Vidico

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We spent 3 days with 25,000 tweens — here’s what we learned! Last week, we attended our first , an online video convention for creators, fans, and the media industry founded by and . We were a bit late to the party — the conference started in 2010 with 1,400 attendees, and has since ballooned to 25,000+ people. It’s now widely recognized as a key destination for brands to reach the Gen Z demographic. VidCon Hank Green John Green As early stage consumer investors, we saw VidCon as a great opportunity to better understand the online habits of today’s teens. They may be young, but they’re often influential early adopters of the next big brands, social networks, and content distribution platforms. According to Nielsen, Gen Zers now make up the largest percentage of the population (27%), and consume an average of 30 hours of digital content weekly. We bounced around between the conference’s three tracks, which each attracted different audiences — (millennial/Gen Z fans), (aspiring influencers), and (media and finance executives). We also spent time in the Expo Hall, which featured booths and lounges from brands ranging from Instagram to Snickers to Audible (check out TubeFilter’s review ) — even Invisalign sponsored a and a . Community Creator Industry here ferris wheel giant candy dispenser For anyone who couldn’t make it to Anaheim (or got stuck at ), we recapped our top ten takeaways from the week, grouped into key categories. TanaCon For VidCon week, the outside of the Anaheim Convention Center was plastered with promo materials for upcoming original content from YouTubers — including Liza Koshy’s Liza on Demand, and Joey Graceffa’s Escape the Night, which are both hosted on YouTube Red. Creators/Influencers . This won’t come as a surprise to anyone who read our post on the , but being a successful creator is big business. As gamer (1.8M subscribers) said on a panel about brand deals, “We’re all companies at this point.” Though social media stars may get started making webcam videos in their basements, many eventually hire teams of agents, managers, and staff who handle editing, social posts, brand engagements, and production schedules. The creator still ultimately owns his or her brand, but just like traditional celebrities, day-to-day decisions are abstracted away from them to people who can monetize their image. 1.Creators are companies rise of influencers StacyPlays One of the strongest influencer brands for Gen Z at VidCon was that of 15-year-old JoJo Siwa (pictured above as part of the Nickelodeon display). Siwa, a former Dance Moms star, is now a YouTuber, singer, and author, and is signed to Nick’s talent label — she performed at VidCon’s Night of Dance and at the Night of Awesome. Grant Thompson, “ ,” is a perfect example of how a creator turns into a brand. He started YouTube has a hobby, but ended up leaving his job as a pilot to make videos full-time for his almost 10M subscribers. He now employs a team of 13 people that serve as a full production company and help him find new ways to monetize his content. The King of Random Brands are tempted to script influencer posts, but creators don’t want to feel like they’re shilling a product. (Fine Brothers Entertainment, 17M subscribers) includes a clause in contracts that allows him to ignore 50% of edits that brands propose. Creators are more positive on longer-term partnerships that integrate the brand naturally, like a video series or a channel takeover. If fans feel a like brand is enabling content the creator otherwise couldn’t make, they’re more likely to have a positive association. (10M subscribers) said he only works on brand campaigns that feel consistent with “what fans expect” from him, and where he can make the brand the “hero” of the video in an authentic way. 2. Struggle for authenticity. Benny Fine Kurt Schneider Schneider cited his Candyman brand video with M&M’s as a successful example of an influencer/brand collaboration — it looked like something he might normally make, got a great reception from his audience, and the like/dislike ratio was in line with his non-sponsored content. On the topic of authenticity, producers of YouTube Red series said they’ve found success in treating influencers like stars, not actors. Fans want to see influencers appearing as themselves, not as another character. is what showrunner Adam Lawson calls a “surreality” show — influencers are placed in a historical setting and have to complete challenges to make it back to the present. While the show has a group of background actors with scripted lines, the influencers were completely unscripted and were asked to just respond naturally to the action around them. Escape the Night Escape the Night Along with CPO Neal Mohan’s product announcements, YouTube’s featured two creators — music producer , who boasts 10M+ subscribers, and therapist , who has a relatively modest 360k subscribers. YouTube’s decision to highlight Morton, whose videos help people worldwide struggling with mental health issues, illustrates a repeated theme that creators should make a positive impact on the world. Jennifer Wiener from Fullscreen Media, an agency that manages influencers, said that the most successful creators focus on a message of “empowerment, diversity, and inclusion,” and highlighted that younger viewers “want to do good and see others doing the same.” 3. Creators should do good. annual keynote Kurt Schneider Kati Morton This theme carried through the track sessions for young fans — we counted more than 25 sessions on topics like racial equality, sexuality, feminism, and cyberbullying, including: “Body Image, Gender, Presentation, and Online Video,” “We’re Here: Talking about Marginalized Identities,” and “They See Me Trolling: How to Create a Kind Community.” The trailer for the upcoming movie based on Angie Thomas’ also premiered at VidCon, and the encouraged visitors to “Spread Love” by putting up positive messages on a public board. Community The Hate U Give brand’s popular booth Photos of The Hate U Give booth at VidCon. Courtesy of @cathhick . Brands and Monetization It’s no surprise that teens hate pre-roll ads. Ads are also an inconsistent revenue stream for creators, as they have to rely on the platform’s algorithm and CPMs are low. Smart creators diversify their revenue through subscriptions for premium content, brand partnerships, and merch/live shows. In a panel on monetization, (2.5M subscribers), Burnie Burns (9.5M subscribers via ), and (6.2M subscribers) all emphasized that they’ve focused on non-ad revenue — Rooster Teeth has 300k+ paying subscribers for its , while merch and live shows have been crucial for Hannah and Phillip. 