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Greetings all,

In this week’s episode of Ventures, my guest Chase Thompson and I talk about the Play-to-Earn space, how to build in Web3 as a product manager and entrepreneur, and his story building https://arena.gl. We dive into topics such as Web3 gaming, token models, DAOs, NFTs, the types of games that can be played on Arena, the next waves in Web3 that are coming for entrepreneurs to take advantage of, and how to practically dive into Web3 to learn more and start building.

Check it out: Play-to-Earn, building in Web3, and the Arena.gl story :: with Chase Thompson

My hope for Web3 social media

Last November (2021), Solana Ventures and Alexis Ohanian announced a $100M initiative for Web3 social media. Alexis also led an $18m round recently into Rainbow App, which plans to ramp up its social media efforts. Overall, there seems to be a rush toward recreating Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, TikTok, etc. in Web3.

But let’s step back for a moment. Is this a good thing? Do we really need an exact replica of existing social media platforms, but owned and governed by “the people”? Will that fix the fundamental problems?

With the release of The Social Dilemma on Netflix last year, and a ton of clear evidence about the perils of social media for many people, one would hope that this would be a wake-up call to think about how Web3 can fundamentally change how we interact online.

Personally, I understand that my personal hope for Web3 social media may not be shared by most people. I get that people love memes, popularity contests, FOMO, and click bait. However, I do wonder if we step back and think deeply about what we really want from social media, it may lead us into some interesting spaces.

I’ll go first.

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Have a great rest of your week!

~Will