Ethereum Foundation DevCon 6 - Opportunity & Global Impact Track, 15 Oct 2022

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From YouTube: The web3 Social Layer - Web3 Social: the Next Wave of Innovation by Stani Kulechov

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https://archive.devcon.org/archive/watch/6/the-web3-social-layer-web3-social-the-next-wave-of-innovation/

Today, we give away valuable ownership of our data, content, and audience to big social network platforms, whose business models thrive on our acquiescence and their dominance.

Web3 promises a new open graph where users own their data, content, and social networks and can move their digital footprint freely between platforms.

Speaker(s): Stani Kulechov
Skill level: Beginner
Track: Opportunity & Global Impact
Keywords: Decentralization,NFTs,Social Media

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Learn more about devcon: https://www.devcon.org/
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Devcon is the Ethereum conference for developers, researchers, thinkers, and makers.
Devcon 6 was held in Bogotá, Colombia on Oct 11 - 14, 2022.
Devcon is organized and presented by the Ethereum Foundation, with the support of our sponsors. To find out more, please visit https://ethereum.foundation/

A

A

Okay and now for our next talk on the web, 3 social layer, web3, social, the next wave of innovation by Stoney, kulichoff stani, is the founder and CEO of Ave companies. He was studying law at the University of Helsinki when he first began learning about smart contracts and dust about the ethereum blockchain network. This led to an exploration of how blockchain technology could impact the traditional Financial system.

A

Please welcome Sony to the stage.

B

Jim, um who is feeling good, nice um yeah, so I want to thank the ethereum foundation for organizing uh Defcon. It's been very very busy week, um at least for me and probably for everyone else. There's been a lot of good talks here and, um and it's the last day, so you know the the best talk is probably uh amongst here too, um um don't want to brag too much, but so, okay, today we're going to talk about web3, social um and as a next innovation.

B

See if we get this yeah perfect, so something I want to talk about is that um The Innovation for the past um years or decades has grown quite substantially and has accelerated.

B

So um if you look at that for 100 years, we have Technologies, for example, like telephone that has been invented or 100 years ago, and it took decades to actually adopt uh automobiles cars, for example, took decades as well um and more recently, for example, um the television has got higher acceleration and and also uh the infrastructure underneath the internet, the the computer and what we've seen different kinds of patterns is that the more we get infrastructure, The, More, We Get, compounding acceleration of innovation, and this is one of the reasons for why, for example, the internet infrastructure has grown substantially um and if we look into the um I guess: oh it's!

B

Oh okay, cool yeah, perfect!

B

If you look into the actually uh recent Innovation, what is happening in Internet um ecosystem is that we have a lot of adoption uh in a very high acceleration uh curve uh on line so what it means that when you have already a complete infrastructure, it's very easy to innovate and have this compounding effect and recently, uh we've seen, for example, um uh tiktok being one of the uh recent examples of of how we had a scale adoption from uh zero users to one billion users in uh about roughly um seven years since um the beginning um and I.

B

Don't know. Where is this thing? I need to point out what should I point out?

B

Okay, oh cool yeah, so yeah. So what I want to say is that the internet adoption um is global, so we're dealing with technologies that are affecting everyone, every single um human in the planet, and there is a large-scale empowerment that is related to not only the internet. But what we're doing here and the um ethereum community and across across the blockchain space um I mean even though, with high amount of adoption and penetration, there are still places where, in some regions, the adoption of the Internet isn't really in its fullest.

B

At the moment, so, for example, if you look at the graph of uh sub uh the sub-Saharan Africa, we have adoption of roughly 30 of population using the internet itself. Colombia is at 70, so it's very Regional and and there's still places where we need infrastructure to to innovate.

B

um But regardless of the infrastructure, um things are going to change quite a lot in the future.

B

So the way I see how Innovation Works and specifically um this particular chart, the kind of like I I would say, like a circle of different components, um demonstrates uh what Innovation is for me like how I approach Innovation um and what are the ingredients to come up with a product and also get that product into a growth cycle. So obviously you have the opportunity there. So, basically, you recognize a a problem or an opportunity to solve having knowledge about the problem, you're trying to solve expectations, understanding what people actually need.

