing the game gave them a very welcome distraction that helped them get their mind off their real world issues.

 

I recently came across a wonderful article in the Harvard Business Review that explains this concept as buying a product for it’s Job to Be Done. For me, chewing gum bought at the airport has a job to do: Keep my ears from popping during takeoff. For my friend, playing the phone game had a job to do: Provide escape from their real world problems.

Here’s an example from the article: A consultant was hired by a Detroit building company to increase sales of its condominiums. The condos were positioned to retired couples that were looking to downsize from a larger home to a smaller condo. The units were given features designed to appeal to downsizers, and they even consulted focus groups to uncover any additional features they might have missed.

But sales were disappointing. The units generated prospective buyer visits, but struggled to close the deal. There was a bottleneck, something holding back the prospective buyer from becoming an actual one.

So the consultant decided to switch gears, and went back and started interviewing the people that had bought the units. The interviews were designed to help drill down on what prompted the person to commit to the purchase.

It turns out, it was the dining room table. Or rather, what the dining room table represented for the prospective buyer; Moving on from a home they loved, to a new condominium that had none of the attached memories.

As the article explains:

But as Moesta sat at his own dining room table with his family over Christmas, he suddenly understood. Every birthday was spent around that table. Every holiday. Homework was spread out on it. The table represented family.

What was stopping buyers from making the decision to move, he hypothesized, was not a feature that the construction company had failed to offer but rather the anxiety that came with giving up something that had profound meaning. The decision to buy a six-figure condo, it turned out, often hinged on a family member’s willingness to take custody of a clunky piece of used furniture.

This helped the company understand the Job to Be Done of its condos. It wasn’t about giving them a new place to live, it was about moving their lives into a new phase. The dining room table represented family, tradition, history. So the building company changed its offerings around the condos to reflect a better understanding of what was holding prospective buyers back from becoming actual buyers. They expanded the dining area to give more room to accommodate a larger dining room table. The company also added storage facilities to help buyers have a place to store items until it could decide what could be kept and what needed to be given away.

All of this goes back to simply understanding the customer. And with the ‘job to be done’ line of thinking, you are also thinking about ways to incorporate unpredictability into the lives of your customers. Every day, your customers are receiving unexpected good and bad news. In both cases, behavior patterns, either in the short or long-term, will immediately change.  They will suddenly need new products for new reasons to fulfill new ‘jobs’ for them.

Think back to the last two years and the impact that the covid pandemic has had on the world. If you will remember, one of the constant themes I have stressed here is considering how the pandemic would change the purchasing behavior of your customers. Some of the changes are big and easy to predict, such as a shift toward takeout from restaurants over dining in person. But other changes are harder to detect. But you need to be able to account of the possibility of changes and the resulting shift in purchasing behavior.

Here again is the link to the HBR review article detailing the theory of ‘job to be done’.

by

Monday’s Marketing Minute: Learfield’s Huge Splash Into NFTs, Spotify Passes Apple For Podcasts, Surprising Email Stats

Happy Monday! Let’s talk about 3 stories that I noticed from the marketing, business and web3 worlds over the last week:

 

This is a big deal, and a story that’s continuing to develop, so you can get up to speed as it happens. Learfield, which partners with many of the top colleges and universities on athletic broadcasts, will be partnering with Recur Forever to launch a portal/marketplace for NFTs focused on college athletes. The portal, NFTU.com, will launch on March 14th, one week from today.  You can learn more about the portal and sponsorship here. There’s so many potential in this deal, it will be fun to see how this partnership evolves and NFTU.com could quickly grow into a competitor to OpenSea and LooksRare in the NFT marketplace space.

 

In 2021, Spotify passed Apple to be the top destination for podcast listeners. I think this is a sign of the growing popularity of Spotify and it’s move into hosting podcasts. Also, Apple podcast locks you into using Apple products whereas Spotify can be used across competing devices from Google and Samsung, among others.

 

I thought this was interesting, Marketing Charts reports that email marketing converts at a similar rate on both desktop and mobile devices.  This is where I think it gets interesting; Even though the conversion rates are the same for desktop and mobile, marketers surveyed said open rates and click rates were actually better on mobile! Yet when it comes to converting, desktop matched mobile users.