4. Pre-roll ads are passé. Hannah Hart Rooster Teeth Philip DeFranco SVOD service Nielsen’s Amanda Tarpey released data at VidCon on SVOD growth in households between 2017 and 2018 — their data shows growth across all generations, with strongest adoption for millennials and Gen Z. YouTube’s at VidCon focused on making it easier for creators to monetize beyond ads, including channel subscriptions and merch shelves that live directly below videos. The company also released early stats on some of its other monetization initiatives — 50% of channels using doubled their revenue in the first three months of 2018, and 65% of channels using have more than doubled their livestream income. product announcements FameBit SuperChat Though many creators are grateful to YouTube for launching their careers, there’s an underlying tension around who “owns” the relationship with fans. This issue has become increasingly important as YouTube recently required users to “opt in” to notifications for new videos on channels they’ve already subscribed to (which resulted in a significant for many creators), as well as stricter . 5. Who “owns” the fans? drop in views monetization policies Hannah Hart voiced her frustration with the new notification policy, noting that it created unnecessary friction for fans to access her content. When asked about the best piece of advice she’s received, she responded: “Don’t build mansions in someone else’s backyard.” Burnie Burns also warned creators against relying too heavily on one platform, arguing that the demise of Vine illustrated the importance of moving your audience to a destination that you control. Philip DeFranco took more aggressive action when he launched his own app, DeFranco Now, in May 2018 after comparing YouTube to an “alcoholic, negligent stepfather.” It was DeFranco’s at VidCon, as he plans to start focusing on his own events. last year Frustration with YouTube and VidCon motivated the launch of TanaCon, an alternative conference organized by YouTube influencer Tana Mongeau. The event, which was held in Anaheim the same week as VidCon, was born out of Mongeau’s that VidCon wouldn’t feature controversial creators like herself. Though TanaCon was poorly and eventually shut down, Mongeau was able to attract more than 20k teen fans as well as like Shane Dawson, TheGabbieShow, Casey Neistat, and Miranda Sings. frustration organized huge creators TanaCon sold 5,000 tickets but was by another 15,000 teens eager to meet their favorite YouTubers. Photo courtesy of . reportedly mobbed @SocialBlade . To generate real value from campaigns, many brands have set the following priorities for influencers they partner with: (1) engagement (likes, comments); (2) views; (3) subscribers. As purchase behavior continues to shift towards mobile and social platforms, influencers have a huge ability to drive sales, but it’s key that viewers actually watch and engage with the content, and use it to make purchasing decisions. 6. Engagement > views The increasing focus on engagement over reach was echoed by brands and publishers, whose KPIs for content have shifted away from pure views. Jay Holzer, Head of Linear Programming at Tastemade, mentioned that his team primarily focuses on watch time over number of views — they want to ensure they are building a real connection with viewers who will return to their page. Similarly, NBC worked with 40 music YouTubers for a — while they tracked views, they specifically focused on boosting search traffic for , which was up 170% over the course of the campaign. campaign The Voice The Voice . The rapid rise of e-sports caught many brands by surprise, and they continue to struggle with how to reach these viewers in an authentic way. It’s a valuable demographic — viewers often stream hours of content with no break and are eager for opportunities to emulate the gaming lifestyle. Brands need to think of creative ways to establish a value-add presence in the space — Perrin Kaplan of Zebra Partners cited IKEA’s new for gamers as an example of this. 7. Brands need to catch up on e-sports ergonomic furniture HyperX and Allied Esports on a mobile touring arena that made a stop on the VidCon Expo Hall floor — conveniently located next to the Axe (yes, the body spray company) Gaming Lounge. partnered Other industry experts encouraged brands to think more strategically about which games best fit their ethos and not scramble to sponsor top hits like Fortnite. UEG’s Lauren Flanagan said that the current environment reminds her of youth soccer, where “everyone is chasing the same ball up and down the field” rather than spreading out and pursuing different properties. VidCon did feature a case study of one successful partnership in the space — Hot Pockets ran a social in 2017 where they dedicated most of their marketing budget to 20 gaming influencers, and saw a 6–7% lift in business. campaign Wandering around VidCon’s giant Expo Hall, we that almost every booth had two things in common: they were interactive, and they were optimized for Instagram. At the very least, this meant a trendy wall to snap a photo against (Facebook had mini photo-rooms dedicated to this), but most brands got a little more creative. Hubert’s Lemonade had a ball pit filled with lemonade floaties and a claw machine of merch, while Nickelodeon built a giant obstacle course. Brands weren’t shy about encouraging social posts, putting up signs with a hashtag and request to share on Instagram. 8. Gen Z wants interactive and Instagrammable experiences. quickly realized A few of the brand booths in VidCon’s expo hall. Clockwise from upper left: Ugly Dolls, Hubert’s Lemonade, United Airlines, and Califia. It’s easy to make a physical booth interactive, but how can content creators do the same for YouTube? Chase Landau, VP of Partnerships at , said that the company’s creators focus on videos about things that kids can replicate at home. How-to videos on cooking, building things, and gaming are often the most popular content. In another interesting example of interactive content, Twisted Food launched a delivery-only restaurant that allows viewers to order the food they see in the company’s viral . pocket.watch Facebook videos Social and Entertainment Platforms UGC platforms often struggle with balancing freedom of speech and creating a safe community. At VidCon, many creators voiced the opinion that YouTube and other platforms should be doing more to ensure that users aren’t exposed to harassment or inappropriate content. On a panel titled “Why 2017 Sucked for Online Video,” vlogger criticized YouTube for leaving up Logan Paul’s “suicide forest” video for 12+ hours, and argued that real people (not bots) should review and approve featured or trending content. 