B

The talent, the team members that you're building with and they actually craft and the craft, is what I call the the product itself. Obviously, there's things like funding related and also uh road. Now, what's super exciting about uh web3 and innovation in web 3 is that we rely on open networks and open networks.

B

They create accessibility, so they create access for everyone here today, for example, to contribute not only what we're building in the other team, but any project in the ecosystem, because they're, relying in the open network idea and open source technology, so yeah and one important component also is the the the culture aspect. So culture equals for me also community.

B

So when you build open networks, open infrastructures uh you're actually in a different kind of a dynamic setting, then as if you will be building a product within a company or a service, for example, this means that when you have accessibility people across globally, they need to find a way to connect, share ideas and and build actually different kinds of Concepts and an actual Community around a product, because accessibility also means that the users are the ones that are part of the um Innovation flywheel and in in an important part actually of making that Innovation um happen.

B

um One important thing I have realized in the past. That web3 is something that's going to touch everywhere, so it's not only specifically related to one particular area to solve, and we've seen, obviously with how web3 has borne so Bitcoin tried to solve the idea of how we can actually transfer value between humans across globally without intermediaries and create a public money as public goods and obviously with the innovation of ethereum and the ethereum virtual machine.

B

You could actually create programmable applications on the blockchain, because we try to solve financial problems and opportunities in the beginning. We started to actually continue solving those within our community and that's where DFI has been very successful so but to get actually beyond what we have today uh in our community and the user base. We actually need something more um done, for example, the essential as Finance um and just an example is that these interests Finance, um is uh incredible, Innovation what our space has been able to uh create.

B

It means that every one of us has accessibility uh to a fair, transparent market across globally um and decent just Finance doesn't look into your background. What you are doing when you're actually participating in these markets or when you're building ah part of the community, but to get into more bigger adoption? We need to realize that we have to go beyond Financial applications and find more things that solve uh human problems and um feed their needs as well and I.

B

Personally, with my team uh think that social is the next uh or at least the killer app for web tree, and the reason is that we currently have almost 5 billion users on social media and it's growing constantly. We also have equal amount of almost equal amount of internet users, um social media users. Then we have Internet users, so there's a big opportunity in social media, and we also see that it's Global phenomena and effectively.

B

If you look at this chart here, we see a lot of social media usage in Southern America, but also in Asia, compared to, for example, the regions of Europe and North America, and we could actually ask ourselves. Why do we have social media? Why their why social media is important um in in the first place, so what I have been looking into?

B

Is that there's definitely a need for people to connect with each other, uh for particular different reasons and there's also need for create, so humans has have always had the um idea of being a Creator. So here's a picture of one of the oldest findings of creativity um back in a long long time ago.

B

um So um social media. It allows us to connect with people, uh one-on-one basis, create relationships and also in groups coming together and forming a community um on topics that we care about care about. It and social media is very vital to our lives, because with internet and being able to connect with each other, we are able to learn from each other directly from the people rather than example, from institutions.

B

We also have the sense of belonging when we can create communities and part of the adoption also is that we can actually do this connectivity in scale across the globe and I really love this particular slide, because um there is this concept of Six Degrees of Separation, uh which means that we all people here um and everywhere are connected to each other across uh six hops of uh friends of friends, so um to any person um in the um uh planet and there's actually recent studies as well, um that this hope distance actually is becoming even more narrow, and we see that it's roughly 4.7 degrees.

B

So almost every fifth person you are connected with in the planet and part of that is because the connectivity is more easier. We have access to Internet. We can connect to anyone any person in the planet on the topics that are interesting uh for us.

B

So what happens when we are actually using social media is that we create Social Capital social capital is something we all have regardless of the technology, so we have social capital when we are forming friendships. uh When we are connecting with people when we are sharing ideas uh or sharing news, the big problem at the moment is that we create a lot of this social capital actually online and we're using uh platforms such as the bigger social media platforms, where we are creating this networks and connectivity and, at the same time, we're publishing uh content.

B

And these platforms are designed um to thrive as a as a basic platform, instead of actually striving to preserve your social capital or aligned with your own ideas.

B

So what I see is that the web to social is at the moment a zero-sum game, for many participants that create uh social capital and one of the issues is that all of the users are actually locked in a particular platform. So you can't actually take your social capital and do a digital exit and transfer transport it to a a new platform or a new venue where you might find uh interesting ways to connect with your peers and share ideas.