What does that mean? I think it suggests that we are more likely to read and click on an email on our phone because we are more likely to use our phone for email.  We are out and about, we have our phones with us at all times.  It’s the convenience factor. But a conversion usually requires a bit more attention and time, and that’s where the desktop usage comes into play.  I suspect in many cases users are opening and reading on their phones, then saving to investigate later on their desktops, and that’s when the conversion is happening.  Good stats to keep in mind as you are planning your next email marketing campaign!

 

So that’s it for this week’s Monday’s Marketing Minute. I hope you have a chance this week to get out and enjoy some of the Spring weather that is starting to pop up across the country!

by

Music NFTs Are Evolving, Now Grant Fans Song Ownership

In January. I wrote this post talking about where we could expect to see NFT growth in the coming year.  I focused on music primarily because I saw the enormous potential of leveraging NFTs as a way to give fans ownership. In their relationship with the artist, in how they promote the artist, or even in the music itself.

That’s right, NFTs are now being leveraged as a way to let fans OWN the music from their favorite artists.

Isn’t that amazing? This is leveraging NFTs as a way to not only support your favorite artists directly, but for the fan, it’s a way to literally OWN the music of their favorite artists.

Taking this concept a step further, Royal facilitates fractional ownership of the music:

I see this evolving as a way for emerging artists to fundraise their careers via selling NFTs and fractional ownership of their music. Then, as they become more successful, they can downscale or eliminate any fractional ownership offerings, and focus strictly on fan experience and connection.

The economies of scale are drastically changing for artists thanks to web3. More monetization opportunities means artists can focus on deeper connections with fewer fans. Those fewer fans have the ability to directly support and connect with their favorite artists. And as fans see they have a greater ability to affect positive change for the artists they love, that gives them more incentive to do just that.

How could this work for other products?

In theory, a fractional ownership model such as the above could work for any physical or digital product. Startups could use it to replace seed funding or even a Series A funding round. More established brands could use it reward ambassadors as part of an organized program to further incentivize participation.

What I’ve always said about web3 holds; These are early days, and it’s still a very messy place. But with all the mess-making comes knowledge and experience. We are all learning on the fly, and there is a massive talent drain from web2 to web3 happening right now. Some of the most talented people in all career fields are flocking to web3 because they see the potential.

The next 10-20 years minimum belongs to the web3 technologies that are emerging today. Music is one of these early areas where hype, business utility and customer experience are all colliding at once.

It’s exciting to see.

by

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.

by

Walmart Signals a Move Into Web3, Metaverse

So it looks like one of the biggest brands in the world is preparing to dip its toes in the Web3 waters.  Walmart has filed a series of trademarks that seem to signal its desire to create a brand cryptocurrency as well as possibly sell virtual goods:

The big-box retailer filed several new trademarks late last month that indicate its intent to make and sell virtual goods, including electronics, home decorations, toys, sporting goods and personal care products. In a separate filing, Walmart said it would offer users a virtual currency, as well as NFTs.

According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Walmart filed the applications on Dec. 30.

Recently, I wrote about how brands could leverage NFTs and cryptocurrency to incentivize customers to engage in certain activities. I suspect that many brands will to tie these emerging technologies to existing business processes, as much as possible.

For instance, if Walmart launched its own cryptocurrency, customers could be paid tokens based on activity, and then those tokens could be spent for items the store sells.  For instance, make three visits to Walmart in one week? Get 5 tokens of its cryptocurrency. Maybe spending $100 gets you 10 tokens. This could be very similar to a loyalty program in that Walmart could use its new cryptocurrency to reward customers for engaging in desired activities.

In general, brands testing the Web3 waters will likely gravitate toward using these emerging technologies to solve today’s business problems rather than address tomorrow’s business possibilities. As the space matures and becomes more understood, we will no doubt see more progressive Web3 initiatives launched by brands.

by

The Next Big Thing in NFTs Will Be…

Last year saw NFTs explode onto the scene and in a big way. Driven by the popularity of art collections such as BAYC and Crypto Punks, NFT trading volume topped $13 Billion in 2021 alone. NFT marketplace OpenSea is on pace to have over $3 Billion in trading volume in January, so it seems 2022 will be an even bigger year for NFTs on the secondary market at least.