9. Platforms are responsible for content. Jana Hisham Tech execs have historically disagreed with the idea that they are responsible for user content, but it seems the tide is beginning to shift. At Twitch’s keynote, co-founder Kevin Lin said that the company has a “responsibility to create a safe environment for creators and fans.” Trolls, be warned — platforms are making strides to rein in the Wild West of the Internet. YouTube, IG/Facebook, Snap, and Twitch are in a race to become the primary destination for video. YouTube is encroaching on Instagram with the launch of a for casual, short-form videos. Meanwhile, Instagram made waves with the , which allows users to create longer-form, YouTube style videos. Facebook VP of Product Fidji Simo said that her team is working to encourage more creator content on Facebook Watch due to consumer demand. And while Snap has lagged in creator videos, the company had a big — the Snapchat Shows feature will be opened up to creators, starting with a makeover show from of 10. Platforms converge to multi-format video. “Stories” product launch of IGTV VidCon announcement Patrick Starrr Face Forward. You can catch the full YouTube keynote above — other than YouTube Stories, some of the biggest announcements were the launch of monthly memberships, expanded merch opportunities (including a partnership with Teespring), and a new Premieres feature for the live debut of pre-recorded videos. Creators have mixed feelings on the idea of platform consolidation. Some seem exhausted by the challenge of producing content to fit the demographic, format, and viewing habits of each platform, and would welcome the ability to focus on one. Others, especially newer creators, appreciate the ability to publish across many platforms and figure out where their content “hits.” NBA Entertainment SVP David Denenberg said the NBA has benefited from platform diversity — they can livestream a game on Facebook, post highlights on YouTube, and do player Q&As on Instagram. Denenberg said the NBA works with social platforms to produce the best content for viewers —after a contact at Facebook recommended videos with tighter angles, the NBA installed new cameras in arenas and saw engagement increase 2.5x. Thanks for reading — we hope you found this post to be helpful! If you were at VidCon this year or in past years, we’d love to hear your feedback below, or you can reach us on email at twins@crv.com or on Twitter . @venturetwins Like this post? to help more people see our story, and share it with your friends! Clap for it Interested in reading more content from us? 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“Advertising and marketing technology was created to make marketing easier and save people time and money. But the irony is that the technology is complicating the process and making companies spend a boatload of money on platform solutions.” — Daniel Kim, marketing Guru Technology is complicating the process and making companies spend a boatload of money. Advertising agencies are under pressure to change archaic and inefficient elements of their business models. Today, many campaigns are still overly complex in an era when campaigns and ads need to be designed and refined quickly across lots of platforms. Advertising agencies under pressure Key problems Overcomplicated tools with bad UI Too many similar platforms with insufficient integrations Too much data GDPR regulations Ad blockers and ad fraud “90% of marketing software is not doing a good job on UI,” said Jason Keath, CEO of Social Fresh, during The BeanCast Marketing Podcast. Jason is totally right. The user interface for most of these ad tech platforms is too difficult. It’s hard to learn what the full capabilities of the technology should be. The excessive offer of marketing platforms makes it hard for companies and marketing agencies to effectively navigate the space. Basically, it’s just all trial and error — there is no such thing as a silver bullet. In addition, there aren’t many platforms that allow companies to integrate their own data streams or tools to be used inside the platform. This is quite strange as the advertising industry is becoming more and more data-driven. Data analysis is becoming notably important as it’s one of the top skills sought for on website upwork.com. A data scientists will have experience working with statistical programming languages like R, Python, Scala, plus a background in databases. Added to that, he needs some proficiency in the fields of statistics, machine learning, linear algebra, data visualization, and software engineering — quite a lot right? On the other side of the fence, the multitude of data streams leads to misinterpretation of the data. A tsunami of data leads to many powerful business insights, it’s hard to decide which wave to ride, which insight will give the best results. GDPR and impact on ad tech industry The ad tech industry is well-known, in a negative sense, for collecting users data in all sorts of ways. If a company does not comply with GDPR regulations, they will receive high fines. It is not an easy task for a user to aggregate all the data created online and this is where the GDPR regulation helps them. The data portability clause says that every user has the right to get a digital copy of his or her personal data and can transfer that file anywhere he or she chooses to. However, this clause has a drastic impact on many marketing agencies as it’s not an easy task for them to provide a full copy of all the digital data they own. In search of innovation It’s not an easy task to innovate an archaic landscape and provide the needed transparency. Here are a few things to remember: Virtual Reality is hot, soon we will see agencies creating VR advertisements. Tapad is a project that helps marketers to follow an individual from device to device by using complex algorithms to create a “probabilistic device graph”. MediaMath enables a marketing team to buy thousands of ads across half a dozen ad exchanges daily, automating the buy side of ad tech. Blockchain technology disrupting the ad tech industry Blockchain offers the needed transparency and gives back control to the user of his personal data. Here are some interesting projects that can help the ad tech industry. 1. Single-page embed layer for ads — Vidy Vidy has invented the first single-page invisible embed layer for video, run on the Ethereum blockchain. Tiny hyper-relevant videos hidden behind the text of any page on the web. But how does it work? Vidy constructs a ledger system that measures how long a user watches an ad thanks to holding tracking technology on its embed layer. Vidy then rewards publishers and users accordingly for holding down on ads with VidyCoins, taken as a fraction of the VidyCoin payout made from advertiser to publisher for that video ad impression. Using this technique, hyper-relevant videos can be hidden behind the text of any web page, unlocking a whole new dimension to the internet. Vidy makes use of a natural language processing protocol, operated by miners, that will automatically place video ads on a massive scale into publishers pages. The protocol will analyze the text on websites and try to find a match for live ad campaigns. On the other side, publishers and advertisers get access to a dashboard where they can manage their campaigns and upload their video advertisements. They can rapidly change live campaigns, view statistics and review the ads performance. Ad fraud is impossible as everything is tracked on the underlying blockchain. 