How the top Web2 social networks are embracing Web3

Transcript

today we are talking about how the top web 2 social networks are embracing web3 web 2 social it's not going down without a fight they are going to be jumping in this web 3 game and we want to make sure you know everything that Twitter and Facebook and Reddit are doing to jump into web3 because there's a lot we can learn from the steps they are taking and their approach and their strategies to web3 which we know is going to revolutionize social networking because in web3 you ask the users we now own our content we own our data and wow it's

just going to be a huge unlock thanks so much for joining us today excited to jump into this one with you now web3 social networking promises a new paradigm you know as I said where users truly own their content not just your content users on on their profiles their followers and can even take this data between different platforms we're not we're no longer stuck on Facebook we can move our followers from Facebook to Twitter if if obviously if they were to allow that but in web 3 that's what's possible so it means you could build an audience and content on one platform and simply move it somewhere else if it was a better fit for you and for your

followers naturally this functionality poses some serious competition to the walled Gardens and permission platforms of Twitter Facebook and others but they want to play they're not going down without a fight they want a piece of the web to your action as well and so in this deep dive I'll be covering what the top web 2 social networks have been experimenting with in our beloved web3 sandbox and what else may be coming let's Dive In meta or Facebook has seen some varied success with their web3 experiments but there's no doubt that they're the most committed to embracing the technology not only did the company name change from Facebook to meta but they've also

invested roughly 36 billion in metaverse Tech you're right you heard that right 36 billion after their unsuccessful attempt to create deem which was formerly Libra a digital currency project meta has turned their focus to the metaverse and they're going all in in fact they want to evolve into what they call a social VR company one of their main bets is on their VR headset called metaquest previously Oculus this headset is an all-in-one VR system that allows users to access Games Social experiences instructor-led workouts and even workspaces for meetings and collaboration in a

nutshell they want to be the point of access to the metaverse which gives me some serious ready player one vibes some of the exciting features of the metaquest headset include Horizon home Horizon workrooms and extadium Horizon home allows users to engage with each other within many unique environments such as a cyberpunk apartment but in the near future users will be able to create and customize their own home environments at home users can hang out with friends watch immersive on-demand videos and movies jump into multiplayer games access applications such as dropboxes Slack now while home is for chilling and hanging out with friends work rooms

unlock a new level of virtual collaboration for users its functions as an always-on workspace for meetings brainstorming and any collaborative tasks workrooms allows you to turn free space into virtual whiteboards create sticky notes and images and even share them outside of the space and unlike an IRL meeting room any notes you make stay there until you delete them a cool part of Works rooms is that people can also join the room through regular video calls so they can participate even if they don't own a meta Quest finally extadium is meta's answer to the live VR Sports the app lets users view Sports

footage in 180 degree 8K virtual reality from eight different camera angles and allows viewers to Overlay real-time stats on the screen and in the spirit of the metaverse you can also watch your sport of choice with your friends right now it's only available in the US but users will have access to Live Events on-demand replays and highlights from Nascar UFC see tennis and basketball with more to come in the future another cool update for metaquest is that users won't need a Facebook account to use the headset anymore which is a win for data privacy outside of this meta has been busy showcasing mixed reality augmented reality and virtual reality experiences

at Art Basel Miami art week with help from emerging artists they've also recently launched a web3 accelerator in partnership with L'Oreal and French College HEC Paris that's not all though meta's web 3 efforts have also extended to Instagram well meta is embracing the metaverse Instagram is all about nfts right now U.S users can create and sell nfts directly through the app with the help of the polygon blockchain the social platform provides users with an end-to-end toolkit that helps create showcase and sell nfts to Their audience this is just just a huge unlock for the

hundreds of millions of users of Instagram users inside the us outside of creation Instagram also allows users to Showcase their nfts that live on other blockchains for example ethereum flow and so on so the platform will support you displaying your nfts but it also will support you creating a new nft and we are going to see a massive creation of nfts in the future as more and more artists learn about the idea of digital cleft tables now let's remember Instagram does not call them nfts they call them digital Collectibles which is a key part of the language they're using which will help onboard so many new people to the space now will we see

Instagram become a full-blown nft Marketplace that Rivals open sea and Magic Eden it's a good question with over 2 billion monthly active users we believe that Instagram could definitely become the largest Marketplace for nfts in the future but what we do know is that until 2024 Instagram won't charge fees for using its services this is a pretty big deal since marketplaces such as openc charge 2.5 percent on each sale in our opinion this seems like a play to get users Hooked On A marketplace with potentially a much more user-friendly experience it's almost a guarantee that they will have fees in the future because how else would they make money but for now it's up to our imagination to guess what the royalty policy will be

now Twitter hasn't made any serious moves into web 3 just yet which could be because of its recent takeover by Elon but experimentation is happening over Twitter prior to the Takeover Twitter added a feature where Twitter blew subscribers could use a verified nft as their profile picture by connecting their crypto wallet then instead of a standard circular profile picture or Avatar that most users have on Twitter you get one with a hexagonal border a subtle way to flex your expensive jpegs and just a day after elon's takeover Twitter announced that it would be testing nft tweet tiles with this feature users can share nfts they've