While we will likely to see continued growth from art NFT collections, I think we will see NFTs grow into other spaces and media, and I wanted to give you a sense of where the market momentum is likely headed.

Music NFTs are primed for a huge 2022

Last year, the Nashville-based band Kings of Leon made waves by being the first band to release its new album as an NFT.  The NFT gave you a digital copy of the album, as well as other items based on three different tiers that were available. One version of the NFT release, the prized Golden Ticket, included massive perks for the owner, including 4 front-row seats to every Kings of Leon concert, for life!

Another aspect to the appeal for the NFTs is that they will have a secondary market that really doesn’t exist for digital music that you buy from iTunes or stream off Spotify. Each NFT’s history of minting and ownership can be verified on the blockchain, and each one has its own unique identity and provenance. This helps establish the uniqueness and scarcity of the piece. Which helps drive interest and value.

So look for more big artists to dip their toes in the NFT water as a new way to distribute music to fans. Long-term, this could cause a massive disruption to the current big label distribution model and could fundamentally change the average artist’s ability to monetize their work and connect with fans.

But that’s how big artists could and are using NFTs. What about smaller artists who are looking to get their careers off the ground?  This is where I think music NFTs could get REALLY interesting:  Give fans ownership of the actual music!

With the above, Lyrah is proposing selling her actual music to fans via an NFT. Each NFT would grant the owner a 25% share of the master recording, and 25% of all streaming royalties.  For life. Can you imagine co-owning your favorite song from your favorite artist WITH your favorite artist? I think you will see a lot of smaller music artists go this route as a way to fundraise for recording even more music. With ideas such as this and the Kings of Leon example above, it’s easy to see a not-so-distant future where artists have far more control over their ability to monetize their music.

Keep an eye on photography NFT projects in 2022

Gary Vee thinks photography NFTs will take off in 2022.

I tend to agree. What I like about these NFT projects and collections, whether it’s art, music or photography, is you have a chance to leverage social media to connect with the creators. You can learn who they are, what their inspiration was for the art they create, and that gives you a greater desire to own their work.

And let’s be honest some of the work these photographers are creating is just jaw-droppingly gorgeous:

Another element I love is how these artists are supporting each other and pushing each other to succeed and they are promoting each other’s work. They really embody that ‘wagmi’ mentality.

One more NFT space to keep an eye on in 2022

So we’ve talked about music and photography NFTs as possibly being big winners in 2022. Here’s another space that might see some gains:  What about book NFTs? We already have ebooks, what if authors started offering their books as an NFT?  The NFT could include the book, along with whatever bonus material the author wanted to include. Or what if book NFTs were a way for authors to ‘self publish’ their book?  Maybe sell a limited run of NFTs of your book that also gives owners a percentage of sales from the book? Think of Lyrah’s example above of selling her music and sharing ownership, you could in theory do something similar with books.

 

In closing, I do think it’s worth noting that many NFT experts feel like we will eventually see a correction in pricing. Many NFT collections have enjoyed massive increases in prices over the last 12-18 months, and it’s driven a lot of speculators into the space. As prices continue to increase, it makes them riskier and many experts feel that eventually many NFT collections will simply reach unsustainable levels. When that happens, we could see a lot of speculators leave the market, and prices could take a big hit. So if you are getting into NFTs as an investment, just be cautious and do your homework.

by

Monday’s Marketing Minute: OpenSea’s Big Funding, Where NIL Dollars Are Going, Samsung’s NFT TV

Welcome to 2022! Tomorrow is my birthday, and you’ve already given me the best present, your attention.  Thanks for taking the time to read this edition of Monday’s Marketing Minute. Please share it with your network if you want to give me a 2nd present!

