We live in stories, whether they’re told to us by friends, in TED Talks, come from the Marvel Universe, or exist in open-world games like Cyberpunk 2077. Each story has mythic inspirations tracing back to parables constructed thousands of years ago. As I’ve been working with brands, startups, and storytellers who are interested in pursuing a Web3 strategy, I’ve been thinking—what’s the story Web3 enthusiasts are avidly trying to tell?
Web1 was called the World Wide Web, not Web1. The story told to consumers was, “there’s a digital way to send mail with a keystroke.” In the mid-’90s, AOL would explode in North America—signing a new customer roughly every six seconds. Into the late 90s, web pages were primarily static and used to share information, like a content delivery system. These were the orators of their time. It was a one-way street where each story was controlled by one voice.
Then came Web2, a social space where you could share cat videos then be followed around the web by cat food ads. It gave rise to social media stars and influencers chasing algorithms and studying analytics. Web2 at its core has been about using data analytics to manipulate the story in order to get the most clicks and shares.
But nobody called it Web2. It was still the internet with a new social layer woven onto it. A place where platforms hosted creators who built audiences around niche fandoms and advertisers gorged on user data. Everyone chased the algorithm and technology became the tail-wagging the proverbial creative dog. Where storytelling once was a trained craft accessible to a dedicated group of artists, now everyone and their dog (and cat of course!) were storytellers.
Continue reading: https://venturebeat.com/2022/06/11/web3-is-a-myth-and-thats-okay/
Web1 was called the World Wide Web, not Web1. The story told to consumers was, “there’s a digital way to send mail with a keystroke.” In the mid-’90s, AOL would explode in North America—signing a new customer roughly every six seconds. Into the late 90s, web pages were primarily static and used to share information, like a content delivery system. These were the orators of their time. It was a one-way street where each story was controlled by one voice.
Then came Web2, a social space where you could share cat videos then be followed around the web by cat food ads. It gave rise to social media stars and influencers chasing algorithms and studying analytics. Web2 at its core has been about using data analytics to manipulate the story in order to get the most clicks and shares.
But nobody called it Web2. It was still the internet with a new social layer woven onto it. A place where platforms hosted creators who built audiences around niche fandoms and advertisers gorged on user data. Everyone chased the algorithm and technology became the tail-wagging the proverbial creative dog. Where storytelling once was a trained craft accessible to a dedicated group of artists, now everyone and their dog (and cat of course!) were storytellers.
Continue reading: https://venturebeat.com/2022/06/11/web3-is-a-myth-and-thats-okay/
