Web3 Decentralization: Is 2023 the Year?
A Social Media Examiner article on Wednesday highlights 25 Web3 business trends in 2023. Only a handful of them deal specifically with Web3 social media, but I’d like to address a few of the points made by author/curator Lisa D. Jenkins.
Social Media Examiner Founder and CEO Michael Stelzner predicts 2023 will be the year some NFT platform innovator creates the “Web3 WordPress.” In other words, a plug-and-play interface that allows anyone to create an NFT freely and easily is on its way. That will certainly be a good thing for the creators who can parlay the technology into a source of income. On the other hand, it will devalue NFTs overall as everyone and their donkey hee-haws their way to Web3Press to make silly collectibles of mass-market memes.
Professional egghead Josh Rosenthal took advantage of a unique opportunity to toss around million-dollar multi-syllabic words, like “transition” and “bifurcation”, just so to say social networks will decentralize decision-making, incorporate payment protocols, and empower users to migrate their social networks across platforms. In other words, he’s saying the same thing I say in my book Web3 Social: How Creators Are Changing the World Wide Web (And You Can Too!). I guess that proves professional eggheads think alike.
Carly Reilly, host of the Overpriced JPEGs podcast, agrees with me too. She predicts tokenization will be used to build communities based on affinity rather than speculation. Boy, don’t we need that!
Serial entrepreneur Jeff Kauffman predicts that Web3 social media platforms will struggle to scale. Since Web3 social media platforms have struggled to scale since the first ones launched in 2015 and 2016, this one wasn’t so hard to predict. What makes it mentionable is that Kauffman calls out long-anticipated Lens Protocol and Farcaster. Honestly, I’ve been looking forward to the Lens Protocol exiting closed beta for so long that, when it finally happens, I’m prepared to be totally disappointed. Kauffman predicts both of these protocols will launch publicly but fail to move “beyond hardcore Web3 users.” I fear he may be right, but that’s why we have Hive, the best example we currently have of decentralized social media.
Web3 marketing consultant Amanda Cassatt predicts companies and influencers will be “unwilling to build a marketing presence on platforms” without portable audiences. I think we’re a long ways from that yet, but we are moving in that direction.
Web3 writer Alejandro Arango predicts Web3 UX to improve. Really, it already has. In fact, Web3 social user experience has come a long way from Steemit, which never improved its UX. Still, despite the improvements, most Web3 social is still centralized. There are very few exceptions.
Naturally, I’m bullish on Web3 social media. It’s light years ahead of legacy social media in allowing creators to own their content, monetize their content, and truly own their digital identities and audiences. These are the points I make in my forthcoming book—to launch on February 15—Web3 Social: How Creators Are Changing the World Wide Web (And You Can Too!).
If you haven’t joined my book launch team yet, I’m looking for 100 people to help me get the word out about the book and push Web3 social media forward.
If you like reading books, are bullish on Web3, and like helping others, then you’re the kind of person I’m looking for. I’ll give you an advance review copy of my book in exchange for your honest review. Get all the details and sign up here.
Cryptocracy is a decentralized newsletter published several times a week. I curate the latest news and crypto analysis from some of the brightest minds in crypto, and sometimes offer a little insightful and snarky commentary. Always fresh, always interesting, and always crypto. Original articles on Fridays.
First published at Cryptocracy. Not to be construed as financial advice. Do your own research.