 

NFTs are all the rage, and no one is riding the NFT wave higher than OpenSea. OpenSea is a marketplace for NFTs. Think of it as eBay for NFTs. And it just raised $300M in Series C funding, at a 13.3 Billion valuation. Big numbers! What I find a bit ironic about this news is that OpenSea, being a CENTRALIZED marketplace, is one of the early darlings of the Web3 space, which is supposed to be an era of decentralization. I think it goes to show that whatever Web3 becomes may not be as dramatic of a departure from what we already have, and if it is, it might take a while to arrive.

 

I wrote last Summer about the huge impact NIL laws would have on marketing and branding. The folks at Opendorse have a breakdown on what types of NIL deals athletes are signing. Licensing, as well as content creation seem to be the most popular structures for deals. 2021 was the first year where we saw NIL deals happen at scale, since several states passed laws allowing athletes to begin to monetize their Name, Image and Likeness. This space and the structure of deals will continue to evolve in the coming years. As will it’s impact on college athletics.

 

Samsung has been flirting a bit with NFTs, and now the electronics company is preparing to launch a line of smart TVs which will allow you to view, display and even buy NFTs, right from the TV. Samsung will offer a ‘marketplace aggregator’ and it’s unclear which NFT marketplaces will be made available to owners. This smells like it could be Samsung testing demand for NFTs and possibly launching its own NFT marketplace in the future.

And one more cause this is awesome:


Well done, Slack, being human wins advocacy!

So that’s it for the first Monday’s Marketing Minute of 2022, thanks for reading! Look for a new post later this week on what two spaces are poised to breakout in the NFT landscape in 2022. Hope you have a great and productive week!

by

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:

 

by

Falling Down the Web3 Rabbit Hole

web3 rabbit hole

In 2008 I got on a plane for the first time in my life. I was a bit nervous as I got on, then we started heading down the runway and I got a little more excited.

Then we lifted off. And we started to climb. As we climbed, I was pushed back in my chair, and I started to get REALLY nervous. I was suddenly struck with the thought that I was about to fall through the bottom of the plane and to my death!

Just then, I managed to look over at the person across the isle from me. It was an elderly woman, and as I am contemplating how many more seconds I have before I fall through the bottom of this plane, I noticed she calmly picked up a magazine and began to read it, not a care in the world.

In that moment I was suddenly struck with a thought: She must know something I don’t. If she was that relaxed about flying on this plane, I probably didn’t have any reason to be nervous either.

I was thinking about that story recently as I’ve begun to educate myself on the emerging technologies that are forming what we are calling Web 3.0 or Web3. A big reason why I decided to learn more about Web3 is because I kept seeing people who are smarter than me, saying that everyone needs to learn about Web3 because it is the future. Just as I trusted that the elderly woman on that plane knew something I didn’t, I decided to trust that these smart people know something I don’t.

What is Web 3.0 and How is it Different From Web 2.0 or Web 1.0?

So each of these periods mean different things to different people and have different start dates. But for the most part, advances in technology, or how we wanted to use that technology, marked the shift from one version of the web to the next.

Web 1.0 – If you were born from say 1970-1985, this is the web you grew up with. This era is generally defined as beginning in 1990 or so, and ending around 2003-2005. This was where everyone was getting their first exposure to the web. This is when you could go to WalMart and spend $70 for the latest and greatest version of Netscape Navigator web browser (yes, we used to pay for web browsers!). The web was a very static place, and often you would see companies launch websites and simply take their offline circulars and put them online. It was difficult, but not impossible, for the average person to create content.

Web 2.0 – This era is the one most of us are familiar with, and it is generally considered to have started sometime between 2003 and 2005. This marked the ‘social’ era of the web, where content creation became much easier. We all suddenly had a plethora of tools to create content, and to also engage with other people’s content. We learned to collaborate easily with other people’s content.

This time period is also known as the centralized era of the web. Because all these wonderful content creation tools gave rise to things like social networks, that facilitated a way for us to all meet with other people easily and easily collaborate with other people’s content.

The problem this created was that the platforms that were built to help facilitate the content collaboration, also took the lion’s share of the profit from the content creators. Every day we went to Facebook and Twitter and created copious amounts of content, that these platforms then took and monetized.  They turned our content into profits, and we got some Likes and Retweets for our trouble.