2. Blockchain-base data marketplace — Wibson Blockchain-based data marketplace that enables users to sell their validated personal data directly to advertisers. This provides them with a secure way and environment to sell their personal data. In addition, users are able to track and manage the access to their data using blockchain technology. Through the release of the Wibson iOS and Android apps, individuals can connect to data sources, such as Facebook and their mobile device location, monitor offers from data buyers, and sell their personal data. “In today’s economy, data equals money. Unfortunately, that exchange hasn’t made its way into consumer wallets — until now,” says Wibson.org founder and CEO Mat Travizano. “Wibson completely changes this dynamic by restoring ownership over our personal information. Now consumers can access their data, and can choose to profit from these transactions how and when they want.” 3. Self-sovereign identity (SSID) — Civic Identity wallet where all user’s their personal data is stored on Civic’s blockchain. Civic users choose service providers and individuals they want to share their information with. Civic’s blockchain architecture ensures that this data remains private and practically inaccessible to hackers. Its multi-factor authentication does not require a username, password, third-party authenticator, or physical hardware token. Identity access is only available through biometrics (face or fingerprint). Civic users choose service providers and individuals they want to share their information with. These counterparties can use the Civic platform for immediate authentication of a user’s identity, without any data transfer, processing, or storage requirements. This eliminates the risks that come with centralized data operations, making Civic’s SSID solution a major breakthrough in data theft prevention and identity protection. Interview with Vidy.com **? What’s the reason behind it? What problems did you see?**Vidy was founded more than 2 years ago with the purpose of allowing search inside video via natural language processing. Despite the rise in the use of videos across every industry, there was a lack of innovation when it came to the searching of videos. We thought to ourselves why not allow video content to be served up based on natural language? Why wasn’t there an easier way to serve up highlights of videos? How did you come up with the idea to create Vidy Over the last 1.5 years, we have processed over 100 million videos through our transcription engine. Being able to search inside a video was fascinating because we understood what was said inside the video, and hence serve up videos according to what was typed or written. And finally, we found an uninhabited territory, a blue ocean, and that was all the lines of texts on the internet. We brainstormed and found a way to embed tiny hyper-relevant videos behind these texts that would unveil with a hold down action. We had essentially unlocked a new dimension to the internet. In doing so, we solved many problems that have plagued the digital ad space for centuries such as the lack of real estate, fraud, irrelevant ads among others. **How will VIDY disrupt the current ad tech industry?**Vidy creates the first-ever, decentralized, truly distributed video-ad platform for fair and consensual advertisement consumption. The invisible layer solution that makes videos rest atop of any web page, allows advertisers to embed their video ads behind the relevant text that they are linked to. It disrupts the current norm of how video ads are displayed and interacted with context. The blockchain adoption also brings transparency, security, equity and privacy that all parties need. Moreover, it’s hassle-free. By one-tap installation of Vidy’s embed layer SDK, all advertisers and publishers can be benefited from this overnight. **Can you explain the VIDY ecosystem?**Vidy’s ad placement mechanism is an open-source NLP protocol, run by miners, that automatically places video ads on a massive scale into the hyper-relevant text of millions of publisher pages. The VIDY ecosystem is composed of a data layer, consensus layer and application layer. The data layer is the foundation that tracks and maintains all data. The consensus layer receives data from the former, process them as inputs, as well as decrypts the smart contracts that are handed off for user-data target application. The application layer is the consumer-facing distributor of video ads across the web, encapsulated in an SDK that can be installed with just a tap by any publisher. The design of VIDY ecosystem ensures its stability and scalability, which are crucial to both advertisers and publishers. **Can you share how the NLP Match protocol will work in a human understandable way?**NLP is serving to process real-time video ad placement. Through Vidy’s accumulated database and re-enforced corpus with deep learning, we are able to precisely extract and match context with the most-highly relevant videos. **What’s the use of the VidyCoin and how to earn it?**VidyCoin (VIDY) can be utilized in 3 main ways/layers. You earn VIDY every time you hold down on an ad, you use VIDY to make purchases in one-tap on ads, and VIDY is required to stake as fuel for all ad campaigns on the platform. **How will you prevent user will be bloated with multiple in-text advertisement videos?**It is very simple, we will always have a limit on the number of in-text ad videos. This will be a consensus amongst our customers who are the publishers on what they think is a good number to set as a limit. This feature will be on the dashboard which is accessible to the publishers who are integrated with our SDK. **Ad blockers? How do you prevent that?**Ad blockers are blacklists of IPs that downloadable software blocks from loading content and media. In order to be obfuscated as part of being targeted by an ad blocker, first a new content delivery system, such as Vidy, needs to be determined an ad that a user has no choice whether or not to see. , meaning it is completely up to the user at all times to hold down or not to hold down to see a video ad from Vidy. This is a paradigm shift from all other advertising options on the market today which display their content without any consent or any control from the user. Vidy is architected to be inherently pro user choice In addition to choice, Vidy embeds both entertainment videos alongside advertisement videos meaning the underlying utility of the system is hyper-relevant entertainment value which is not relevant to the purpose of ad blocker technology and if obfuscated would be debilitating for the user.

Ad tech industry under pressure — Where to find innovation?