B

Traders at the current state, lack of distribution and for the same reasons you are locked in into these particular platforms and also it's very hard to actually monetize Beyond.

B

um Sharing the traffic of what you're getting to maybe your home page and for the developers there is actually lack of freedom to come and and build and innovate um ways to how to connect with people. Innovate on the experiences as well and create new applications and and new Networks.

B

So I believe that web2 social is right for disruption at the moment and I. Think pep3. Social is something that creates the positive some value. So it builds the value for the users and it builds, builds the value for the community and what I want to introduce here is the web free social layer, the components that are actually and the ingredients that bring that bring these benefits for for all those three parties, the users, the creators and also the Developers.

B

So why web3 is a game changer, especially in the social space, is because the creators are getting ownership of their content distribution. So you as a Creator, can actually decide how you uh distribute content to your audience. You also own that relationship between you and your peers and it's not locked into a particular platform and because you're not logged into a particular platform. As a user, you have the choice to actually select the experiences and the algorithms that serve you the most and are aligned with you, the most and for developers.

B

It means also when all of the web3 is built by, on top of the open networks. You have the accessibility to improve these networks and actually develop them further. So you have access to develop the networks and web3 space I mean it's still growing. Quite a lot. There's more investments in the region. We also have locally here in Colombia.

B

6.1 percent are owning um cryptocurrency, and we also see here in Colombia that it's one of the countries that are getting um accelerated adoption at the moment, including uh some of these countries in Asia like Vietnam, also India, turkey and and amongst others, so we're uh in this perspective, we're in the right place to talk about web3 as a an open networks and and how it could we could build them further.

B

So we see web3 social has a green field of opportunity.

B

There are ingredients that are very valuable when you build web tree social, so the networks must be open, meaning that anyone can actually compute on the data that is on web3. Social can actually use these components. Smart contract libraries and also take what is already existing, improve it and make it available to people um and also one key point- is the decentralization. So what makes web3 social very valuable?

B

Is the architecture and the architecture is where you, as a user, uh owned your profile on chain and you own your social graph and connectivity, which means that you own your social capital and here's the social layer where individuals they have their identity? You have social verification when you are connecting with the peers and for the groups.

B

uh What you can do is that you have community-owned interest graphs, open algorithms, so when we take the base layer and give the ownership to the users and what it allows us to do, is that first time ever, anyone can actually build new algorithms, and these algorithms do not need to be black boxes. They can actually be transparent, algorithms, where developers are explaining what kind of algorithm and what data points that algorithm is using, and that brings alignment between developers, the users and the communities and for creators.

B

It means that actually, when you own your distribution, Channel, it also unlocks your you, a new ways of actually creating content and creating experiences based on the web3 social footprint.

B

And also monetization is key part, so monetization is, and financialization is something that is part of the web tree value proposition and with with the idea of opening the identity. At the same time, it means that um you can actually own the way you monetize and you don't have to be relying on the platforms but actually find a venue with your social graph and with your profile and actually distribute the content and monetize the way you want so web3 social.

B

um It unlocks the power of creativity connections and it brings more Innovation. So what we did with financial applications, we can actually do the same for non-financial applications and the reason why it's important for us is that this is this is the path how we can bring more users into the space.

B

It means that um people who don't necessarily have that Financial Capital but they're rich on Social Capital, can actually have their ownership of that and enter into the space and use non-financial applications and also generate value for them. And what's interesting about social capital compared to financial capital? Is that Financial Capital you can spend? But social capital is something that you can carry through your whole life, and this is why we need actually people to come uh to the web tree space to also non-financial applications and building more uh utility.

B

So one big question for us is that um who will build this new generation social media applications, and we have a perfect answer for this one? It's you since you are here at Devcon and it's a developer conference I'm, pretty sure that there are people here that can take the opportunity and build some very interesting applications and use cases and Empower um the users and empower the the the creators and other developers and even create social media applications that have better values, transparency and are aligned with with different user bases as well.

B

Last thing is that if you don't have a lens profile, yet you can scan this QR code and later you can claim a lens profile and you can actually test drive web3 social um as well. Thank you. Everyone.