What is Web3, and what does it mean for brands and consumers? We asked top Web3 experts to define the hub and detail what a token economy could mean for the future of digital engagement.
Tech experts define Web3 in their own words.
The next phase of the consumer internet
Ryan Mullins, founder and CEO of Aglet, outlines how Web3 came to be:
“[First] was monitor-mouse-keyboard; you sat down, you went online, and then you went offline and walked around. And then we got to the next phase, which was what Facebook perfected; making people and social networks machine-readable so that you can apply algorithms to them and then advertise. That was mobile-social-cloud, and the separation between online and offline became much more blurred. Where we’re going now is Web3. Now it’s about a spatial web—how does the virtual come off the screen and just be baked into the fabric of reality. It’s really about virtual and physical sharing the same space—which is just the world.”
A new fabric for digital engagement
Jeff Kauffman Jr. is a Founder at Parachute, a consultancy firm that builds and invests in Web3 solutions for marketers and advertisers. He compares web2—the internet we know now—to Web3, its next iteration:
“In web2, we built communities on platforms. In Web3, communities are the platform, and NFTs are the next-generation social graph that is bringing this to life.”
A blueprint for brand incentives
Chris Liquin, Director of Strategy for VaynerNFT, describes the way consumer, creator, and brand incentives will align in Web3.
"The "great unlock" of Web3 is the alignment of incentives—between builder and user, creator and fan, artist and patron, and within and across communities. In web2, these incentives are orchestrated by profit-taking aggregators—these centralized platforms are highly profitable and incredibly powerful. In Web3, by contrast, these incentives are orchestrated by blockchain-based tokens, which enables an entirely new form of direct coordination, digital ownership, and value exchange. Whether you care about DAOs, NFTs, DeFi, or the Metaverse, the "aha" moment of Web3 is understanding the direct incentive alignment unlocked by smart contract technology."
A path to protected digital identities
Justin Peyton, Chief Transformation & Strategy Officer for Wunderman Thompson APAC, gives a high level definition of the impact Web3 will have on digital ownership and marketing strategy:
“Web3 promises a significant change from the platform ecosystem of today in which individuals will retain ownership and control of their identity and the data associated with it. This means that data about people, their accomplishments, etc will be portable across ecosystems. More importantly the promise of Web3 is that through identity and digital ownership, individuals will regain control of who can see what, when and why.”
“Web3 will be about Deterministic Marketing.”
A tokenized internet
Jeremy Olken, a Web3 Brand Strategist, is President of Metarelics: an artistic collective bridging the physical and digital via high quality art, novel experiences, and a world class community.
“The technologies behind Web3 enable new ways for individuals to connect with their favorite brands and creators, as well as with one another. Brands should look to use NFTs and social tokens as a way of identifying, rewarding, and communicating with their core supporters.”
The lynchpin of decentralized digital communities
Amanda Cassatt, co-founder and CEO of Web3 marketing firm Serotonin, helped bring Ethereum to market as the Chief Marketing Officer of the blockchain software company ConsenSys. Serotonin has helped to launch companies like Mojito, the NFT marketplace platform that powers Sotheby’s Metaverse. She breaks down what makes Web3 different for creators and consumers:
Web3’s “native value encoding mechanisms are a powerful substrate for building incentive alignment engines that collapse the categories of company, investor, and user, into a single group called ‘community’ that is mission and economically aligned toward a project's success.”
The token economy is taking shape, and tech-savvy brands are taking notice. Jeremy Olken agrees: “The financial nature of this technology naturally attracts opportunists. My hope is that the conversation soon shifts from the price of these assets to the value they can provide to individuals.”
Main image courtesy of SuperReal NYC, Cipriani's.