There are many reasons to be concerned about . Maybe you have friends who can’t hold a conversation without reaching for their phones. Maybe you have neck pain from wasting too much time online. Maybe you have a gut feeling that we’re helpless against the barrage of endless notifications and addictive platforms in our daily lives. screen addiction These all ring true for me, at least. But I don’t think we’re helpless, and I don’t think “screen addiction” is exactly what we should be fighting. I believe that people building consumer-facing platforms can turn these screen-related problems 180 degrees by focusing on their content. When platforms are filled with valuable content for users, screen addiction will no longer be relevant. I’ll elaborate — but first, I want to back up a bit. The current state of technology is kind of ridiculous Today, we have free, instant access to the most comprehensive of history. We have the ability to to anywhere in the world. We can with people in our lives no matter where they go. Hell, we can even to our doors if we tap our phones in a certain way. encyclopedia virtually travel stay connected teleport groceries Screens are granting us luxuries we wouldn’t have dreamt of 20 years ago. So how come they’re ? ruining our lives You are the product and you are losing An important distinction to note is that screens aren’t it’s that they’re making our lives . Worse enough so that, despite all the amazing innovations that we can access through screens, we’re still complaining about them. not making our lives better — worse Our kids start playing video games and can’t stop. Our teens are getting less sleep, more obese, and more lonely . Our is suffering due the the time we spend on social media. We can’t eat at a restaurant without instinctively checking our phones. But we can’t fight it, because in exchange for all the free content online, we’re paying in our attention. than ever mental health What consumer-facing tech companies want from you is to use and love their product. Within products that are content-reliant, that profit the longer you stare at them (i.e. social media and sharing platforms), that means platform designers spend their days prototyping and testing every detail of a product, from the curviness of a “read more” button to the number of notifications you’ll receive, all in order to optimize your experience (i.e. for in your brain). dopamine hits There are many seemingly benign features that are wickedly effective in keeping us — think Netflix’s autoplay from episode to episode, Instagram’s bottomless feed, or even the variable “rewards” (likes, comments, etc.) we collect when we get a notification from Facebook. If you don’t think they’re working, look at the stats: in 2018, 40% of social media users reported that they would find it difficult to stop using social media, up from 28% of social media users just in 2014. It gets harder and harder to “just set your phone down” when every app on your phone has been carefully crafted into a different high-tech drug to try. hooked 4 years ago Netflix makes it easier to keep watching than to stop. We, as consumers, would not win a war against technology. The future of tech is at stake The fact that we the products we use are manipulating us isn’t helping the tech industry at all — it adds to all the scrutiny around Silicon Valley concerning privacy, security, and the impending sense of . know dystopian doom But for those of us in the tech industry, we would be lying if we said that we’ll stop building addictive products. In fact, we’ll be working on more and more attention-grabbing products as more people spend more time on their devices. But if users of some product X gradually start to feel that their behavior is being manipulated (or if they, say, read a about why X is making their life worse) this could push them over to quit. Remember ? Even (or perhaps especially) the biggest companies aren’t immune to public backlash. This public distrust around tech has the biggest potential to . Business Insider article #deleteFacebook weaken the industry That’s why I believe we need to go back to the heart of what we’re building. I believe that (that means anyone from an engineer, designer, PM, to a data scientist, content strategist, executive) And an extremely significant but oft-overlooked aspect is focusing specifically on people building consumer-facing platforms need to feel the responsibility of creating something that is hooking people on. worth the content on their platform_._ “Every Way Kylie Has Changed Since Becoming A Mom” Sorry Kylie Jenner, but I’m not going to gain much by spending my virtual time with you. Snapchat’s Discover isn’t helping — a few months ago, I clicked on a few selfie videos of celebrities doing boring everyday things, and now that’s all I see. Keeping up with the Kardashians — Snapchat style But Snapchat is clearly doing something right, if it’s American teens’ . But maybe if you’re a Snapchat user, you already understand the over the redesign caused by the decrease of focus from your actual friends. I’m guessing that with increasing pressure to monetize and redefine their role as a “camera company” (whatever that means?), Snapchat really wants to show me more Kardashian videos. app of choice backlash Let’s be clear: the fact that Snapchat is trying to form more partnerships and introduce new opportunities for cash flow doesn’t directly bother me. What bothers me is that the content that they’re trying to get me to watch . I trust that they know what direction they want their business to head. sucks But it’s not just Snapchat. Other examples: YouTube has a ton of great quality content, but I always see the same kinds of talk show segments, BuzzFeed videos, and “YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN…” clickbait on the homepage. Facebook has been ridiculously useful for organizing events and reconnecting with old friends, but my newsfeed now 95% GIFs and meme videos that make my CPU fans go wild. Not that this content is inherently malicious or evil or even , but in the longer term, I feel awful after wasting hours on them. that bad Snapchat’s users wouldn’t be so angry at the redesign if the stuff on Discover was as interesting or relevant as their friends’ Stories. People wouldn’t see and as enemies against their hard-earned free time if they saw more valuable content. YouTube Facebook This is a content problem. Content is the main distinction between products that are worth being hooked on, and products that are worth being hooked on. A content problem can’t be solved like a bug fix. It relies on constant effort from the people building the platform to promote valuable content. not First, what is “valuable content”? Before I define anything, I just want to acknowledge that this is purely my overarching idea of what makes content valuable. I think it’s important for people working on different platforms to explicitly define their specific idea of “valuable content.” extremely Okay, back to it: In general, I believe that content (whether it’s in the form of a video, a scrollable feed, a game, an informational app, a collection of writing, a VR environment, or really anything else imaginable) is valuable if it benefits the user’s health and happiness in the long term. More specifically, some ways to accomplish this include: facilitating meaningful social interaction, supplying educational value, incentivizing healthier habits, or promoting productivity. I’ll expand on these below. We don’t talk anymore is anything that allows you to form closer relationships with others. Often, that means that the platform must bring you together with others, face to face, which provides more interpersonal communication. Today, we’re lucky to have various messaging channels to communicate with our circles, but we become when we allow these channels to replace offline communication. But products that aren’t purely intended for facilitating in-person interactions can still encourage in-person interactions. Imagine if a social media site had a “Form a meetup” checkbox next to its “Post” button, so you can choose to post something that could lead to a fulfilling conversation in real life. Meaningful social interaction rewarding less happy To live is to learn… Important fundamentals along with top-tier instruction on specialized academic areas are readily . But even on more general social platforms there are a ton of opportunities to disseminate interesting information — I love watching TED talks on YouTube for example, and I’ve learned some really interesting facts even in the jungle that is . From the bottom of my nerdy heart, I believe that