created or are selling or simply think or cool in their Twitter feeds the catches that nft needs to be on wearable magic Eden Dapper Labs or jump trade for the feature to work so besides show showing a picture of the nft Twitter will also display the title of the JPEG and the name of the creator note this this isn't a live feature just yet and there's no planned release date but as we know more we will we'll keep you guys informed because this is huge potential to display more of our nfts or our digital Collectibles through social media which really opens up a whole

concept of a whole new way for us to Showcase and sell and trade and also become more active in the web 3 space because as we all know we spend a lot of time on web 2 social and when there's a connection between web 2 social and web 3 boom we're going to onboard a billion people into this space now we've talked about Facebook we've talked about Instagram we've talked about Twitter let's talk about reddit reddit has made some of the biggest web3 moves so far with their digital Collectibles or collectible avatars as they like to call them spawning the creation of three million new crypto wallets and this happens smack in the

middle of the bear Market this summer just a few months ago we've seen total sales volume Eclipse 11 million dollars for Reddit digital avatars most interesting part about reddit's collection is how web2 friendly they made it they knew that most of their audience either didn't know how nfts worked were against nfts for whatever reason or simply didn't care about them so instead of using web 3 terminology they made the drop accessible by using terms such as collectible avatars which are nfts vaults which are wallets and coins which are tokens they also allowed people to buy the collectible avatars using Fiat as opposed to crypto and automatically set up crypto wallets for

holders Reddit pretty much shunned the existing Playbook Playbook of launch pads that web3 is familiar with and created their own web 2 friendly experience in an interview with Fortune Ethan a Reddit nft holder shared the thing that he really loved about the Reddit what Reddit did was the barrier of Entry was so minimal you didn't really have to know anything about blockchain or seed phrases or wallets I mean this is what you call an intentional go-to Market strategy overall reddit's collectible avatars have been a huge positive for web three open C share that they've seen a 75 increase in polygon users since the drop and that Reddit brought in approximately

three times the users of any project in the last six months additionally 20 of collectible avatars holders have made another purchase on the platform that's not enough Reddit is currently beta testing Community points which are essentially custom tokens for individual subreddits these tokens represent someone's reputation within a particular community and will be displayed on their profiles however since these points will be on chain holders will truly own their reputation they'll own their identity this allows web 3 entrepreneurs to create experiences and products outside of a particular subreddit while like still accepting that subreddit's native

token besides that some have read it native functionality include includes memberships so subreddit admins can create special memberships which participants can buy with their points to unlock additional platform features votes this feature is essentially Dow governance voting which allows each member of the community to have a say in big decisions and tips members can also use points to tip others within the community whenever they see fit I mean overall reddit's Community points are an excellent way to Spur and reward high quality Community engagement and you can just imagine what it'll be like when these Community points become on-chain tokens so web 3 social is coming but the

question all reminds who's going to leave the charge is it going to be the big web 2 companies that make the big strides into web 3 or is it going to be the new companies like since it's early days we're yet to see some other big web 2 companies make moves like YouTube however YouTube stance on web 3 was revealed earlier this year the platform's chief product officer Neil Mohan shared that YouTube is looking into ways for fans to own videos art photos and experiences from their favorite creators think about nfts we've also seen some experimentation from Tick Tock through their creator-led nft collection with which features culturally significant Tick Tock videos

from talk creators so they they had some culturally Tick Tock had some culturally significant content that they allowed top creators to sell as nfts and then when you look across the bay snapshot has even had they've closed down their entire web 3 division rip so you know you've got you've really got a whole a whole bunch of different things happening in the web to leaders and I think one thing is clear other than Snapchat closing down their web 3 division which was really a surprise and I'm not really sure why they did that you are seeing web 2 companies all of them I mean even YouTube has hinted what

they're going to do in the future and Google is doing tons in web 3 with their nodes with allowing you to spin up a node and decentralize your data they're they're definitely playing in the sandbox we're just we're not seeing it from YouTube yet but we're definitely seeing it across the space so we know that these guys are going to be playing in web3 we know that these large web 2 social platforms know that this is the future but we can't forget about the web 3 native social platforms the ones that so many of us that are active in web3 are so excited about because they're dedicated to this new paradigm of web3

and that's putting ownership back in the user's hands and these I'm talking about lens I'm talking about orb I'm talking about Odyssey and so many more that are building on the blockchain every day right now so it's safe to say that web3 social networking will be the norm in the next decade which platforms rise at the top we're not sure but we'll definitely be keeping an eye on this for you so keep on listening if you're not always subscribed to our podcast or subscribe to our newsletter make sure you subscribe or join our Discord Community where we're talking about this on the regular because we really believe that social networking is going to be one of the largest onboarding ramps into web3 but also one of the ways in which

web the application of web3 and a way in which creators are really going to benefit from web3 because there's just so many opportunities for those creators that are early into using web3 social networking there's a lot of opportunities for those that are there early so if you're a Creator and you're not already there highly recommend you get there and if you are there keep on building keep on operating through these bear markets this is the time when we will learn and when the work will pay off in the long term thanks so much for listening everybody I hope you have a fantastic week until next time Jaybird out