Web 3.0 – This era of the web that we are transitioning to right now could best be described as the decentralized web.  Web 2.0 was marked by centralization. For instance, we all went to Twitter or Facebook to talk to each other. The platforms were walled off, what you did on Twitter really didn’t work with what you were doing on Facebook. And both platforms took your content and data, and made money off it. Typically, your reward would be a Like or Retweet at best.

Web3 is about decentralizing the web, and shifting power back to the users and builders. It will hopefully be a web where new platforms are built that can compete with existing ones like Twitter and Facebook. But the difference is, the owners will be the users and people who build the networks. If you create content on a Web3 platform that helps grow that platform, then you get compensated, maybe in the form of cash, more likely in the form of tokens or cryptocurrency that gives you ownership in the platform itself. So the people doing the work of building the platform get to share in the growth and profits from that platform.

Additionally, ,these apps will be open source, so if someone builds the next Twitter and someone else builds a decentralized Facebook, the two apps can communicate with each other in way that the current Twitter and Facebook cannot.

I think this is a big reason why we have seen an explosion of efforts by Web 2.0 social platforms to find ways to compensate creators in 2021. These platforms can see what changes will be coming with Web3, and they want to keep creators on their platforms and creating content for them. I honestly think these moves are about 10 years too late.

 

Where Can I Learn More About Web3?

You’re going to see that Web3 has a huge influence over the content I create from now on. As I learn what’s happening, as I start to work with clients on Web3 initiatives, I will be sharing what I’ve learned so we can all benefit.

As I’m learning about Web3, there are three areas I am focusing on; Cryptocurrency, NFTs, and the Metaverse.

So far, here’s some sources I’ve come across that have helped me:

Web3 Twitter List: This is a list I’ve created on Twitter of people who are helping educate us all on what Web3 really is. Please follow this list, I am updating it frequently with new members as I discover new experts who can help us all learn more about what’s next with the web.

Podcasts and Spaces: I am listening to a LOT of podcasts on Web3. I loved this one from Tim Ferriss featuring Naval and Chris Dixon. An excellent introduction to Web3:

 

BTW, I love the passion that the people in this space have for Web3. It reminds me of the early days of blogging, where we all saw the potential and were excited about the future. It feels like we are still in the earliest days, where only the builders and those with the passion for growing a better web are the ones putting in the work.

Sure, there are some Web 2.0 people (even some names most of us would recognize) who are trying to leverage Web3 just as a way to make money. These people are easy enough to ignore.  And besides, if you help build something amazing that helps people, the money will take care of itself.

Web3 offers a world of possibilities for businesses and content creators of all shapes and sizes. If you are reading this post, you owe it to yourself to familiarize yourself with these concepts and ideas, because it’s not going away.  You can learn it now and help shape the direction the future takes, or you can wait 5 years and follow the path someone else has cleared for you.

by

Twitter Should Be Bigger Than Facebook

I can show you why they aren’t in two tweets.  More on that in a minute.

I joined Twitter in March of 2007. I actually started hearing about Twitter from online friends in the Summer of 2006, soon after the site launched. At the time, I was working hard to grow my first blog, and wanted to focus my attention there. But more and more friends told me to get on Twitter.

Then SXSW happened in 2007. Twitter made a very smart decision to have a presence at SXSW, because the startup knew that many of its more influential users or potential users would be there.  TV screens were set up all in the hallways in the convention center showcasing tweets as they happened.  Anyone who has been at SXSW can tell you, the hallways are where the magic happens.

After SXSW in 2007, EVERYONE I knew online was gushing about Twitter. I finally relented on March 31st 2007, and joined Twitter.

If you joined Twitter after say 2010, you honestly do not know what you missed. Twitter from 2007-2009 was amazing. It was the most incredible social site I’ve ever been on. Nonstop organic conversations with the most amazing people, from all around the world! At its peak around 2011 or so, I was spending up to 10 hours a day on Twitter, every day.  DMs essentially replaced my email inbox.  I met new friends, made new contacts, did business deals.  All on Twitter.

I loved Twitter in the early days.  The days before the celebs and the media and the trolls found it.  Everyone did.