integrating educational content on creative platforms has potential to make learning infinitely more fun. But it goes past that — when people read others’ insights, ideas and stories online, they broaden their own perspectives. And in a world with so much division and prejudice, educating each other should be an immediate concern. educational available online reddit The health craze can be virtual The category of platforms that make you includes anything that improves your quality of life in the long term. On the health side, it can be anything relating to nutrition, , exercise, or even emotional or stress management. Especially as screens encourage many unhealthy habits — sitting excessively, neglecting sleep, neglecting ourselves — this is becoming increasingly important if we want to avoid racking up medical issues. more healthy sleep support Getting shit done Products that help us be allow us to spend more time doing what we care about. Something that eliminates the hassle of mindless everyday tasks makes you more productive. Something that helps you clarify and prioritize your goals makes you more productive. Something that allows you to communicate crucial information with others makes you more productive. Even pure entertainment can make you more productive by giving you a much-needed break, but all the autoplay/bottomless feed-esque tricks the keep you hooked for hours could counteract its benefits. In that case, the only case for supporting productivity is simply to reduce those willpower-draining features. There are a lot out there about why and how to do that. more productive of interesting articles How to solve the content problem Okay, these ideas sound nice and wholesome — but how can we turn them into reality? The answer: Platform builders need to work on both the , and the in order to create an environment where valuable content is widely available and accessible. platform itself platform’s content 1. Improving the platform itself This is undeniably very different across different platforms. The following are general ideas to make platforms more conducive to content that is relevant and valuable to each user. “Advanced Options” Giving users more options to customize their content is usually a good idea. That doesn’t mean you have to induce decision fatigue by giving users 30 different checkboxes to click when they first register — you can keep that sleek, user-friendly interface but also make easily accessible advanced options available for people to truly be in charge of what they see. Basing content off of content you’ve already seen is not always reliable — if someone goes on a clickbait spree, that doesn’t necessarily mean that their primary interest is clickbait. Customization options are invaluable to anyone who wants to have any degree of control over the content they see. Curation and diversified default content When I see that stand of as I hungrily walk into Safeway, I’ll think: But while getting a bag of marshmallows won’t necessarily encourage me to add even more marshmallows to my grocery basket, watching gaming videos set me on a path to more gaming videos, especially through recommendations. Smashmallows there’s no harm in getting some! will The tone of our online browsing is set from the very first thing we click on — that’s why default content is so important. Furthermore, the content that most people engage with is usually the most valuable content. So that’s where curation by real humans comes in. not Not-so-curated content on my YouTube homepage I would trust a human over any algorithm today to pick interesting, relevant content that can actively benefit me. Platforms should have content curators pick content synonymous with the mission of their platform, and then increase the rankings of that content on their default and recommended features. Finding good content is so hard and time-consuming for us as consumers to do, which is why platforms themselves should bear some of the burden. 2. Improving the content itself If valuable content is hard to find, then it’s even harder to produce. The content that people contribute most to public platforms isn’t necessarily the best content. On YouTube, if it’s easy to get more views with clickbait, why not make clickbait? Awards and incentives There needs to be a push to create more diverse content, and the platforms themselves are in the perfect position to do that. Right now, YouTube has for people with high subscriber counts and a to monetize videos. They even sponsor , which had over attendees in 2017. Platforms have so many opportunities to recognize content contributors, which means that they have many opportunities to recognize people making more diverse and valuable content, in addition to purely popular content. awards partner program VidCon 30,000 VidCon 2018 (photo credit: VidCon YouTube channel) Another example: Yelp has encouraged many people to leave high quality reviews and photos of local businesses by setting up an for contributors who are especially active. If Yelp can make people write long paragraphs about their local florist, other platforms can encourage the kind of content they want too. Elite program But this is only the tip of the iceberg. There is an infinite number of ideas that content-reliant platforms can use to improve their content over time. Action items A platform with “valuable content” is just a broad end goal. Individuals and companies must consciously define what exactly valuable content looks like for their own platform, and then implement ways to incentivize more of it. To anyone who takes any part in a building a platform, whether it’s engineering, design, leadership, marketing or anything else, . And even if you don’t have a say in any platform, please start thinking about how to actively push for valuable content please spread the discussion so that those who do can make their products worthwhile to you as a user. Why should platform builders even care? I haven’t yet really addressed the awkward question of: It’s hard to see any financial incentive for promoting “valuable content” when users will just as easily consume any other content. why should people working on a platform be responsible for all this? If you’re concerned about what the future might look like, if you believe that there’s even the slightest chance the world could get from the new technologies we’re building — then you have your answer. Without pressure from the builders of the platform, platforms will continue to look the same, make the same mistakes, incur the collective anger of the public after it has interfered with their lives enough, rinse and repeat. worse I truly believe that the most sustainable consumer is not composed from virality or novelty — they stick around because they are innovations that really make our lives better. Look around you — we still use blenders but we don’t use . Similarly, making platforms conducive to valuable content is key to ensuring its success and longevity. technology Juiceros A final analogy Let’s first look at some alarming facts about our relationship with screens. A man in Taiwan from exhaustion after playing video games for three days straight. Studies have shown that people addicted to the Internet lose matter in the “processing part” (grey matter) of their . We spend over each day on social media and pay an average of per year for technology and communication devices. died brain 1.5 hours $2300 Surprisingly, though, pose similar dangers to us. cars Cars cause millions of accidents every year. Accidents on the road are the of death in Americans aged 10–19, and traffic pollution has actually been shown to in children. We spend around in cars every day and spend over on gas per year. leading cause slow brain growth 50 minutes $2000 But no one would ever say that we’re addicted to cars. This analogy might sound crazy, but we can’t deny that using cars comes with its risks and drawbacks. But we don’t strive to find solutions to “car addiction” because cars solve a significant problem in our lives: they make our commutes much more efficient and our lifestyles possible. Screen addiction in its purest form — spending too much time on our devices — is not the biggest problem. It’s the habit of consumer-facing platforms to promote time-wasting content that’s the problem. But I believe that this problem can be tackled with everything I mentioned above, and also much, much more. Maybe this is awfully optimistic of me, but when the content problem is better solved — when the platforms and products we use are indispensable in supporting and improving our daily lives — I hope that “screen addiction” will sound as ridiculous as “car addiction.”

Screen addiction is not the problem

The first half of 2018 has been difficult for crypto investors. The fervor that dominated the market in late 2017 has waned, leaving questions about regulatory uncertainty, ICO governance, and market manipulation. Even investing in “large cap” tokens, which seemed like a sure bet to some, has been revealed to hold sizable risk — Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ripple have all seen their prices slashed to less than a third of their highs. While this price volatility has resulted in some retail investors exiting the space, we haven’t lost enthusiasm about the fundamental value of blockchain. We believe that the true opportunity in crypto lies not in speculative trading and “get rich quick” schemes, but in the long-term development of coins that function as currency and enable improved communications, transactions, and other enterprise and consumer processes. (Mike Maples from Floodgate expanded more on this mindset in his great article Slow Money Crypto ). That being said, the first “killer app” of blockchain is undoubtedly cryptocurrency. Recent fluctuations have prevented most coins from being used as true currencies, but as prices stabilize, we believe that crypto has huge potential to beat out fiat currency in two of the three functions of money (and at least tie the third): — crypto arguably represents a big improvement as it can be transacted P2P or B2C instantly, permanently, anonymously, and without fees between anyone around the globe. Medium of exchange Bitcoin was originally intended to create a more stable currency that could not be manipulated by a central bank or government (by interest rate policies, inflation, etc.). As crypto continues to develop, we believe more of this initial use case will be realized. Store of value — **Unit of account —**like traditional money, each cryptocurrency can be expressed in units that allow for setting prices of goods and completing transactions. If a few coins were to become a global standard, this could represent another advantage in standardizing price units worldwide. We’re hopeful that as blockchain technology develops and some of the investment buzz dies down, we’ll see crypto gain widespread adoption as currency. In the meantime, we’re excited to see signs of life in other parts of consumer blockchain. Cryptokitties onto the scene in late November, 21 Inc. from hardware to a commercial social network (Earn.com, later acquired by Coinbase), Steemit grew to users and distributed upwards of $30M to community members, and Telegram announced a $2B (preceded by Kik and YouNow). exploded pivoted more than 350k ICO According to (data pulled on 7/20), gaming currently dominates dApp usage, representing the plurality (42%) of the top 50 dApps, followed by Exchanges (22%). These are currently the only two categories whose top 50 dApps see upwards of 100 DAUs and $100k weekly transaction volume, on average. (Check out for more stats!) Dapp Radar stats Chris McCann’s awesome post All data from Dapp Radar as of 7/20 at 5 p.m. We re-categorized all Dapp listings under the “High-Risk” category as “Gambling”, and also re-categorized several apps listed under “Other” that we believe do fit into another category. All data is for the top 50 dApps only. $USD volume is calculated based on Ethereum average price on 7/20 of $503. While no dApp has become a mainstream hit, it’s a very promising sign that even a small group of dedicated users is willing to jump through the technical hoops to engage on these platforms (especially given the counterparty risk of exchanges, custodians, and the dApps themselves, since the space is largely unregulated). We’re excited about opportunities to engage these early users, and are looking for dApps and platforms with the following characteristics: We’ve seen many projects where blockchain makes a platform unnecessarily complex and limits functionality. We think that Cryptokitties falls into this category in its current state. While the cat characteristics, generations of cats, and cat breeding are interesting, none of these require blockchain, and the need to pay for actions and wait for verification detracts from the user experience. Due to the complexity of building on blockchain, development has been slow — users can’t do anything other than trade or breed the cats, which may be why activity dropped dramatically after the initial hype. Unique and necessary implementation of the blockchain. Data from shows a severe decline in Cryptokitties market activity — with DAUs down to <500 in early July, from 15k+ at peak last November. Bloxy While a small number of consumers are intensely concerned about privacy and security, most place on convenience. Startups trying to build a decentralized version of something like Facebook or Twitter will find it difficult to break the existing network effects that hook users in these platforms. The average user likely won’t see value in switching from the established platform used by all of their friends to a competitor that’s harder to use and only populated by die-hard blockchain fans, even if the latter is slightly more secure or provides anonymity. Privacy and/or security aren’t the only value add. more value If you’ve ever tried to make a dApp transaction, you know how painful the process is. You need to set up an account to purchase coins, make the purchase, create a MetaMask account, send the coins to MetaMask, and, finally, verify the transaction. This is too much friction for the mainstream user. Coinbase did an exceptional job bringing crypto to the masses via credit/debit card purchases, and has continued to thrive despite competitors that undercut Coinbase’s 8% (!) transaction fee. We think it’s worth it for consumer blockchain startups to build a user experience that is as seamless as possible, even if the initial implementation isn’t entirely decentralized. Approachable consumer experience. Even heavy crypto users have trouble with the usability of most dApps, as evidenced by the tweet above referencing Augur’s recent launch. We believe that the first consumer blockchain applications to get mainstream traction will focus on meeting the needs of large groups of users who already “fans” of the non-crypto use case. For example, we’re excited about platforms like and that are tokenizing professional athletes and creating a marketplace for these digital collectibles — we know there’s a huge market of sports fans who already spend billions of dollars annually on merchandise and content related to their favorite athletes and teams. Eventually, we expect to see successful consumer blockchain apps targeting more niche communities (or even solving problems that people didn’t know they had!), but we think these will take longer to materialize. Existing user base. Unblockable Hashletes Some of the early success cases in consumer blockchain fall within these parameters. The (which recently announced more than 3M monthly active users) has many advantages beyond security and privacy: it’s extremely fast, blocks standard ads, gives users more control over ads they do see, and allows users to earn revenue from these replacement ads. The browser also takes advantage of an existing community that coalesced around private browsers and search engines like DuckDuckGo and Tor. Brave browser The Brave browser opens with a tab showing activity blocked (above is a screenshot from a ). Users tend to save 2–3 hours of time in only a few months of using Brave. Reddit user As this space continues to evolve, we’re also excited about platforms that allow consumers to access multiple blockchain apps in one place, particularly if they streamline the onboarding and verification process. is a great example of this, and is another. We’ve outlined some of the consumer-facing blockchain apps we’ve seen in the market map below, many of which operate on Blockstack or Ethereum (which Status uses). Blockstack Status *Note: We’ve purposefully left out trading exchanges and P2P payment startups. There are too many of these to list, and we see them as fulfilling the “money” use case, while this post is focused on other consumer blockchain implementations. From an investment perspective, we’re looking for consumer blockchain platforms that can attract a critical mass of users over the next three to five years. This will be more difficult in some categories than others given existing non-blockchain competitors and how much value blockchain can truly add. Here’s a few markets that we are particularly