But the reality is, Twitter never loved us back. I specifically remember a conversation a group of a dozen or so of us had on Twitter, sometime in 2009. As most conversations were at the time, it was organic, and lasted for at least an hour.  It involved several ‘power users’ of Twitter, who all had 10,000 to 50,000 or so followers.  And this was in 2009, when you didn’t see Twitter users with over 100,000 followers every day, if at all. So we are talking pretty big and influential users.

The focus of our conversation (on Twitter) was how it was time for Twitter to officially hire a Community Manager. We wanted Twitter to make an effort to LISTEN to its users, and incorporate our feedback to improve the experience for all. At the time, Twitter was growing like mad. It wasn’t mainstream yet, but it was on the cusp. You had so many smart, passionate users that were so hungry to see Twitter explode. We had so many amazing ideas for how Twitter could become huge.

And what infuriated us, was that Twitter completely ignored us. I think our pleas reached Twitter, because shortly after, Twitter put out a statement clarifying that Twitter wasn’t a conversational platform, it was intended to be a ‘discovery’ or ‘broadcast’ platform.

Twitter said they never intended for the platform to be a place where people went and talked all day.

We were crushed. How could such a popular company totally misunderstand how its core users use and love their site?

But Twitter always has. Twitter has so many creators who have gone out of their way for over a decade to evangelize the site for years.  Twitter has done little or nothing to highlight these creators.  For instance, at its height, #Blogchat was regularly the Top Trending Topic on all of Twitter during the chat each Sunday night.

Twitter never reached out to me or any popular chat host (that I know of) to even say thanks for bringing people to our platform.

They just never seemed to care. That has always frustrated me.

Now about those two tweets…

Ever since Twitter launched in 2006, users have begged Twitter to add a way to edit tweets. This is by far the most requested feature that Twitter users have ever asked for. And Twitter, as Twitter seems to always do, has always ignored completely that its users have wanted this feature.  I can’t even remember a time when anyone in Twitter leadership has ever even addressed the feature request or why it hasn’t been implemented. It comes across as if Twitter simply doesn’t care that its users want this feature.

So imagine my surprise (and frustration) when I recently saw this tweet:

https://twitter.com/TwitterBlue/status/1458110348880343041

Twitter is finally giving users a way to edit tweets (sort of), but it MAKES YOU PAY FOR THE FEATURE.  It’s only available if you purchase Twitter Blue’s monthly subscription.

To Twitter users who have begged for the ability to edit tweets for years, this comes across as such a slap in the face.  Totally tone deaf, yet somehow completely consistent with Twitter not understanding its core, passionate users.

Now let’s look at the second tweet:

https://twitter.com/Clubhouse/status/1460367376721924102

While Twitter seems to go out of its way to ignore its top creators, and always has, Clubhouse goes out of its way to promote and highlight its top creators.  And for extra irony, they are doing a lot of it on Twitter, as you can see above.

This matters. One of the most pressing problems that startups face is growing a community of passionate users who will help the startup’s service or products grow. Many startups bootstrap their core operations at first. Marketing is one of those areas where the startup typically tries to give it a go themselves due to a lack of funds initially. So community management is vital to the early days of the startup in order to retain and grow the customer base.

Clubhouse understands this.  Clubhouse knows if its creators/room organizers are successful, that the platform will be successful.  So Clubhouse is investing in supporting its creators via its accelerator program, and also by promoting them on the platform and by having constant ‘townhalls’ on Clubhouse to discuss what’s happening with the platform, and to review user feedback.

All of this communicates to Clubhouse users and creators that the platform hears them, and appreciates them.  Clubhouse has done more to listen to and engage its users in the last year, than Twitter has in the last 15.

And that’s a shame. As well as a huge missed opportunity.  If Twitter had started in 2006 with the same commitment to engaging its users and listening to their feedback, then Twitter would easily be the biggest social platform in the world right now.  I have zero doubt in my mind.

 

But even though I hate how the platform keeps its passionate users at arms length, I do love the people I’ve met on Twitter, and the conversations that happen there. Speaking of which, I’ve been asked by Social Champ to join their weekly Twitter chat as a co-host. Our session is tomorrow at 10 am Central, hope to see you there!