excited about: — as we discussed in our , many millennials and Gen Zers are eager to make extra income. Blockchain provides a secure and anonymous way to rent digital assets like computer storage ( , , ), internet access ( ), compute power ( , ), or even data ( ). These platforms are currently too complex for the mainstream user, but we envision a future where users can easily toggle on and off a system that allows them to make passive income by renting or selling these assets. Digital asset sharing/rental side hustle space thesis Storj Sia Filecoin Open Garden Golem Gridcoin DataWallet — enterprises are adopting blockchain for managing employee and customer identities ( , ), and this will bleed into the consumer market. We see significant potential for blockchain to: (1) track ownership and history of high-value assets (art, jewelry, real estate); (2) verify personal history (employment, education, residence); and (3) easily and securely access private data and make transactions, or credential others to act on your behalf. Verified identities also enable exciting opportunities in recruiting, knowledge-sharing, and identity-oriented tasks (e.g. Earn.com). Identity management ShoCard Cambridge Blockchain — given the complexity of building on a blockchain and accessing dapps, it’s tough to build games that compete with non-blockchain games in entertainment value (at least, in the near term). There is one notable exception — an organized and verified ledger of ownership and transactions can open up access to digital IP for real-world assets. We already mentioned and , which allow special access to digital and physical content and experiences through owning part of an athlete’s token. Cryptokitties’s s are another good example of this. Games with digital/physical crossover Hashletes Unblockable charity auction — we’re that streaming video will continue to be the primary source of entertainment for Gen Z and younger millennials. As traditional ads lose their appeal (a of this year’s VidCon), streamers are increasingly depending on viewers for financial support. We expect to see digital tipping/gifts become more mainstream, and have already seen success with YouTube , on Chinese livestreaming apps, and on Twitch. Token-based streaming platforms have the potential to offer fast and secure monetization options for creators without the pesky transaction fees. Streaming with payments big believers key takeaway SuperChats virtual gifts Bits Thanks to Saar Gur for his help with this article! Thanks for reading! We’re excited about the opportunity to build amazing consumer applications in the blockchain space, and would love to talk to anyone working on something we should know about. We’d also appreciate your questions or feedback — you can reach us at or on Twitter . twins@crv.com @venturetwins

The state of consumer blockchain from Cryptokitties to Blockstack (+ our market map!)

Technical blogging can reinforce your learning, educate people in the tech community, and serve as a good source of income. As a tech blogger, you have the great benefit of becoming a lifelong learner because you need to be well-versed in the field you are writing about to explain the concepts to readers clearly. Due to blogging’s numerous benefits, different people have asked questions like; what are the best technical blogging platforms? Should I build a blog from scratch or use a network-based technical blogging platform? This article aims to answer some of those questions by highlighting some of the best ways to start a technical blog in 2020. I will divide it into network-based and self-hosted tech blogging platforms. Network-based Platforms These are technical blogging platforms with an existing audience that you can leverage when you publish articles. You don’t have to understand how to code to use these platforms or worry about maintaining your blog as well. Hacker Noon is a community of over 12,000+ contributing writers publishing free high-quality tech stories. Hacker Noon Hacker Noon supports writers by proofreading their articles before it is published on the platform, has in-built blog analytics, strong security, and is web monetized to enable writers to earn money from their articles. As a network-based platform, it already comes with an existing audience waiting to read the articles you publish on the platform. Medium is a community of writers, bloggers, journalists, and experts. - From the description, you can see that medium is not only for people in tech because it has various writers and publications from different areas of life. Medium No coding skill is required to create a blog on Medium. It comes with in-built analytics and a paid writer program. Medium received many backlashes from the tech community when they added the paywall feature because users were limited to reading five articles for free every month on Medium. Even though these platforms come with many readers, you can’t use your own domain on your blog, and there’s not a lot of customization options. Hashnode is a content creation platform and community that enables developers to create a blog on their personal domain for free. As a network-based platform, your articles are shared with the community on Hashnode for initial traction and readership. Hashnode You don’t have to create your blog from scratch; hence no coding skill is required and you get to enjoy all the SEO benefits because the blog is mapped to your personal domain name. Blog customization is pretty great as well. The platform doesn’t have a paid writer program like medium but it has got web monetization integrated to enable writers to make money from their articles with no popup ads. Dev.to is an open-source software that powers a community of software developers who write articles and build relationships with other developers. Dev.to As a network-based platform, it comes with an existing audience waiting to read your articles. It doesn’t require any coding skills to set up and is web monetized as well. You can’t map your blog to your personal domain, so the traffic goes to dev.to instead of your blog. The platform respects your canonical URLs so you can republish your articles. Self-hosted Platforms These platforms require understanding how to code. You have to create the blog from scratch and also maintain it as well. Self-hosted platforms do not come with have an existing audience like the network-based platforms. WordPress.org is a software designed for building websites and blogs. You will have access to different plugins to enhance your blog and total control over every aspect of your blog. WordPress.org It doesn’t come with a built-in audience, so nobody might read your articles when you publish them except you have a good social media following or have been blogging for a long time. You have to manage your own backups and security, so some coding knowledge is required here. There are tons of people using WordPress worldwide, so finding resources to help you build with WordPress is easy. MDX and Next.js is an authorable format that lets you write JSX and import components into your Markdown files, while is a React framework that enables you to build static and dynamic apps quickly. MDX Next.js You need to understand React and Next.js to be able to create the blog with MDX and Next.js. You have the power to customize your blog in different ways and also have total control of your content. Since it is a self-hosted platform, there’s no existing audience waiting to read your articles when you publish it. Gatsby is a free and open-source framework based on React that helps developers build fast websites and blogs. Gatsby Knowledge of GraphQL and React is a must-have to build a blog with Gatsby. I believe Gatsby’s documentation is excellent, so it shouldn’t be challenging if you are looking to explore building with Gatsby. Blog customization can be done in diverse ways and you will also have total control of your content. As a self-hosted platform, you will be required to build your blog from scratch and maintain it. It doesn’t come with an existing audience, so you may not get a lot of readerships, except your articles are shared on social media platforms. Conclusion Network-based and self-hosted platforms are great. It is essential to understand the differences between them and what you stand to gain from using either of them. I hope you were able to learn about the best ways to start a technical blog in 2020. Thank you for reading this article.

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